The rise of the super-rich then ties into a second issue: crony capitalism, meaning collusion between political and business elites to capture valuable public resources for themselves. India’s old system of central planning and state controls created fertile ground for graft, forcing citizens and businesses alike to pay myriad bribes for basic state services. Yet these problems of retail corruption were trivial compared to those that emerged during the go-go years of the 2000s. Scarce assets worth billions in sectors like telecoms and mining were gifted to big tycoons, in a series of scandals
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