Are they trying to shoo away business in India? What the heck is the deal with this? It's kind of hard for me to believe that the most pressing job for Delhi police is to cleanse the Internet of porn. And anyway, this is kinda like jailing the Commissioner of police everytime there was an incident of police brutality. What with all this, and with the Karnataka Govt. trying their hardest to shoo away investors, I won't be too surprised if the whole darn infotech boom in India completely fizzles out in a few years. Indian Express recently ran a feature called "Bangalore Crumbling". It left me with mixed feelings - while I was pleasantly surprised to see the media take an interest, it's hard to see something positive actually happening. Deve Gowda couldn't care less for the media, AFAIK. His response to the feature was a study in cognitive dissonance - "There is nothing wrong with Bangalore!"

The way I see it, the state of affairs in India and particularly in Bangalore is driven by a great divide. The vast gulf between the IT "haves" and the IT "have-nots". The old fuddy-duddy politicians and well, anyone who was 40 and older by 1999 are too old to comprehend "campootars". Their world must have undergone a sea-change in the last five years. When they were growing up, the best job anyone could get right out of college must have paid Rs. 1000 a month. They probably could afford a TV after saving up for years. And if they'd made any decent amount of money, they probably struggled mighty hard for it. Now all of a sudden they're seeing young punks barely out of their "knickers" zooming around on motor-bikes and in cars, swigging designer coffee and sporting the latest in sunglasses! Some even go to "faarin" regularly! You look at a middle-aged person who grew up in socialist India, and you can probably see bitter foam speckles permanently adorning scowling lips. Now, if such a person is in a position of some power and influence, but still makes only as much money as a kid in a call-center, what do you think he's going to do?

This is probably why Dharam Singh and Deve Gowda wouldn't really mind Bangalore going back to bullock-carts. This is probably why Delhi police is salivating at the thought of a foreign-returned hoity-toity US citizen eating humble-pie, or prison dal-roti, in this case. This is probably every cop in Bangalore airport looks at me with an expression of pure spite, before grudgingly waving me through.This is probably why India may lose all it has gained in the last few years. It's not a pretty thought - I can't imagine what it will do to the unemployment rate if this goes bust.

With my luck, it may happen just when I decide to move back to India...

Novel idea ... $300K for a revolving apartment? It's a steal!! If I bought one, I think I'd keep it constantly rotating. Would all the clocks at home be slightly off, then? I should remember to ask my genius saale-saab about this...

Mix this up with Micheal Crichton's Prey, and we have an interesting situation for entomophobists. Well, I guess the situation is interesting for them even without the Prey stuff...
I think I am slightly phobic too, so I'm not really sorry for them bees...