Karen R. Polenske and Michael Flaxman for their helpful comments during the earlier part of this research.
I am also thankful to all the senior government officials and senior executives of information technology (IT) firms in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala for sparing their precious time for my interviews and for providing me with valuable data and information for this research.
I would also like to convey my thanks to the MIT-Japan International Studies Fund for partly supporting this research through a grant. My sincere thanks also go to Alice H. Amsden for providing me with a grant to support this research.
My thanks are also due to the government of India and the government of Tamil Nadu. This research and book would not have been possible without the support of several senior colleagues in the government.
My sincere thanks also go to my numerous friends and fellow students at MIT. In particular, I would like to thank Xin Li, Georgeta Vidican, Kyung-Min Nam, Ayman Ismail, Nai Jia Lee, Richa Kumar, Chintan Vaishnav, and Anshuman Tripathy for their help in various ways.
Last, but not least, my sincere thanks go to my family for supporting me in every way throughout this research. Particularly, I would like to thank my wife, Sushma, for encouraging me constantly whenever things seemed to get out of hand. My very special thanks are due to my son, Kshitiz, who had to repeatedly sacrifice his right to my time during this entire process. I will always remember his sense of amazement at what I was typing on my laptop all the time. My special thanks also go to my parents, Leela and Sushil Kumar Das, for constantly supporting and encouraging me.