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long search cost?
• The U.S. bill alone has run into the millions of dollars, and some countries such as China have devoted more ships and planes to the effort than the Americans have. Australia is spending more than half a million dollars a day on just one of the ships it has in the Indian Ocean.
• But governments and military experts say it's difficult to come up with a full estimate for an ongoing search, especially since many of the costs are a normal part of maintaining effective search-and-rescue capabilities.
• "If I listed how many planes and boats are involved, I could confect a very large number, but it wouldn't have much meaning, because we've got to pay for the boats and the planes and the pilots and the sailors anyway, and they're out there doing some stuff which is good training and reflects well on us internationally," said Mark Thomson, senior analyst of defense economics at the government-funded Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
• More than two dozen countries have played some role in the long search, which Malaysia is overseeing. In the days since the search has shifted to remote areas of the Indian Ocean, several countries have deployed planes and ships for the effort, including China, Australia, Malaysia, the U.S., Britain, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. On Monday, nine military planes, three civil aircraft and 14 ships were combing a 234,000-square-kilometer (90,000-square-mile) search area, according to Australian officials coordinating the search.
• ___

• GAUHATI, India (AP) -- India started the world's largest election Monday, with voters in the remote northeast making their way past lush rice paddies and over rickety bamboo bridges to reach the polls. Most parties were campaigning on promises of economic growth.
• The country's 814 million electorate will vote in stages over the next five weeks -- a staggered approach made necessary by India's vast size -- to choose representatives to its 543-seat lower house of parliament.
• The main Hindu nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata Party led by prime ministerial hopeful Narendra Modi is seen as the biggest threat to the now-governing Congress Party and its allies.
• Results from all 935,000 polling stations are expected on May 16.

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