Jim you really don't get India, do you. The intelligent, educated and high tech India that you talk about and are surprised about has actually existed for ten thousand years now. It has nothing to do with modernity, its just that quest for knowledge is deep rooted in that culture. You mention India where phones don't work and traffic jams are commonplace, in other words, India where its inconvenient to lead a modern life, even thats existed for ten thousand years, even during the harshest days of starvation under British rule Indians were reasonably happy and not many people revolted for 250 years (they had to be prodded to do so for the last 50 years). In a way, they were ok with it and had accepted it as a way of life. What in western countries is a huge inconvenience, in India it feels like something that you will get used to eventually. The feeling of its ok to be inconvenienced and still be happy in life is deep rooted in the culture.If you notice, both these things, quest for knowledge and resilience towards inconvenience is needed in spiritual quests, something which India pioneered to the world. India is in every way consistent with what it should be if you look at it its whole existence and not just take a snapshot of its past 100 years and correlate it with what is happening in the world. And thats precisely the reason why I think India will thrive in the coming decades and centuries. It's quest for knowledge will propel it forward and its resiliency towards not being inconvenienced by petty things would keep the momentum intact.
India (2002)
31–40 of 59 posts
Re: India (2002)
#32> 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.
You know there are other ways to remove dust from a laptop, right ;)
Re: India (2002)
#33The article is honest but the last paragraph makes me question whether it really was.. > 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…
People have been talking about the "Balkanization of India" for a while now. But there are no signs of this yet. Indians have a deep rooted (albeit slightly misguided and maybe even chauvinistic) sense of patriotism.
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Re: India (2002)
#34Can a title be more vague?
I think it may make sense to use this title in the original article as the site might carry some context but using it in HN doesn't seem too efficient.
Re: India (2002)
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a person who's shopped at both walmart and local "mom and pop shops", yes. We also want Uber or Ola destroying the local taxi industry, and providing safer and better service to consumers. We want Flipkart or Amazon destroying local retail, Toyota destroying local automotive, etc. Big scary (sometimes foreign) players only manage to "destroy" a local industry when the local industry is failing to satisfy local cus…
Generally, the locals do not understand the damage done by Walmart, Amazon and such until it is too late. One example, http://storyofstuff.org/blog/dear-jeff-bezos-im-leaving/
I see the gist of this article (which is positive) but some "hunches" of writer are conveniently converted in to facts. Take this for example: "They have to race from one end to the other of warehouses the size of 16 football fields."
Has she ever been inside a warehouse? Or worked at a warehouse? Or have a friend who works there? Sure those warehouses are indeed huge. Not one but multiple football fields long, at least for large retailers. Amabots or selectors or pickers (politically incorrect term but it is often used within warehouses) work in zones or areas. And they work in their zones and areas for months before they are asked to move to a different selection zone. Each zone is the size of roughly two-to-three decent size living rooms. Lets say if item A for an order is located at the southern end of a warehouse and item B is at the northern end then a single selector does not run back and forth to pick those two items. One selector picks item A and then the shipping box (or a pre-shipping plastic box) is routed via electric conveyors to southern end and another selector picks item B. Watch a video on Youtube.
Obviously there are time constraints because that is the nature of the job. A company can ship out items fast only if selectors will pick/select/process them fast enough from the shelf and place them in to the conveying box.
Now most of these people are not "directly" employed by the warehouse retailer (Amazon or Best Buy or Walmart). Third party staffing companies bring them on board. Sure imho that is a dirty business money-saving tactic to keep the liabilities off of you ledger.
Point being. It is very convenient to rant online these days and shove your broken opinions without doing a proper research. And heck I am just a happy consumer who loves her Prime shipping.
Re: India (2002)
#36The article is honest but the last paragraph makes me question whether it really was.. > 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…
People have been talking about the "Balkanization of India" for a while now. But there are no signs of this yet. Indians have a deep rooted (albeit slightly misguided and maybe even chauvinistic) sense of patriotism.
that is probably the best explanation I have read yet. But it is fairly true - I really dont know why. I think religion (in its most abstract: festivities + food) has a lot to do with it. And Bollywood.
But a lot has to do with our freedom movement - the way Gandhi, Nehru and Patel unified the different kingdoms into a single freedom struggle is incredible. And that has never gone away. We actually unified India AFTER the formal independence from the British. Hyderabad's Princely State (to which I notionally belong to... and Satya Nadella ) actually wanted to be independent and was annexed by the Indian Union by force.
And now, there is so much growth and money in India, that it is really hard to make a case for Balkanization - Kashmir is an edge case with a lot of international politics. But even in the far northeast (Mizoram, etc), the struggle is for a separate federal state... only a few splinter groups demand full independence.
Re: India (2002)
#37We (Indians) can look all over for the causes of what ails India, but not at the one place where a majority of the blame lies: ourselves.
We will bemoan the corrupt system; but given a chance to make life a little bit easier, not hesitate to offer a bribe.
We will spew venom at the useless politicians who do nothing but line their pockets; but then turn around and vote for one based on caste/religion.
We will express angst at the garbage that litters our cities; but not hesitate to toss it out the window (or our home's garbage on the street).
Gandhi said, be the change you want to see. I'm not a fan of Gandhi, but in this he was right. We must change our behavior, before we can expect the system to change.
Re: India (2002)
#38Jim you really don't get India, do you. The intelligent, educated and high tech India that you talk about and are surprised about has actually existed for ten thousand years now. It has nothing to do with modernity, its just that quest for knowledge is deep rooted in that culture. You mention India where phones don't work and traffic jams are commonplace, in other words, India where its inconvenient to lead a modern…
I agree.
As a bangladeshi I have watched privatization and IMF destroy my own country.
Its rich that someone who took a vacation in India somehow figured out all its problems and knows all its solutions.
Strong labour laws in India prevented Indian workers from being exploited by foreigners - Unlike in my own country where my people are slaves to american consumer demands via walmart.
India is exactly what you end up when you institute democratic rule over a real nation.
The idea of self-reliance is what allowed Indians to develop their own space mission, nuclear power, submarines and unique cryogenic rockets that even the american cannot get their hands on. And now the british use our rockets.
I went to a rural village in west bengal where they got their first light bulb. What is cool about it is not that its basic electricity but because it was powered using a nuclear plant.
Its embarrassing that in the UK the electricity is generated mostly by coal. Who is the backward nation again ?
Indians are not interested in your fancy iphones. They have no purpose when you think about it. India is completely happy to wait for technology to catch up rather than destroy and pillage their environment and water.
Unlike the americans the indians didn't have the luxury to rape and pillage an entire continent and another one. Resources are scares - water, food, land.
India is now developing thorium and is building power plants in the south. Sounds like they are doing perfectly fine. Slow,steady and sustainable progress.
Re: India (2002)
#39If 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...
That article is highly one sided and too radical. What would you do after abolishing the IAS? What would it be replaced with? Is that going to end all the evil in India? The diversity and complexity in India is so huge that every policy decision needs to be considered from multiple points of view before implementing. India is now in a position were it has to manage the aspiration of both the new middle and upper middle class who aspire for things which developed countries have and also at the same time cater to the needs of more than half its population who are below poverty lines. People who complain usually would not have a good solution or are probably too far away from the ground reality.
Re: India (2002)
#40We (Indians) can look all over for the causes of what ails India, but not at the one place where a majority of the blame lies: ourselves. We will bemoan the corrupt system; but given a chance to make life a little bit easier, not hesitate to offer a bribe. We will spew venom at the useless politicians who do nothing but line their pockets; but then turn around and vote for one based on caste/religion. We will express…
Sounds exactly like what I would say about Brazil. A great country with great people and great potential, but so messed up by it's own culture, attitude and habits.