Tangled up in red tape: Can we really hope for relief?

Even the most globetrotting and good-natured of business executives are guaranteed to find India's rules and regulations bewildering.

- RAHUL JACOB

This week, a chief executive visiting from London expressed frustration at the number of boarding-pass checks that had occurred at the airport in Jaipur. But the most absurd was having a boarding pass checked as he disembarked in Delhi. When he sought to get on to the airport wi-fi, an act as simple as turning on your phone at most airports overseas, he discovered that foreigners need a coupon to access wi-fi in Indian airports.

I could only nod in sympathy while trying to suppress my own post-traumatic stress disorder from complying with odd rules in the gilded fantasy palaces that our privately run airports have become. But privatizing airports and private airlines have not stopped India's love of rubber stamping from turning into an epidemic. At Bengaluru airport, Indigo Airlines will place a sticker on the back of your passport if you are flying abroad. The only explanation I have received is that this helps airport staff prevent domestic travellers from heading for international gates. Just moments after this conversation, however, I passed through a smart-scanner turnstile for international-flight gates that would almost certainly prevent this.