Pity the girls who work at India's upcoming Playboy Clubs--if they ever come to fruition.

According to India's Hindustan Times newspaper, Playboy plans to open eight Playboy clubs in India over a period of three years, and ramp up to 120 clubs, bars and cafes in 10 years.

Good luck with that. 

For several years now, Playboy has been talking about launching the magazine in India--which already has Maxim and the like--without full nudity. And this year Bollywood wannabe Sherlyn Chopra became the first Indian-Indian to pose naked for Hef (see here).  But despite the Indian male's desperation--or perhaps because of it--the brand will face a long haul here, in my humble opinion.

Over the past four years since its beginning in 2008, the intercity Indian Premier League (IPL) has repeatedly drawn fire for importing scantily clad cheerleaders to perform during matches. Finger-wagging editorials have lamented the demise of Indian culture--not to mention cricket. Several teams have been compelled to revamp their cheerleaders as dowdy, traditional Indian dancers, in an odd mix of "culture" and sport that was not well received by the louts in the bleachers. And there have been more than a few tell-all reports from the cheerleaders themselves of the nightmare gauntlet of lechers they're forced to endure for the chance to high-kick for cash.

Indian anti-corruption crusader Arvind Kejriwal -- who has emerged as this country's version of Julian Assange or its Joseph McCarthy, depending on who you ask -- now aims to take on some of the country's biggest industrialists.

Already, Kejriwal has sent serious shock waves through the establishment by leveling accusations against political figures like Robert Vadra (married to Sonia Gandhi's daughter), Salman Khursheed (leader of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh) and Nitin Gadkari (president of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party). But now observers are beginning to question what comes next, and whether India's largely impotent court system can follow these allegations through with legitimate prosecutions.

So the next step is.... Go after the company big wigs.

As usual, the biting wits at FirstPost.in have summed up the meaning of the tit-for-tat corruption allegations against various Congress Party bigwigs and Bharatiya Janata Party President Nitin Gadkari:

"The investigative mills of the government grind slowly – but only when allegations of corruption are levelled against one of its own," writes Venky Vembu. "When the charges relate to a leader of the principal Opposition party, the same leaden-footed investigative agencies begin to show extraraordinary agility and earnestness of purpose."

So true.

When anti-corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal leveled accusations at Robert Vadra--the husband of Sonia Gandhi's daughter--there was no question of a probe being launched by the Central Bureau of Investigation. And some Congress wallah or another had the nerve to argue that there was no need to bother about Vadra's affairs at all, since he's a "private citizen."  When Kejriwal accused Uttar Pradesh Congress Party leader Salman Khurshid of dipping into the funds intended for a charitable trust run by his wife, the politician's outrage was deemed proof enough that the strong smell of fish was purely a coincidence.

Brown University professor Ashutosh Varshney has argued that India's current climate of high growth and rampant graft mirrors America's "Gilded Age," when so-called Robber Barons built untold fortunes through sweetheart deals related to the construction of the transcontinental railroad and other government projects. But there are some salient differences, too, Varshney writes in Friday's Indian Express.