Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Bangalore and China
Tom Friedman's latest piece in the NY Times about India and China talks about Bangalore. He pointed out something I hadn't noticed in the latest diplomatic visit by China:
Reuben and I were just talking the other day about how the outlook in India is so different for young folks today, compared to when he was growing up in India. Today, not only do these young folks not need to "flee" India, there are foreigners flocking to it.
Indeed, I now understand why, when China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao, visited India for the first time last April, he didn't fly into the capital, New Delhi - as foreign leaders usually do. He flew directly from Beijing to Bangalore - for a tech-tour - and then went on to New Delhi.No U.S. president or vice president has ever visited Bangalore.
Reuben and I were just talking the other day about how the outlook in India is so different for young folks today, compared to when he was growing up in India. Today, not only do these young folks not need to "flee" India, there are foreigners flocking to it.
In the past year, Infosys received 9,600 applications from abroad, including from China, France and Germany, for internships, and it accepted 100. I asked one of these interns, Vicki Chen, a Chinese-American business student from the Claremont Colleges, why she came. "All the business is coming to India, and I don't see why I shouldn't follow the business," she said. "If this is where the center of gravity is, you should go check it out, and then you become more valuable."
