Chandrababu Naidu techno-utopian vision for his Indian state

As he tells the story, Chandrababu Naidu smiles. On becoming chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, a state on India’s east coast, in 1995, he saw “IT was the future” and headed to America. Initially Bill Gates refused to meet him, but Mr Naidu insisted. In 1998 Microsoft snubbed Bangalore to establish its Indian base in Hyderabad, then the state’s capital. Today the city has 10,000-plus Microsoft employees and a big airport, and has doubled in population. More than as an investor, Mr Naidu saw Mr Gates as a signal that would propel Hyderabad’s rise. The story captures Mr Naidu’s public persona—a single-minded tech visionary, with a knack for wooing investors and a mission to improve…