Bangalore is situated at the southern edge of the Deccan plains, southeast of Goa. Originally a sedate and stately city, characterised by its quiet, broad streets and lush green spaces, Bangalore has recently been transformed into a major business hub for south India and is known by some as India’s ‘Silicon Valley’.

The city’s transformation into a high-tech centre started in the 1960s, when the Indian government decided to locate important telecommunications and defence operations here. From this point on, software development found a home in Bangalore, attracting a number of multi-national corporations – and the interest of US and European companies who were in need of outsourcing a variety of their services. Today, more than half of India’s software exports originate in Bangalore.