The land of battles has another battle up its sleeve now. So far, it has been unable to attract too many investments and is lagging behind in key development indices. However, all that is set to change now with the state Government finally taking some innovative measures. Three years ago, when Wipro chief Azim Premji was invited by Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raj e Scindia to invest in the state, he had politely declined, citing a lot many reasons, one of them being the near total absence of English-speaking populace among the locals. N.R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys too had turned down an offer to set up shop in the state, the reasons being pretty much the same. Raje reacted by making English compulsory in all government primary schools and chalking out English-speaking courses in colleges. The results are already visible. Many of the country's giants in the manufacturing and services sector are now moving to Rajasthan. Among them: auto giant Mahindra and Mahindra which is setting up a Rs14,000-crore Special Economic Zone (SEZs) that is expected to give jobs to one lakh persons; other SEZs, though much smaller in size, by Tata Blue Scope and Lafarge India. Last week, Murthy came calling with the inauguration of Infosys's first BPO in the state, in Jaipur. Even Premji has shed his hands-off policy by announcing a Rs100-crore investment in the state. "It has not been easy, it took a lot of efforts to convince them to come here", says Raje (see interview). But the land of battles, as Rajasthan has been called, is waging a battle with itself, with its own mentality and rigidity. It did not inherit any major infrastructure or public sector from the British rule and its rulers were too busy building palaces and made just token investments in the social sector. For long after Independence, the state did not create any infrastructure like universities or hospitals. Whatever little that the state inherited, got lost in the wilderness of political ambiguity. "Our politicians had no vision. There is not one centre of excellence here. Even the Rajasthan University was made to slip down to low levels," says Professor Ramesh Vyas, chairman of board of governors, Institute for Development Studies, Jaipur, and former director, IIM-Ahmedabad. It was only in the 1990s when Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, now Vice-President, became the chief minister for the second time that the efforts towards developing grassroots infrastructure began. This was also the time when the Centre began focussing on developing the desert regions with electricity, good roads and broad gauge railway tracks. The Congress government, which came to power in 1998, concentrated on sectors like primary education and rural health. Development was skewed as a change in government invariably brought about a change in priorities. Right now, Rajasthan is witnessing a change that is nothing short of a makeover. The state Government is trying to bring about a transformation in the mindset of the people. The state's social indices tell the story. Although still lagging behind some of the more developed states in the country, the state is determined to catch up