Delhi

Today, we did a small tour of Delhi. We only really went to two places, but we did get to ride the subway. The subway was actually pretty cool. It was completed two years ago and has three lines and about 60 stations total. So it's not exactly the New york subway system, but it is a little cleaner. And security is tight, as it is everywhere in India. Everyone gets frisked, and all bags are checked.

For those of you wondering about the seemingly absurd security in India, I can tell you it's justified. When you read Western newspapers, you might get the impression that Israel has a lot of terrorist attacks, but you hardly ever read about India. Prior to the US invasion of Iraq, India had consistenly, and by a wide margin, been the country with the greatest number of terrorist incidents. Now, it ranks second, but only because Iraq got much more dangerous. But India still faces a very serious threat. And they do take it seriously. Although the threat is probably a little lower now that the Pakistani ISI needs to concentrate on the events in Pakistan rather than their terrorist operations in India.

Anyway, we went to the India Gate first, which is a monument to India's fallen soldiers. It has the names of all the soldiers who have died since their independence. It's got a lot of names, but probably not as many as the Vietnam Memorial. India has been in many conflicts, most notably with Pakistan, but they apparently have avoided extended quaqmires. So they haven't lost too many soldiers. Every year at the Inidia Gate, they hold a big celebration, with military parades and pompous speeches. It's coming up in a few weeks, and the bomb sweeping squads were out in full force today. I don't know if they found anything, but they sure dug a lot of holes.

After that, we went to the Red Fort, which was was built by emperor Shahjahan in 1639. Shajahan was famous (or imfamous) for his extravegant building, and he also built the Taj Mahal. His building spree pretty much left the Mughal Empire insolvent, which is impressive since it started out amoung the richest in the world. The Red Fort was built as Shahjahan's residence, and is truly massive. Had it actually been needed as a military installation, it might have been money well spent. Instead, by contributing to his empire's insolvency, the Red Fort might be the primary factor in its downfall. Sometimes military spending isn't all it's cracked up to be.