Overcrowding, monkeys mar India's IT plan

Varanasi, India

AS INDIA launches an US$18 billion plan to spread the information revolution to its provinces, the problems that it faces are a holdover from the past - electricity shortages, badly planned, jam-packed cities, and monkeys.

The clash between the old world and the new is sharply in focus in the crowded 3,000-year-old holy city of Varanasi, where many devout Hindus come to die in the belief that doing so will give them salvation. Varanasi is also home to hundreds of macaque monkeys that live in its temples and are fed and venerated by devotees.