Assorted state governments have been holding investment summits, where chief ministers declare their unstinted support to new business ventures, assorted businessmen turn up to declare their investment plans for the state, and sign memoranda of understanding, hope for a paradigm shift in the local business-smothering culture floats at the venue of the summit, like an evanescent puff of perfume, the assembled scribes write up positive stories, and then, once the photographs have been taken, and the motorcades carrying visiting dignitaries have wound their way to the airport, everyone departs the site of synthetic euphoria, climbing down to their habitual elevations above the mean sea level, back to the principal occupation of humdrum survival.It is easy to be cynical about these investment summits. Perhaps, it is time to cut them some slack, even those of West Bengal, which had sent the Tatas’ Nano car venture packing from the state, or of Kerala, with its history of ideological disdain for capitalism, and proclivity for sporadic, politically enforced bouts of state-wide paralysis of life and activity, meant to lodge some protest or the other.
.png)
