ATTENTION

ALL THE VISITORS WHO ARE VISITING
FOREIGNERS REGISTRATION OFFICE, BANGALORE
CITY, FOR THEIR OFFICIAL WORK ARE HERE BY
INFORMED THAT IN CASE OF ANY DEMAND FOR
MONEY FOR OFFICIAL WORK OR UNNECESSARY
DELAY BY THE OFFICIALS MAY PLEASE CONTACT
ASST.COMMISSIONER OF POLICE (FOREIGNERS
SECTION) OR DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF POLICE
(F.R.O) BANGALORE CITY.

I guess they are trying to crack down on corruptions of the kind prevalent in developing countries, such as Mexico and South Korea (I have no direct experience with either, only anecdotes involving police officers and busy government offices).

I can’t say I’ve seen any … overt acts of corruption in my visit to FRO or elsewhere in India. There was some guy who was ushered in front of me at FRO with the, shall we say, bouncer recognizing him as “74″ (I had number 72 and there was another guy behind me who did really have 74), but aside from that, everything seemed relatively well-run, although busy and somewhat lacking in directions (it didn’t help that around the time my number came up, it was lunch time so many people were away at lunch).

So far, my short experience in India points to this place as being a region in transition: lanes are mostly ignored, but there are signs that admonish drivers to “Maintain lane discipline”. Roads are dusty in many places, but then, there are these trendy cafes that do serve expensive (compared to local food prices, for example) drinks. Perhaps in good time, India will come to be a place not too different from U.S. or Europe—I just wonder how the world economy would change with 1 billion more people in a well-developed market economy (for comparison, U.S. has only 300 million people).