Roger Cohen writes in NYT Oped May 24: "I was intrigued to learn the other day that there are now more cellphones in India than toilets. Almost half the Indian population, 563.7 million people, is hooked up to modern communications, while just 366 million have access to modern sanitation, according to a United Nations study. "This can be seen as skewed development favoring private networks over the public good. It can be seen as an example of markets outstripping governments: Nimble cellphone companies profit while lumbering Indian authorities are unable even to stop the propagation of water-borne disease through defecation in the open. Or it can be seen merely as the choice Indians have made about their priorities... "In some measure this duality is the modern condition. It brings an attendant schizophrenia about the state and government. On the one hand people who are increasingly autonomous — linked globally through technology, able to choose their own real or virtual gated communities, outstripping controls and taxes in their frenzied networking — feel contemptuous of the government and the state... "On the other, aware that our globalized little earth has come very close of late to complete financial meltdown and is still hovering near the brink, noting that there are drawbacks when mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, perhaps even glimpsing that shared institutions are essential to any society, people clamor in moments of crisis for the reviled state to step in and save them. More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25iht-edcohen.html
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