Planet Chad

Check out this blog. The author is (presumably) a white journalist living in Chad, Africa. Many of us won't know that this country exists.

The blog tells us it's a typical African basket case: poor, lacking water, lacking capable leaders and strong institutions. Hot, sandy.

It seems like another planet. Yet, you also realise: India could be said to house hundreds of little Chads. Like the places in Maharashtra where power is off for sixteen hours a day. Like the places where insurgents live, and the local population pays the price for it. Even if they aren't complicit in harbouring them. Like the streets of Mumbai where children beg, or try to sell things, when they should be at the school.