31–40 of 58 posts
Basically you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India. Not sure if this is something Apple is ready for.
How did you conclude based on this article that you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India?
Not everything, but almost everything that has to do with Government. I had to pay bribe even to get my Passport, driver's license and police clearance certificate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please keep nationalistic grandstanding off HN. We don't want this kind of flamewar here, and HN's many Indian readers have a right (as does anyone else) not to see their country insulted on this site.
EDIT: Looks like the comment in question was about India being better off under the British. Which probably deserves deletion. Leaving my comment for posterity but nothing to worry about here. I'm sorry, but I feel like the comment from OP does have a place in this discussion, given the context of the article. I agree it could have been worded in better ways, but an argument that India's bureaucracy is corrupt is not…
Anyone who thinks "India was better off under British rule" needs to read about the Bengal Famine that killed 3 million people from Bengal [1] -- a direct result of Churchill's basic idea that Indian lives were worth less than others [2]. This is not to mention the numerous previous atrocities, such as the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre [3], in which a garden was blocked off and troops ordered to fire into a massed crowd until their ammunition was exhausted.
I am usually not one to dust off the history books, but in my opinion, people who perpetrate this "Things were great under the British" meme (including pmarca) need at least some amount of education, and perhaps a little more empathy. Indians were absolutely considered as an inferior, secondary class by the British, and the lack of a few Apple stores is a small price to pay for avoiding that.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/soutikbiswas/2010/10...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
EDIT: Looks like the comment in question was about India being better off under the British. Which probably deserves deletion. Leaving my comment for posterity but nothing to worry about here. I'm sorry, but I feel like the comment from OP does have a place in this discussion, given the context of the article. I agree it could have been worded in better ways, but an argument that India's bureaucracy is corrupt is not…
I don't think it was the first statement that led to the flagging, but the second one. Anyone who thinks "India was better off under British rule" needs to read about the Bengal Famine that killed 3 million people from Bengal [1] -- a direct result of Churchill's basic idea that Indian lives were worth less than others [2]. This is not to mention the numerous previous atrocities, such as the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre…
Editing my comment to reflect my mistake. Thanks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you conclude based on this article that you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India?
> you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India? Not everything, but almost everything that has to do with Government. I had to pay bribe even to get my Passport, driver's license and police clearance certificate.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Source/context? There was no such thing as "India" before colonial rule. The idea of India as a cohesive entity is a colonial and post-colonial innovation. Hinduism was never even a cohesive entity before British rule, it was the orientalist scholars that classified it based on many similar belief systems. http://www.e-ir.info/2012/11/26/the-impact-of-european-colon...
I seem to have ticked some people off with that statement, but it's factual. The idea of "India" as a nation just didn't exist. To say that the "income" (whatever that means) of India changed under colonization is incoherent without context. That's not the same as saying that the people in what is now India didn't exist or share many of the same traditions and cultures, but it was not a cohesive unit, let alone a nat…
"The country (varṣam) that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhāratam; there dwell the descendants of Bharata."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I seem to have ticked some people off with that statement, but it's factual. The idea of "India" as a nation just didn't exist. To say that the "income" (whatever that means) of India changed under colonization is incoherent without context. That's not the same as saying that the people in what is now India didn't exist or share many of the same traditions and cultures, but it was not a cohesive unit, let alone a nat…
I don't know why some people are so hell bent on denying India an identity. India as a nation has existed for a loonng time. Vedas are ancient (everybody would agree) and they refer to India (Bharat) as the nation which extends from Himalayas to the sea (just like it is today). What arguments do you have against that? "The country (varṣam) that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhārat…
It's a region with many shared traditions and at some times has had large swaths governed by warlords, kings, conquerors, but the concept of India as a nation just did not exist pre-colonialism. I don't see how that's denying anybody identity.
The article quotes the cheapest smartphones in stores as being ~1000 rupees. That's about ~15 USD at the retail level. How does one go about sourcing that sort of low end phone? If I could order 100 of almost any smartphone at that price I would be very excited.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did you conclude based on this article that you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India?
> you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India? Not everything, but almost everything that has to do with Government. I had to pay bribe even to get my Passport, driver's license and police clearance certificate.
As a foreigner living in India I wish I could throw money at someone to make the process of securing documents like police clearance easier. That's simply not the case though.
I have no doubt that corruption is rampant but your examples don't square with my experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know why some people are so hell bent on denying India an identity. India as a nation has existed for a loonng time. Vedas are ancient (everybody would agree) and they refer to India (Bharat) as the nation which extends from Himalayas to the sea (just like it is today). What arguments do you have against that? "The country (varṣam) that lies north of the ocean and south of the snowy mountains is called Bhārat…
Read the link in my first post above. Your claim would be the same as saying that "Christendom" was a nation during the middle ages and that the EU has always existed as an identity. It's a region with many shared traditions and at some times has had large swaths governed by warlords, kings, conquerors, but the concept of India as a nation just did not exist pre-colonialism. I don't see how that's denying anybody ide…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the link in my first post above. Your claim would be the same as saying that "Christendom" was a nation during the middle ages and that the EU has always existed as an identity. It's a region with many shared traditions and at some times has had large swaths governed by warlords, kings, conquerors, but the concept of India as a nation just did not exist pre-colonialism. I don't see how that's denying anybody ide…
So you are arguing against Vedas based on a student submission for a university degree?
The (well cited and researched) paper I linked above mentions how old the Vedas are. However, they are holy books and mythology, not historical documents. A description of a region in a holy book is not as a identity or cohesiveness as a cultural or political entity.