[deleted]
India (2002)
11–20 of 59 posts
Re: India (2002)
#12> You can get just about anything in China or even in parts of Africa, but not here. Any concrete examples? I think this is inappropriate any more.
A cheeky example. The 6 months I spent in India a couple of years ago, I found it impossible to obtain a canister of compressed air to clean my laptop, which had accumulated more dust in the 6 months than the 4 years prior. There are much better examples, but still.
Re: India (2002)
#13How is this relevant now? We are in 2015 not 2001.
Because most of the broader conclusions barring some minor details including brown-outs, dilapidated roads and crumbling railways and insane government officers has not changed.
Re: India (2002)
#14> You can get just about anything in China or even in parts of Africa, but not here. Any concrete examples? I think this is inappropriate any more.
A cheeky example. The 6 months I spent in India a couple of years ago, I found it impossible to obtain a canister of compressed air to clean my laptop, which had accumulated more dust in the 6 months than the 4 years prior. There are much better examples, but still.
Amzn seem to have it:
http://www.amazon.in/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Da...
Re: India (2002)
#15There are 2 amazing things about this article:
1. It was written a while ago, and the general description of the country and its problems are just as true.
2. This quote: "In the eastern section of India, there is a company called Bengal Fertilizer, which was built in the early nineties. The government spent $1.2 billion on it and it took seven years to complete. It now employs 1550 people with complete work schedules, vacations, canteens, unions, etc. And yet they have never produced an ounce of fertilizer."
A good piece of writing - quite critical about the country, but also comes from a place of affection for the country.
Re: India (2002)
#16[deleted]
Read fully, you will get to know.
Re: India (2002)
#17This seems like an outdated story (seems like it's a 2001 article).
(I'm ignoring fundamental problems like corruption etc. below)
As far as the anti-foreign investment sentiment goes, it sounds repulsive on face value, but those of us (Indians) who've lived in the US would want a Walmart (just as an example) destroying all the mom and pop shops? I think a cautious approach for foreign investment is the way to go, the income inequalities in India is already pretty bad, opening the floodgates without adequate measures of certain protectionist policies (not blanket protectionism) would make it worse. We need to realize that India is too big a market for multi-national companies to ignore completely; the Indian govt. should have the upper hand in any deal. And it should strike a deal which is in the interest of the Indian people.
Re: India (2002)
#18If I have to blame one thing and only one thing, I will spare the Indian politician and blame the "babu-giri", Indian Civil Services, which is still modeled around its colonial predecessor. These are people recruited in their 20s and have a lifetime appointment in the system. Some are wise enough to get foreign education when possible, but most live in this bureaucratic bubble, and methodically eke their fiefdoms. Th…
I read a column about that recently: "End the IAS" (the IAS is the successor to the Colonial-era ICS iirc) http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/mihir-s-sha...
Re: India (2002)
#19There are 2 amazing things about this article: 1. It was written a while ago, and the general description of the country and its problems are just as true. 2. This quote: "In the eastern section of India, there is a company called Bengal Fertilizer, which was built in the early nineties. The government spent $1.2 billion on it and it took seven years to complete. It now employs 1550 people with complete work schedule…
> A good piece of writing - quite critical about the country, but also comes from a place of affection for the country.
I'm not sure where you're reading "affection" from. Rogers has been predicting and even actively cheerleading India's financial decline consistently for literally two decades. He even closes the article with a claim that is laughably ignorant[0] of historical facts, and just reeks of colonial apologism.
> India really is not a rational country. The English mushed India together in the panic of independence in 1947, but little heed was given to ethnic, religious, linguistic, historic, national, or geographic considerations which is one reason India has had problems with every one of its neighbors since. India as we know it will not survive another 30 or 40 years. This of course does not have to end in disaster, but it probably will given the chauvinism of its government and the way history has always worked.
The reason that India has been at war is because the world's then-largest superpower[1] (the British) openly declared that they wanted to start a civil war in India, and then actively funded terrorist[2] groups to ensure that it happened.
There are people in the US who have affection for India. Rogers is not one of them.
[0] No, I don't think that Rogers is actually ignorant of history; I'm saying he chooses to ignore history.
[1] India's fight for independence was just around the time that the US took over that epithet from the British
[2] That word didn't exist then, but that's absolutely what we would call them today
Re: India (2002)
#20If I have to blame one thing and only one thing, I will spare the Indian politician and blame the "babu-giri", Indian Civil Services, which is still modeled around its colonial predecessor. These are people recruited in their 20s and have a lifetime appointment in the system. Some are wise enough to get foreign education when possible, but most live in this bureaucratic bubble, and methodically eke their fiefdoms. Th…
I've always maintained that India can't change without a complete overhaul of the bureaucratic system. I've seen this up close. The thing is so damn inefficient that I can't even joke about it.