Mari Elka Pangestu, Indonesia’s hugely impressive former minister for trade and later tourism and creative economy in the previous government, speaking at a conference organised by The Economist in Jakarta this month on Indonesia and technology, briefly praised India as a country that had leapfrogged and created an alternative to the banking system. It took me a minute to realise she was mistakenly lionising Chinese-owned Paytm, largely the beneficiary of central bank diktats and bizarre government-induced cash shortages.
Her comment made me wonder about the sort of country India could learn from; an alter ego with similar problems. Pointless parallels
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