Why doesn’t India have its own Silicon Valley?

WHEN India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Silicon Valley this weekend, he’ll meet some of the most influential, innovative and wealthy Indians in the world. Two of the planet’s most powerful technology companies have CEOs of Indian origin: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella and Google’s Sundar Pichai. Indeed, one study found that 15 per cent of all Silicon Valley start-ups in 2012 were led by Indians, even though they comprised only 6 per cent of the area’s population. The question Modi should ask himself is this: why hasn’t India been able to replicate, even in some small measure, Silicon Valley’s top-end technology ecosystem? Why haven’t Indians been able to create a Google or Facebook in...