Revenge of the nerds

Backpackers looking to pick up some extra funds while hostelling in India are in luck if they have some IT knowledge.

Police in Chandigarh in Punjab are looking to recruit a team of IT experts to help in the fight against cyber crime.

Talking to the Times of India, a senior officer in the Punjab force said: "Geeks will be the masters and act as the real super cops in the virtual world."

According to SM Sharma, head of the Punjab Police Computer and Telecommunication department, a dramatic rise in hacking and online crime had made nerds more desirable than ever.

"It will be easier to outsource nerds to do the job as it is probably easier to train technology experts to become investigators, than vice-versa," he said.

Ananova.com reports that the IT geniuses will be used to train policeman who "can't tell a laptop from a PC".

Mr Sharma continued: "The proposal is ready and will be forwarded to the state government shortly. If everything goes fine, we will have a cyber cell fighting virtual crimes in six months' time."