Africa landing

It is a sign of the times that the second-largest cross-border acquisition by an Indian company involves Africa. The Bharti Airtel deal of $10.7 billion to acquire most of Zain Africa is, first, a measure of the changing footprint of global finance. Second, given that the African continent is being heralded as the global economy’s next frontier, the deal is an important chapter in the evolutionary narrative of India and Africa, which has lately been getting overshadowed by China’s presence in the continent.