Is that Deadly Yeddy all togged up in a shiny suit? Or is that a snake oil salesman smiling smarmily from the hoardings at any stray prospective investor wandering in.
Is that Deadly Yeddy all togged up in a shiny suit? Or is that a snake oil salesman smiling smarmily from the hoardings at any stray prospective investor wandering in. You'll be forgiven for mistaking him for one of those small town fix-it guys ('All diseeses cured. Hart Attack. Brane Fevur. Marraje Prablems.')u00a0 Isn't there a government department that advises ministers on sartorial sense? Well, there should be.u00a0
The government will have us believe that Bangalore is seeing quite a few firangis these days. They say luxury hotels are running full, and at very pre-Greek crash prices.
You'll be forgiven for thinking that the Davos Summit has become the Marathahalli Meeting. The Germans, the Swiss, the Japanese, the Americans and the Chinese, the public relations department will have us believe, are swarming to the city to share their money with us.
Unofficial reports suggest that the few investors who did arrive didn't get to their meetings ufffd because of the famed expressways we don't have.
The newspapers report that Arcelor Mittal came down to Karnataka and got so taken in by the weather (the industrial climate that is, not the dusty hot summer we're experiencing thanks to all those trees being cut down by our foresighted municipal corporation) that they decided to spend Rs 30,000 crore on a steel plant.
A huge international builder, aka one of our home grown brands, has 'expressed interest' in setting up an integrated township. And software biggies Infy and Wipro have committed a couple of projects. Isn't it a little too presumptuous to be calling it a Global Meet?u00a0
Mr Industrialist from Berlin asked the industries minister, "Herr Minister, you have the infrastructure, ja?" The honourable minister nodded and replied that sure he had infrastructure for industries; lots of land with poor farmers who would be easy to evict.
"But roads, Herr Minister?" "Whaaat Saar! Swalpa adjust maadi saar, the Father of the Nation alwayj telling us to take the unbeaten path, you know!" "And power, Herr Minister?" "Whaaat, Mr Berlin! As laang as you have the fire in your belly, why you want electricity and all?"
u00a0The tourism minister leering from over the chief minister's shoulder in the ads doesn't really instill confidence either.
Talking tourism to a man whose idea of ecological development is turning a pristine hill into a slag heap, isn't really the ideal resort conversation one would like.
We hear the minister has his own hotel now near Hampi. Something tells us, that the only concrete tourism development likely to happen, is well, concrete highways to Hampi.u00a0u00a0u00a0u00a0
In my humble opinion we need to get our act right, before we have a global investor meet. But evenu00a0 before the roads and the power, can we have something done about Yed's threads?u00a0
