Dialling Emergency: 112 to Be India’s 911

The article says that "in New Delhi, the national capital, there also is a separate helpline dedicated to deal with crimes against women, one to report missing children and another police line that is an exclusive response center for senior citizens".

This reminded me of the extremely large number of emergency numbers in Brazil:

  100 	Secretaria dos Direitos Humanos
  128 	Serviços de Emergência no âmbito do Mercosul
  180 	Delegacias Especializadas de Atendimento à Mulher
  181 	Disque Denúncia
  190 	Polícia Militar
  191 	Polícia Rodoviária Federal
  192 	Serviço Público de Remoção de Doentes (ambulância)
  193 	Corpo de Bombeiros
  194 	Polícia Federal
  197 	Polícia Civil
  198 	Polícia Rodoviária Estadual
  199 	Defesa Civil 

(Note that Brazil also has at least 29 other free call numbers for various public and telephone company services, in addition to the ones listed above.)

This is five different police forces that you can call, plus a separate crime-reporting line, among other things. It's hard for me to imagine that users make very optimal choices among them in emergency situations.

On the other hand, I feel a lack of a standardized way in the U.S. to call the police for non-emergency matters. You're supposed to look up the local police department's non-emergency line in the phone book or on the local government web site.