New Delhi, Oct. 12 -- Bengal has for many decades failed to produce the kind of entrepreneurship that was once its hallmark as the heartbeat of Indian business. With the exception of men such as Sanjiv Goenka and Purnendu Chatterjee, there have been few noteworthy successors to such legendary businessmen as Dwarkanath Tagore, Ramdulal Sarkar, R N Mookerjee and Alamohan Das.

There was a time when Kolkata (then still called Calcutta) was the commercial centre of India. The city's port, strategically located on the Hooghly River to provide direct access to the Bay of Bengal and beyond, handled a wide range of exports including jute, tea, rice, spices and manufactured goods. With a strong communist movement sweeping through the state's polit...