William Dalrymple’s notebook: How I lured Jhumpa Lahiri and Jonathan Franzen to Jaipur

The death of British lawyer Simone White, 28, and five other tourists as a result of a suspected mass poisoning in Laos has rightly cast a spotlight on the serious methanol problem with which poorer parts of Southeast Asia are grappling. But that shouldn’t be allowed to obscure what was almost certainly another critical factor