It is only through more taxpayer-funded trips abroad that our ministers can bring genuine change to India

Our politicians need to fly abroad as often as they can, for as long as they need to, because it is only by seeing how the world outside functions that they can replicate those conditions here. PIC/By Special Arrangement

This sort of thing tends to happen every year, whenever the World Economic Forum meets in Switzerland to ‘improve the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas.’ Many of our politicians travel to Davos at this time, to try and make the amazing lives of Indians even better, and they promptly get called out for wasting taxes on what critics say accomplishes nothing.

I wasn’t surprised when the honourable chief minister of Maharashtra got the same treatment last month for taking that flight to sign a few MoUs with Indian companies. The comments on social media platforms were predictable: Couldn’t he sign those agreements in Bombay? What was the point of an entourage? Why did companies based in India have to go through what felt like a charade? There were also some cynics who questioned earlier MoUs, wondering........

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