This dissertation analyzes the Information Technology sector's role in reshaping urban politics and space in India, post liberalization, through a comparative analysis of Kolkata and Hyderabad, both state capitals (of West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh respectively) and both second- tier investment destinations. The state governments represent opposite ends of India's political spectrum, with a communist government in West Bengal for thirty four years and a pro-market government in Andhra Pradesh, whose Chief Minister (Naidu) preferred to be called the state's CEO. Despite different ideologies, both governments devised high-profile strategies to attract the IT sector and facilitated high- end real estate enclaves and private land consolidation in urban peripheries, within which IT projects were prominent. The ways in which hyper-modern imaginaries associated with the IT sector have strengthened an emergent high- value, high- risk real estate sector, through state support (infrastructure, use of Eminent Domain and new public- private partnerships) lie at the heart of post- liberalization changes in urban India. These changes highlight not only how India has become situated within new capital accumulation strategies, but also how state/ city scales have become more significant than the national scale in these strategies. I argue that the combined dynamics of the IT- Real Estate sectors have increased spatial fragmentation, speculation in land markets and economic and environmental vulnerability in both Kolkata and Hyderabad. The IT sector's effects on urban India are compelling, but not unique. Contemporary development prescriptions encourage cities to compete for external investments. High-growth sectors often take center stage in such bidding, encouraging a broader context of regional competition. Interest from high- profile sectors is often used to measure local government efforts. Yet, singular focus on external investments often pressurizes local governments to participate in speculative strategies with investors, through leveraging of urban resources, particularly land. India's IT story highlights that if and when real estate investments are allowed to become a standin for economic development in a competitive bidding for 'growth', impacts such as statesupported speculation, vulnerability to investor perceptions and lower urban capacities to respond to economic/ environmental crises are likely at the city-region scale.