India’s textile boom hits a wall

(Above and below) People working at a garment factory; employees inspecting t-shirts; and women weighing material at the factory in Tiruppur, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. — Reuters

IN a garment hub in south India, RK Sivasubramaniam is fielding requests from American retail chains Walmart and Costco who want to sidestep higher US tariffs faced by rival Asian suppliers.

But rows of idle sewing lines at his factory lay bare his biggest challenge.