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Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

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Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#41

Uber is not being banned just because of this rape incident. Uber did not following Indian laws & Delhi transport regulations, and operated illegally under the radar. Before this incident, Delhi Government was not aware about how Uber operated. This incident prompted Indian authorities to investigate the operations of Uber. Uber's stance is that we are not a taxi company, we are an app company; so we do not need to f…

Very true. If the Indian government were to shut down modes of transportation because of drivers engaging in rape, then you'd never see a rickshaw on the streets. http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/woman-gangra... http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-13-year-old-girl-al... I've spoken with one woman since this incident. She stills considers radio cabs (taxi4sure, specifically) safer than rickshaws or…

Plenty of countries don't have guns in every purse without rampant rapists. I think there are different solutions to the problem, like promoting a culture where women are equal.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#43
post #40

If the man was aquitted, why is background check even mentionned? You can't refuse someone because he was accused of something, right? That'd be very discriminatory

You can actually hire (or not hire) anyone you want. Background checks can find all sorts of things, most of which can be used against you. Only a few classes are protected, and 'accused of crime' isn't one of them.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#44
post #5

i'm not sure why it's Uber's fault. in the uk, Uber drivers are all registered taxi drivers, because of regulations. it's not Uber's fault that the indian market is not as strictly regulated, and that one of their drivers did this. Not that i'm saying it's ok, it's not. but uber seems to be catching a lot of flak for things they haven't done. sure they probably could have done more to prevent it, but so could the gov…

Uber hired drivers in India who does not even have a valid Delhi Transport commercial driver license required for all cab drivers in Delhi. Edit: > and the amount of rape happening in india is crazy, the government needs to do something about that, something more than blaming uber. Do you know that more women are raped every year in UK & US than in India? You hear a lot more about rapes in India because Indians are m…

According to some surveys, 20% to 25% girls on American colleges campuses suffer sexual assault.

Given that you believe this, I take it you will do everything you can to prevent your daughters from attending college?

(For similar reasons I'll attempt to keep my sons out of jail.)

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#45
post #5

i'm not sure why it's Uber's fault. in the uk, Uber drivers are all registered taxi drivers, because of regulations. it's not Uber's fault that the indian market is not as strictly regulated, and that one of their drivers did this. Not that i'm saying it's ok, it's not. but uber seems to be catching a lot of flak for things they haven't done. sure they probably could have done more to prevent it, but so could the gov…

It's Uber's fault because they claim to screen their drivers' backgrounds for criminal activity, including sexual assault. This driver raped a woman in a taxi he was driving in 2011, which Uber either didn't know or didn't care about. Pretty reasonable to expect Uber to detect and prevent people like that from driving cars for them, I think.

That changes my opinion. Uber is liable if this is a) true, and b) that information was actually available.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#46
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No sexual offenses From the article: "Uber, which had employed the driver even though he had been arrested on allegations of sexual assault three years ago" THe implication there is that he had not been convicted of any offense - which means no sexual offense was [in the eyes of the law...] committed. I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand yeah, he was arrested for it and convicted or not, that's probably a risk U…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/10/delhi-rape-one-conv... Of 706 reported rape cases, 1 lead to an actual conviction. So you have an under-reported category of crime which is irregularly prosecuted. There's obvious ethical issues with denying jobs to people based on accusation rather than conviction, but in a society with a broken justice system surrounding that, there's ethical dilemmas no matter how you slice…

[deleted]

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#47
post #5

i'm not sure why it's Uber's fault. in the uk, Uber drivers are all registered taxi drivers, because of regulations. it's not Uber's fault that the indian market is not as strictly regulated, and that one of their drivers did this. Not that i'm saying it's ok, it's not. but uber seems to be catching a lot of flak for things they haven't done. sure they probably could have done more to prevent it, but so could the gov…

Uber hired drivers in India who does not even have a valid Delhi Transport commercial driver license required for all cab drivers in Delhi. Edit: > and the amount of rape happening in india is crazy, the government needs to do something about that, something more than blaming uber. Do you know that more women are raped every year in UK & US than in India? You hear a lot more about rapes in India because Indians are m…

> Do you know that more women are raped every year in UK & US than in India?

No, but I do know you don't understand reporting and statistics.

The UK has had massive reforms between the 1980s and now. Police are required, by law, to record every single accusation of rape irrespective of if it results in a prosecution or even an attempted prosecution.

That has resulted in the UK's "rate of rape" going through the roof, because the statistics now record every accusation regardless of if the police feel it is "credible" or not. There is also more willingness for the crown to try and prosecute even if they don't have a strong case (as failure to prosecute was a big political football in the UK, and many victims at least wanted to see accused in the dock).

I don't know know how "repey" the UK, US, and India are relatively to one another. I do know that the way you're using statistics is highly flawed. You assume that less police reporting means less crime, but it might be due to either less reports TO police or less willingness BY police to take the accusation seriously.

Honestly the only thing even close to comparable statistics is a blind victim survey (e.g. grab 10,000+ completely random people spread across all socioeconomic groups, and ask them what crimes they have been victims of in the last 5 years, then extrapolate). However even with victim surveys you have to be very consistent with definitions of crime across across countries (e.g. trying to compare the FBI's Crime Survey to the UK's version of the same, the definition of violent crime is different).

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#48
post #5

i'm not sure why it's Uber's fault. in the uk, Uber drivers are all registered taxi drivers, because of regulations. it's not Uber's fault that the indian market is not as strictly regulated, and that one of their drivers did this. Not that i'm saying it's ok, it's not. but uber seems to be catching a lot of flak for things they haven't done. sure they probably could have done more to prevent it, but so could the gov…

Uber hired drivers in India who does not even have a valid Delhi Transport commercial driver license required for all cab drivers in Delhi. Edit: > and the amount of rape happening in india is crazy, the government needs to do something about that, something more than blaming uber. Do you know that more women are raped every year in UK & US than in India? You hear a lot more about rapes in India because Indians are m…

That ranking is meaningless, since what rape actually constitutes varies wildly depending on the country, not to mention the probability of a victim to report it or of the authorities to take it seriously. I suspect that is the reason why Sweden is third in case rate per capita. I also suspect that the reason why India's might be lower is that cases tend to stay within the secrecy of the family, the village, or the company.

Also "Indians are more outraged towards rape than Americans & British" is a super bold claim I'd love to see proof of.

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#49
I've said it elsewhere too [0], and I say it again... There's no doubt that Uber is on a free ride in India.

If they can bully their way in the US, and not care about law and regulations there, then they have absolutely nothing to worry about in India. The law enforcement is weak, to say the least.

* Uber's customer service is a disgrace. I've tried contacting them 4 times for different issues ranging from bugs in their app to getting incorrectly charged for toll fees. Never got a response, despite countless followups.

* They do NOT really hire the drivers... they are in fact hiring "companies" that employs the drivers. Once I had someone else pick me up. The driver was using someone else's phone and cab that was registered to Uber. He told me the "Uber" driver was on a leave, and that he was deputizing on-behalf of him. And that he didn't really work for Uber, but for the "owner of the car" I could have cancelled the ride, but then Uber would have charged me 150 Rupees ($3) cancellation fee. And I didn't want to do anything with Uber's customer service, and I was kind of certain that I wouldn't get my money back.

* They're a faceless organization and that's unacceptable for something that involves physical contact with real strangers.

* They have their priorities mixed up. Instead of focusing on their "safety claims" (which they pitch as a distinguish-er) they are relentlessly focused on achieving the network affect that'd propel their business.

I'm firmly in the camp that believes that Uber used some of the funding $$$ in bribing the officials here to accelerate their growth (in terms of number of cities they operate in) in this country without any review.

The trajectory with Uber is very similar to how many a telecom providers made a killing during the telecom-boom in India. The government is set to have lost upto INR 300,000,000,000 [1] when a corrupt minister sold air-waves for cheaper prices.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8708545 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G_spectrum_scam

Re: Uber banned from operating in Indian capital after rape accusation

#50
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true. If the Indian government were to shut down modes of transportation because of drivers engaging in rape, then you'd never see a rickshaw on the streets. http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/kolkata/woman-gangra... http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/delhi-13-year-old-girl-al... I've spoken with one woman since this incident. She stills considers radio cabs (taxi4sure, specifically) safer than rickshaws or…

Plenty of countries don't have guns in every purse without rampant rapists. I think there are different solutions to the problem, like promoting a culture where women are equal.

Which do you think will reduce rape right now? A bunch of rapists showing up at hospitals with holes in them, or some sort of education campaign to change the culture?

If things can get better in 10 years that's great. I'd also like the women I care about to be safe tomorrow. A few dead rapists is a small price to pay for that.

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