India's cycle of growth

At the India Infrastructure Summit organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, a session on railways development was attended by the heavy hitters - the managing directors of the Dedicated Freight Corridor and Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor and the Railway Board chairman, among others. Each made passionate claims about how these projects could transform India's growth, which may well be true, but it was a short speech by World Bank Representative Ben Eijbergen that could be construed as a reality check. "You have freight trains running in India at the speed of 25 km an hour. That's like a bicycle in the Netherlands!"