Being born and brought up in Bangalore, it is a heartening experience viewing so many people evincing their interest and reviewing this city (good or bad but you cant ignore). I am not here to say whether it is good or bad. But to tell you what is there in this city, what is not and why is it so much talked about all over the world.
Unlike other places in India, this city runs on a different kind of fuel. It is the new age economy. The new age economy is based more on knowledge and less on physical labor. So, you cannot compare it to any other city in India to begin with. Let us now look at comparing it to rest of the world. I have been in Silicon Valley (San Jose-San Francisco and surrounding areas in the US).
Silicon Valley has been one of those gifted places on earth where entrepreneurship is at its peak; new technologies are being incubated every single day in Computer Technology, Robotics, Genomics and many more areas unfathomable to us in this part of the world.
What is happening at Bangalore is completely different. It is the IT and ITES services boom. Many companies in the US and rest of the world like Europe, Middle-east, Israel, Japan and Korea, driven by cost pressures, are outsourcing work to low cost countries like India, Ireland, Czechoslovakia etc. Since India and in particular, Bangalore has critical mass in terms of qualified man power and basic facilities like access to internet, telecom and also enough entrepreneurship to take up this piece of work outsourced and deliver it with quality and timeliness.
This should not be interpreted as Services is bad and low quality. IBM Global Services achieves revenues of over 40 billion USD per year with software services business. I agree that there are no Microsoft or Sun in Bangalore. But we are getting there. It takes time, effort, commitment, and consistency to get to the top of value chain. In very near future, we will have several technology companies in Bangalore.
Why Bangalore and why not other city? It is because, the foundation was laid for knowledge economy way back in 1960s when IISC was setup in Bangalore, by the concentration of Central Govt owned enterprises, defense enterprises, concentration of Engineering and Medical colleges, education oriented mindset of the aborigines etc. As I said before, it has taken quality time and lot many other parameters like weather, and cosmopolitan nature of people etc for Bangalore to develop into whatever it is today.
Bangalore infrastructure: Bangalore exports software worth 5-6 billion dollars and ITES worth 1 billion dollar a year. There is potential for more, much more. This is just the beginning. When people blast its infrastructure and its people, they should keep in mind a few things.
> They should realize that they are still in India and not in Western Europe or United States or even Singapore.
> Even though the city has lot of economic thrust, all the money generated by it will not be fed back into the city to improve its infrastructure overnight. Even non-performing regions like Bihar and UP need the tax money right?
> If you compare the problems (corruption, safety and security, slums, garbage, pollution, law and order, economy) with other Indian cities, Bangalore wins hands down.
> It will be unfair if you say something like, you don?t get vada-pav in the middle of the night in Bangalore. Such things are not seen in our part of the world.
> Coming to language, our official language and mother tongue is called Kannada. It needs its space. If we travel to north, we don?t say, all of them speak Hindi, Bengali etc. no one speaks our language. If Kannada has a place to stay, this is it. Please do not be worried about that.
> About its people, Bangalore’s people (aborigines as well as people who have made it their home) are down-to-earth, simple, friendly, and law abiding. Famous people like Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Sabir Bhatia, Rahul Dravid can move around freely without having the fear of being thronged or harmed.
> Government and Bangalore Development Authority have made several investments and taken several steps to improve the infrastructure and amenities. It will improve with each passing day.
So, welcome to Bangalore!