All of us, we are privileged to live in a day and age of technological innovation. Modern technology enabled us to do many things, which would have been considered impossible a century ago Modern health care in the form of vaccines, antibiotics and aseptic surgery went a long way in increasing the average life span. The communications revolution coupled with modern air transport made the term “globalization” a reality. Networking, wired world, connectivity and e-governance are the latest jargon freely used by the new age gurus.

Noted columnists Thomas Friedman, with tongue firmly in his cheek, queried: “Was your grand-mother playing bridge with the Frenchmen on the internet in 1900?” This simple question encapsulates the world that we are living in. There is growing integration and the interdependence of societies and economies across the world, which we call as globalization. However much some of us may despise it and however much one may argue against it, we cannot wish away the fact that we are living in a globalized world.

The recent political controversy surrounding the bifurcation of Eastern Railway and the creation of East Central Railway with its headquarters at Hajipur once again raises two questions: the role of government in running enterprises, and the plight of infrastructure sector. It is by now well-recognized that public sector is often a euphenism for political patronage and private aggrandizement. Politicians in power or out of it, and career bureaucrats as a rule have no respect for economic logic or wealth creation.