An article in New Scientist covers a journal report on the state of upcoming upgrades to China's national Internet infrastructure.

Silly, but funny. This is a sketch from the 1967 comedy show, At last the 1948 show, and the actress—with the voice like a "a choir of frantic mice"—is Aimi MacDonald.

Xiaomi tech is a four billion dollar Chinese company which makes smartphones that compete with Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy S series. The company is led by Lei Jun, a man compared to Steve Jobs, and commands a fan base who are just as crazy about its products as Apple fans are of Apple's.

China's e-commerce portal Taobao reports that it conducted USD 3 Billion worth of business in 24 hours on Singles' Day. The store is owned by the Alibaba Group, a subsidiary of which—alibaba.com—has a presence in India as well.

More on this story can be found on this blog.

Lanyou Numeral was one of the top sellers on Taobao.com, a Chinese online marketplace. Earlier this week, 25 suspects—mostly housewives from Mainland China—were tried for smuggling in Apple iPhones and iPads on behalf of Lanyou Numeral in a bid to avoid paying the high import duties levied on the products.

The Economist has a fascinating visual piece correlating India's states and union territories to equivalent countries of the world in terms of economy and population.

China's Shenzhou-9 has blasted off successfully from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the Gobi desert aboard a Long March rocket. Here are a couple of videos of the launch:

In light of the recent blocking of websites in India and the cries of "CENSORSHIP!" all across Twitter, spare a thought for our Chinese neighbours who have long been suffering beneath the cudgels of the Great Firewall of China.

You might be familiar with the story of Chinese businesses hiring white westerners to sit around in their offices and in their meetings in order to lend that subtle touch of competence and professionalism to their establishments. They are apparently getting inordinately pickier nowadays: