Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Economist editor on Bangalore

An account of The Economist American editor's visit to Bangalore. Excerpts:

  • The traffic congestion was bad enough last time. Now it is worse. There is the standard Indian chaos of cars, three-wheeled tuk-tuk taxis, bicycles and nonchalant cows―with the crucial difference this time that no vehicle seems to be moving.
  • Paradoxically, although the best firms are inundated with job applications, the biggest challenge facing every company in Bangalore is how to hang on to workers after hiring them.
  • Three years ago call centres were very much at the heart of things. Now real decisions are being taken in Bangalore and higher-value-added work is being done here.
  • Reuters has outsourced some journalism here, and Bloomberg is expected to follow suit. How long before my own job is being done, for a fraction of my scarcely adequate salary, by an Indian in Bangalore?

4 comments:

  1. 2006-07 Mantra: Leave it or take it, you just cannot ignore Bangalore!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well , All Economists view the Problems in Bangalore through their Demand Supply eyes only . It doesnt matter whether teh economist is from India or abroad

    ReplyDelete
  3. India being in the radar of the international economy has a lot to do with Bangalore, the High-Tech city. Indians just have to figure out a way to handle the attention and pressure.

    By the way, thanks for your comments. Rene Preval is still the president of Haiti, but right now he's very sick. Soon we might have to have a new preseident.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kishore: If the administrators don't take care of the city, people may ignore Bangalore.

    Nariyal: Being who they are we can't blame them, can we?

    Pascale: India hasn't been able to catch on infrastructure as much as it has been with other things.

    ReplyDelete

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