Two faces of India Inc.

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In early 2004 I was attending a corporate symposium where CEOs moved about with feline alacrity and everyone seemed to have an unusually sunny disposition. People joked that it was a mirror image of India Shining, that celebrated phrase of unbridled optimism and electoral doom. In several photo-ops, the high profile head honchos did a collective thumbs-up. When I almost nervously protested that this utopia looked grossly exaggerated, I was dismissed with contumacious indifference, as if a gate crashing party pooper. I beat a hasty retreat, and ever since have a guarded reverence for these five-star CII/FICCI/Assocham events which I have since believed are just platforms for the self-promotion and private business lobbying by a select group. I would like to term them as India's " obnoxious oligopolies". A similar group was in full attendance a few days ago at the Gujarat Global Investors Summit. At the same venue....