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The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

theguardian.com

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Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#61

Post by littletimmy »

tequila_shot wrote: post #9
placeybordeaux wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel like it is getting better or worse?

This is my belief. It was worse when Congress was in power. Now that Modi is in power, I'm hopeful India's state would improve. But this goes without saying, I don't really know. No one really knows. Modi has committed a lot of atrocities during his term as a CM for Gujarath. The only feeling that sticks with me is, fear/uncertainty of future. Still not sure why I'm being down voted. I did provide some reasoning as t…

As someone who doesn't know a lot about Indian politics, could you please tell me why there seems to be a large liberal crowd in India that's very anti-Modi? I heard recently Arundhati Roy returned her government honors, for example.

Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#64

Post by Rainymood »

rdtsc wrote: post #14

It is hard for those in Western countries to imagine what it is like to live in a corrupt state like that. Eastern Europe is like that as well. Corruption is a way of life. It starts from bribing the doctor who will deliver the baby, to bribing kindergarten teachers, to high school teachers, paying to cheat on a state exam, buying a driver's license etc, until bribing the cemetery to take make an extra spot for the d…

This is one of the reasons top politicians are paid so well. We can complain about their salary all day long but they make important decisions and a higher salary directly impacts the effectiveness of a bribe.

Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#65

Post by Angostura »

lmartel wrote: post #44
CaptainZapp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to downvote you, since I think this statemment is, well, moronic. Instead I kindly ask you to elaborate on just one situation, where exceeding the speed limit avoids danger. Edited to add : To be clear: Speeding up upon overtaking doesn't count. If you need to do that you should not have overtaken in the first place, since it was obviously dangerous.

If the posted speed limit is 55 and everyone but you is going 80, then exceeding the speed limit avoids danger. There's your situation. [Of course, you'd never get a ticket in this situation, and I think there are even legal provisions regarding respecting the "flow of traffic" in some US states.]

Just to be clear, don't try this in the UK. If everyone is going at 80, everyone will get a ticket, thanks to automated speed cameras.

Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#66

Post by rahimnathwani »

Rainymood wrote: post #64
rdtsc wrote: post #14

It is hard for those in Western countries to imagine what it is like to live in a corrupt state like that. Eastern Europe is like that as well. Corruption is a way of life. It starts from bribing the doctor who will deliver the baby, to bribing kindergarten teachers, to high school teachers, paying to cheat on a state exam, buying a driver's license etc, until bribing the cemetery to take make an extra spot for the d…

This is one of the reasons top politicians are paid so well. We can complain about their salary all day long but they make important decisions and a higher salary directly impacts the effectiveness of a bribe.

"This is one of the reasons top politicians are paid so well."

Really? That would be a fine reason, but it may have more to do with the amount of power and influence they wield, even over those who determine their salaries.

Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#67

Post by NicoJuicy »

Rainymood wrote: post #64
rdtsc wrote: post #14

It is hard for those in Western countries to imagine what it is like to live in a corrupt state like that. Eastern Europe is like that as well. Corruption is a way of life. It starts from bribing the doctor who will deliver the baby, to bribing kindergarten teachers, to high school teachers, paying to cheat on a state exam, buying a driver's license etc, until bribing the cemetery to take make an extra spot for the d…

This is one of the reasons top politicians are paid so well. We can complain about their salary all day long but they make important decisions and a higher salary directly impacts the effectiveness of a bribe.

This is exactly what i always thought. Many people always think that lower wages for politicians will solve anything ( because they are mostly jealous)

I don't think it does

Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#68

Post by JimmyM »

1ris wrote: post #60
stefantalpalaru wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are traffic scenarios where it's too dangerous to stick with the legal speed limits.

This does not deserve to be downvoted. Driving too slow is as dangerous as driving to fast, or more dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_curve

I think it has likely been downvoted by people from countries that do not speed.

I have only ever seen Americans and Canadians talking about the necessity to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic (and they have a higher rate of fatal RTAs per 100,000 than most Western European countries – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... – Canada is close to Italy, a country that is well known in Western Europe for terrifying traffic, while America is closer to South American countries)

While driving too slow is as dangerous as driving too fast, it's not as dangerous as the Solomon curve suggests, according to the article you linked:

> Reporting on these results in 1971, academics West and Dunn confirmed the findings of Solomon and Cirillo,[11] but found that crashes involving turning vehicles accounted for 44 percent of all crashes observed in the study and that excluding these crashes from the analysis greatly attenuated the factors that created the U-shape of the Solomon curve.

The topic of this conversation also seems to oddly mirror the course of the story from the original article. Minor acts of breaking a just law, justified on an individual basis, lead to a society in which regularly breaking that law is accepted – and indeed enforced – by the state.

That is probably why people are downvoting your parent comment.

For the record I don't have the ability or the desire to have the ability to downvote.

Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#69

Post by marcosdumay »

Rainymood wrote: post #64
rdtsc wrote: post #14

It is hard for those in Western countries to imagine what it is like to live in a corrupt state like that. Eastern Europe is like that as well. Corruption is a way of life. It starts from bribing the doctor who will deliver the baby, to bribing kindergarten teachers, to high school teachers, paying to cheat on a state exam, buying a driver's license etc, until bribing the cemetery to take make an extra spot for the d…

This is one of the reasons top politicians are paid so well. We can complain about their salary all day long but they make important decisions and a higher salary directly impacts the effectiveness of a bribe.

Do not think politicians salaries impact corruption in any big way. As an simple exercise, compare what they spend on campaigns to the entire salary they'll receive on their term.

There are many factors, but the big ones are population acceptance and the risk of getting caught.

Re: The mystery of India’s deadly exam scam

#70

Post by marcosdumay »

touchofevil wrote: post #28

I've come to the conclusion over the last several years and specifically after spending a bit of time in India, that corruption is the #1 challenge facing humanity. In the past I believed that poverty was largely due to a lack of resources (food, housing, etc) but I've come to believe that corruption is actually the source of this "lack of resources" -- the resources are most likely not lacking at all, they are proba…

> And parts of the developed world, like the US, are just as corrupt (or more corrupt) than India, only in different and potentially even more damaging ways, like having an election system captured by corporations.

I'll just have to disagree. The one thing every single Brazilian comments after traveling to the US or Western Europe is how honest and rule-based everything is.

You do have a corruption problem in the US, and it seems to be growing. Just don't think it's as big as in the developing countries.

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