Bangalore — Travis Kalanick brought a personal touch to Uber Technologies’ Indian operation this week, hopping onto a scooter to launch a new service and hobnobbing with cricket royalty during a visit that will emphasise the country’s growing importance to the world’s most valuable startup. The company’s co-founder is on a whistle-stop tour of Asia’s third-largest economy to engage with government officials and look closely at Uber’s operations. Kalanick chose startup-friendly Hyderabad, where Uber has avoided many of the regulatory tangles that have plagued it elsewhere, for the public launch of UberMOTO, its motorbike-sharing service. "This is what progress is," the Uber CEO said as KT Rama Rao, IT minister for the state of Telangana, looked on. India is Uber’s largest overseas market and a pivotal battleground now that it has ceded China to its rival there, Didi Chuxing. The US company and its backers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to vie with local rival Ola Share ...
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