"Looming" condom shortages?

[edschweppe]

Now, I've heard of some weird uses for condoms before. Up to now, the weirdest one I knew of was as a "radiological isolator" for keeping high-precision pressure gauges from being contaminated with radioactive primary loop coolant, back when I was still splitting atoms for Uncle Sam's Navy. But this is just too weird:

The Indian city of Varanasi is getting through around 600,000 condoms a day, but this is no population control exercise.
The weavers of the holy city, home to the world-famous Banarasi saris, have made the contraceptives a vital part of garment production.
The weaver rubs the condom on the loom's shuttle, which is softened by the lubricant thus making the process of weaving faster.

(Courtesy of the BBC; full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3934275.stm)

Somehow, I don't think that this is what the AIDS awareness folks mean by "better safe then sari".