Ending VIP culture: Modi's red beacon ban is only a start

India would do well to emulate the relatively simple style of leaders in western democracies

It says something for the power of popular opinion in India’s noisy democracy that politicians for the past few years have been engaged in a little-noticed if undemanding competition called Renouncing the Red Beacon. The Aam Aadmi Party’s Arvind Kejriwal occupied the high moral ground by making his government the first to scrap beacons on their cars, that universally hated symbol of VIP pelf and privilege, in 2015. But last week, Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for road transport and highways, probably stole a march on him in the publicity stakes by jumping the May 1 deadline set by Prime Minister