In the summer of 2008, the late pharma tycoon Anji Reddy, an industry icon of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh who seeded the Hyderabad-based generics drugs sector, drove me to the residence of Mr Chandrababu Naidu, then as now forced to sit in opposition after losing his majority in the state assembly.

Spread on his office table were detailed drawings of the modern international airport that was being built in Shamsabad, on the outskirts of state capital Hyderabad. The project had been conceived by Mr Naidu, in his second term as chief minister of the province. However, most of its execution fell to the Congress-led government of Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, a man of hugely populist instincts known to all as "YSR".