Calcutta Must Shine by Vivek Sengupta.
This article was published in Pragati, The Indian National Interest Review. http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/ This free magazine discusses strategic issues related to India. The articles are often very thought provokimg. This article is from its latest edition. The original artilce can be read here. Calcutta, it bears repetition, was once the second city of the British Empire. In formal terms, its decline began in1912, when the Raj moved its capital to Delhi. Exactly, a hundred years later, the West has symbolically snapped its last link with the city, with Lufthansa, the only remaining western carrier to service it, announcing the discontinuation of its Calcutta-Frankfurt flight. In 1959, Calcutta became the first Indian destination for Lufthansa, ahead of Delhi and Bombay. In 2006, the German carrier re-asserted its faith in the city by starting a Calcutta-Frankfurt non-stop flight, declaring that the city had been identified as a “high growth area with immense potential.” The p...