Apples are Hot Items in India

For those of you who didn't catch my article that showed up on Wired News while I was knocking rival rickshaws off the road I thought I would post it here for you to check out. I spent a day or two cruising the various gray markets in Chennai and found that it is a lot more difficult to buy a legal iPod than it is an illegal one.

iPod Gray Market Booms in India

CHENNAI, India -- It's the same ritual every month. On the first, my wife sends the rent check to our landlord, a Punjabi cloth merchant with an enormous mustache. Five days later, he knocks on the door and tells us he never received it. As we fish around for the checkbook, he makes his way over to the couch and proceeds to lay down demands.

"When you go back to America I want you to send me a laptop. Get me a Macintosh like yours and I'll take it out of your rent," he says.

Never mind that the cost of a new MacBook is several times our rent; my landlord is just one of millions of Indians who have a taste for all things Apple. But it's a taste very few can satisfy since all imported computer goods are so heavily taxed they are out of reach to all but the most affluent Indians.

While Windows machines enjoy low prices because they're produced locally, Apple Computer products have to make their way from production facilities in China. Along the way, they pick up several cost-inflating customs stamps.

Shopkeepers have responded by smuggling huge loads of illegal iPods and MacBooks from Singapore, Dubai and Malaysia.

As a result, it's now almost impossible to buy any Apple product legally.

"You can't buy Apple in India. I have to fly out of the country every month to get more," said Om Gani, proprietor of a hole-in-the-wall stall in Burma Bazaar, Chennai's most notorious illegal market.

A street salesman who is wearing doti, south India's version of a kilt, leads me though a cramped passageway to get to his shop. Along the way we pass dozens of similar shops piled high with camera lenses, PlayStations, knockoff watches, computers, MP3 players and pirated DVDs. At every corner men try to catch my arm as sales pitches tumble unthinkingly from their lips.

"You want jig-jig?" they ask. "How about iPod?"

The term "gray market" is really just another word for seedy and illegal black-market goods that the police don't have the resources, or the will, to stop from being sold. The shops don't pay taxes. They only accept cash. But without a doubt, they're the best places to buy electronic goods anywhere in south Asia.

After a good deal of haggling, I can pick up a 30-GB video iPod for $280, which is only $20 cheaper than you can get one at Best Buy in the United States, but a whopping $160 cheaper than the $440 that authorized dealers sell iPods for in India.

"There is basically no incentive to buy legal," said Dina Mehta, a Mumbai-based blogger and marketing consultant. "They are launched officially late, and are often more expensive than what you find in the U.S., Singapore or Dubai."

For its part, Apple doesn't have much incentive to push retailers to stay legit. Since added costs go to the government, not Apple, it may well be in Apple's best interest to look the other way and let smugglers drive up the company's sales numbers.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment on Indian gray markets. He said Apple only provides worldwide sales figures, and "doesn't break out data by country." Last quarter Apple sold more than 8 million iPods and 1.3 million computers. Industry estimates by Daily News & Analysis suggest that the gray market makes up between 60 percent and 90 percent of sales in India.

Even though demand for iPods is as great in India as anywhere else in the world, Apple seems to have cold feet about expanding its presence in the country. In May, Apple closed down its only call center in Bangalore and halted plans to hire 3,000 new employees by 2007. Though Apple said only that it had "re-evaluated" its plans in India, it appears that high taxes, a strong gray market and a thriving environment for Windows systems have given the company pause.

Buying on the gray market has its dangers. Besides counterfeit parts and rough handling by smugglers, "customers also do not receive warranties and may not be otherwise supported by the manufacturer," said Peter Hlavnicka of the Alliance for Gray Market and Counterfeit Abatement.

But some might argue the warranty in India is almost meaningless anyway. The closest support center is in Singapore and most local servicing here is -- at best -- hit or miss.

Besides, without much official presence, the iPod enjoys underground cachet.

"The fact that iPods are unaffordable makes them iconic," said Rashmi Bansal, editor of Jam magazine.

In India, Apple products are prestige items that broadcast your ability to recognize what's cool outside the country. The fact that they might be smuggled only adds to the hipness factor.

When I ran into a group of cinematographers, investment bankers, film producers and other members of Chennai's glitterati at a recent party, every single one of them showed off their latest iPod, PowerBook and MacBook. There wasn't a Windows machine in the house.

Where did they get them? From abroad or the gray market. Even the rich don't want to pay full price.

Curry in a Hurry Takes Kanyakumari

Eight days of dodging drunk bus drivers, pot holes, goats, cows and crazed photojournalists and my team, Curry in a Hurry, has made it to the southern tip of India. It wasn't easy. In an upcoming entry I will try to give a full run down, but suffice it to say for now, we lived despite rolling the rickshaw off a mountain side in Covallum, blowing our dynamo in a tiger sanctuary on the border of Kerala, and having the breaks on my Enfield seize on while going 40 kph down a mountain road and nearly kissing the front fender of a bus.
Despite, or rather because of, the danger, it was the single most memorable road trip of my life and I hope to do it again next year. I have to thank the quick reflexes and stamina of my team Curry in a Hurry and give a hearty thanks to Sanjay Sinha, Cambel Berk, Eric Hamm and my wife Padma Govindan.

Enjoy the photos.
Team Curry in a Hurry
We couldn't fix our windshield, so we had to get rid of it.Ordinary road hazzards can sometimes mean mutton biryani for dinner.

Bombay Drinks Ocean Sweetwater

I am not sure what is worse: finding pesticides in coke, bathing in the Ganga, or hordes of innocent mumbakkers drinking ocean water. For several hours yesterday the salt content in the coastal waters off Mumbai's heavily polluted harbor dissappeared and people from around the city descended on the beach with jugs of water, plastic bags and anything else they could fill with the mysteriously drinkable water. City authorities cautioned that even though the water had a lower salt content than usual, it was still not drinkable. Health officials told anyone who would listen that if they started vomiting, or felt sick in any way after drinking the water that they should report to a hospital immediately.

But who listens to warnings, anyway? People were too enthused with the novelty of drinking out of the sea that they had begun comparing the event to the time a decade ago when Ganesh idols were said to drink milk on their own. Some even claimed that the fresh-ish water cured their rheumatism. And who knows, in a few days when the giardia sets in, some people might claim that the water is a dramatic reagent for weight loss.

(Photo: Deccan Chronicle)

Gearing up for the Indian Auto Rickshaw Challenge

In two days I am going to do the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life. Sure there was the time I accidentally drank a bumblebee when I was 9, and all of those dismally planned business ventures importing saffron and Royal Enfields from India to the USA, but those are going to pall in comparison to my most recent endeavor to race against 20 teams of rickshaw drivers down the coast of Tamil Nadu in order to claim the coveted title of "Rickshaw Challenge Grand Champion".

Starting on Monday teams from all over the world will kick off the Indian Autorickshaw Challenge and begin a slow march across desert plains, remote tiger sanctuaries, former French colonies and ultimately to the point where the Indian ocean meets the Arabian Sea. It is there that my team, Curry in a Hurry, will claim the title.

That is the idea anyway.

The reality is that making it even as far as our first stop in Mahabalipuram will take a miracle. As anyone who has spent more than a day in India will tell you, a trip like this in what amounts to a motorized tricycle could be a suicide mission. Dodging lorries, cows, and MTC bus drivers is only half the challenge. The other half is making sure that when we break down, that we do so within spitting distance of a mechanic.

In the last week our assembled team of rickshaw engineers and aerodynamic experts have been able to test-drive our shaw to scientifically evaluate our chances. We haven't been too happy with the results. Last night in a trip out to Pallavarum, about 17 KM outside the city, and the engine seized on us despite an hour pulling on the starter lever, we couldn't put humpty-dumpty back together again. We hired another rickshaw to push us home. That may not be our last ride of shame.

Nevertheless, with a little grit and determination I think that we still have a shot at the gold. I'm consoled by the fact that even though we may break down every few feet, our opponents will as well. In the end this race may be more about rickshaw maintenance than endurance.

So if you wonder why I'm not updating this website between August 21st through the 30th, it's because I am fighting for my life on an empty roadside. But don't worry, I'll send you some pictures when I return.

(Photo: My wife, Padma, is gonna smoke the competition.)

From Garden City to Ad Central

When a film company, toothpaste manufacturer or fashion designer wants to get the word out about their wares in Chennai they put up billboards. Lots of them. For reasons I have yet to discern the people of Chennai call these printed vinyl mega-advertisements that are draped over scaffoldings "hoardings". They are often two or three times the size of any other billboard from New York to Tokyo and as often as not posted right at eye level so that you have to strain your eyes to see what is on the street. Though Chennai palls in size to the world's major metropolises, the ubiquitousness of hoardings make every street corner feel like Times Square.

How did a whole city transform into one large advertorial you ask? Most of the hoardings are illegal and exist only because of strong squatters rights and lack of enforcement from an over burdened and inefficient police force. Ad agencies start to build scaffoldings on top of other hoardings, or on public land and simply wait until no one remembers who the origianl owner of the plot really is. From what I understand, ad agencies send kickbacks to the politicians responsible for enforcement, who in turn make sure that hoardings stay where they are built.

The result is that when a newcomer first arrives in the city, the first thing he or she sees is an array of glossy images. Every street corner marked by a billboard becomes an instantly memorable landmark by which they can use to navigate their way around. When I first came here I knew the faces of all three Sri Lankan Airlines stewardesses so well that I whenever I saw them I knew that I had to take a right turn on Nungabukkam High Road to get back to my house in Kilpauk. It was only after a month or so when the board came down that I actually started to look around the city and remember what the street actually looked like.

I am interested in learning more about how hoardings get built up, and the system of kickbacks and enforcement. I might like to write a story on them in the next couple months. Anyone who has information drop me a line or leave a comment.

(Photo: taken on Nungabukkam High Road is just one of a million places in the city where hoardings block out the skyline.)

Cyber crime unit needs upgrade

After my last excursion to Chennai's Cyber Crime unit in Egmore where the police busted their first criminal in the unit's three-year history, I wasn't surprised to read an article in this morning's paper where officers searched for excuses for their poor track record.

L. Srikrishna's article "Lack of technology hampers probe into cell phone theft" states:

"Officials in the cyber wing told The Hindu on Wednesday that the police should not be seen as inefficient; the problem is lack of facilities to solve such crimes."

Lack of facilities is a bit of an understatement. With three computers in the office, none of which looked particularly advanced, and no obvious tech-nerds a-la Alias, X-Files or even Dragnet, the cyber crime unit could perhaps be a good location for shooting "Police Academy 47: What are we doing in Chennai", but not somewhere to turn to if you run into William Gibson in a dark alley.

When I asked the Assistant Commissioner of Police what sort of cyber crimes happen in Chennai he seemed legitimately perplexed. Sure there were some cases of cyber-stalking, and some threatening e-mails, but he had no knowledge of Internet piracy, black hat hacking, intellectual property theft, phishing, credit card fraud or any the other of your standard internet scams. When I tried explaining that there are several people engaged in click fraud in the city his eyes just seemed to glaze over.

Sure they busted a small gang of credit card fraudsters who came from England to withdraw cash, but they only did so because someone at a bank gave them a tip--it wasn't their own investigation.

The article says that the police are asking for a 1 crore investment for state-of-the-art technology to track down stolen cell phones. Apparently 40 go missing every day and the police haven't been able to solve any of the cases. My guess is that they want the new gadget so they can keep slacking off and let a computer do the work for them.

Instead of an upgrade, how about they do some old fashioned police work first.

Chennai Bus Drivers have a License to Kill

In an article in the Hindu that appeared in yesterday's paper titled "Cracking down on the killer busses", P. Oppili cites a statistic from the Metropolitan Transport Corporation that says last year alone over 100 people died because of rash and negligent driving of MTC drivers. Read that statistic a few times and you realize that every week some two innocent people are run down by a bus driver, While Oppili states that some changes in bus maintenance could cut down the mortality rate, no amount of tracking gizmos or brake checking is going to change that fact that drivers are negligent, possibly drunk, and too poorly trained to be on the road on a bicycle, let alone a 10 ton bus.

The article states that the MTC has 6,400 drivers on its payroll, which means that every year 1 in 64 of them are responsible for a road fatality. To put it another way, in an average career of 20 years, drivers have a one in three chance of killing someone.

But the MTC says that rash driving simply will not be tolerated--and they have a penalty system for drivers who cause accidents. That is, if you call sending a driver to a driving school for two days for a non-fatal accident, and for a week for a fatal accident a penalty system. After killing a person the driver has to forgo his year's pay increment (a couple rupees a week) and has to take a refresher course. I presume the course states something like drivers should not be complete idiots all the time. Only on a second offense are drivers terminated.

I don't know about you, but I am a little uncomfortable knowing that when I get on the road and have to fight my way past a steeply swerving bus that if the driver kills me he gets what would amount to a slap on the wrist. Call me crazy, but I think that drivers have to be held accountable for road fatalities.

Bus drivers should not only be held accountable for the times when they kill someone, but should be taken to task even smaller violations as well. Whenever they run red lights, move with an obviously overloaded bus, stop in the middle of the road, or drive drunk they should fear that they could lose their job--or perhaps even face jail time. There is simply too much tolerance for bad driving here and the MTC is patently irresponsible for not holding their drivers up to sane standards.

For another post on traffic in Chennai see "Tuning into Chennai Traffic"

(Photo taken by K. Pichumani from The Hindu)

ISRO's Bureaucratic Outer Ring

I just published a series of stories on Wired News about the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) about the state of space research in India. While I was quite impressed with their advanced in satellite research and the indigenously designed launch vehicles, I am still amazed at the amount of bureaucracy that a foreign journalist has to go through to just get simple interviews with mid and low level scientists. In fact, it was much easier for me to secure an hour of time from the top-level executives than talk with the scientists who are actually developing the technology.

I spent most of my time under close watch in ISRO's administrative building watching press officers and bureaucrats shuffle huge volumes of papers from one desk to another. I made several requests to actually see some scientists tinkering with gadgets, but the press officer shook his head and said that I would have to secure a pass from the Home Ministry itself to get access to labs. Both he and I knew that contacting the Home Ministry would not only mean a firm no, but it would take a year and a half for them to process the paperwork.

Instead he offered to send his own photographer to shoot the labs and laughed at me saying that I just wanted to see the scientists because I was getting paid--as if the paltry sum Wired News pays for stories offsets the hassle I have to go through. Well, if you see the photos that eventually came from ISRO (after a month) you will notice that they really are not very good. All of the shots that I took were of an administrative building, which even a national geographic photographer would have trouble making look interesting.

A similar thing happened when I attended the satellite launch in Sriharikota. I arrived several hours early and came up to the main gate where dozens of Indian reporters were lined up for admission, but when it came my turn the same press officer just shook his head at me. "Sorry no foreigners," he said. Meanwhile two full busloads of school children streamed past me while I argued.

In the end, I came away with a good story anyway. I watched the launch from a nearby sand dune with local people and took some great photos of the rocket as it exploded above launch pad and rained fire and debris nearby. That story will show up in Wired Magazine in the next couple months.

Indian Village Gets Webpage, Makes News

A rural outpost surrounded by rice paddies has a plan to expand its territory into cyberspace. In a report from Reuters Jonathan Allen states that even though the village of Hansdehar hasn't yet installed its first internet connection this move to publicize the names, occupations and other details of all 1,753 residents could provide new sources of revenue and help farmers sell their crops at a higher price. The website http://www.smartvillages.org does not yet appear to be online, or is suffering some server trouble after a flood of traffic logged on after the initial report.

Late last week I was corresponding with my editor at Wired about a story I have in the works when it occurred to me that as far as the American mainstream press is concerned, there are only a few types of stories about India that are newsworthy. Other than occasional political catastrophes, like an arms race between India and Pakistan, or the Tsunami, editors in the states look for two things.

The first set of stories could be summed up as, "Look at those poor Indians get screwed by rich people." This category includes slavery accounts, prostitution, the spread of AIDS, state orchestrated famine, poisoned soft drinks and other types of misery.

The second category reads, "Look at those Indians play with high tech stuff, how improbable!" Every time I read a story about outsourcing to Infosys or Wirpo, about call centers, the Indian space agency, online villages, or the new highway system, I can't stop thinking that the only reason people in the States are interested is because they still think this is an inscrutable and backward country that will never really make any significant strides into the modern world.

About a month ago, I sent a letter to an editor about doing a story on the Navy War Room Leak where spies allegedly used a woman as a honey trap to sneak out state secrets on pen drives. In my pitch I wrote, "It is a wonder that this story has never broken in America."

He replied, "[The story is] fun and salacious, but it hasn't broken here because no body gives a shit about India."

When I read his reply, I was sort of upset. I've spent a lot of time here, and it is difficult for me to think that most of the world still thinks of this country as completely backward and uninteresting. But he also had a point. The Navy War Room Leak story would be big news if it happened in a Western country--it has all the juicy elements it needs to make headlines--but it doesn't fall into the two categories that make India news. No one in the West wants to think that India's navy has secrets worth knowing, or that people here use technology because it is useful, not because it's novel.

In the end, while world-changing events happen in South Asia every day, all the West will hear are reports about villages buying their own web space.

What the USA could learn from Indian Healthcare

Six months ago an 18-year-old woman I was chaperoning through North India came down with some mix of dysentery and migraine headaches and needed to take a trip to the hospital. We were staying in central Delhi at the time and I didn't have a very good idea where the best places to go for medical treatment were, so I just told a rickshaw-walla to take us to the nearest one. A few minutes later we pulled up to a government hospital. After paying the rickshaw too much we ambled into the casualty room (the equivalent of the ER in the United States) and filled out a couple forms. In a few minutes she had a consultation with a doctor and was administered two anti-biotic shots that cleared up her condition in a couple hours.

When I asked to pay for the service the doctor only raised an eyebrow and said, "This is a government hospital, there is no charge."

While the hospital was by no means up to American standards--with blood stains on the sheets, used needles in the trash, and none of the high tech gadgets that I have come to associate with health--I was impressed by the open policy to treat everyone who walks through the doors for free. It is something that America could learn from India.

In America I am one of the millions of people who can't afford quality healthcare. Even a minor infection could turn nasty. Last winter I was living in Madison and I thought that I might have come down with strep throat. It's an infection that can easily be treated with a course of antibiotics, but since I was uninsured and the medication is not available without a prescription, it would cost me at least $150 to get treatment--maybe more.

As a self-employed non-smoker in perfect health, I would have to pay around $300 every month to an insurance company if I wanted to be sure that there would be a safety net in place if I ever had an accident or fell ill. While there are state programs like medicaid and medicare around, I make just a little too much money to qualify for them--leaving me in an unfortunate predicament. Either I can spend all of my money I make on healthcare, or I can pray that I won't get sick and hope for the best. I chose the latter. Then I moved to India.

Before I moved here I knew that I had several nascent cavities in my molars, but I put off treatment in the states where the treatment would have cost well over $1000. Instead, once I arrived in Chennai I found a dentist who put in three fillings for just over $60. While $60 is an unimaginably large sum for some people in India, many people can come up with it without a problem. And while I went to a private clinic, I believe that there are also government dentists here that work for free.

In the end though, it is the massive government health infrastructure here that makes India one of the most progressive countries in the world when it comes to health care. Even with new WTO restrictions, thousands of different antibiotics are available for a fraction of the price they are available in every other country in the world. Lifesaving drugs like Cipro and Erythromycin cost only a few rupees, and though many people have to wait in long lines to see a doctor, the treatment is free.

This is not to say that Indian healthcare is perfect. There are huge problems with inefficiency, and many people are still denied treatment, but the problem stems from lack of resources rather than lack of political will.

Do Chennai Kids Play "Cops or Robbers"?

I grew up in a quiet and forgettable suburb outside one of America's most corrupt cities. In those halcyon days I spent a lot of time romping through vacant lots and undeveloped pieces of land with my best friend Charlie playing "cops and robbers". Now I am much older and have forgotten some of the things that used to fascinate me when I was a kid. Instead of spending weeks on end shooting my friend with an imaginary pistol, I scan the papers and marvel at all of the real crimes that run through this city. I know that if I were going to play those same games now, they would look a little different.

I imagine that here in Chennai the children must play "Cops or Robbers" instead. It's a slight variation on the old theme, but has a much more enthralling story line. To play the kid has to first grab a copy of the Deccan Chronicle (the best paper for this sort of game) and just by looking at the headlines decide what scenario to follow for the day's festivities.

A particularly mischievous group of children could choose "Six Pondy cops get life for gang rape" off the front page. In this game they get to pretend to be licentious cops who bring in local girls in order to question them about crimes their cousins had committed. During the investigation they get to go just a little too far and leave their informant in a mess on the floor. Afterwards the children get to sit behind desks for the next 18 years (in kid time this is much less) where they get to remain free of jail time and commit similar crimes until they hit retirement age and go to jail. The only problem with this game is that you have to play with girls (yuck), and who wants to do that, anyway?

Another popular game could be drawn from a story a few pages inside the main fold: "Gambling clubs run by city cops." In this game children get to set up various gambling establishments and exchange bribes with other teams of children who play the part of fat-cat politicians on the take. The robbers in this story are actually customers who use the dens to fence stolen goods and launder money. It's not so action packed as the other games, but could be a side endeavor if they finish the first game and need to think of a way to spend the two decades of freedom before their court date.

But if neither of these stories sound action packed enough, they could opt for a more traditional game called "Escaped prisoner shot". In this game the two teams of children start off in a car (in this case use a cardboard box and paint it up real special) and while the police team eats lunch, the prisoner team escapes and everyone starts to play hide and go seek. The prisoner team gets to choose if they want to go down without a fight as they flee for their lives through crowded city streets, or fight back with what they have. The article suggests that one prisoner could pretend to have a knife while the police have shotguns- that way when the police catch the crook and shoot him they can claim it was self defense.

With so many great games to choose from every day, it sort of makes me wish I were a child all over again.

Hospital Report Says Cyclopamine Could be Culprit

An internal report from Kasturba Gandhi Medical Hospital on the birth of a one-eyed baby cited an experimental cancer drug as a possible cause for the disorder. Read the full story on the Wired News website.

The mother had gone childless for 6 years and had sought out the help of a fertility clinic to get pregnant.

In the course of my investigation I visited the hospital three times and was allowed to photograph the child as well as interview three high members of the hospital administration. The head of the pediatrics department, who attended the birth, went over the report with me, but did not allow me to retain a copy. In a section on possible causes for the child's disorder were only two references. 1) That it was a chromosomal disorder pre-existing in the parents, or, 2) that it was due to Cyclopamine--what I found out later was an experimental anti-cancer drug.

The author of the report was not present at our meeting, and the hospital staff present could not tell me how the drug came to be mentioned. Furthermore, despite my repeated requests, I was not allowed to meet with the report's author, nor would the hospital give me any information about the fertility clinic or what treatments the mother took during pregnancy. They also denied access to the mother for direct questioning.

There are many possible explanations for how the disorder could have occurred; yet the reference to the drug and fertility clinic in the hospital report needs further explanation. It is highly unusual to not collect a complete medical history from a patient--especially one who just gave birth to a child with a rare birth defect.

All drug companies I spoke with during my report said that there are currently no clinical trials being conducted on Cyclopamine in India, yet Michael Gray of Curis said that it is available through several medical distributors in the United States and Canada.

I hope to follow up on this report in the coming days.

Nomadic Herds and Himalayan Nerds

Tech reporter for NPR and co-editor of BoingBoing, Xeni Jardin, recently published a radio documentary series on wireless connectivity among the Tibetan exile community in Dharmsala. She travels from Delhi to Himachel Pradesh and eventually into Tibet itself in an exploration of how this relatively powerless refugee community is using technology to connect the diaspora and perhaps fight back against China.

She begins her story by focusing on the original inhabitants of the area, the Gaddi and explains how written Gaddi is now virtually extinct and the culture teeters on the verge assimilation into a generic North Indian mish-mash. In her stories (only two are online at the time of my writing) she argues that technology has virtually saved Tibetans.

Besides Israel, the Tibetan exile community is by far the most successful refugee movement in the world, and perhaps it is fitting that Yahel Ben-David, an Israeli tech-nerd and former soldier, is helping to set up a wireless mesh network with the Tibetan Technology Center that will blanket Dharmsala in a fine sheet of bandwidth.

The success of the Tibetan movement, however, is only its ability to adapt to technology, but, as in the case of Israel, depends on huge amounts of foreign aid and sympathy that individuals and governments donate to the cause. Even the Principality of Sealand, a questionably legal micro-nation off the coast of England whose only business is to provide secure web hosting, has chipped in and offered to support the Tibetan Government's web presence.

Over the years Tibetans have become so successful in propagating their story of victimization from an aggressive Chinese opponent, that the whole of McLeod Ganj (the actual site of the Tibetan Government) has skyrocketed down the flight path to modernization, while the surrounding community of mainstream North Indians and tribal Gaddi have moved forward as a much more sluggish clip.

The disparity in wealth between Indians and Tibetans is something of a problem in Dharmsala. There were riots a few years ago where Indian shopkeepers and youths savaged Tibetan establishments and every year the celebration of Holi is unusually tense on McLeod Ganj.

The struggle of the Tibetans surely deserves worldwide attention, yet the disparities in Technological advancement and adaptability highlight inequalities between successful refugee movements, and movements that never quite got off the ground.

Sadhus, Hippies and Old-Fashioned Junkies: Drug Culture in India

India has a drug history. In the Indus Valley Civilization people cultivated opium, and marijuana has been a solid fixture of holy life for several thousand years. Even today, attendants at sweet shops and restaurants across north India sell bhang lassis (pulverized marijuana yogurt shakes), and there is a government-run bhang shop in Varanasii. Huge crowds drink bhang and opium on the festivals of Holi and Shivratri before they take to the streets and chant praise for god.

Several years ago while I was working on a guide book for Rajasthan I passed through a remote tribal village outside Jodhpur where an ancient woman tried to force feed me a small pellet of opium that she had mixed with water and strained through a coffee filter (see photos).

Yet beyond these culturally acceptable forms of drug use there is a darker realm of addiction and crime. Smuggling and heavy narcotics have a grip on the certain segments of society. Easy access to poppy fields across north India, Pakistan and Afghanistan means that opium and its derivatives are flood all urban markets. While members of various Indian crime organizations traffic huge loads into cities, along the tourist route, members of the Russian and Israeli mafia vie for control. A well-known route between Manali, Dharmsala and Goa moves several million dollars of narcotics in the backpacks of tourists and non-descript Indian drug mules.

Over the counter pharmaceuticals are also a problem. Since pharmacies don't usually ask for prescriptions, painkillers, sleeping pills, tranquilizers and barbiturates offer a way to get high without interacting with members of organized crime syndicates. Yesterday the police arrested a man in Chennai who was selling laced chocolates to college students and an article on the front page of The Hindu today shows a massive of several tons of marijuana and opium that had been trafficked to the city from Andhra Pradesh.

On a fundamental level, I am not opposed to a certain amount of deregulation and liberalization of drug laws and enforcement. There is no problem with people occasionally using a narcotic for, say, a festival or on special occasions. But when drug use becomes an addiction, a daily or weekly habit, then there is a problem.

One place where the juncture between recreational and persistent drug use is most apparent is in Dharmsala, the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile. For the last several decades it has been a popular stop on the backpacker route, and hundreds of thousands of tourists have come there to partake in spiritual meditation and all night drug binges. But the travelers leave their problems behind them. Now the youth in Dharmsala have made binges on heroin, marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and opium part of their daily routine. Several Tibetan youths that I knew as aspiring monks and performing artists have spent years ferrying "brown sugar" in an underground network between Delhi and Dharmsala.

In this case at least, tolerance of drug use has let a whole generation of youth slip into a dark of addiction that I am not sure they will ever escape.

Update on the Cyclopian Child

Earlier this week I posted a story about the one eyed child born here in Chennai. I have spent the last day meeting with government officials, doctors and hospital administrators trying to dig up more information about her. Yesterday I went to the hospital where she was born (a few kilometers from my house) and was allowed to see the child and take photos. I have a second meeting in the coming two hours and will first publish my update on Wired News, probably tomorrow.

What I can say now is that the defect probably is not a hereditary condition and other than her single eye and lack of a nose she appears healthy. She also responds to stimuli and, like any other infant, cries when disturbed. According to the research I was able to cull off Google, it seems that she has lived longer than any other child with a similar condition.

Sorry for the distant photo, I am saving my close ups for another publication.

**UPDATE: For all of you people who come in from a link and don't have time to look around for updates on the girl's status click here for a more recent post.

Trouble in Kollywood: Casting Couch, Prostitution and Suicide

On screen, Indian actresses dress modestly and cavort frivolously just a finger's width beyond the reach of wanton counterparts, but life doesn't always imitate art. While Indian actresses strive to maintain the sheen of virtue in public, the film industry has forced many into the dark realm of prostitution. In the last year I have read more instances of Tamil and Telegu actresses being busted by the vice squad than I ever would have imagined. Last night the Deccan Chronicle buried a report deep inside the paper that the TV actress Maria was arrested with two other small time actresses for soliciting undercover police men. It wasn't the first time I had read something like that. Every few weeks the papers publish stories about actresses turning to prostitution, but they spend no time analyzing what is going on. It is as if everyone knows it is happening, but no one wants to say anything.

Madhuri was arrested Madhuri was arrested on July 11th.

As was Swapna (link in Tamil)

In 2004, Telegu actress R. Tara Chowdhary was arrested in Hyderabad for soliciting people through the Internet.

In 2003, a veteran of over 25 films, Vinitha, was caught in a sting operation when she responded to a text message from her alleged pimp.

These are really just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, so many budding actresses are caught that the Vice Squad probably has a whole unit that only investigates film stars.

But why do so many actresses turn to prostitution? I don't have any hard evidence yet, but my guess is that in order to break into the incredibly competitive realm of film, many young actresses have to submit to the casting couch to get a role. Anecdotal evidence from many of the people I know who work in the industry suggests that without family connections the only way to grab the attention of a producer is to sleep with them. After that it only takes a little push for actresses to realize that they can make more money selling their bodies than acting in low-budget films and it doesn't take long before you can find them on the Internet or in cars on the side of the road.

A corresponding trend, I believe, is the large number of suicides among mid-level TV actresses. Every week without fail, blurbs buried in the back pages of the newspapers report instances of young actors and actresses hanging themselves in their homes. The numbers are astounding. Oftentimes the actresses leave no notes and the families have no idea what is going on. My guess is many young actresses are forced into having sex with higher-level people in the industry in order to get roles or because they are being blackmailed by people who will out them and ruin their on-screen reputations.

Nuclear Programs Have to Break the Rules

Iran is on the fast track to becoming the world's next nuclear power. Pakistan is building a new facility that could pump out enough highly enriched plutonium for 100 nuclear weapons a year. And North Korea is testing ICBMs that could drop the H-bomb on American soil. The only super-power left calls them rogue nations, yet Iran, Pakistan and North Korea are wildly successful in developing their own programs where countries that have tried to chart a legal course have floundered. In the current political climate it seems that the only way to join the prestigious Atomic Club is to break a few rules.

Look at India. The country's power grid is so woefully overburdened that blackouts sweep across the country every day. For the last year it has been in negotiations with the United States to share technology and purchase uranium so that its civilian nuclear program can get off the ground. While the deal looked promising after Bush visited a few months ago, India has had to grovel at the feet of a few US Senators who "have reservations" about sharing resources. The senators fear that India could still be a security threat. The original deal is being cut to pieces and US diplomats are even using it to alter India's trade policies. In a special report, the Deccan Chronicle said that the US has slapped sanctions on the India-based Balaji Amines Ltd for supplying medical equipment to Iran. The US said that if the relationship isn't reigned in it could jeopardize the nuclear deal. By trying to remain transparent and above the board, India has only lost ground.

Meanwhile, the three countries that blatantly ignore international treaties and endure a little worldwide scorn have each made steady progress on their own programs. The United States has rattled its saber, but it has so thoroughly overextended itself in Iraq and Afghanistan that there is almost no chance that it takes any more serious action than sanctions and a few stern words. In the case of Iran and North Korea who have already endured decades of sanctions there is really very little incentive to play by anyone else's rules.

It is still possible that the deal with India eventually turns into a fruitful relationship that will help meet its target goal of using nuclear power to meet 25% of its energy needs. But it is just as likely that the deal falls through and India is left with no options but to follow the lead of "rogue nations".

The result is that the United States is completely undermining its aim to set up worldwide safeguards to monitor nuclear programs. By setting the bar so high, other nations that want to adopt nuclear technology will probably take a lesson from India and decide to step out on their own and pursue covert nuclear programs. After all, the worst the risk are a few sneers by the United States.

Cyclopian Child Born in Chennai

A one-eyed child suffering from a rare chromosomal disorder known as cyclopia was born in a hospital in Chennai earlier this week. The disorder occurs during pregnancy when the cells that constitute the forebrain fail to develop properly and fuse into a single eye. Instances of cyclopia are generally attributed to outside factors like ambient pollution, radiation, drugs and the introduction of other agents that can alter fetal development.

The pictures bare an eerie resemblance to images of Love Canal, a suburban community built on top of the most notorious toxic waste dump in New York State. While the small town was still populated, several children were born without eyes and cancer was hundreds of times the normal rate.

With waste burned openly in the streets, old MRI machines leaking radiation into local dumps, red alert toxic ratings for the city's air and water, and now one-eyed infants, Chennai is looking more like Love Canal every day.

(Photo originally from the Deccan Chronicle, sorry for the poor quality, they didin't post it online.)

8/7 UPDATE: I called Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children to get more information about the child. Apparently it is now seven days old and the doctors believe that it may survive. They offered me a chance to see her in person, and I may follow up this post with more information later this week.

*** Several people have noted in the comments that MRI machines do not leak radiation, this is true. The people of Chennai will have to find their pollutants from other sources.

Crime Syndicate gets RFID Savvy

A gang of Sri Lankan credit card fraudsters ran amok in the city three months ago and may have heralded in a new type of cyber crime. The Deccan Chronicle and The Hindu reported that the gang of four men were caught with 116 international credit cards, rs. 6.5 lakhs ($14,000) and 31 stolen passports.
They had allegedly stolen credit card information from unsuspecting people in the UK and had managed to manufacture fake cards that would work on Indian ATMS.

What the stories didn't report was why the men had to travel half-way across the world to withdraw cash. It was a question that would fuel several days of research and a flurry of e-mails across cyberspace. A few days beforehand I had read an article in Wired by Annalee Newitz about hackers who managed to sneak their way past poorly encrypted radio frequency identification chips (RFID) to gain access to credit card information, access into restricted areas and to copy passports. I thought there could be a link between the thieve's copied cards and their trips to India. While Newitz's story focused on the ways to hack past RFID security, the gang of Sri Lankan thieves seemed to have come across an even more effective solution. Why hack when you can bypass the problem completely?

All new credit cards in the UK come embedded come with RFID chips that contain different pieces of user information, in order to access the account and withdraw cash the ATMs has to verify both the magnetic strip and the RFID tag. Without this double verification the ATM will confiscate the card, and possibly even notify the police. ATM's in India, however, only verify magnetic strips and have yet to catch up with advances in western technology.

Under the direction of a computer savvy crime boss, the thieves collected credit card numbers from an unscrupulus gas station attendant in London and uploaded the electronic information to the magnetic strips on the back of phone cards. Then they caught a flight to India.

Since the Indian ATMs only had single point verification the gang was able to exploit the technology gap all across Tamil Nadu and netted a neat sum. They would have gotten away with it, too. The police didn't have a clue it was happening, and it was only when an unusually attentive security guard posted outside an ATM noticed a man withdrawing cash from multiple cards in succession that he was able to tip off the cops.

I arrived at the police station early the next day after the cops had had time to interrogate the prisoners. I interviewed the Assistant Commissioner of Police who proudly proclaimed that this was the cyber crimes unit first arrest in its three years history, and he was eager to fill me in on the details. He said that while the prisoners were initially reluctant to spill information on their boss, it was only after a long night of interrogation they proffered up the name of a man in central London.

I spoke with him for almost an hour until it was clear to me that the Cyber Crime Unit was entirely unfamiliar with recent developments in credit card security. The commissioner had never heard of RFID chips, and he asked me to fill him in on everything I knew. I directed him to Wired's website and suggested he read Newitz's article.

The next frontier in cyber crime just may be thieves exploiting the gap between new and old technologies in different parts of the world. While security in the West ramps up at an alarming rate, much of India (and the rest of the third world), has no ability to keep up. Law enforcement is generally unaware of what is happening globally so that criminals in the Western world don't even need to be on the top of their game to beat the system. All they need is a plane ticket. Had these fraudsters just been a little less greedy they would have traveled back to the UK rich men.

**Aug 9 UPDATE: Several people have written in that UK cards don't use RFID, but a different kind of double verification system. Not having been to the UK in almost 25 years, I am going to have to assume they are correct. The mechanics of the crime, however, remain the same. There is a gap between technologies that thieves are able to exploit.

Pesticides in Coke Mean Boon for Farmers

Little has changed in the three years since the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) released a report of high--possibly lethal--levels of pesticides in Coke. Marking the anniversary in their magazine Down to Earth, the CSE has alleged that the government has made no moves to rein in the soft drink industry. Rather than, say, stop dumping barrels of toxins into Coke's secret formula, Coke enlisted the aid of international heavyweight Colin Powell to lobby on behalf of American business interests and quell a developing media storm.

In a new study by CSE they sampled 57 different soft drink brands from plants all over India and found that on average pesticide levels were 24 times higher than the accepted norms. In at least one sample Lindine, a known carcinogen, was more than 140 times the norm.

In lieu of this news I am going to swear off Coke and stick to safer varieties of local juices and coffee. At least whatever nasty concoction of amoeba and cholera present in the water supply can be treated with a stiff course of antibiotics.

The report should be a warning to all of India's soft drink aficionados. But there is an unexpected upside that should bring smiles to the faces of farmers across the nation and possibly put a little packet of money back into Coke's coffers.

In 2004 the Guardian ran a story about how farmers in Andhra Pradesh had begun to move away from buying pesticides from international agro-conglomerates and instead opted to douse their crops with Coke to keep the bugs at bay. Coke, which sells at rs 30 for a liter soundly beat out the popular pesticides Avant, Tracer and Nuvocron that sold for rs 10,000.

Farmers couldn't resist the rs 9,970 savings and despite all efforts to quell the soft drink's popularity as a bug killer, they couldn't. The stuff actually worked.

Now it is difficult to say why Coke is so good at deterring insects from gutting fields of corn and cotton, but the presence of high concentrations of pesticides certainly can't hurt.

So Coke doesn't have to worry about losing my business. While there isn't a chance I'm going to keep it near my dinner table, children, or even pets, they can rest assured I will use it in my garden.

Newspaper Schnewspaper

Our Correspondent
Chennai, Aug 2

In a move that heralded the decline of Indian journalism The Deccan Chronicle sold its soul to an advertiser on Wednesday morning. Selling the lead above the fold spot, a position usually reserved for actual news, to an advertiser proffering print cartridges has drawn absolutely no controversy among a weary public. The decision occurred after a meeting between a compromised editor-in-chief and money-grubbing publisher who reasoned that a couple thousand extra rupees was more important than distributing news.

Newspapers have traditionally been venues for a broad range of people to keep abreast of political and cultural events, and have featured groundbreaking coverage of scandals, intelligence leaks and government corruption. Many consider selling the lead spot to an advertiser against the spirit of journalism.

"When I picked up the paper this morning I was expecting a follow up on a mysterious plane that had landed in Mumbai yesterday after issuing an American military call-sign, but what I got was an offer for a 3-year warranty on some piece of useless electronic crap," said regular Deccan reader Scott Carney.

This is not the first time that editorial departments have bowed before the advertisers, and it is unlikely to be the last. It represents a trend in the Indian media to avoid reporting hard-hitting stories in favor of meaningless pap that fills up blank spaces between ads.

Newspaper front pages are important to readers trying to decide if they want to remove the paper from their doorstep or newstand. However, today, many readers had to flip through several pages before they found anything interesting.

"I just don't understand it, aren't they supposed to tempt us with some salacious story before they hit us with commercials?" asked V. Balakrishna Subramaniamramavenkateswaranbhaba, B.A. M.A. MsW. PhD.

Apparently not, Subramaniamramavenkateswaranbhaba, apparently not.

Sex Work in a Traditional City

Chennai, the self-proclaimed most traditional Indian metropolis, has a reputation to uphold. As the seat of ancient Tamil culture fiercely defends its language and the virtue of its women. Last year two political parties went so far as arrest Kushboo, a Tamil film actress, for defamation when she gave an interview on AIDS awareness where she stressed the need for protected sex and that it was ok for women to have sex before marriage. The two parties, the Dalit Partners of India and the Pattali Makkal Katchi, stirred up such a controversy that there were riots outside her court hearing and they pelted the actress with rotten eggs and fruit.

While defending Tamil womanhood may garner some media attention and votes, there is very little that separates sexuality in this city from any other. According to Dr. K Jaishankar, a lecturer at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Chennai has two active red light districts. In a paper he wrote several years back titled "Spatial Perspective of Prostitution in Chennai City" he mapped out hotspots on GPS and showed that prostitutes, are quite literally everywhere.

One minute on Google will bring up a whole list of escort services, including one man named "Ajay" who apparently manages a team of call girls that go for rs 10,000 ($200) and up. In other areas of the city streetwalkers charge as little as rs 50 ($1). There are also a host of ads in the Deccan Chronicle under the health club section that look suspiciously like they offer a lot more than simple massages. And while prostitution is often viewed as a women's vice, one has to remember that every prostitute has numerous male customers. Statistically it seems that a lot of those men are in "virtuous Tamil marriages."

The sad result is that AIDS is rampant in the city. According to an NGO worker I know, Chennai has one of the highest HIV transmission rates in the country. The question burning in my mind is, in a city with sex obviously on the brain, how do people continue to fool themselves that Tamil culture is chaste by nature?

It is something like the conflict between the religious Right in the United States and the so-called Leftists. The Right says that talking about sex and informing people that anything other than abstinence will only encourage immorality, while the Left argues that whether someone likes it or not, sex happens and people should understand it.

Here in Chennai the argument isn't so well established. It is still taboo to bring up sex in a public setting. Sure, men will talk amongst themselves over glasses of whiskey while they point out all the prostitutes they know, but they will deny any such knowledge to the outside world. Having been stuck in several conversations like that, I can vouch for the fact that "safe sex" are not the first words on any man's lips--in fact the limited knowledge people have here about it is rather shocking.

I for one am in Kushboo's corner. Chennai needs a lot more frank talk about sex. After all, not talking about it won't stop it from happening.