What you are not seeing here is that this is probably a better investment than direct investment in schools. Projects like these open up more employment opportunities for those involved in fundamental science and research, which in turn motivates more people to choose that line of study and work. It also retains people who are genuinely skilled in these fields from migrating over to higher paid fields like applied engineering and IT.

Overall, in a country of contradictions like India, it is highly neccessary to sustain and encourage research and development efforts. The people are directly motivated to identify offshoots of their research which can better the lives of people they identify with. I think it is a big folly to focus all your resources on primary education without providing a direction for those benefitting from it. You need the ability to build aspirations within people and out of such efforts come stories that are a lot more valuable than the investment itself.

This is not a first time for India. For over fifty years, India has made large investments in building research instutions which has in turn spurred its populace to acquire the skills to staff these positions. For a country that in 1948 had not a single heavy industry or any technonology or manufacturing ability, it has done rather well to have churned out the huge engineering force from the 80s onwards building a domestic industrial and technological base which is quite enviable when compared to other countries of India's age and background.

Enrollment in education cannot be increased by direct investment or force, it has to be voluntary. And for that, people have to be able to see gainful employment and social status at the end of the road and efforts like this provide that.

It is interesting that you cite Sharia for Muslim law, but do not cite your references for Hindu law. Practices in India today, do not neccessarily have anything to do with Hindu law. By all accounts Hinduism has been generally liberal with sexuality and open and accepting of various different practices including homosexuality.

When Europeans arrived in India, they were shocked by Hinduism, which they termed idolatrous, and by the range of sexual practices, including same-sex relations, which they labeled licentious. British colonial rulers wrote modern homophobia into education, law and politics.

The Wikipedia entry on Homosexuality in India also does not refer to any of the conclusions you have made. Sure, it might sound kind of cool to make up your "facts", but please cite your sources.

The creative reconstruction of history is exactly what is being discussed here and you do make a good case against it.

As has been discussed so many times on /. most of the problems with the Diebold stems from the unneccessary complexity of the system

Other systems in use like the Indian Electronic Voting Machines or EVMs, offer all of the functional features with a much higher level of security and accessibility and for a price that is very easy on the taxpayers. For a very interesting comparison look at http://techaos.blogspot.com/2004/05/indian-evm-com pared-with-diebold.html