<b>T N Ninan: </b>Ambition, viability and incompetence

Is India risking isolation by spurning a multi-continent project like OBOR everyone else is part of?

China has started trains all the way to Duisberg on the Rhine, to Tehran, and London where there was much excitement. These are the early evidence of what Beijing’s “One Belt One Road” (OBOR) mega-plan is supposed to achieve in terms of transport networks and economic integration. The Tehran service is reported to have reached eastern China in 14 days through some difficult terrain. But an average container ship could get from Bandar Abbas in the Persian Gulf to Shanghai in about the same time, and should cost less because sea travel is cheap. The train from Duisberg in Germany