Google Street View faces official resistance in Bangalore

Google has stopped collecting images for its Street View service in Bangalore after the local Police dashed off a letter asking it to get ‘relevant permissions’. Security concerns were cited by cops as the reason behind the move. However, day long investigations by Humor Unplugged revealed a different and a more sinister reason.

Google had launched the street view project to collect high definition images only last month in the city. However, within a day of the launch, the project ran into trouble as Google’s cameras captured a range of government servants raking in bribes from hapless victims across the city. “We saw babus collecting bribes by the dozen outside government offices, traffic junctions, crossroads and even outside movie halls. We were surprised by the magnitude of the whole thing. I mean I knew there were a few rotten apples. But looking at the footage I was shocked,” a Google executive involved in the project said on condition of anonymity.

But how did Google know that these people were accepting bribes? “We went back and randomly visited a few state government offices in the vicinity and found the same guys relaxing, sipping tea and playing solitaire on their PCs – a clear sign of work-hostile babus. These government employees were accepting bribes and the result was same each time we did a check. We even saw some government employees accepting bribes via credit cards using swipe machines. We immediately rushed to the cops with the footage who watched the whole thing and asked us to stop the shoot. The senior cop told us that we didn’t have sufficient permission for the whole thing,” the Google executive said this time making us swear that we won’t reveal his name on Humor Unplugged.

When contacted state CM B S Yedurappa challenged us to come to a nearby office, swear on a copy of the state Budget 2011 and say that we saw babus taking bribe. We immediately agreed. But Yedurappa said he was busy and chickened out.