Time to reverse a half-century of decay

A century ago, Shanghai and Calcutta were Asia's greatest cities. Both went into decline in the 1960s amid the madness of the Cultural Revolution and its Indian offshoot, Naxalism. But Shanghai's revival began in the mid-1990s and it has re-emerged as China's business capital. Calcutta, on the other hand, continues to languish -- and as long as it does, eastern India will lag further behind southern, western and northern India. Calcutta's natural calling as the capital of Creativity and Knowledge must be revived if eastern India is to partake fully of the Indian economic miracle.

The true Knowledge City of India today is Bangalore -- not just in information technology, but in a growing array of areas ranging from scientific innovation to health-care to intellectual leadership. In the 1950s, Calcutta had all the ingredients to emerge as such a Knowledge Capital, but sadly its intellectual energies were wasted in extreme radicalism. Politics in Bengal has come to be characterised by an endless series of Agitations, which destroy Bengal's prospects rather than help to build anything new and creative. Endless Agitations must end, and Building must begin, if Bengal's prospects are to be revived. This site is intended to be the first building bloc for that revival.