Posted on behalf of Carolyn Hsu...
When we first arrived in north India, it was easy to be impressed. The streets between Jaipur's airport and our hotel were wide, clean boulevards, unlike anything we had seen in Tamil Nadu. This surprised both Maureen Hays-Mitchell and myself because we both knew that, according to World Bank statistics, Tamil Nadu is actually much more economically developed than Rajasthan (the state where Jaipur is the capital).
After a few days in Jaipur and Agra (in Uttar Pradesh), we have solved this mystery. These are places where the economy is built on tourism, whereas southern India's wealth comes from industry. If you look past the wide avenues, hotels, and tourist shops, poverty is hidden in rural shacks and urban alleys. A few blocks from the lovely hotel where I type, fires burn so that homeless people can huddle around them as they sleep on the street.
