India, Oct. 19 -- "Any news?" asked the businessman, looking anxiously out of his office window.

"Stock market, sir?"

"Clouds!"

And there you have Mumbai, the financial capital of India, where men can predict international markets, manipulate balance sheets, and arrange billion-rupee mergers, but must finally look upwards and ask, "Will it rain?"

Our economic powerhouse runs on an arrangement with the monsoon. An annual understanding that the clouds will kindly remember our address.

Meanwhile, beside us lies the Arabian Sea. Water everywhere, while we peer into empty buckets.

It is rather like starving outside a restaurant because nobody has figured out how to open the door.

Now Mumbai's Manori desalination project proposes to tur...