The Last Word In Business

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

All right. Today's last word in business is be careful what you ask for.

The small Indian city of Motihari is not known for much.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

So when locals discovered a few years ago that the writer George Orwell was born there, they saw a tourism opportunity. Britain's Telegraph newspaper reports, locals put up a sign outside the birthplace of the author of "1984," "Animal Farm" and other books, and they asked the state government to turn that modest home into a museum.

GREENE: And this year the government agreed - but with a twist. The Orwell home will be turned into a museum for the independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

INSKEEP: Awkward.

GREENE: Locals have protested, but the Gandhi plans are going ahead.

INSKEEP: So it won't be an Orwell museum. But the Telegraph notes it could be worse. The birthplaces of the authors Edith Wharton, Eugene O'Neill and Jack London are now all franchises of Starbucks.

And that's the business news on MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

GREENE: And I'm David Greene.

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