Asia | Wheels and fortune

India is turning into an SUV country

The culture and meaning of cars is changing as the country gets richer

A traffic jam in Bengaluru, India
Photograph: Getty Images
|BANGALORE

GETTING TO BANGALORE, India’s startup capital, is easy: arrive at the gorgeous new garden-themed terminal, collect your bags, and zip down the buttery smooth National Highway 44 into the city. Getting around Bangalore is another matter. It is the most heavily gridlocked city in India, with average speeds during rush hour of 18kph (11mph), according to TomTom, a navigation-technology firm.

Explore more

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Wheels and fortune”

From the November 16th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Asia

Illustration of national flags, including those of the US, the UK, South Korea, Japan and Australia, tucked into a crisscrossing lattice

Can Donald Trump maintain Joe Biden’s network of Asian alliances?

Discipline and creativity will help, but so will China’s actions

An alleged North Korean soldier after being captured by the Ukrainian army

What North Korea gains by sending troops to fight for Russia

Resources, technology, experience and a blood-soaked IOU


FK Arkadag's Didar Durdyev runs during a Turkmen football championship game

Is Arkadag the world’s greatest football team?

What could possibly explain the success of a club founded by Turkmenistan’s dictator


After the president’s arrest, what next for South Korea?

Some 3,000 police breached his compound. The country is dangerously divided

India’s Faustian pact with Russia is strengthening

The gamble behind $17bn of fresh deals with the Kremlin on oil and arms

AUKUS enters its fifth year. How is the pact faring?

It has weathered two big political changes. What about Donald Trump’s return?