New Delhi, Feb. 13 -- Even the most globetrotting and good natured of business executives are guaranteed to find India's rules and regulations bewildering. This week, a chief executive visiting from London expressed frustration at the number of boarding-pass checks that had occurred at the airport in Jaipur. But the most absurd was having a boarding pass checked as he disembarked in Delhi. When he sought to get on to the airport wi-fi, an act as simple as turning on your phone at most airports overseas, he discovered that foreigners need a coupon to access wi-fi in Indian airports.

I could only nod in sympathy while trying to suppress my own post-traumatic stress disorder from complying with odd rules in the gilded fantasy palaces that o...