I still remember reading somewhere that a few years ago, when a contingent of police in an Indian metropolis had gone to confiscate some contraband computers and CDs, all that they did was to seize the monitors (assuming them to be the computers, while they left the CPUs behind) and contracted labourers to staple all the seized CDs (as they felt that they might get infected by some ‘dreaded’ computer virus). This might sound hilarious to many, but this incidence reveals more than a crude joke. Whenever you think of an Indian policeman, the picture that evolves is: semi-literate men (as there are hardly any women), armed with antiquated weapons (the worst of them date back to the era of World War I and the best to four decades back), a pittance of a salary (breeding unabashed corruption), stained and un-ironed uniforms (showcasing the attitude), rusty vehicles, overstretched working hours (as there is one policeman for almost 700 citizens), and with a constant fear of persecution from t...
Dr. Arindam Chaudhuri
(An IIPM Think Tank Blog)