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From Our Own Correspondent: India and France

India and France

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, India and France

Owen Bennett Jones with despatches from BBC correspondents Mark Dummett and Hugh Schofield

Owen Bennett Jones with stories from BBC correspondents abroad. Today, Mark Dummett on the risks of doing business in India; Hugh Schofield on how smartphones can enrich a visit  Parisian cemeteries.

Owen Bennett Jones introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world. In this edition, Mark Dummett delves into the controversy over payment to foreign contractors for their work on Delhi's Commonwealth Games; Hugh Schofield on how a smartphone can give new historical depth when visiting one of Paris's cemeteries.

India: less than shining for foreign business?

In recent years there's been a lot of talk about India being a 'rising giant'. The country has many of the attributes of a coming economic power: national self-confidence and ambition, cheap labour and the idea - whether true or not - that with hard work you can break through class barriers. But there are still hard questions to answer about its openness, accountability and transparency.

As Mark Dummett has been hearing, even though India has so much going for it, some foreign companies are deciding it's just not worth doing business there. And some of them feel they've already had bad experiences.

The ghosts of Montparnasse - via smartphone

Walk around any city now and before long you will see someone with slightly hunched shoulders, their face 45 degrees to the ground and a hand at chest height. In that hand will be the object they're focussing on – a mobile phone. 

You might jump to the conclusion that he or she is texting inconsequential messages to a friend but that's not always true. If you are in a Paris cemetery and chance upon Hugh Schofield in this pose, for example, it's likely  that he won't be texting at all, but rather satisfying his curiosity and educating himself.

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