Top statements by Edward Luce on India


In the west, you feel completely lost said Andrew while welcoming me to his spacious white washed home. In the west you have to belong to a society and follow a particular pattern. You are supposed to get a house, a career and a whole life oriented towards money. India is a unique country.
India is an unbelievably wealthy country because India alone understands the futility of materialism – Andre
If you want to get anywhere in India, you must meet all the wrong people.
English rule without the English
Caste as a political identity is alive even today even if in the process it has been severed from the ritualistic and economic roots.
The cure may be economic but the headache is social.
The best cure for poverty is growth
In my thirty years of active business in India, I did not meet a single bureaucrat who really understood my business, yet he had the power to ruin it.
We have some of the best engineers in the world working for us and they come much cheaper than engineers in Japan.
Small scale industries and cottage industries receive incentives for remaining small, there is no carrot approach for them to grow big or widen the horizons.
Much of the elite in India still attach a great importance to the village even though no one lives in one – Nandan Nilekani on the need for rapid urbanisation.
The pay cheque is mere pocket money; their real earnings come from bribery.
It is very hard to get people out of the habit of paying for what is theirs by right.