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The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

economist.com

41–50 of 58 posts

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#42
post #27
post #19

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.

Indian here and I'm sure that I, nor anyone else, has any such right that you speak of.

Fellow Indian here, I must agree with you. But I can understand dang's point of view. He is trying to be polite.

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#43
post #36
post #35

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…

You seem to have changed the whole comment since I replied.

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#44
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that bribery? Sounds like negotiation tactics.

his use of flat owner is confusing, but in this context it does refer to the flat owner directly - it refers to the owner of the flat property, which would be analogous to a one-man co-op board in the USA.

Thanks, that makes sense now.

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#45

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.

Getting a passport/driver's license is different from companies (Apple) asking to operate in a certain way. They deal with the highest levels in the government (Prime Minister, Finance Minister) and it is absurd to suggest that the government would ask Apple to bribe them. India has a set of rules on how foreign companies should operate and while it might be unpopular, it is still a rule.

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#46
post #40
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are arguing against Vedas based on a student submission for a university degree?

Where am I arguing against "the Vedas" and what does that even mean? 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.

King Bharata is as much mythology as king Arthur. The "well researched" paper is a student submission. Have you read any other research that argues for the opposite? I am on mobile, will search and link a few later.

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#47
post #36
post #35

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…

That's a very very misinformed opinion. This seems to be a popular theme that British made India. Somehow Britishers conquering large swaths of India gave it an identity but not for the earlier rulers. You should read the Arabic and Chinese accounts of India if the Indian accounts are only "holy books" and thus not to be trusted. The Arabs (they called it Hindustan) and the Chinese both recognise the Indian nation.

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#48
post #27
post #19

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.

Indian here and I'm sure that I, nor anyone else, has any such right that you speak of.

Well, we don't need a doctrine of rights to know that such comments are profoundly destructive of civil discourse on HN, which is the reason they don't belong here.

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#49
post #46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where am I arguing against "the Vedas" and what does that even mean? 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.

King Bharata is as much mythology as king Arthur. The "well researched" paper is a student submission. Have you read any other research that argues for the opposite? I am on mobile, will search and link a few later.

There's a pretty long list of citations at the bottom of that paper and the sample of them that I could be bothered to check for an internet article were legit. If you have any arguments against the thesis of that paper other than ad hominem I'd love to hear them.

I'm hardly a scholar of Indian history, I just did a bunch of reading during the two months I recently spent traveling the country from south to north. That was one of the articles that popped up when I was trying to find any decent information on the caste system and it's very well written and argued (and, like I said, the citations check out).

It seems to me though that the area was wildly diverse and hardly a unified entity before the Brits came along. I mean, what about Pakistan? That's not part of India. But that's only as of 75 or so years ago? Is that counted in these "national income" totals that the original parent poster was talking about? That was my original quibble with what the hell the guy meant by his statement and the historical existence of India as a nation. (A nation being a modern concept anyway, which was also at the heart of my quibble.)

Anyway, as to the analogy with Arthurian mythology, that's a good one. The area that King Arthur purportedly ruled was Britain, Ireland, Norway, and Gaul. Is that all Britain or . . . ? See the problem with that line of reasoning?

Re: The trials and tribulations of doing business in India

#50
post #49
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

King Bharata is as much mythology as king Arthur. The "well researched" paper is a student submission. Have you read any other research that argues for the opposite? I am on mobile, will search and link a few later.

There's a pretty long list of citations at the bottom of that paper and the sample of them that I could be bothered to check for an internet article were legit. If you have any arguments against the thesis of that paper other than ad hominem I'd love to hear them. I'm hardly a scholar of Indian history, I just did a bunch of reading during the two months I recently spent traveling the country from south to north. Tha…

Alright, I took the bait. I read through the paper and it seems it heavily depends on Vedas for some of it's arguments. So your point about not considering Vedas as credible evidence doesn't stand. The paper doesn't comment anything (at least conclusively) about the Indian nation. The paper is about caste system.

Some of your queries might be answered here http://sankrant.org/2003/10/why-india-is-a-nation/

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