Start late but get it right in Lakshadweep

India's policymakers need to take a 'der aaye, durust aaye' (started late but got it right) approach now and make Lakshadweep a model in sustainable tourism..

Or else by 2050 the fragile coral atolls of Lakshadweep will be submerged by humans and not by the Arabian Sea due to global warming, as is being predicted for Maldives...

But the fact that things remained largely the same in Lakshadweep even in 2023, over 30 years since India opened up and the hospitality sector expanded to cater to peripatetic Indians, is astonishing..

Of course, Maldives has 1,194 islands and atolls in that archipelago to India's 36, but even so, there was surely enough space and potential demand to sustain at least a handful of high-end hotels over the years in Lakshadweep..

It is not an exaggeration to assert that except for floating icebergs, there is no natural beauty India cannot offer, from coral reefs to glaciers, waterfalls to rainforests, lakes to peaks, sand dunes to salt flats, mangroves to pine groves besides a plethora of wildlife..

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