Calcutta or Kolkata: it's connecting baby!
Wednesday, October 26, 2005 at 9:34AM Too interesting not to clip, because I mention how Calcutta, or what the Indians now call Kolkata, is becoming a new high-tech magnet center in India in Blueprint for Action.■"Bengal tiger: Calcutta is transformed from Marxist redoubt into India's latest hotspot," by Jo Johnson, Financial Times, 20 October 2005, p. 11.
This para captures it all pretty well:
The first capital of the British Raj, with its slums and its floods, is still a far cry from Shanghai. But under the rule of this highly pragmatic politician, known as Buddha [Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee], from the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Calcutta increasingly aspires to be seen as a little piece of China in India, a place where money has no ideology and foreign investment is welcome. What Beijing thinks today, the saying goes, Buddha thinks tomorrow.
Way cool on so many levels: the pragmatic Marxist (hmmm, I almost would like that title for myself!), the focus on FDI, the lead goose effect of China, that NAME!
Q: What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor?
A: "Make me one with everything!"
Well, Buddha makes Kolkata (isn't it cute how the Brits can't give up their colonial names for former holdings?) "one with everything" by keying on three things: 1) an educational differential that sees local university producing a lot of humanities grads that are great for call centers and engineers good for software development; 2) more room for IT parks with less traffic congestion (an oldie but goodie); and 3) the "commies" love to make foreign investors feel comfortable (why not in this post-ideological world?).
I would love to go back to India. Someone over there invite me!
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