The Bangalore Brand

Bangalore has been reported as the largest job-creating city in India with more than 65,000 jobs likely to be created in 2004.⁶ However, the rapid growth of the city has resulted in infrastructural bottlenecks like traffic congestion, lack of hotel accommodation, lack of public service amenities etc., in the recent past.

The Bangalore brand has also been facing stiff competition from upcoming cities like Hyderabad⁷ and Chennai⁸, for being projected as the IT hub of India. With the support of the respective state governments, these cities are being projected as the alternative destination for new IT ventures.

In 1985, Texas Instruments became the first MNC to open a center in Bangalore with the establishment of its circuit design and development center. In 1991, the first Software Technology Park in India came up in Bangalore. In 1992, Bangalore became the first city in India to set up a satellite earth station for high-speed communication services to facilitate software exports. In 1996, the National Association of Software & Service Companies (NASSCOM)⁹ came up with a plan intended to help Karnataka overtake the State of California in the US (known as the Silicon Valley), both in terms of number of software companies and revenue by 2020...