Paradise, for Two Dollars a Week

For rent: a tropical island in the Andaman Sea, covered in primary rain forest and fringed by coral reefs. Current occupants: hermit crabs, several varieties of snake, geckos, bats, rats, shrews, birds and the occasional sea turtle visiting the beach to lay her eggs. Going cheap at $100 a year.

This is not a sunburned fancy. Five islands in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, a group of 572 islands about 300 km south of Burma, are being offered to developers by the Indian government in an effort to emulate the success of the Maldives in the tourism industry....