India, Sept. 12 -- I first visited Bengaluru in the 1990s, when its airport was a modest structure with a single civilian runway and the roads were seemingly empty. The city felt like a frontier outpost. Its IT leaders were hungry and ambitious, willing to jump on any opportunity presented to them. They believed they could change the world-and they did.

Fast forward three decades. The airport is now a gleaming global hub, the traffic is legendary, and Bengaluru has become synonymous with IT. But when I meet the same leaders who once built this powerhouse, I hear nostalgia rather than vision. They reminisce about their past triumphs, but when I propose radical projects that could save lives and reduce suffering, I get only excuses for why...