"India’s efforts to stage the 71-nation games for $7.9 billion contrast with the $70 billion makeover of Beijing for the 204-nation Olympics in 2008. Although state control in China ensured the city was ready for rehearsals, Delhi’s government-run efforts have been mired in delays, accusations of corruption, and mismanagement.
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Related:
"Hunger is widespread in India. It is said that at least 50 million Indians are on the brink of starvation and over 200 million Indians are underfed"
Yeah, let the games begin.
"India threatens to halt BlackBerry services" by Vikas Bajaj, New York Times | August 13, 2010
MUMBAI — India will block the encrypted BlackBerry corporate e-mail and Messenger services if law enforcement authorities don’t by Aug. 31 get a way to monitor messages on the services, government officials said yesterday.
The ultimatum suggested there is an impasse after weeks of negotiations with Research In Motion, the Canadian company that makes and provides services for the hand-held devices.
India would become the second country in recent weeks to restrict BlackBerry services. Last week, the United Arab Emirates said it would begin blocking services in October.
Losing access to India’s wireless market would be far more significant for RIM than losing the ability to provide service in the United Arab Emirates. India, one of the fastest-growing wireless markets, already has an estimated 1 million BlackBerry users. Some use RIM’s consumer e-mail service, which the government said it had no problem with because it can already monitor those messages.
Officials in India say the government has the right to monitor all voice and data communications in an unencrypted form under laws and licensing procedures. RIM has said it cannot provide unencrypted messages because its vaunted security system gives control over encryption to corporations, not to RIM.
In early 2008, the government threatened to shut BlackBerry services down unless it was given access to messages, but it backed down. The terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008 appears to have made officials more adamant about gaining access to encrypted communications.
Some of the terrorists used Internet-based phone systems to speak to their handlers in Pakistan.
So did the Mossad assassins of Dubai.
Related: No Mercy For Mumbai Patsy
Mumbai Terror Attacks: The Mossad Angle
Mossad behind Hindu terror group
Yeah, nothing like a good game of MSM phone tag.
Concerns about the use of telecommunications technologies by terrorists or others have prompted India to restrict other services. For instance, the government periodically suspends text messaging on cellphones in Kashmir, the northern state that has a separatist movement and over which India has fought wars with Pakistan.
Related: Kashmir Women Stand By Their Men
Nothing since, readers -- in print or anything in the way of a peep of criticism from the Obama administration.
Saudi Arabia recently said it won’t ban BlackBerry services after RIM and wireless companies provided unspecified commitments about helping the country monitor encrypted messages.
--more--"
Related: Saudi Arabia's Blackberry Eye
Saudis relent on BlackBerry
Bahrain won’t ban any of BlackBerry’s services
Also see: India has concerns about Google and Skype
"Indian hotel reopens after ’08 attacks" by Associated Press | August 16, 2010
MUMBAI — An iconic five-star hotel in Mumbai severely damaged in the 2008 terror attacks fully reopened yesterday with hundreds of people thronging its renovated lobbies and restaurants.
What, did they open it to the the 250 million hungry people?
The 107-year-old Taj Mahal hotel was one of the main targets of the three-day rampage across India’s financial capital by 10 men armed with assault rifles and grenades. Its famous dome was singed by flames, and its walls and windows were shattered and pocked with gunfire.
The 60-hour siege, which also targeted another luxury hotel, a Jewish center, a popular restaurant, and the city’s crowded main train station, left 166 people dead, 31 of them at the Taj Hotel.
Repairs to the hotel’s heritage wing took more than 22 months to complete and cost nearly $37 million. A newer wing of the hotel opened for business just three weeks after the attacks.
“Nearly two years ago, our world was torn apart,’’ Raymond Bickson, the managing director of the Indian Hotels Co. that runs the Taj Group of hotels, said last week. “We were not defeated. We resolved to be better than ever.’’
Bickson said the hotel had revamped security arrangements to ensure the safety of guests and staff.
India blames the attacks on the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and has called on Pakistan to crack down on terrorists thought to be operating from that country.
Yeah, but we all know who is REALLY responsible!
--more--"
These games are no fun, readers.
"US teen held in killing of his mother" by Associated Press | August 17, 2010
JAIPUR, India — A teenage American has been arrested on suspicion of killing his mother in a tourist resort in western India, police said yesterday.
The woman, identified as Cindy Iannarelli of Cecil, Pa., was found with her throat slit at the resort in the historic town of Osian in Rajasthan State last Thursday.
Police Superintendent Girdhari Lal Sharma said the woman’s son, Joncarlo Patton, 16, was questioned and later arrested Saturday. A judge ordered that he be sent to a juvenile detention facility.
A post-mortem examination of Iannarelli’s body showed that a sharp-edged weapon was used to slit her throat, Sharma said.
During questioning, Patton told the police that he was traumatized by his parents’ divorce and wanted them to reconcile, Sharma said.
So he killed his mother?
The only way I can see them reconciling now is if son kills father.
He also told police that he had a heated argument with his mother Thursday night and killed her, according to Sharma.
Patton left the resort early Friday and was picked up at the airport in Jodhpur, 60 miles away, Sharma said.
He had his mother’s travel documents and credit cards and dumped them in a dustbin at the airport, Sharma said. Police later recovered the documents.
According to police, Patton said that he had been studying in Italy and that he and his mother had come to India to see the country. Iannarelli’s body is being sent to the United States, Sharma said.--more--"
Maybe I should boycott the Boston Globe.
