201–210 of 456 posts
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Is smoking still allowed there indoors (in the airport)?
Not sure, I didn't notice. A lot of airports have a designated smoking room, but I think you're asking about smoking in general.
India's obsession with paperwork is unceasing and baffling. Everything requires an application, even when everything can be done digitally. You need letters and stamps to get anything done. Case in point: the "company stamps" that are required for everything you do with your business. From getting a debit card to changing the maturity instructions for a corporate deposit, you need to sign your name AND stamp it with…
I remember buying a train ticket in Goa. This involved showing the passport and filling out multiple forms. It was pretty crazy.
Here's some interesting things that I believe are universally true in India: 1) People succeed here inspite of the government, not cause of it.* 2) Indians can be successful anywhere except India. *Unless you are rich enough to bend the laws to your needs.
and still it seems a lot of india fetishes socialism/commando economy USSR style. why?
India's obsession with paperwork is unceasing and baffling. Everything requires an application, even when everything can be done digitally. You need letters and stamps to get anything done. Case in point: the "company stamps" that are required for everything you do with your business. From getting a debit card to changing the maturity instructions for a corporate deposit, you need to sign your name AND stamp it with…
Reminds me of a surreal example[1] of Indian bureaucracy from Jim Rogers’ Adventure Capitalist : Rogers and his wife had left India's State of Manipur and were safely across the border in Myanmar. But wait, here comes an Indian official running after them, who says that they can't leave, because, they didn't have permission to be in Manipur. "He was telling us — I am not making this up — that we had to return to Mani…
Overall, kind of logic so, because how can you leave a place you didn't enter in the first place because you had no permit to enter it? Mind blowing!
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I came to the comments to warn exactly this, perhaps more emphatically. Do not set up a legal entity in India. It will become a never-ending void where money and time go to die. The bureaucracy is hilariously inept and bloated, and if you are not willing to pay the bribes or for some entity to navigate the systemic corruption on your behalf, you will end up in OP's situation. Source: hired many Indian developers in r…
Wondering—is it easier to buy an existing entity?
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I would like to second this recommendation. We’ve been using remote.com and hiring internationally suddenly became very possible and we can’t be any more happy. Before this hiring internationally was a pure nightmare to the point that we simply didn’t accept international remote developers. Thanks Remote!
And how has that shell set-up been for your international team members? In my experience, it added just enough of a layer of obscuration to perpetuate a caste system, similar to how full time temps and vendors are currently treated in tech. US FTE employees had full HR support while Indian subcontractors had really poor HR/payroll/benefits resources from Remote. YMMV
They have a much better understanding of my local laws, tax systems etc than the US-based HR and Payroll departments at companies I’ve worked for in the past.
~5 years ago, I hired three Indian developers. They asked me if we could set up an Indian legal entity, so that they could just get regular salaries in India with tax payments, deductions etc taken care of. I agreed and we got it done. One of the worst business-decisions of my life. The amount of red tape, stupid rules, corruption, signatures, stamps, showing up physically in a certain office etc etc... Mindblowing.…
Back when GST was introduced, they asked all exporters of software services to pay the 18% GST and then claim a refund because exports are exempted. This was before they introduced a process to apply for a "NOC" (which must be renewed periodically I think). So, I duly paid GST for the first couple of months. 5 years later, I'm yet to receive the refunds. First, they said that they were authorized to only sanction ref…
India's obsession with paperwork is unceasing and baffling. Everything requires an application, even when everything can be done digitally. You need letters and stamps to get anything done. Case in point: the "company stamps" that are required for everything you do with your business. From getting a debit card to changing the maturity instructions for a corporate deposit, you need to sign your name AND stamp it with…
I was in Tunisia at the airport in Tunis for a departing flight. Having already checked online, I tried going through security with my electronic boarding pass. The security told me I needed my boarding pass. I pointed again to the electronic copy as politely as I could. The security said “this is Tunisia, you need the paper copy.” XD