The Indian military outsources to India? Impressive.

Just to clarify, I'm not saying I agree with the concept. It's ridiculous and it wont work. I'm just saying that it's a mistake to assume that the general population here wouldn't support such a move.

I live in Karnataka and it's illegal to have drinking and dancing in the same place here. Plus all the bars and clubs shut at 11:30. The younger more affluent people here think that's ridiculous but they are very much in the minority. On a practical level this is difficult to enforce, but the reality is that the police use this as a blunt instrument to elicit bribes. It's difficult to overstate the level of endemic corruption in the system.

They also ban the sale of alcohol on election day in case one of the candidates decides to set up shop outside a polling station and hand out free booze to anyone voting for him. Never mind that a smart politician could simply buy up a load of beers the day before. This is not a state that runs on the practicality of it's legislation.

Besides which, when was this kind of political grandstanding ever about actually achieving anything? It's more about banging a drum and painting yourself in a particular light. This is no different to the west. How many politicians in the US campaign on the pro-life issue, despite the fact that short of the Supreme Court overruling itself that is never going to change? It doesn't matter that the policy is unrealistic and unworkable, it's an emotionally loaded issue and automagically gains you the support of a lot of voters.

Context: I am a British national living in India.

I once showed an episode of UK panel show "Have I got News for You" to some of my Indian friends. They found it hilarious, but at the same time were also a little uncomfortable with - if not genuinely shocked by - the content.

When I asked about their reaction they explained that Indian culture, for better or worse, revolves around respect for authority figures. Whether that's your parents, your boss, your elders or political leaders, it is what is expected. The public ridicule of the prime minister is more-or-less unthinkable, and would be widely condemned, possibly in a very ugly manner.

There is a lot of progress here, and a steadily growing middle class that may one day turn some of the more ridiculous polocies of the government around, but we're not quite there yet.

Remember that this is a country of 1.3 billion people, the vast majority of which live very traditional, religous lives - mainly in remote rural areas - well below any western notion of a poverty line, with very long standing ideas about their culture and society. It's a mistake to ascribe western notions of what is reasonable or sensibe to the "general population".

Selected Ambient Works II. Point proven.

Broadly disagree, but there you go.

Only if you believe that those people who benefit more from a preservation of the status quo aren't pouring millions into research designed to prove the opposite. Do you think that the academic left have vastly superior resources to the entire petro-checmical industry?

Ten years is a long time in the circus.

Apologies if I'm misreading you, but you seem to be suggesting that most people can't differentiate between empirically observed data and the political reaction to that data. I don't disagree, but I like to think that it's not completely beyond the mental faculties of the population to make the distinction. Otherwise that's profoundly depressing.

Quick, we better send up Cillian Murphy with a nuke.

May I be the first to wish the Syrians the best of luck with that.

If I was a cynic, I might think it has something to do with the fact that Sarkozy's wife is, amongst other things, a singer / songwriter. http://en.wikipedia.org/Carla_Bruni

Torrent files are very small. They only point to the data, they don't contain it.

I'll take you one further...

If 90% of people think that an activity is perfectly acceptable, and those opposed consistently fail to prove that it harms them in any meaningful way, then it probably shouldn't be illegal in a democratic country.

Feel free to substitute 90% with "a majority", or even "a significant minority".

A friend of mine used to promote a night in a bar near Shoreditch in London.

One night, he was called to the door because there was some trouble outside. Two drunk guys were scuffling in the street and it was beginning to get vicious.

My friend tried to stop the fight but couldn't, so he called the police on his mobile.

The police promptly arrived, saw my friend - still desperately tring to stop the fight - and assumed he was one of the perpetrators. They immediately beat the living shit out of him. He had a broken nose and numerous bruises when they dragged him down the station, where he was released without charge after an hour or so.

All of this happened in front of a CCTV camera.

When my friend's lawyer attempted to obtain a copy of the footage, they were told that an unspecified technical fault had rendered an hour or so of that evening's footage unwatchable. Guess which hour.

I appreciate this is purely anecdotal. However, I have lived in England all my life, in London for the past three years, and I do not know of a single instance where CCTV footage has helped bring about justice for anyone I know - and that is not for want of people I know getting involved in fights, being beaten up by the police (as above and also during the G20 protests) and in one particularly horrible incident getting stabbed in the leg for refusing to give up a bike to a bunch of teenagers.

I see no evidence whatsoever that CCTV is there to make our streets safer.