For a better picture, try more focus

When I was in India a couple of weeks ago, my mother was fretting - about how I would make do without yogurt.

It's no wonder the tainted-milk scandal in China was the big story in Indian media, which caters to a people who start the day with milk delivered at home and use it in tea, coffee, food and sweets - apart from making yogurt and other dairy products.

On the same trip, which was part business and involved a visit from New Delhi to a neighboring provincial capital, a senior editor in China Daily called me with some very helpful advice: Don't take planes, trains or buses. There are bombs going off everywhere, he warned me earnestly.