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India special: Ritula Shah in Gujarat on how economic growth, and the flatbread rotlo, are not yet for all, and Kieran Cooke visits tea planters' clubs in remote Assam.

As India goes to the polls, Ritula Shah reports from Gujarat in western India, a state that has had double-digit economic growth for more than a decade. Its industrial hub, Ahmedabad, now sports wide avenues lined with modern hotels and large malls. But in a slum a few miles away, little seems to have changed. The poverty is still crushing, and infrastructure still lacking.

Kieran Cooke travels to Assam in the remote north-east of India, an area that's almost cut off from the rest of the country by Bangladesh. Assam is well-known for its tea, and Kieran visits colonial-era tea planters' clubs. One is now desolately empty and falling into disrepair, with only a lone caretaker on the premises. The other is booming, but then it's in a town that boasts not just tea, but also one of Assam's other remaining riches: oil.

Presenter: Pascale Harter
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Photo of children in makeshift school in slum in Ahmedabad, Gujarat: 成人快手

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11 minutes

Last on

Thu 10 Apr 2014 19:50GMT

Broadcast

  • Thu 10 Apr 2014 19:50GMT