India: Land of many cell phones, fewer toilets

I object to the line about farmers living in shacks of mud and cow dung. This is probably going to sound weird to most readers, but cow dung is actually an excellent building material for plastering walls. Seriously. When it's dry you can mix it with water and a bit of straw and make an excellent plaster. It doesn't smell at all and for some reason it discourages flies. If I lived in rural India again I'd make sure my kitchen walls were plastered with cow dung.

I don't get the point of this article. The author is repeatedly juxtaposing contradicting images. May be its an attempt to show economic disparities, or to say that this looks absurd. But he's done nothing more than putting together some circumstantial scenes.<p>I don't know much about journalism - but whatever it is, I hope its not this

What is the point of `unless you have "X" you can't have Y?`<p>Why shouldn't the poorest of the poor have access to telephones? The cell phone market in India is a free(er) market and people have access to cell phone service for less than $5/mo . That is the real story that is interesting.

I don't really get the comparison. It seems like a really western thing to say... it's not like they're walking around with iphones and sidekicks

The comments are as retarded as the article itself.<p>Typical western comparison as one commenter put it as.

Well. Cell phones start coming at INR 500 (~ $12) with really cheap carrier call rates.