NEW DELHI — New Delhi at last has its proud defining modern monument at the very point of entry to India — a massive, sparkling new Terminal 3, which alone is the sixth-largest airport in the world. Remarkably, too, it was built on time, in three years by a public-private partnership, and on a $3 billion budget.
Gone are the long snaking queues in sweaty air smelling of insecticide and worse: You can now get through immigration and customs in air- conditioned bliss at least as quickly as in Singapore, faster than in Hong Kong and far faster than in London, New York or Washington with their crumbling Third World infrastructure and officials with the charm of a fourth world dictatorship.
Then you go outside and meet the real India, whose infrastructure is failing.