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Did you read what I wrote? I said people don't want to be in a plane for 12 hours. Even if you draw a straight line as they do in over-the-pole flights from Canada to India, you are still in the air a very long time. You'd have to increase the flight speed dramatically in order to make that trip pleasant. According to this article, they can do San Fran to Mumbai in 16 hours. But who wants to be in the air that long? Even cutting the trip down to 10 hours would be too long for most people without a stopover.

Yep, darn nice place. Not just saying it because I'm from there :)

I know I posted it before, but still makes a good read:

Kerala Enigma
Kerala Model

I remember how quickly things have changed in Kerala over the past few years. It is a good environment for open source to take root. I graduated High School in 1999 (in Oman) and before moving to the US to start college, I spent four months in Kerala - the longest I've ever spent. Back then to get access to the internet, you had to go to Ernakulam, which is about a hour-long car drive from my hometown. When my sister went to India in 2002, there was an Internet Cafe 15 minutes from our house. Broadband too. It only took three years. When I went there in 2004, there were even more internet cafes, and when I went back there again in May there were Internet Cafes all OVER the place - most people are well-versed with the internet and just computers in general. Another thing that you can find in Kerala is computer institutes - all over the place. Billboards advertising training in C/C++/Java/Webdesign etc. etc. Kerala already has a good presence in Open Source (Malayalam Open Source Software, More Malayalam Open Source). A lot of this might be due to the fact that Kerala is the most literate state in India, and also one of the most politically aware. A Malayalee's day starts with a look at the morning newspaper. Also because of the cost-benefits in general, and the fact that Kerala has a penchant for communism, open source will find a good environment to thrive. Monopolies... maybe not so much. Finally, the bulk of the microsoft software is pirated, and with all the validation stuff Microsoft has for their software, it would be easier to make the switch to open source. Then there is also the fact that recently Microsoft conducted a sort of raid in Kerala to look for illegal copies of Microsoft software.

Of course, all this might go down the drain due to the fact that even the most well-intentioned ideas can be disrupted by the notorious hartals (strikes).

I would imagine that your $732/week, particularly after taxes, buys a lot less than the Indian fellow's $800/month.

Maybe, what's the cost of living like in India?

I looked up the cost of a new Honda Accord here and there, here it's about 18,225 USD*, which is about $20,000, there it's about 15,42,000 Rs, which apparently translates to $37,143.

I also looked at housing costs in Ottawa vs Goa. The average cost of a house in Ottawa is $219,713, while the average cost of a house in Goa appears to be around 55,000 pounds, which is around $113,853.

Finally, I looked at food costs. Various fine dining restaurants here would cost about $50 on average for two people, there it's about 1200 Rs, which is about $29.

Overall, it doesn't appear that $800 in India buys more than $2900 in Canada. If anything, it buys quite a bit less, even if that's 10x the minimum wage compared to only ~2.5x.

* honda.ca uses Flash, and nobody in their right mind would ever install Flash.

Being awake during certain surgeries is not common, but by no means is it unheard of.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/awake-brain-surgery/cand idates.html
http://www.mayoclinic.org/awake-brain-surgery/brai n-mapping.html
http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/20041015/hosp inews03.shtml
http://www.nmff.org/clinicaldepts/deptnewsstory.as p?id=137&page=3
http://www.blonnet.com/2005/06/24/stories/20050624 01531700.htm

In the words of Foamy, "Do a damned Google search!"

Good point!

I hadn't considered that aspect.

Doing a little diggingl:
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2002/04/01/sto ries/2002040101511200.htm
in 2001 it was 49 rupee to the dollar.

http://www.blonnet.com/forex/usd.htm
It is now about 44.5 rupees to the dollar.

It looks like the Rupee is appreciating against the dollar long term.

This I should mention includes inflated costs and bribes for bureaucrats.
You cannot compare corruption in the West to India.You have NO idea what corruption is until you see it in a country like India. As soon as you get off the airport, ask the taxi guy what does he do when a cop stops him. Start with him to learn about corruption there.

At least in the US, corrupt officials do not play with peoples' lives. In India, trains, bridges, airports, buildings, electricity, water, military equipment, hospitals, schools, relief to disaster victims, etc.. EVERYTHING is substandard. Lack of money is not the main cause of this... its the mind bogling amount of corruption involved.

If you know the right people, or have money, you can get away with murder, rape, genocide... ANYTHING you want.

It is already there!

The way he pays for everything else ... by cutting taxes, of course!

Rs 12000

Rs 12000

this is an game from india Yoddha (warrior). It sucks.
A quake rip off, it is also littered with the pepsi logo all over..

> Both CDMA and GSM/GPRS cost about the same to roll out.

Yes, right. But, it will cost *existing* GSM operators a lot to roll out GPRS on their existing networks. And when they go to 3G, it'll cost a lot again. CDMA is a bit more reasonable: you can roll out higher-speed services incrementally.

Ask yourself this: if GPRS is so easy to roll out, why has not one GSM provider in India provided GPRS so far? They've been talking about it since August 2001, it is in danger of turning into vaporware!

So the only way to build a high-speed GSM network is to build a 3G network from scratch. See my other reply in this thread -- people have tried this (notably DoCoMo in Japan) and have had egg on their faces.