The Myth of the New India

theodp writes "An NYT op-ed on The Myth of the New India reports that only 1.3M Indians are participating in the so-called new economy of BPO, leaving 400M have-nots without a piece of the pie. Despite recent gains, nearly 380M Indians still live on less $1 a day, setting the stage for rural and urban conflict." From the article: "No labor-intensive manufacturing boom of the kind that powered the economic growth of almost every developed and developing country in the world has yet occurred in India. Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports. This means that as 70 million more people enter the work force in the next five years, most of them without the skills required for the new economy, unemployment and inequality could provoke even more social instability than they have already."

Comments

Does it look like Texas

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it look like New Texas in the Middle east?

Re:Does it look like Texas

[fatman22]

Maybe not New Texas but it sure looks a lot like Iran under the Shah. Small pockets of good economic growth while the rest of the country lived in abject poverty. It brought on a revolution which put the Islamic theocracy back into power.

Re:Does it look like Texas

[Jerry Smith]

Small pockets of good economic growth while the rest of the country lived in abject poverty.

Especially the people that are of little use to the rulers are subject to poverty. Time for a proper democracy combined with literacy.

Re:Does it look like Texas

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a terrible analogy. There are so many differnces between India today and the Iran of the Shah. Firstly, there's no massive Islamist movement. There was a hugely successful Hindu nationalist movement but again, most of the truly extreme "hopes" that might have led to a "theocracy" have been rightly tempered by moderates. Secondly, India is a pretty vibrant democracy, which many Indians bemoan as "too successful" with a huge number of political parties, and high voter turnout - leading more often than not to a coalition government. Finally, India has such a myriad of different cultures, peoples, languages and religions that such pan-Indian movements are not often successful. Cricket is probably the biggest unifier the country has got. :) Anyway, I just had to say something as the parent is an idiot.

Re:Does it look like Texas

[bheekling]

easier said than done. It is said that every country gets the govt that it deserves and looks like we got what we deserved.

Re:Does it look like Texas

[Fjornir]

The Indian government is doing a lot to combat the "small pockets" thing... And as a society they're doing more. Some of it has good impacts and some not so good. Examples of the government's involvement: companies in India need to fill a quota of unskilled workers getting on-the-job training. Parents of schoolchildren are fined in their kids speak anything but English at school.

The social aspects are interesting as well. Unemployment is seen as something that needs to be combatted against, and everyone is supposed to pitch in. "Everyone" in India has maid service, for instance. In that vein all buildings have doormen, everyone has a gardner in every week, ...

The downside of this pressure to combat unemployment is that firing someone in India is nearly impossible, even if they need to be fired. Also, look up "chalta hai"

Re:Does it look like Texas

[VENONA]

"Time for a proper democracy combined with literacy."

Hell, we could use that here in the US.

Scaremongering

[Umbral Blot]

Seems like scaremongering to me. It is true that a large poor population will probably result in increased social problems, such a crime. However this doesn't mean necessarily that there will be a revolt. Generally the poor are too busy trying to just get by to take up arms. Secondly the cost of living in India is much lower than in America, so while the Indians are poorer than Americans, imagining someone here living on $1 a day doesn't tell you how an Indian living on $1 a day is doing.

Re:Scaremongering

[Mydron]

Generally the poor are too busy trying to just get by to take up arms.

In the entire history of violent revolt, who, pray tell, do you think did the revolting? The wealthy elite? It has always been the poor. Usually rallied by educated youth.

Re:Scaremongering

[nebaz]

What about the American revolution?

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a transfer of power from white males to other white males. And for white males, they were poor.

Re:Scaremongering

[bheekling]

I don't know the exact numbers but I think an indication can be given by the fact that making a local call in India from a mobile costs Re 1 and 1$ = Rs 40.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I see.

So it wasn't really a revolution.

Not worth studying.

I get yah.

Re:Scaremongering

[Vicissidude]

...while the Indians are poorer than Americans, imagining someone here living on $1 a day doesn't tell you how an Indian living on $1 a day is doing.

That's why if you continue reading, they spell out exactly how someone living on $1 a day in India lives:

Malnutrition affects half of all children in India, and there is little sign that they are being helped by the country's market reforms, which have focused on creating private wealth rather than expanding access to health care and education. Despite the country's growing economy, 2.5 million Indian children die annually, accounting for one out of every five child deaths worldwide; and facilities for primary education have collapsed in large parts of the country (the official literacy rate of 61 percent includes many who can barely write their names). In the countryside, where 70 percent of India's population lives, the government has reported that about 100,000 farmers committed suicide between 1993 and 2003.

Feeding on the resentment of those left behind by the urban-oriented economic growth, communist insurgencies (unrelated to India's parliamentary communist parties) have erupted in some of the most populous and poorest parts of north and central India. The Indian government no longer effectively controls many of the districts where communists battle landlords and police, imposing a harsh form of justice on a largely hapless rural population.

The potential for conflict -- among castes as well as classes -- also grows in urban areas, where India's cruel social and economic disparities are as evident as its new prosperity. The main reason for this is that India's economic growth has been largely jobless. Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy.

So, the children of the Indian poor die in large numbers. And if they live, they're not likely to do any better than their parents due to the creation of private wealth over public works. This has created an environment perfect for communist insurgencies, which India is particularly vulnerable to considering it borders China. China has a history of infiltrating and influencing it's neighbors. We know they did so both in North Korea and North Vietnam.

Sounds like more than just "scaremongering" to me.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about costs of living in India, but in Thailand (where I lived for a while), a decent meal from a food stall can cost as low as $0.50 -- in the U.S. a similar meal would be $7. Rent in a major city such as Bangkok starts at $80, while a comparable small place in a major U.S. city is probably $800 (note that people usually live together in 3rd world, so having a 2 roommates, rent may well be $30/month -- even less upcountry). I'd venture to say that things may well be factor of 10 or so cheaper for the locals (as a foreigner/newbie, the basics were usually factor of 4 cheaper for me). That said, I'd still not want to even imagine living in the U.S. on $10 / day.

Re:Scaremongering

[Ohreally_factor]

$1 will get you a hamburger in India, if you select from the value menu.

Re:Scaremongering

[stony3k]

Indians have been discussing these same issues since independance. Unfortunately, that's all we seem to do - discuss. We Indians are also very good at pulling down anyone who's even remotely successful. Hence we continue to languish far behind on most health indicators, inspite of having produced numerous very fine physicians. And the govenment has only helped to make matters worse, by pretty much ignoring the rural sector. However, the best hope for the country is that the rising middle class will eventually force a change.

Re:Scaremongering

[univgeek]

It's not a lot. 40*30 = Rs. 1200 a month in wages. Living in a slum, single-room thatched hut rent Rs. 150p.m. The cheapest rice(non-PDS) is about Rs. 5 a kg. Family of four would need about 20kg = Rs. 100 minimum. Other groceries and provisions are also expensive. Depending on the rent, the family may get its nutrition-needs fulfilled. If the parent drinks, then most of this would go for that, meaning almost certain malnutrition.

Kerosene is heavily subsidised and is the usual cooking fuel.

Life would be possible on a $ a day in India. But with not much to look forward to. Education for the next generation would be possible, but low quality with not much possibility of escape without outside help.

Re:Scaremongering

[Billly Gates]

The french revolution as well.

Of course the poor sponsored the french revolution but the middle class and many merchants grew tired of monopolistic rules governing trade with foreign nations and saw what America was becoming. So the middle class took part as well.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine everyone in the US living in Texas on a dollar a day. A dollar a day doesn't buy much more in India than it does here. We're talking subsistence living at best for most of India. Can you see a possible social problem when 1% of the population is making $10 an hour when most are making $1 a day? Would you be upset if you were living in a mudhut on fewer calories a day than the average american eats for lunch with no medical care and no future? It's a ticking timebomb. Aids is spreading fast and availible resources are drying up even faster. With global warming they are facing droughts worst than they have ever seen and starvation is already common. Lets say things are radically cheaper. Imagine yourself trying to live in this country on say $10 a day? Not eat live. That's food clothing and housing not to mention medical care and entertainment. I'm sure food and clothing are cheaper than the US but in most countries it's more expensive. Things are fairly cheap in the US by world standards. Especially gasoline. Trust me no one is living well on $1 a day anywhere in the world. Part of it is definately the government's fault. Indian has nuclear weapons but can't aford to provide for it's people. Like most countries a small number live well while the rest are on their own and struggle just to survive.

Re:Scaremongering

[Harmonious Botch]

"It has always been the poor. Usually rallied by educated youth."

Sorry, but it is not a matter of education or age that makes leaders. It is class and belief that make the difference. In almost all successful revolutions the leaders have been middle class or higher up the social scale, even up to the #2 guy in the country. They are people who have spare time and money.
Once you have those, leading a revolution requires two beliefs: 1) that you have the ability/skills to do the job better than the guy at the top, and 2) that you are likely to lose what you have if you do nothing.

The poor often are the victims of manipulation by both sides, and are usually tricked into doing something that is really not in their own long-term interests.

Educated youth usually just succeed in getting a bunch of people killed.

Re:Scaremongering

[hackwrench]

Also 1.3M + 400M adds up to only 401M. According to Wikipedia, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India ) India has a population of 1,103M, so what's going on here?

Re:Scaremongering

[bakayoko]

"It is true that a large poor population will probably result in increased social problems, such a crime. However this doesn't mean necessarily that there will be a revolt."

Right.

Except where revolts are happening.

In India.

Among the poor.

This is really happening... RTFA.

Re:Scaremongering

[krayfx]

A Dollar fetches a lot of things in India, and i'm surprised that a lot has been assumed and written about without checking the facts. as of today, a dollar equals about Ruppees 45.84 (that was yesterday's rates). a Dollar fetches a lot of stuff, in fact i will give 2 examples - one for the metropolitan poor man with a dollar and the poor man in the rural india.

the poor man in the metro(bombay/ bangalore) at a typical roadside joint, they dish out decent fare:
* BREAKFAST is available for as less as rupees ten
(vada pao or idli/vada = bun + potato filling/ rice pudding+spicey coconut cream & a spicey donut)
plus a cup coffee or tea for rupees four - there are small canteens that offer half a cup of coffee for rupees two, but these are teeny weeny cups (fifteen rupees for a breakfast)
* LUNCH: you have thalis for around rupees 15 to 20.
(full meal with an indian bread - roti, plus lentils, a curry, pickle, rice, a cracker, and a sweetmeat)
* Dinner: repeat the same menu as lunch

this meal is what an average indian has at his home, and this can be pretty comfortable. the variety and quality differs, but for man earning a dollar a day - ths is pretty much a luxury. the same menu as above can be had for 15 rupees lesser at lesser quality, of course - at around ruppees 30! so he has money to commute, and make a phone call if necessary at ruppee 1 for 3 minutes to a landline phone, or i minute to a mobile phone.

Poor man earning a dollar in rural areas:
there are places where the same menu described above can be had for around 25 -30 ruppees. but largely, india different from state to state, eating habits, the geogrpahy is different. but in rural areas - you could easily survive 2 days with ruppees 45.

thereare places in arid zones - north karnataka, rajasthan etc - where you get the indian bread - roti for a ruppee. so if a person consumes 5 rotis plus chillies and onions (the std fare that they have in certain areas). they can easily survive for 3-4 days with rupees 45 at hand

Sadly, there are areas where poor farmers, continue to earn only about ruppees 15 -20 per day making it difficult for them to break free from the landlords they work for. each member of the family lives on thier own, and its literally a hand to mouth existence. they barely make the cut. they might lead normal life though (but oppressed and at the mercy of the landlords).

but surviving with ruppees 45? i bet a college student or an average business man, or a an average indian easily can! of course, he need not step into a McDonalds for a burger which might cost ruppees 45 there.

Re:Scaremongering

[vivtho]

And that's because you went in for a burger. If you choose an Indian meal, and are not very particular, there are plenty of places that provide a full meal with rice, roti (Indian bread) and two vegetables for around $0.25-0.30. To give you an idea about other expenses, a cup of tea will set you back by $0.04, a phone call $0.02 (landline) or $0.03(mobile, incoming calls free), busfare $0.1 (commuter) $1.6 (long-distance - 180km/110 miles).

As a student I used to live on about $1 - $1.5 a day. This took care of all expenses including food, going out for movies etc. (But did not include clothing, and rent, which came to about $60 - 70 a year. College tuition (CompSci) came to $35 a year). Of course, I studied in a small university town and things are more expensive in the big cities. At the same time, it gets much cheaper out in the small towns and villages.

Re:Scaremongering

[Squalish]

No, not really. No more than you can get your bacon mcgriddle in Saudi Arabia.

Re:Scaremongering

[Squalish]

stupid formatting

Re:Scaremongering

[arivanov]

Ahem.

If you look at the people who actually commanded the 1917 October Revolt in Russia all of them are upper middle class or higher (even the Lenin muppet who is erroneously attributed credit for this is still middle class). The people who led the rural 1848-1850 revolts in Western Europe were all not from poor rural background themselves.

So on so fourth going as far back as ancient Rome.

Re:Scaremongering

[Clueless Nick]

The last time India's educated youth took up revolt was in the '70s, when the whole world believed in people power. And it was mostly socialist. Apart from that, the only revolt independent India has seen has been religious, which, in case of Punjab, floundered mostly because there wasn't much merit to the militants' grouse. The other example is known well by everybody, and may not be resolved till another millennium, or till fossil fuels run out. There was a time when the poor were oppressed by the rich, mostly businessmen. That was a good time to revolt, because the enemy was identifiable. Now, however, the oppressors are mostly the people voted to power by the very class. Lower castes have much less to complain about as each year goes by, and the Governments go on introducing and increasing quotas everywhere, which is why students from the highest echelons of society have been holding mass protests recently. Yet, there is not much chance of a popular revolt, as there is no common cause, no tangible reward. And in such a competitive land, where hundreds of thousands appear for the toughest tests in the world (read Civil Services and Chartered Accountancy), nobody can afford to let a day go waste. India's current problems stem largely from votebank politics and greedy politicians (who are naturally supported by business and vested interests all over the world). Change is slow, growth is uneven and casualties are many, but the results are there for anyone to see and believe. -clueless

Re:Scaremongering

[Glonoinha]

What the fuck are you talking about?

Generally, when the phrase 'American Revolution' is bantered about - it is in reference to the Declaration of Independence - when young America became its own country with its own government at a cost in many lives when breaking away from England. It was a completely new approach to how a country was run, designed by a group of men that put the people of the country first and designed to keep the people free.

It has nothing to do with India, Iraq, or anything happeneding today.

The day India writes a new government declaring all people born equal (not this silly caste shit) and every person is allowed or even encouraged to own guns, and all 400M of the ones living on a dollar a day have the opportunity to pull themselves up and make something of themselves - then THAT will be the beginning of the 'Century of India.' 1.4M gooks making $20k a year, blowing it on a Blackberry and some cocaine instead of investing it in the future of the country ... not so much.

Re:Scaremongering

[Clueless Nick]

Was it Baroda? Then we can wax eloquent about the $10 per month food at the hostel mess, and don't tell anybody how unhygienic and tasteless it all was.

-clueless

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

These prices are way off, Vivtho doesn't seem like the normal guy or this was 10 years ago. Its not so simple.

tea at roadside shack 4 rupees=$0.11
tea at restaurants 10-25 rupees=$0.25-0.5
tea at 3-5 start hotels=50-150 rupees=$1-3

For single person
Full Indian meal at shack 25 rupees=$0.5 to 1.0 + doctor bills
Full Indian meal at decent restaurant 50-150 rupees= $1-3 dollars
Full Indian meal at 3-5 star 500-5000 rupees=$10-100

Mobile costs prepaid 2-3 rupees a minute=$0.04-0.06 a minute plus $3-6 dollars fixed costs for the pre paid card depending on value of recharge voucher
postpaid 1-2 rupees a minute= $ 0.04 a minute plus upfront monthly charges of around 200-500 rupees which is $4-10
All local calls, not national.

Average busfare for local commutes is around 10 rupees=$0.24
for intercity for instance Pune to Mumbai(Bombay) which is 180km by AC bus is around 200-250 rupees which is around $4-5

Average rent in small cities where Information technology would be present like Pune is 7000-15000pm depending on location for a I bedroom flat=$150-330 and 8000-20000 for a 2 bedroom flat=$180-400

For cities like Mumbai its equivalent to any other international city

College tution in IIT or other decent engineering colleges is around 120000-200000 rupees Per annum =$2600-4500 MBA at IIM is similar and more. ISB for isstance charges 1.6 million rupees per year which is $35000

Purchasing power parity is a joke, the costs add up, some things may be cheaper intially but other things are not. My monthly cellphone bills are $40, broadband 256kpbs is $30 pm (the cheapest available at the moment here), cable TV is $10 pm

I pay around 9000 rupees per month as rent which is around $200, I pay around 10000 rupees ($250 per month for my car loan for a Suzuki Baleno, a relatively cheap mid size car which I bought for 575000 rupees($13500)

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

There's one going on RIGHT NOW under your nose for social change.

*cough* reservations *cough* AIIMS *cough* 50% and going *cough*

Re:Scaremongering

[Itchy Rich]

It was a completely new approach to how a country was run, designed by a group of men that put the people of the country first and designed to keep the people free.

Exactly, democracy was named after its inventor, Democracy Jones, from Ohio.

The day India writes a new government declaring all people born equal...

Yeah! The current constitution is clearly rubbish and doesn't declare that everyone is equal at all!

...and every person is allowed or even encouraged to own guns...

Yeeha! Lets go fire some guns in the air.

Moron.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

The spot exchange rate for exchanging dollars for rupees does not express the relative values of those currencies in their home countries. It costs nearly 46 rupees to buy 1 American dollar, but it does not cost 46 rupees in India to buy the equivalent of 1 dollar in the U.S. The value ratio, or purchasing power ratio, is really closer to 5 to 1, not 46 to 1.

An explanation from Yossi Yakhin of Rice University:
International Comparison: Adjusting to Purchasing Power Parity
One important role of real exchange rates is that they allow us to compare appropriately the standard of living between different countries. For example, consider the comparison between the GDP per capita in the US to that of India. In 2004 GDP per capita in the US was approximately $40,000 while in India it was $630 (see Table 1).

The figure for India was calculated by converting the rupee value into dollars using the average spot exchange rate. However, is that the right comparison? There is no doubt the US is richer then India, but are Americans really 63 (= 40,000/630) times richer than Indians?

The problem with the calculation we have just made is that it does not take into account differences in purchasing power in the two countries. It has long been recognized that poor countries have lower price levels; therefore, a dollar in India, for example, can go a longer way than in the US. Therefore, if the Indian dollar-income is 63 times lower than the American one, it does not mean that the standard of living in India is 63 times lower than in the US.

In order for the comparison to be meaningful we must adjust the GDP figures to the purchasing power of the dollar in the two countries. We do that by using the real exchange rate. For example, suppose that we find that prices in the US are twice as high as in India; then the Indian nominal GDP per capita figure should be doubled before we make any comparison to the US. In other words, we have to multiply the Indian figure by the (Indian) real exchange rate, which is exactly the price of American basket in terms of Indian basket.

Re:Scaremongering

[Ohreally_factor]

Thanks for getting the joke. Mods are on crack, as usual. =)

Re:Scaremongering

[AnarchoAl]

Actually, industrialisation while you still have large number of peasants is a time when you're very likely to have revolutions or civil wars:

Tons of places, 1848
America, 1861 Russia, 1917
Spain, 1936

This is because you have (1) A rising merchant/business owner class who want more power, and a feudal ruling class opposing them and (2) Peasants who still have the old communal spirit and can see how bad working in the new factories is.

Re:Scaremongering

[shiva mantri]

i wonder, whether earning a $1 is norm.. then...like you are saying...a person may be able to live on a $1. but sometimes.. the entire family have to live a $1.

Re:Scaremongering

[krayfx]

yeah, probably a family could barely eke out a living on it i guess. they could survive. cos those prices are canteen/ restaurant prices. if someone were to cook a meal it would obviously be much cheaper than that. but its sadly true that there are people who earn less than that and somehow make a living!!!

Re:Scaremongering

[burntcompletely]

No offence man It does not happen the same way it is written. Even though the constitution is written so, people are not given the rights they deserve. Can't blame everything on the constitution either, People are to blame too. Education is not given the importance by people. People need to think about the country more than themselves. Only then country will change, until then constitution can do whatever they want, but nothing will change. That's the real problem.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

It's important to understand that we Indians don't survive on BPO alone - we have all kinds of industries here. BPO is being overhyped because it has grown exponentially over the last few years and so have the associated job losses in the western world. Once the western governments start discouraging outsourcing, BPO oppotunities in India will also dry up - and this won't affect most of the 400 million Indians who aren't dependent on it - it's just another industry which happens to be having a good time currently..

Honestly, you can't have 400 million ppl all doing IT-related jobs.. Saying BPO will create social problems is like saying Silicon Valley will cause revolt among the poor of New Orleans. Most Indians are engaged in agriculture, manufacturing and services other than BPO - all these "traditional" sectors are growing, though not as fast as outsourcing, but even the slow growth there is effective in reducing poverty: Even 8% growth in manufacturing helps more people than 50% growth in BPOs.. And the other sectors in India are, indeed, going strong.

Re:Scaremongering

[univgeek]

There is India and there are India's.

On your scale, Rs 17 is a meal at a shack. I've eaten meals for Rs.10 this year at decent places.

Your scale seems to be tilted to the upper-middle class. If you go out to a semi-rural area the costs fall even further. Breakfast (4idlis+tea) at Rs. 6. An entire house for Rs. 1500 a month.

There are people who live on salaries an order of magnitude less than yours. And they're not on the streets. This is not to say that the costs you project are incorrect. Merely to say that they are just on a higher scale than the lowest scale here.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

[grammar nazi]
Adjectives go before nouns. So you say "for four rupees" not "for rupees four" :-)

But I'm guessing that you are Indian, so it's understandable.
[/grammar nazi]

Re:Scaremongering

[pipingguy]

...roti (Indian bread)...

How does naan fit into this? I thought naan bread was the "standard" in India (it's quite delicious, cooked in a tandoor). A "roti" (crusty pastry stuffed with ingredients) is something I usually associate with carribbean cuisine, but this impression is only from experience with restaurants in Montreal.

All this typing has made me hungry and I've got some rogan josh and a garlic naan in the fridge. Yum.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

So a working man can eat and make a phone call each day. That's supposed to be [b]good[/b]? I guess his family doesn't need to eat, he doesn't pay rent, he doesn't save anything ... you argue in one direction but demostrate that living on $1/day in India is in fact desperately poor.

Re:Scaremongering

[ccp]

Exactly, democracy was named after its inventor, Democracy Jones, from Ohio.

And let's not forget his kid brother, Republic.

Cheers,

CC

Re:Scaremongering

[bheer]

The day India writes a new government declaring all people born equal (not this silly caste shit) and every person is allowed or even encouraged to own guns, and all 400M of the ones living on a dollar a day have the opportunity to pull themselves up and make something of themselves - then THAT will be the beginning of the 'Century of India.' 1.4M gooks making $20k a year, blowing it on a Blackberry and some cocaine instead of investing it in the future of the country ... not so much.

I wish Slashdot had a -1, Dumbass mod for posts like this. The 'silly caste shit' has been illegal in India since 1947. Already caste is pretty much irrelevant in urban India and is -- slowly, India's a big place -- losing its tenterhooks in ruralia. Ironically, because of affirmative action-ish laws and strategic voting by minorities, historically 'upper' castes today find it hard to be well represented in government and the legislature. But hey, it's much more fun to rail against the Brahmin man putting down the Shudra brother on the streets of Calcutta.

> and every person is allowed or even encouraged to own guns

Ironically, I am pro-gun rights but what the fuck has that to do with anything? Europe is doing just fine without gun rights. So's much of the world. Also, Indian villagers own plenty of arms. They're just not firearms, they have pretty lethal country knives and know how to use them. And remember India's police (like British police) aren't armed-- only high ranking officers or special teams have arms (usually 50s-vintage rifles).

1.4M gooks making $20k a year, blowing it on a Blackberry and some cocaine instead of investing it in the future of the country ... not so much.

Ah, at last the epithets come out. This must be how the 'ugly American' stories get about. FYI, most of those 1.4M 'gooks' are spending their salaries buying nice homes, cars (including those from GM and Ford), laptops and air conditioners. Sheesh. What a crime-- trying to live a decent middle-class life in a country where the poor are far worse off than American poor.

Re:Scaremongering

[lakin]

Working population of 400M, not total population...

From the CIA factbook:
Age structure:
0-14 years: 30.8% (male 173,478,760/female 163,852,827)
15-64 years: 64.3% (male 363,876,219/female 340,181,764)
65 years and over: 4.9% (male 27,258,020/female 26,704,405) (2006 est.)

and:
Labor force:
496.4 million (2005 est.)

I dont know if this excludes the unemployed, if it doesnt the working population would drop down to about 450million. So, assuming the CIA are right, the figure quoted in the Times is wrong, but not wildly out.

Re:Scaremongering

[addicted4444]

The writer of the article is twisting facts. The 1/5th children dying in the world comment is bandied about by him, but it is quite meaningless, considering that India has 1/5th of the world's population, so it is quite average. Actually, it is even better than that, since India's population is rising faster than other parts of the world (population rise means more children), so less children are dying in India than the rest of the world when you adjust for the number of children born. 1$ in India can take you a very long way. I have a few friends (middle class college students, the kinds who come to the US to get their graduate degrees), surviving through college (including rent etc) for less than 50$ a month. This is in a city, while villages are way cheaper than that. And the numbers the author gives are averages mixing both city and village earnings. There are problems, howver, such as the farmer suicides. However, those are not a result of a fundamental economic or societal problem, but rather the result of a money-lending system, inherited from before independence, that still unfortunately survives. Because of rather draconian money-lenders in some rural parts, a single failed crop can mean ruin for farmers leading to suicides. There are many other problems, like unhygienic conditions etc, however, none are nationwide, and are local, and none are deeply entrenched, but rather, a single willing individual can eradicate them. About the disparities, that is a result of capitalism, in fact capitalism requires such disparities to survive. For example, economists claim that a good capitalist society needs somewhere between 4 - 8 % unemplyoment to flourish. While disparity in India might be a little greater than that, capitalism has been in place there for not long enough for the money to trickle down to the poorer sections. The Lakshmi Mittal case is a classic example. Why hasnt he invested in India all these years? Obviously, because it did not make economic sense to him. But now with more money in the country (although slightly concentrated) he has made an investment, which will basically benefit the poorer classes, since they will be getting the most jobs. The author states good facts, but makes terrible conclusions from them. Rather, makes the conclusions he wants, from them. Nothing hurts India more than Indians such as him, who love hating the country. Criticism is good, but only when based on facts and logical reasoning, not wishful thinking, like the author's reasoning seems.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, how about a littel math? India graduates 2M per year. There are 1 Billion people! What the fuck do you want? Of course a majority still make nothing. They didn't go to university and tehy're not B1Bs. Fuck off.

Re:Scaremongering

[aaron13251]

It is not necessarily that some people are living off only $1 a day, its the disparity between thsoe living on $1 a day and the set of people who live off far more, including the 5th richest person in the world. India lacks a middle class, which traditionally serves as a buffer of contentment between the rich and poor.

Re:Scaremongering

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that communism has been in India since independence. In fact one of the most literate and least impoverished states, Kerla, has a communist elected government. The only scaremongering is regarding the word "communism" itself - a word the US government vilified during the cold war. Communism in India is far different than it is in China, just like China's communism differed significantly enough from the Soviets for there to be a split. It is more the group think of Americans to classify everyone under one banner.

Re:Scaremongering

[krayfx]

far from it. social conditions are vastly different from western societies in india. the western society has a tendency to accumulate material goods. there are people in most vllages whose lives are slow and the sort of amish kind of life. they are perfectly happy without too many needs. a few pair of clothes, a regular house (not anywhere close to western standards) etc. he probably will have work very hard to save enough to build a house with a dollar a day. but typically - these dollar a day earners have multiple members i nthe family who also earn. they manage to sve to build a 2 room house in a colony with common bathrooms. yes the life's miserable by most standards - but i guess yu'd have to read books like "city of joy" to get a grip of the conditions.

the purpose of my argument was solely that a lot can be had in a dollar - it was initially pointed out that - almost nothing could be bought for a doallr. while in fact a lot of people in india in the lower strata earn that much - 1500 to 2000 ruppees a month. they have other members of the family earning. if yu see the slums in bombay - many there have TV/ refridgerator/ washing machine/ food processer etc. in fact the government has alloted many of them with apartments - but they chose to live in the slums - where they grew up or have friends - and have rented those apartments given by the governments.

the truth is far from what might be inferred.

Re:Scaremongering

[Rexdude]

Naans and rotis differ in the way they're prepared, but both are eaten as an accompaniment with a vegetable or meat side dish.

Re:Scaremongering

[sosume]

In the countryside, where 70 percent of India's population lives, the government has reported that about 100,000 farmers committed suicide between 1993 and 2003.

Hmmm, 70% of 1 billion inhabitants, that's 700 million farming people. So in ten years, of these 700 million, 100,000 have committed suicide, netting 10,000 a year. Which is 1/70,000; way, way below the western or japanese averages.

This is what people call biased journalism.

Article misses the point.

[schoolsucks]

Does India have its problems? Yes.

Does India's growth isolate a large portion of it's village dwelling population? Yes

Does it have internal stability issues? Yes.

But is it's growth, and the new wealth a step in the right direction? Absolutely Yes.

Watch Out

[Mantrid42]

I guess we'll just have to outsource some more jobs.

Re:Watch Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Is outsourcing all you can think about when you hear the word India?

Re:Watch Out

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:Watch Out

[univgeek]

http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/04/stories/2006070407 171000.htm

Now you know the H1 program is really screwed-up.

Re:Watch Out

[Anonymous Coward]

It helps to read the article, they specifically allude to the H-2 visa and not the H-1B visa program. Although I do agree there is wide spread abuse of the H1-B program, the comment is misleading and wrong.

Re:Watch Out

[Ex-MislTech]

H-whatever or L-whatever visa, there is an entire alphabet soup of sorry lame excuses
for bringing in cheap labor for big business to drive wage costs down to get imagined
profits to increase so it shows "growth"

It is a shell game, and in the end, we are all gonna get played.

The only real advantage I see out of this human traffic is that ppl from
all over the world will get to know each other a little better.

But then again familiarity breeds contempt.

Much like the situation with the middle east, if we had left them alone
and to themselves they would be happy killing each other til the end of time.

Not that we are a great deal better here with the gang violence and racial
hatred that goes both ways from all ethnic corners.

But more direct to the myth of a new india, this is the same thing that
was going on in the industrial US many decades ago.

A new boom appears, those who can enrich the robber barons are well paid,
and those who are not are left to fend for themselves on farms or in small
town america much as my grandfathers did before world war one during
the dust bowl and the depression.

The game is to get ppl to do the work to enrich the rich, and those of
common threads are left at the curb with the garbage to rot along with inequity.

The best hope for the poor in india is for one of their own to guide them
down a NEW path as the ones they have trod for many decades has all lead to the same place.

It is going to take community, hard work, stifling of corruption, justice for all castes,
endurance, and an iron will. But if the past is any indicator of the future, like
most humans it will de-evolve into selfishness, relgious and racial hatred, and
chaos will reign as king for decades more to come.

Some religious organizations provide hand outs, but as abe lincoln said they need hand ups.

Showing them how to permanently pick them and their fellow man up and
instilling in them the desire to do the same for others should be key.

The toil of billions will elevate those self appointed elite and wealthy to more riches,
because that is the way it has been in the past, and they do not want it any different.

The golden rule should read, The one with the gold makes the rules.

Peace sells, but who is buying...

Ex-MislTech

Re:Watch Out

[univgeek]

You're right, it's the H2 visa specifically referred to as temporary work permit. I was alluding to the general abuse of H1 like visas.

Re:Watch Out

[couchslug]

The truck driver shortage in the US is due to the long time away from home truckers typically spend. They make excellent money, but that's all. Trucking is an ideal job for an immigrant with no family in the US. Americans do not want those jobs, or they would fill them. Poor Americans are typically derelicts, druggies, or drunks who cannot cope with getting a CDL or holding on to it, so they don't get into trucking. Any American who can pass the physical, has a decent driving record, and is willing can train on the job with many trucking companies. Not enough do to meet demand. Don't take my word for it. Have a look in trucking papers and in the want ads. Immigrants have to jump through enough hoops that keeping a CDL should be a breeze by comparison. Let 'em in.

Re:Watch Out

[b0s0z0ku]

Now you know the H1 program is really screwed-up.

How is this different from what was going on 100 years ago when Irish, Italians, and other Europeans were encouraged to immigrate and fill low-wage factory jobs or drive spikes on the railroads?!

True - Indians and Latin Americans look a bit more different than the idealized image of an "American" - but they'll assimilate and be accepted in a few generations just like the earlier waves of immigrants.

-b.

doesn't add up?

[Anonymous Coward]

that only 1.3M Indians are participating in the so-called new economy of BPO, leaving 400M have-nots without a piece of the pie

Yeah, shouldn't that add up to like 1 billion?

Re:doesn't add up?

[megaditto]

Small children not counted as workers, perhaps?

Cultural Problems

[Unlikely_Hero]

The problems go beyong economic to cultural. The problems stem from thousand years old caste systems, people being born into a status and being unable to leave, thereby restricting upward mobility in the most powerful sense. For any nation to really rise to what it can potentially be (The US included) we need to abandon our primitive thought processes (and we all have them, every country on this flying rock)
Note: This isn't racist, or culturist, or any thing else -ist. And if you think it is, I no longer care.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

You are repeating a myth. The "thousand years old caste systems" was not the social divider it is today, before the British colonizers began social engineering and started to equate caste with the British class system for easier British administration.

"...during the 19th century caste was not what the British believed it to be. It did not constitute a rigid description of the occupation and social level of a given group and it did not bear any real resemblance to the class system. However, this will be dealt with later in this essay. At present, the main concern is that the British saw caste as a way to deal with a huge population by breaking it down into discrete chunks with specific characteristics. Moreover, as will be seen later in this paper, it appears that the caste system extant in the late 19th and early 20th century has been altered as a result of British actions so that it increasingly took on the characteristics that were ascribed to by the British."

We're probably doing something similar in Iraq right now, setting Sunni against Shiite when there are actually many families containing members of both.

Re:Cultural Problems

[hopethisnickisnottak]

I can't believe an obvious troll like this got modded up.

Casteism in India has been abolished. What remains is the memory of what once was. What used to be castes are now communities which tend to restrict marriages to between their own members. This isn't different from any other community in the world.
The supposed advantages that the upper caste enjoyed are long gone.
Today, a person from the backward castes gets reservations in the best Indian universities, the IITs etc. At least 22.5 % of the total seats are reserved for candidates from the backward castes. The backward castes do not need to score as much as the upper castes do. They have relaxed criteria. So an upper caste scoring 90% in the entrance exam may not get a chance to study at the best colleges, but a backward caste getting only 60% in the same exam will get through to the best college for the best course. Furthermore, these people get scholarships and fee waivers just because they're from backward castes. These reservations have been in place since the 1950s.

Additionally, it has become nearly impossible for an upper caste person to get a government job, since 50 % of all the jobs are reserved for the lower castes.

Additionally, the private sector (non-government, privately owned industries) has always been a meritocracy. If you apply for a job, you aren't even asked your caste or religion. So a question of casteism does not arise. Nobody knows your caste and nobody cares.

In spite of having these privileges for almost 60 years now, there are people who will shout about how their rights were trampled a thousand years ago and how they need more help to get on their feet. It's been 3 generations since reservations were introduced. And yet there are claims that casteism has prevented the spread of economic well being.

Bullshit!

Re:Cultural Problems

[sanman2]

I strongly disagree -- the problems are due to socialism and the command economy, which destroy economic flexibility and fluidity.
When Stalin starved the Ukrainians, the socialist fanclub quickly laid blame on the Kulaks land-owners for the tragedy, which as we all know was a ridiculous cop-out.
I'd categorically assert that it's physically impossible for some ultra-clever conspiracy by 1.3M Shylocks to keep down 400M people.
The fact is that you can only build Call Centres in India, and the socialist "license Raj" still makes it very difficult to build factories there, in order to generate a blue-collar workforce. It's not like China's dictatorship, which has been able to force through strongly capital-friendly laws to entice rich investors from everywhere to build factories.
If you can't build up a blue-collar base, then uneducated non-english speakers end up disproportionately marginalized from the Call Centre economy.
Indian govts have been gradually trying to punch holes into the socialist curtain by imitating China in establishing Special Economic Zones, with more investor-friendly laws. But social activists loudly protest and hinder these types of moves -- they're pre-emptively protesting industrialization before it can even happen or get off the ground.
If you think that Unions are a pampered and lazy lot in developed countries, then you've never seen how good they have it in India. Organized workers represent a staggeringly huge political force in India, despite the fact that they're a miniscule fraction of the working population as a whole. So the policies that Unions have arm-twisted into place to protect their jobs have left the wider populace out in the cold.
Now that is a terrible tragedy.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Basehart]

If I lived in a caste based society I'd simply lie about my caste......

Usher at fancy Indian restaurant: "What caste are you?"

Me: "Top Caste Number One!"

Usher at fancy Indian restaurant: "This way please sir."

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Well well heres someone telling that the caste system is the reason for all the problems.!! Caste system in India doesent prevent anyone taking admission to a higher institute not in these days or for that matter getting a job. And I am not talking about the reservation thing, nowadays anyone with the right motivation can get a good education.

Re:Cultural Problems

[newt0311]

oh, your info is a bit outdated. The Indian gov. has gotten even stupider sice you last checked. They are thinking of increasing reservations in universities to 50% and tossing reservations into outsourcing.

they figured that they weren't being stupid enough and thus decided to get stupider. I am still waiting for a law that would mandate death penalty for curruption. I hope it gets enacted someday. While it may leave countries like India without a gov. it would be better than what is going on now.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Ohreally_factor]

I think your posts pretty much shows that there is a functioning caste system in India, even if it has been greatly overhauled to help out the "lower" castes.

I mean, look at the language you use. "Backward caste" "Lower caste". I'm not saying that India hasn't made great strides; obviously it has. But just looking at your post gives one a sense of how deeply ingrained it is culturally.

Similar arguments can be made about race in the U.S. Many deny that racism exists, but from an outsider's point of view (as I am an outsider observing India), clearly there are major remnants of institutionalized racism in the US, despite the great strides that have been made.

India is changing in the face of thousands of years of culture. Clearly, the change is not going to happen overnight. As in the US, there are forces of resistance to such change, so those who want the culture to change must continue to work for it. The first step is to look within yourself and be aware of those old attitudes you might hold. (It's easier for me to advise you to do this than it is for me to do it myself. However, I think that to bring about the world we both want to live in, it's necessary for both of us to do this.)

Re:Cultural Problems

[voice_of_all_reason]

Casteism in India has been abolished. What remains is the memory of what once was

That's funny, all my Indian co-workers disagree strongly with you. They beleive it's like a town with one shoemaker. "How dare you think about yourself when the town needs shoes!" Apparently God/nature/shiva has it all figured out to keep civilization running smoothly and if you try and get out of your janitor caste you are a Bad Person.

Re:Cultural Problems

[hopethisnickisnottak]

I mean, look at the language you use. "Backward caste" "Lower caste". I'm not saying that India hasn't made great strides; obviously it has. But just looking at your post gives one a sense of how deeply ingrained it is culturally

That is not something I invented. It is how the government and they themselves refer to themselves. What am I supposed to do? Call them the caste-formerly-known-as-the-lower-caste? Sheesh!
If a white person in America is proud of the achievements of all the white men that came before her and if she knows the difference between the races (but doesn't give a flying fuck about the differences), does that make her racist? I am proud of my caste. I am proud of belonging to the oldest surviving line of philosophers, mystics and poets. Does that make me a casteist?

As in the US, there are forces of resistance to such change

You know, the funny part is, I never gave thought to this whole issue of caste until I came up to the undergrad level. Over there, in spite of having really good marks in the entrance test, I didn't get through to the college I wanted. Why? Because I was born in a higher caste. So half the seats went to people from the lower caste who hadn't got two thirds of the marks I had. That was when this whole caste thing cropped up.

And with all due respect, casteism these days is practiced the other way round. My uncle, his father and grandfather before him, had practiced medicine in a village a hundred kilometres from Pune. Whole generations had been treated by them from birth to death. But now, these same people who got excellent medical care at my uncle's hands are contesting that since he's a brahmin, he should leave the place (without being adequately compensated for whatever medical infrastructure he raised almost single handedly) and should hand over his hospital to a young upstart who belongs to the backward caste. THAT IS CASTEISM today.

Re:Cultural Problems

[hopethisnickisnottak]

Then I suggest you come down here and judge for yourself.

Re:Cultural Problems

[hopethisnickisnottak]

If you can't build up a blue-collar base, then uneducated non-english speakers end up disproportionately marginalized from the Call Centre economy.

A minor error in your excellent post.
There are call centres geared towards domestic consumers. Any company that wishes to tap the huge rural and semi rural market in India needs to have call centres that operate using the local language. Marathi in Maharashtra, Tamil in Tamil Nadu, Malayalam in Kerela etc. So even if a person can't speak english, he may get a job in one of these domestically oriented call centres if his command over his mother tongue is good enough.

Re:Cultural Problems

[hackwrench]

What used to be castes are now communities which tend to restrict marriages to between their own members. This isn't different from any other community in the world.

I don't know if that "restricting marriages" thing is common or not. I don't hear about it much where I live in Indiana in the United States, but then the United States doesn't consist of tight-knit communities.

Re:Cultural Problems

[heinousjay]

I am proud of belonging to the oldest surviving line of philosophers, mystics and poets. Does that make me a casteist?

Yes, because you're evincing pride in achievements you haven't made, by people you had no way of influencing. You've done nothing to deserve the pride you feel. It's this innate and undeserved feeling of superiority that makes you a casteist.

Re:Cultural Problems

[hopethisnickisnottak]

Yes, because you're evincing pride in achievements you haven't made, by people you had no way of influencing. You've done nothing to deserve the pride you feel. It's this innate and undeserved feeling of superiority that makes you a casteist.

No, it is your rock-solid belief in me having done nothing to deserve the pride I feel that makes me believe you have a serious problem with this whole issue and aren't exactly unbiased.
I don't discriminate on the basis of caste. I don't call for the forcible enslavement of anyone. I have plenty of friends who belong to all sorts of castes. I never asked them their caste and I've never had any issues sharing a meal with them. So please take your accusations elsewhere.
I would urge you to come to India and see a typical Brahmin's education - not the modern secular version but the religious and philosophical education that takes place from the age of 8 to 18.

Re:Cultural Problems

[arivanov]

That is a thought which is common not just to your Indian co-workers. I have seen that one in many other forms of co-worker especially the middle-management government sector PHB variety and American Company catbert variety. In a few other places as well.

Re:Cultural Problems

[MaximusTheGreat]

If the reason is cultural, how come before 1800s, i.e. before British took over India, India had been either the richest country in the world, or the second richest from 1CE to 1800s?
Here are the numbers in various centuries from The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective by economic historian Angus Maddison
Country GDP($millions)1CE 1000 1600 1700
World 102536 116790 329417 371369
India 33750 33750 74250 90750
China 26820 26550 96000 82800
M. East 16470 16470 36725 40567
W. Europe 11115 13723 43000 45000

Don't blame ills of a socialist economy on cluture

Re:Cultural Problems

[aanantha]

The problems go beyong economic to cultural. The problems stem from thousand years old caste systems, people being born into a status and being unable to leave, thereby restricting upward mobility in the most powerful sense. For any nation to really rise to what it can potentially be (The US included) we need to abandon our primitive thought processes (and we all have them, every country on this flying rock) Note: This isn't racist, or culturist, or any thing else -ist. And if you think it is, I no longer care.

That's only a small part of the problem. In India, the caste system has pretty much inverted itself because the upper castes are a minority of the population. Now the sad thing is that there is official discrimination against people based on caste, but done completely in the name of affirmative action. In order to gain favor with the masses, politicians have continually increased the "quota" of the "Backward Classes" so much to the point where the many impoverished of the "Forward Classes" have almost lost the ability to go to public college. Rather than try to find solutions to the difficult problems of poverity, politicians have found it easier to blame current suffering on the past subjugation of the lower castes. In reality, the wealth of all Indians was destroyed primarily by colonial oppression, the inability to control population growth, and foolish economic policies.

If you think about, very few 3rd world countries have ever made it out of the 3rd world. Almost all former European colonies still suffer from brutal dictatorships and miserable poverity. Pakistan is entirely Muslim and does not have the problem of caste. But still they are in no better economic state as India. The biggest problem of the caste system is that it distracts India from focusing on the real problems. Religious hatreds are doing that too.

Right now there are a billion people living in a country one third the size of the United States. India had an opportunity to control population growth early on, but totally blew it. Indira and Sanjay Gandhi conducted a forced vasectomy program that ever since has made it harder for the government to promote family planning. In China the solution was simple: forcibly prevent people from having more than 1 child. But India is a democracy where *everyone* votes. Unlike the United States where mostly only the wealthy, educated, or elderly bother voting. People don't like being told how many kids they can have. And the uneducated and poor don't have TV sets to get their propaganda from.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

In spite of having these privileges for almost 60 years now, there are people who will shout about how their rights were trampled a thousand years ago and how they need more help to get on their feet. It's been 3 generations since reservations were introduced. And yet there are claims that casteism has prevented the spread of economic well being.

It's Da MAN!! He be puttin us DOWN!!

At least they're not trying to sue you for back wages.

Re:Cultural Problems

[dunkelfalke]

bah, why everyone comes with that stupid example?
the famine in ukraine was caused partly by a bad year (the whole ussr had a food shortage, not only ukraine) and partly by a stupid administration (russia/ussr never had a really competent government in its whole history). neither socialism nor maliciousness had anything to do with that.

p.s. ever heard of hanlon's razor?

Re:Cultural Problems

[Walkiry]

>Don't blame ills of a socialist economy on cluture

Spain had a whole lot of gold and money during the 16th-17th centuries, yet there was an important segment of the population who were living in extremely hard conditions. GDP in the 1600s? That's almost meaningless, unless you look at WHO had that money. I assure you it wasn't even remotely _evenly_ distributed.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Glonoinha]

If that was the case, India being the richest country in the world - how did punk ass England come in and pwn it so heavily?
As I recall, back in the late 1700's America was a dirt-poor country with no electricity, no running water and no infrastructure - yet they managed to kick England's ass and send them home. You would think that the richest country in the world, a country that has more wealth than all of Western Europe combined, would have been able to simply destroy the English invaders so forcefully that they would have never been able to walk in and take over the place.

Hmmm. Or maybe, just maybe, that claim is complete bullshit.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Kream]

What used to be castes are now communities which tend to restrict marriages to between their own members.

Right. And upper castes... oops, "communities" don't have any problem sharing drinking water drawn from a community well with Dalit or untouchable castes.

The supposed advantages that the upper caste enjoyed are long gone.

Really? What about the fact that according to one winner of the Sean McBride International Peace Prize, "Most upper-caste people enjoy great advantages primarily as a birthright.

Sociologists have argued that a person born in a highly educated upper-caste family will have a totally different universe of knowledge, social contacts and elite acceptability, and wholly different access to information about the availability of courses, colleges and private tuition, career options and professional advice."

Additionally, the private sector (non-government, privately owned industries) has always been a meritocracy. If you apply for a job, you aren't even asked your caste or religion. So a question of casteism does not arise.

Oooh, what a statement! Let's take one sector, the media: One report says "In the first-ever statistical analysis of its kind, a survey of the social profile of more than 300 senior journalists in 37 Hindi and English newspapers and television channels in the capital has found that "Hindu upper caste men" -- who form eight per cent of the country's population -- hold 71 per cent of the top jobs in the national media"

Mmm. And what about representation? Take a look at this.

Bullshit!

I have to agree, brother.

Re:Cultural Problems

[XchristX]

Just about every source you have quoted is strife with self-hating left wing bias. Remember that both Stalin and Mao were rather good with fudging facts-and-figures to present their societies as "pinnacles of greatness". Take that attutude and combine it with the self-hating Hindu and viola, you have the Indian Express (to Hell), The (Worst) Times of India, and the (anti-)Hindu. Even the chap who posted this little anti-India article quoted it from the New-York Times, a fucking liberal shitpile of a newspaper with no real facts, just left wing spin.

  Not to claim that we're not in deep shit over a lot of the caste and piss-poor stuff, we are. The difference is that the source of the problem has been mis-identified. The problem is not casteism, or poverty, or a cultural deficiency. It's SOCIALISM.

  Yes, the self-loathing socialist communist left-wing zeitgeist of garbage that has gripped our society for so long that moments of levity actually hurt these Desi Bolshies. From the communist-sympathizing fools in the UPA government (half-beggar-half bandits that they are), selling our nation out to muslim terrorists who hate us and want to destroy us, as well as their pseudosecularist lovers in the Indian media, academia, and just about every one in the urban middle class (Ooo. Osama bin-Laden is really a nice guy, is he? One of the richest oil-monkeys in the world represents the 'opressed muslim underclass', does he? Stupid commie Indian media-turds).

  And a few bold men like Balasaheb Thackeray and Narendra Modi speak out, call a spade a spade and try to right matters in India and what do Indians do? Call them 'haters','bigots','fascists' and what not.

  With this much negationism in the Indian "intellectual elite" (using the word intellectual loosely) no wonder we have so much poverty in large parts of our country. People should look at Maharashtra and Gujarat. They are the most prosperous states in India, and are run by 'right-wing fascists', while 'enlightened socialism' has reduced West Bengal and Orissa to stinking toilets.

  The only culture in India who have this attitude are, frankly, the Sikhs. Punjab has the most arable land in the country, and the Sikhs managed to keep the muslims out of their land long enough to develop a strong sense of social pride. There are no self-hating Sikhs, and that is why the Golden Temple stays golden. Sikhs are highly industrious, extremely hard-working, generous to a fault, gallant, courteous, all the good stuff. That is why Punjab is also among the more prosperous states in India.

We need to get rid of every pinko liberal socialist in the country and only then will we start to REALLY progress.

  And yes, I am an admirer of American Patriotism. It may be crude and a tad unsophisticated, but it serves it's purpose viz. it creates a positive attitude in America. It is the positive attitudes of the American people (not the liberals, hate the useless liberals) that created the strong work ethic in the US and made it pretty much the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. Anti-Hindu and anti-India liberals like Arundhati Roy and that bitch Deepa Mehta who try so hard to soil our nation should all be sent to Iran or North Korea. Let's see how they fare there.

  Think I'm flamebaiting or trolling (well, maybe a little)? Read Francois Gautier's articles on negationism in India (STFW) or those of Stephen Knapp or Koenraad Elst or Arun Shourie. They'll tell you what's what.

  As long as Indians imprison themselves in the quagmire of negationism and misanthropy, we'll be in deep shit when the Sikhs finally get bored with India and form the Khalistan, and then the muslims can drop by and wipe us off the map (will Hindus put up a fight? Hah!).

Re:Cultural Problems

[XchristX]

Correction to my last post:
"The only culture in India who have the RIGHT attitude are, frankly, the Sikhs". Rest is my take.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be pointed out that the colonies had significant help from France and several other countries that England was currently at war or on not-so-friendly terms.

Re:Cultural Problems

[wchin]

Ah... you should check your history on the American Revolutionary War. The Americans lost engagement after engagement and was on the brink of destruction for most of the war. The French helped a lot - Ambassador Benjamin Franklin was instrumental in getting England's primary rival involved. The Americans also pioneered assymetrical warfare and fought "unfairly" (in the eyes of the British) - helping to make it unpalatable to continue to occupy (note to the American occupiers today, ironically).

Now, the Americans did hang tough... against all odds, against all conventional reason, against a vastly superior military force for a stand on liberty, freedom, and justice. For that, we should be very proud of our forefathers. But make no mistake, Americans did not kick Britain's ass almost the entire time, and certainly not by ourselves.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Kream]

Rebut someone's claim that there's no caste abuse in India and the saffron nutjobs come crawling out of the woodwork. The Indian Express leftwing? Pardon me while I split my gut laughing.

You know what? India's a socialist country. Says so right in the preamble. And no, you can't amend it, cause it's part of India's "basic structure", no not even if the Sangh gets a 2/3 majority in Parliament.

Oh, and the Supreme Court was one body which passed strictures against Bal Thackeray and Modi's Gujarat.

We need to get rid of every pinko liberal socialist in the country and only then will we start to REALLY progress.

Right.

I'm proud to call myself left-leaning. And to call those who you extol bigoted fascists and religious fundamentalists. Take your Semitic Hinduism and stuff it, say I.

Let's see you win another general election, brother sanghi. Why doesn't the RSS come off of it's pedestal and fight general elections, along with it's decrepit facade, the BJP?

Wakeup call. The Left had it's best ever tally in this General Elections. And unless there's more and more equality in this not-so-shining India, my bet is on it bettering it's tally.

See you at the revolution, brother.

Re:Cultural Problems

[XchristX]

>You know what? India's a socialist country. Says so right in the preamble

  And that's why it's a shithole compared to Israel and the USA. Capitalist religious democracies.

>Oh, and the Supreme Court was one body which passed strictures against Bal Thackeray and Modi's Gujarat.

  And Modi's Gujarat is an economic powerhouse. Look up the facts, instead of liberal horsecrap.

>I'm proud to call myself left-leaning.

  Maybe not so proud when the terrorists do to you what they did to Daniel Perl.
>ake your Semitic Hinduism and stuff it, say I.

  No Pinkos == No violence
  No Hindus == No India

>Let's see you win another general election, brother sanghi

  Wait and see, Comrade Bolshie. We have many friends in powerful places. We can play your dirty politics, but with guns. Take away our guns? We'll do it with knives like we did in Godhra to protect our way of life. Muslims find loyal allies in self-hating Indians, it seems...

  Yes, go concern yourself with lining Sonia Gandhi's sari with your hard-earned money (though a pinko never really works for a living, he just whines and complains).

  The RSS is a dominant party in Gujarat, and Gujarat is safe for Hindus, and has more wealth than any other state in India. Shiv Sena is a dominant party in Maharashtra, where you left-leaning beggars from Calcutta swarm for jobs.

  See you in hell. Ooops, I meant JEHENNUM!

Re:Cultural Problems

[Glonoinha]

Yea I know - I can trace my family back to a man that was one of Lafayette's troops, came over with him on the same boat.
Good correlation between today's Iraq (fighting dirty) to America's back in 1776. I'm going to have to mull that one over a bit, as I might see the current US occupation in a bit of a different light - there was that whole dictator thing going on before we got there, liberation of the people and all that ... but still warrants reconsideration.

Re:Cultural Problems

[anupamsr]

When some people say America is the best, does that make them a casteist?

Re:Cultural Problems

[lelitsch]

> If you think about, very few 3rd world countries have ever made it out of the 3rd world.

Singapore, Malaysia, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, South Korea and some others definitely have. A few more like South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand, and some more South American countries have made big strides, but still have high degrees of inequality in their societies.

Re:Cultural Problems

[minus_273]

Taiwan, Japan (after WW2) and a whole boat load of new europe countries after 1990

Re:Cultural Problems

[heinousjay]

No, it makes them a nationalist.

Deflection is only a defense in a physical fight.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he's biased. Of course he has a serious problem with the whole issue. Which is exactly why he's replying to you.

Shit, dude. Duh.

Re:Cultural Problems

[ThousandStars]

If you think about, very few 3rd world countries have ever made it out of the 3rd world.

This is utterly bollocks: Singapore and South Korea are two obvious counter-examples; Israel is another, though whether is was truly "third-world" in 1948 is debateable.

In addition, some countries like Zimbabwe (sp?) appeared to moving toward the first world, only to slide backwards due to political, rather than economic or social, problems.

Re:Cultural Problems

[dfjghsk]

The caste system has been inverted? Where do you get this crap?

National Geographic did an entire feature about the caste system in India. Link to article

Branded as impure from the moment of birth, one in six Indians lives -- and suffers -- at the bottom of the Hindu caste system.

...

Discrimination against India's lowest Hindu castes is technically illegal. But try telling that to the 160 million Untouchables, who face violent reprisals if they forget their place.

...

The sins of Girdharilal Maurya are many, his attackers insisted. He has bad karma. Why else would he, like his ancestors, be born an Untouchable, if not to pay for his past lives? Look, he is a leatherworker, and Hindu law says that working with animal skins makes him unclean, someone to avoid and revile. And his unseemly prosperity is a sin. Who does this Untouchable think he is, buying a small plot of land outside the village? Then he dared speak up, to the police and other authorities, demanding to use the new village well. He got what Untouchables deserve.

One night, while Maurya was away in a nearby city, eight men from the higher Rajput caste came to his farm. They broke his fences, stole his tractor, beat his wife and daughter, and burned down his house. The message was clear: Stay at the bottom where you belong.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is your rock-solid belief in me having done nothing to deserve the pride I feel that makes me believe you have a serious problem with this whole issue and aren't exactly unbiased.

What the hell are you babbling about? It's clear that you could not have influenced your ancestors (because you weren't around, dipshit) and you have no right to take pride in their accomplishments. Those accomplishments are not yours, they are your ancestors. Now, do kindly fuck off and die. That would be favor to the world that you could take pride in.

Re:Cultural Problems

[aanantha]

The caste system has been inverted? Where do you get this crap?

http://www.geocities.com/ifihhome/articles/mj002.h tml/

National Geographic did an entire feature about the caste system in India.

I won't deny that those at the lowest caste levels are cruelly oppressed. But it is not the case that there are unified group of "haves" oppressing a smaller minority of "have nots". You have dozens of caste groups that despise and distrust each other. The closer together in the social ladder two castes are, the more violent is the oppression of the higher. But just like it is socially appealing for the poor to scapegoat the castes below them for competing with them, it's also been politically appealing to scapegoat the small minority on top. Because doing so doesn't take anything away from the more populous castes at the middle to near top of the social ladder. It's especially convenient when the people at the top of the social ladder no longer have political or economic power.

Re:Cultural Problems

[aanantha]

Japan wasn't a 3rd world country. They were 1st world during WW2. And the countries of eastern Europe were generally considered "2nd World", i.e. they were heavily industrialized and modern but still not part of the 1st world community. Taiwan is certainly a true success story of a 3rd world nation making it into the 1st world. But there are an awful lot of former European colonies in African and South America still struggling to make it out.

Re:Cultural Problems

[dfjghsk]

so I'm suppose to believe a geocities site (BTW: the link is 404) rather than National Geographic and other reputable papers?

Re:Cultural Problems

[aanantha]

This is utterly bollocks: Singapore and South Korea are two obvious counter-examples; Israel is another, though whether is was truly "third-world" in 1948 is debateable.

I wouldn't put Israel in the same boat because they had a much different set of problems. Anyway I said "few", not "none"! There are a hell of a lot more countries in Africa and South America that are still struggling.

In addition, some countries like Zimbabwe (sp?) appeared to moving toward the first world, only to slide backwards due to political, rather than economic or social, problems.

Which was exactly my point, the grand parent was arguing that caste the cause of India's suffering. Well, it certainly doesn't help to have a system that turns people against each other. But a lot of it is the same problems affecting other 3rd world nations: overpopulation and lack of education. Even if there was 100% literacy in India, you'll still have the problem of finding jobs for hundreds of millions of people. Many of the people who want to go to college can't because the state can't afford to build and run enough colleges for everyone who wants to go. India might even be considered one of the lucky few because it managed to retain a high quality education system and maintain a democratic government.

Re:Cultural Problems

[aanantha]

so I'm suppose to believe a geocities site (BTW: the link is 404) rather than National Geographic and other reputable papers?

Remove the slash from the end of the URL, not sure how it got in there. The geocities article does not contradict anything said in the National Geographic article. There are often many sides to a story. Reading in the National Geographic article about the atrocities committed, I understand your reactions. You could argue that the exclusion that the Brahmin caste now faces is small payment for the crimes of the caste system. But I think all castes should be held responsible for the crimes of mistreating the castes below them. But that is not the type of thing that voters will agree to. So instead the government extracts reparations from the political minorities at the very top of the social ladder.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, my cockney cousin does the same when he eats out:

"Reservation sir?"

"Oi, I'm bloody well the chuffin' prince of england, i am. Now take me ter my table yer silly cunt."

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people unfortunately don't understand why people take pride in their backgrounds. You'll be accused of being elitist even though it's a natural part of cultural identification. My family were Scottish settlers in Canada (Jacobite exiles) who spent a couple of generations farming and fishing, fought in a bunch of wars (ironically enough for the empire that exiled them), and are now pretty firmly establishment types. It's nothing special, I make no claims to royalty (beyond Somerled) and my family's meanderings are probably similar to a good chunk of the rest of the planet's. I have pride in my last name, tartan, and all that. HOWEVER, if I ever show any of that pride I'm accused of being a romantic (at best) or oppressor by others. Some people don't know much about their history, or they aren't proud about what they do know. Those people are often hostile at any perceived sense of smugness or entitlement. They're not worth arguing with.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

I am proud of my caste. I am proud of belonging to the oldest surviving line of philosophers, mystics and poets.

There. You've just been outed. Pride on the basis of your ancestors' achievements. Even if you claim that this is not casteism, it is definitely dipshitism.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, India is in a lot of trouble if you guys can't find a middle path.

First off, religion is no freakin way to run a country. America is an abberation in the 20th/21st century. Their superpower status could be an accident of history (WW2 and developments of Cold War) but it certainly isn't because of the religious loonies who started gaining power with the aging boomers. Keeping religion and politics separate resulted in the Enlightenment which put a couple of European systems ahead of their competitors and the rest of the planet.

That said, atheistic socialism isn't the answer either. Communism fails hard and the socialist policies of India aren't just divisive, they don't please anybody. Caste is still a problem in India, like racism is a problem in America. Is America racist? Depends who you talk to. The color of your skin does determine a lot in that country but not everything. I've gone to school and worked with a lot of people from the Indian subcontinent who were supposedly of the lowest castes but had rich families. It's a complex issue and both sides often blame colonialism - for elevating lower classes to ensure a loyal civil service or entrenching elites for the same reason.

What India really needs is cohesion, a unifying national identity. That's up to you guys to figure out but you're going to have to meet each other part way. Introspection is not equal to self hating, and liberalism isn't being a sucker (don't fall for the trap of US conservatives equating liberal with socialist - liberal comes from liberty, and a liberal democracy isn't socialist necessarily but one that protects its citizens' liberties). By the same token, conservatism isn't fascism and change can't happen overnight or things fall apart.

Re:Cultural Problems

[apflwr3]

The Indian caste system has been in use for many years. Still today the values of the caste system are held strongly. It has kept a sense of order, and peace among the people. There are five different levels of the system: Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra, and Harijans. Within each of these categories are the actual "castes" or jatis within which people are born, marry, and die. They all have their own place among each other and accept that it is the way to keep society from disintegrating to chaos. This system has worked well for Indian people and still has a major role in modern India.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you mean: sue you for black wages.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people unfortunately don't understand why people take pride in their backgrounds.

Take all the pride you want in YOUR background for the things YOU have accomplished. YOU did not have anything to do with what your ANCESTORS accomplished. Get it, dipshit?

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for the clever reply, is that "dipshit" a stock comeback? Neither I nor the OP even implied that we were responsible for what our ancestors did, just that we were proud of their actions. I'm proud of what my country has done even though most of its accomplishments were before my time. If someone's pride doesn't involve putting you down, what is your problem? I'm sorry if this is a sensitive subject. Seriously, I don't mean that as a "dipshit" sarcastic insult.... I'm sorry if you've got issues with failure/achievement or are estranged from your family or embarrassed by your heritage. You don't have to identify with your ancestors if you don't want. Take your own advice and become proud of your own accomplishments so you won't feel the need to take us down a notch.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Hoi Polloi]

They did what the Spanish did to the Aztecs, they played off internal rivalries. They made seperate deals with competing rulers to fragment them and prevent them from seeing the bigger threat. If any one ruler tried to resist they could either have a competitor fight them as a proxy (with promises of spoils) or the British troops they had there would have enough technical superiority to outgun them (as with the Zulus). Later the British rushed to consolidate their hold with a train network and mapping. Natives put in power were always reminded that they were in charge at the Empire's whim and never had true authority.

It wasn't until the Indians were unified under the leadership of Ghandi (and the draining of the Empire from WWI and II) that they were able to force the British out.

"America was a dirt-poor country with no electricity, no running water and no infrastructure"

England had electricity in the 1700's? That would have been news to them. Most English didn't have running water either (communal wells) and American cities and infrastructure were reasonably developed. I don't know were you came up with "dirt poor".

Re:Cultural Problems

[Hoi Polloi]

"The French helped a lot"

Does this mean that history ignorant Americans can't make lame anti-French jokes any more?

"The Americans also pioneered assymetrical warfare and fought "unfairly" (in the eyes of the British)"

Actually they learned much of this from the natives and their experiences from the French-Indian wars. Outgunned natives have fought this way against occupiers for millennia (i.e Spanish against Napoleon, Celts/Teutons against Rome).

"But make no mistake, Americans did not kick Britain's ass almost the entire time, and certainly not by ourselves."

Well said. Allies are important, something the current administation has forgotten.

Re:Cultural Problems

[XchristX]

In a sense, what you describe is precisely what America and Israel have. Checks and balances of Religious parties (like the Likudniks/Republicans vs Kadima/Democrats). My position is more along the lines of neo-conservatives in the US or the Kadima Party in Israel. India as a democrtic and pluralist state, but a Hindu Rashtra nonetheless, just like Israel is a Jewish State. Have Vedic and Shastric values incorporated into Indian law and government policy, and aggressively combat Islamic and Maoist terrorism.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for the clever reply, is that "dipshit" a stock comeback? Neither I nor the OP even implied that we were responsible for what our ancestors did, just that we were proud of their actions.

Look up the word "pride" and discover for yourself what it means. To be proud of something means by definition that you have taken action that warrants increased self-esteem. You cannot rightly be proud of something that you had no part in, such as what your ancestors did.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't sound like you looked it up yourself. I hope your life never depends on putting forth a convincing argement.

pride (prd)
n.
A sense of one's own proper dignity or value; self-respect.
Pleasure or satisfaction taken in an achievement, possession, or association: parental pride.
Arrogant or disdainful conduct or treatment; haughtiness.

1 A cause or source of pleasure or satisfaction; the best of a group or class: These soldiers were their country's pride.
2 The most successful or thriving condition; prime: the pride of youth.
3 An excessively high opinion of oneself; conceit.
4 Mettle or spirit in horses.
5 A company of lions. See synonyms at "flock".
6 A flamboyant or impressive group: a pride of acrobats.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't sound like you looked it up yourself. I hope your life never depends on putting forth a convincing argement.

pride (prd)
n.
A sense of one's own proper dignity or value; self-respect.
Pleasure or satisfaction taken in an achievement, possession, or association: parental pride.
Arrogant or disdainful conduct or treatment; haughtiness.

None of those definitions support your argument. One cannot take satisfaction in an achievement in which they played no part. As per the definition, a parent can take pride in their child's achievements, because the parent played a part. You played no part in the achievements of your ancestors, and saying you take pride in them is absurd. At best, it could qualify as "arrogant or disdainful conduct" on your part. Do you also feel personal guilt and shame over attrocities committed by your ancestors? Again, you are being absurd.

Re:Cultural Problems

[SteeldrivingJon]

"Yes, because you're evincing pride in achievements you haven't made, by people you had no way of influencing. "

That isn't really what causes problems.

The problems start when you start believing that people with other backgrounds are inherently less capable than people with your ancestry. And when this becomes ingrained into societal rules so that groups that are full of themselves can keep other people down and retain power.

I'm sure India's caste system has cost it many, many geniuses who could have done wonders for its development had they not been baselessly treated as being of low value simply because of their ancestry.

It's really a tragedy. Especially when you consider that some fraction of upper-caste people are losers and idiots showing no benefit at all from all their illustrious ancestry. The economic resources spent keeping them relatively fat and happy (compared to the lower castes who muck out the sewers) would no doubt have been better spent on lower-castes with talent or genius.

Also, I'm inclined to think a DNA study would show that those illustrious ancestors really aren't the ancestors of most high-caste people. And would certainly show that the barriers between caste are an illusion and that the DNA of the castes have been mixing for as long as there *have* been castes.

And if the DNA is mixed, then that "oldest surviving line of philosophers, mystics and poets" is likely to include modern-day Indians from all the castes.

Re:Cultural Problems

[SteeldrivingJon]

The author of the article you link to wrote: "Clearly it is time to sit up and see reality as it is before we complete the task the British began- the atomisation of Indian society and annihilation of Indian civilisation."

So apparently he thinks the Indian society and civilisation *is* the Brahmin caste. Which means the vast majority of Indians contribute *nothing* to Indian society and culture.

Forgive me for thinking it sounds a bit like a white South African in the 1980s arguing against the end of apartheid.

Re:Cultural Problems

[SteeldrivingJon]

"This system has worked well for Indian people and still has a major role in modern India."

Yeah, too bad the Indian Steve Jobs was probably born into a lower caste and is stuck cleaning toilets so the castes can have better self-esteem based on mythology.

Re:Cultural Problems

[yndrd1984]

If a white person in America is proud of the achievements of all the white men ... does that make her racist?

Yes. She's basing part of her self-worth on what race she is a member of, implying that her sense of self-worth would be different if she was a member of another race. That's racist by definition.

I am proud of my caste. I am proud of belonging to the oldest surviving line of philosophers, mystics and poets. Does that make me a casteist?

Yes - you're making a value judgement based on ancestory. When you say that you're proud to be part of your caste you imply that you'd think less of yourself if you had been born into a different caste.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy crap. I don't believe I'm arguing semantics on slashdot, as an AC with an AC. Look dude, you can keep making a philosophical argument that someone can't take pride in the accomplishments of their ancestors, and such an argument might be valid. However, people can and do take pride in the accomplishments of their ancestors. They can also feel guilty for their fathers' sins, although probably less often than the former. The wording in your last post is different but your other ones categorically deny the definition of pride and what people are allowed to feel. I'm sorry, but right or wrong you can't tell people what to believe, or state their beliefs are impossible, or redefine words. Absurd? Your arguments are disjointed, irrational, and you are out of your depth.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

The wording in your last post is different but your other ones categorically deny the definition of pride and what people are allowed to feel. I'm sorry, but right or wrong you can't tell people what to believe, or state their beliefs are impossible, or redefine words.

Nowhere did I tell you what you can or can't believe. I only pointed out the fact that feeling pride in the accomplishments of your ancestors is unwarranted and makes you sound like a dipshit. The definition of the word supports my position, not yours.

Re:Cultural Problems

[cptgrudge]

Uh, I think that if an elected US politician started spewing about forced abortions and vasectomies to control population growth, you'd see lots of people voting the person out of office. Just a hunch.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Pride is a feeling of self respect and personal worth; and/or satisfacton with your or another's achievements.

Dude, quit f*cking arguing defintions with an English major unless you're willing to look at a dictionary.

Whatever you think you "pointed out" as "unwarranted" that makes me "sound like a dipshit", you've clearly changed the whole thrust of your point in your last 2 posts. I have no problem with a philosophical disagreement, which is what you've turned your argument into, but I step up when someone changes the defintion of words or tries to tell me the correct way usage of English vernacular.

Sorry, but I am proud of my family's accomplishments during and before my lifetime. You may think of yourself as an idealist or revolutionary but eventually you'll grow up and get that bug out of your ass. Until then, may I recommend..... college? English, anthropology, rhetoric, there's lots of courses outside the sciences that will help you grow into a man.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

what is the difference between pride for your family and pride for your town's sports teams? maybe its stupid ppl cheer and parade when $team wins $competition but ppl do anyways. if you can be proud of your team why not your family? you can have pride and not be a fascist.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Pride is a feeling of self respect and personal worth; and/or satisfacton with your or another's achievements.

It is not satisfaction with another's achievements unless you played some part in those achievements, such as by influencing that person.

Dude, quit f*cking arguing defintions with an English major unless you're willing to look at a dictionary.

Wow, an English major. What an accomplishment. Now I see why you want so desperately to be proud of your ancestors.

Whatever you think you "pointed out" as "unwarranted" that makes me "sound like a dipshit", you've clearly changed the whole thrust of your point in your last 2 posts.

More nonsense from you. My argument has not changed a whit. Feeling pride in achievements that you had no part in is stupid. I have as much to do with your ancestors' accomplishments as you do. You have no more reason to feel proud of your ancetors than I do or any other stranger who didn't influence them does.

I have no problem with a philosophical disagreement, which is what you've turned your argument into, but I step up when someone changes the defintion of words or tries to tell me the correct way usage of English vernacular.

There's nothing philisophical about the disagreement. Unless you have mastered the art of time travel, you did not in any way influence the accomplishments of your ancestors. They are not your accomplishments.

Sorry, but I am proud of my family's accomplishments during and before my lifetime.

Continue to be a moron all you like. You had no part in your family's accomplishments before your lifetime, and speaking about being proud of them is stupid. Rather than admit that you don't know what the word 'pride' means, you continue with your idiocy.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, you are right. I should have understood that from the very beginning. I apologize for assuming dictionaries would be better sources of definitions than some AC jerk on /. Sarcasm aside, I am truly sorry that you've got some issues (that I won't bother trying to guess at) about the premise of pride in your heritage. Since it bothers you so much, and since you're not well equiped to handle further discussion (sophisticated retorts like "dipshit" and "moron" aside), let me just end this here and congratulate you on being so firm in your convictions. Different strokes, etc.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

My god, you are right. I should have understood that from the very beginning. I apologize for assuming dictionaries would be better sources of definitions than some AC jerk on /.

The dictionaries do not support your position. You blindly assert that they do, despite the definitions demonstrating that you are wrong.

Sarcasm aside, I am truly sorry that you've got some issues (that I won't bother trying to guess at) about the premise of pride in your heritage.

I'm not the one trying to take credit for accomplishments that aren't my own. You are. So, keep patting yourself on the back for things you never accomplished. Maybe when you grow up you can go on to start a misguided war in the name of pride in your heritage to give your great grandchildren something about which to feel proud.

Re:Cultural Problems

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really a tragedy. Especially when you consider that some fraction of upper-caste people are losers and idiots showing no benefit at all from all their illustrious ancestry. The economic resources spent keeping them relatively fat and happy (compared to the lower castes who muck out the sewers) would no doubt have been better spent on lower-castes with talent or genius.

Some fraction of any people anywhere are losers who show no benefit.. However, don't assume that all the street dwellers are of low-caste... Depending on circumstances, plenty of "upper-caste" people are poor and they do not have the benefit of quotas at schools/universities as the "lower-caste" do. The only way out is to get scholarships etc. This is not dissimilar to the way it is for poor non-black/hispanics in the USA.

Re:Cultural Problems

[mink]

"Celts/Teutons against Rome"

I think you mean one small village in Gaul. Good thing the Iraqis don't have any Druid eqivilents ;-)

Re:Cultural Problems

[kesuki]

i seem to recall that other than a turncoat traitor, the americans did pretty well, other than esentially paying their soldiers in promisary notes that wound up bankrupting their original government.

of course the brittish did burn washington dc to the ground.

ahh i can't remember my american history that well :) the point is, you are somewhat delusional to think america was nearly obliterated.

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra?

[Alfred, Lord Tennyso]

I suppose BPO is probably more likely Business Process Outsourcing.

(Thanks, wikipedia. No thanks, editors: the term isn't even used in the linked article.)

First let me say

[rolfwind]

that middle class is very important to any economy. Costco's CEO, who earns 200K a year, gets this. Wal-mart does not.

1.3M may not be much, but it is more than before, and these people spend money and so that money reaches more people than just them.

Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ us.html

USA
Exports:
$927.5 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.)

Imports:
$1.727 trillion f.o.b. (2005 est.)

From:

Re:First let me say

[totalctrl]

also from the same source:

chinese Literacy: total population: 99%
chinese Life expectancy at birth: total population: 72.58 years
chinese male: 70.89 years
chinese female: 74.46 years (2006 est.)

indian Literacy: total population: 59.5%

indian Life expectancy at birth: total population: 64.71 years
indian male: 63.9 years
indian female: 65.57 years (2006 est.)

Re:First let me say

[totalctrl]

correction: chinese Literacy: total population: 90.9% male: 95.1% female: 86.5% (2002)

Re:First let me say

[arivanov]

Correct.

This is normal for a post-industrialised service economy. You import more than you export and your primary growth is in the services industry.

The important words here are "post-industrialiased". US was an agricultural economy all the way up to WW2. It became an industrial power as a result of WW2 and it is now moving towards a services driven economy. Most of Europe is quite similar.

India is trying to become post-industrialiased society before going through the industrialisation stage. That does not work. Every single attempt to jump-start a civilisation across an "age" in human history has finished with a failure. Either a social revolt or a regression back into the old state once the "jump the age" financial drip feed is withdrawn.

This is one thing Chinese got right. They are going for an industrialiased society first. Many other reasons aside, industrialiased society is also much better at equalising the overall living standard across a country. Service oriented society is going in the absolutely opposite direction by creating new living standards drifts and divides. Just compare the living standard differences across England at the height of industrialiasation and now. Now they are actually much higher.

And I agree with many posters. India is heading for social trouble full steam ahead. There will be no USSR to supply "assistance" this time, but things like this happen sooner or later without external assistance. And a social revolt in a nuclear power is not a scenario I would like to think of. Plenty of other depressive things around.

Re:First let me say

[ortholattice]

(Just in case anyone doesn't know, BPO means "Business Process Outsourcing".)

that middle class is very important to any economy. Costco's CEO [reclaimdemocracy.org], who earns 200K a year, gets this. Wal-mart does not.

Are you saying that a CEO who pays himself modestly "gets it", whereas Walmart's CEO, because he is paid $5M a year does not? I don't know how much stock Walmart's CEO has - I don't think it's much compared to the Waltons - but Costco's CEO (Him Sinegal) owns $120 million of stock, so his salary is more or less a token. If he paid himself nothing it would barely make a dent in his life.

I'm not saying he should be paid less or more - that's not my business - but things should be put in perspective. What about Google's CEO, who pays himself $1 a year? (There is something annoyingly arrogant about that, but I won't go there.)

My own guess is that the $200k salary is as much to make a statement than anything else. It sets a kind of imaginary "upper limit" standard for what any employee should be worth. As a result, it is easier to keep salaries in general suppressed, say to 1/5 the CEO's on average. Keeping up this kind of perception probably has a far greater impact on Sinegal's net worth than would increasing his salary to $500K. In fact doing latter might end up making him poorer by raising the bar for everyone else.

I am also reminded of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, where (many years ago) the highest paid employee, including themselves, was paid no more than 5 times the lowest paid employee. And, of course, they paid themselves modestly. This had an incredible public relations benefit, where they were hailed as these great enlightened egalitarian leaders in the press. Never mind that by keeping the average employee's salary suppressed, it made them far richer, since after all they owned the company.

Re:First let me say

[aanantha]

India is trying to become post-industrialiased society before going through the industrialisation stage. That does not work. Every single attempt to jump-start a civilisation across an "age" in human history has finished with a failure. Either a social revolt or a regression back into the old state once the "jump the age" financial drip feed is withdrawn.

Not true. Europe before the 14th century was an age behind the East in technology. But they came to the East and learned quickly and soon surpassed the East. Why? Because Europe was impoverished and desparately needed change. China actually had become "bored" of technological advancement. The power of the merchants was controlled in the East. But in the West the merchants got wealthy and eventually took control away from the monarchies, creating an Industrial revolution.

And as for the 3rd world nations that have failed the jump into industrialization: well, it's not easy. The conditions need to be right for any dramatic change. Change can't be forced from the outside, it has to come from within. India and China have the right education systems to develop the brain trust a country needs to develop. Other 3rd world nations suffer from poor education systems, political instability, and war.

This is one thing Chinese got right. They are going for an industrialiased society first. Many other reasons aside, industrialiased society is also much better at equalising the overall living standard across a country. Service oriented society is going in the absolutely opposite direction by creating new living standards drifts and divides. Just compare the living standard differences across England at the height of industrialiasation and now. Now they are actually much higher.

Nonsense. Industrialization has always had devastating effects on society. The Industrial revolution created extremely wealthy barons and left the industrial workers in squalid living conditions. It wasn't until this century that the 1st world countries began countering this with minimum wage laws. The fact of the matter is, the middle class is the one that leads countries into new "ages". If the middle class is trained for it, then they can make the transition.

The vast majority of Chinese are still left out of the modernization. They live as poor farmers and nobody ever talks about them because they have no voice. The main difference between India and China is that in China these people aren't allowed to stop the industrialization movement. In India, however, those hundreds of millions of hopelessly poor people vote. The fact of the matter is that there's not damn thing anyone can do to fix their suffering. India has twice as many people as it can support. There's simply nothing those poor uneducated people can do. Some will benefit from an increased number of service jobs that the middle class will desire. But it's still not enough to sustain a billion people.

There's already "industrialization" in India. Which means the poor get to work in factories producing clothes, shoes, toasters, whatever. India's had that for a long time. So has every non-communist 3rd world country. What has it done for them? Very little. No social mobility because people are paid so little they can't even afford to buy shoes for their kids to walk to school. It's only when the native people figure out how to make stuff *other* countries want, that they ever get out of the trap. China and India are now able to do that, so there will be sustained growth.

And I agree with many posters. India is heading for social trouble full steam ahead. There will be no USSR to supply "assistance" this time, but things like this happen sooner or later without external assistance. And a social revolt in a nuclear power is not a scenario I would like to think of. Plenty of other depressive things around.

There have always been Communist and Socialist parties ruling in some states. They're inept and ineffective. They won't be able to lead any revolution. Ther

Re:First let me say

[Anonymous Coward]

India is heading for social trouble full steam ahead.

I beg to differ.

India has problems, but not the way you understand. The problems of educating masses and bring the fruits of modern science is a big issue. But mind you, India survived with more than 500 million people, even before science could touch someone's day to day life.

The problem of India is Moment of Inertia. While rest of the world is moving very fast, India was still struggling to get free from age old traditions and beliefs. It is difficult to change masses unless they see any benefit from moving in that direction.

And this is where trouble is. Most of the Indians, who refuse to change, believe that the stresses in society are results of blind faith in western culture. There are Indians who believe in western world and their culture, and there are Indians who believe in good ol' India. It might look to you that India is suffering (and so does some of the idiots from western world), it is far from truth. A common misconception from western world that 'poor people are unhappy and they are supposed to remain unhappy'.

I have lived among people who can not spare 5 rupees easily (5 rupees = 10 US cents). But they are faaaaar faaaar more happier than idiots who think that they are unhappy because they are poor. (The happiness here is different and before some other idiot jumps here to ask questions like 'how do they pay for schools? and how do they manage xxxxx?'. You can understand it only when you remove yous head out of your ass).

Re:First let me say

[Spatula Sam]

I think you're missing the point. The point is that export manufacturing is extremely effective at creating large numbers of jobs for the poor. This is why China's manufacturing-based growth is having a much wider impact on its society than India's service-based growth.

Re:First let me say

[oyenstikker]

Where did those numbers originally come from? If they came from the Chinese government, would you believe them?

Re:First let me say

[oyenstikker]

India's society and culture is evolving with every generation. Talk to a 20 year old, a 40 year old, and a 60 year old Indian. Look at Hyderabad or Bangalore where the young people are moving, compared to Chennai.

I have not been to China, nor talked to many Chinese, so correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, China is going to need a revolution, and its going to be messy.

Re:First let me say

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm. Chinese is pictographic. Functional illiteracy is impossible except to the retarded. Hell, my retarded cousin could read the "1UP" symbol in super mario brothers before he finally caught on to dick and jane.

Re:First let me say

[rolfwind]

I think Germany is pretty comparable to the US standard of living:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ gm.html

Germany:

Exports:
$1.016 trillion f.o.b. (2005 est.)

Imports:
$801 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.)

They have other problems (runaway but unnecessary spending on welfare) and their debt is as high or higher than US. But someone needs to produce. A service based economy is fine, but until robots automate all production, I'm not convinced in the service based economy for the long haul:(

Re:First let me say

[rolfwind]

Costco's CEO is also the founder. I did not mention the Walmart's CEO or leadership but I would compare Costco's CEO (and founder) to the Waltons.

Re:First let me say

[yndrd1984]

I think Germany is pretty comparable to the US standard of living:

From your own link:

GDP - per capita (PPP):
USA - $41,800 (2005 est.)
Germany - $30,400 (2005 est.)

PPP comparisions are rather rough, but that's still quite a gap.

Re:Predictable Responses

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to bone up on your trolling fundamentals, my good man

Difference between India and China

[El Cabri]

I agree with the article that while India and China have been twin rising stars in the tales of ideological globalists like NYT's Thomas Friedman, there is a huge difference between the two : while China will be a superpower by the end of this century, at that time India will still be a third world country by far. With its caste structure, its irremediable lack of infrastructure and ressources to support its population, its relative submissiveness to western political pressure, the tendency of its educated elite to go live and work abroad the second they have a chance to, the best that can happen to India in the mid term is to nurture a developped sub-economy that will give it the global importance of, say, Italy, the UK or France.

Re:Difference between India and China

[bheekling]

and your sources for those statements are?

Re:Difference between India and China

[lee1026]

Well, the Chinese would also leave their country when they get the chance, so I fail to see that point, at least.

Re:Difference between India and China

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true.

Many overseas chinese are coming back to live and to invest in China.

I'm a westerner living in China since one year. Before having some negative opinion on a country that you doesn't know you should come here to see the superpower of the coming years in action.

Re:Difference between India and China

[DAldredge]

Next time you post pro-china text you might want to have a native english speaker read it.

No westerner would say " living in china since one year"

Re:Difference between India and China

[totalctrl]

"you doesn't know"? ~~~~~~

Re:Difference between India and China

[cunina]

Not all Westerners speak English, nor do all the Westerners who speak English speak it very well.

Still, though, your suspicions about the poster are probably correct.

Re:Difference between India and China

[EugeneK]

Right, cause every westerner speaks English perfectly.

Re:Difference between India and China

[LordLucless]

...at that time India will still be a third world country by far.

How exactly does one define what a "third world country" is these days? The original terms were referring to sides in the cold war, but it seems now that "third world" is becoming synonymous with poverty. What's the modern definition of "third world" that India would have to transcend to be a success?

Re:Difference between India and China

[Billly Gates]

Until wages go up to the point where Chinese and American firms outsource to India next.

India made an investment with education while their rival Pakistan made an investment iwth military spending. Its paying off.

In bangalore the cost of living has went up hundreds of % points and is as expensive to live as rural America. These landlords now have a ton of money and so do many small bussinesses there. Bombay now has a thriving financial sector like wall street that not American companies trade, but rather Indian ones. More wealth is being created down there. Accountants and fincancial anaylists are being outsourced there now. Wall street is very cheap and doesnt give a shit about its own workers. especially those who recommended to outsource to India in the first place. :-)

All this money will amplify like a balloon as money grows to the rest of the economy which in return creates even more wealth as Indians can afford to buy more things.

Yes its a very large country but the outsourced jobs are middle class and they tend to spend more rather than the very wealthy in the US who just have the money sit in the stock market doing nothing. Supply side economics dont work for that reason.

Yes the other 400 million will benefit but the most rural areas will do so last unfortunately. But look at rural Mississippi and Indiana? How much money does the average person make? All the crop is subsidized by your tax dollars so they dont starve. This will be universal.

Last farmers in India will benefit from newly rich Indian investors who will put in electricity and buy farming equipment and land so they can be more productive on their farms which in return will give them more money.

My hypothesis is that perhaps China will grow and then India and Latin America will grow next. Mexico surprissingly was supposed to be very rich from NAFTA and in return all the factors left for China for cheaper labor.

Re:Difference between India and China

[ap7]

Well, you are wrong on two counts. China is already a superpower of sorts. And India will be there around 2050. India's economy growth is now at 8.5% and going up. China is not accelerating its growth all that much anymore.

As far as the caste system is concerned, do you really know about the caste system or you just parroting what someone else said? The caste system is being made out as a hindrance when it really is not one. It may have been so 20-30 years ago but not now. Everyone gets almost equal opportunities now. In fact, the way things are going, votebank politics is actually tilting the balance in their favour - though it will still take some time for them to come up to the norm in India.

Yes, India has a lot of poor. But then, India also has a middle class population that is larger than the population of the entire United States. Surely that counts for something. And India itself isn't entirely to blame. The country was plundered by the Mughal rulers first and the British later. This went on for 400 years. Take a look at history and tell us how many nations have even survived such looting. And then came the stupid politicians who took India towards their 'socialistic' heaven and set us back another 50 years.

China was actually a poorer country than India when both started out as newborn nations of sorts in 1950. China started its reforms in 1970s and India did so in the 1990s. And yet, I'd think India is well on its way up, don't you think?

Re:Difference between India and China

[Anonymous Coward]

Great to se so many left-wing anti-India racists here getting modded up for spreading hate. Pity for you that we survived the British, and we can survive mindless pinkos.

Re:Difference between India and China

[cnettel]

Just FYI, if you tried to translate the Swedish way of saying it into English, without much thought, it would come out exactly like that. I would imagine that this can be true for at least some more European languages. The majority of Western civilization (me included) does not produce perfect written English.

Re:Difference between India and China

[Anonymous Coward]

while China will be a superpower by the end of this century, at that time India will still be a third world country by far

The end of the century? Do you realize how far we in the West have come from 1900 to 2000? Remember 1900, before two world wars and before women had the vote? Yeah, we've come a long way.

Where do you think the world will be by 2100? Will we still have "third world" countries, as you put it?

If so, that is a very bleak prediction for the future of humanity. We should not be pretending that the economy should be neutral - it works for the people - and we should be using the economy make our situation better, instead of us working to make the economy better (although this usually is a side effect of wanting better standards of living).

Re:Difference between India and China

[Murasaki Skies]

What's the modern definition of "third world" that India would have to transcend to be a success?

India.

Re:Difference between India and China

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, DTardredge, you mangle English all the damn time. So STFU and go back to trying to figure out why your children are not the same race you are.

Re:Difference between India and China

[kgskgs]

You are simplifying things too much.

First a few things in India's favor. Demographics are big time in favor of India for next few decades. As the article points out a large number of fresh young people will enter workforce. In the same time Japan, Europe and China will have start graying in that sequence. There will be more people to support than the number of people supporting. As a consequence of strictly enforced population control, China will see rather steep change. This will definitely bring a big change in dynamics.

Touch wood, but nature seems to be smiling. Monsoon is showing regular presence and for last a decade or so, consistently hitting average or above for overall India. This results in steady growth in agriculture, but that is just a part of it. There is nothing like steady water supply.

Democracy and other institutions have taken deep root. Free press is in place, which is voicing the concerns of suppressed and thus providing effective drain before things build up to explode. Thus I doubt there will be any major uprising as such in foreseeable future.

Definitely all is not well. Lots of improvements are needed. Caste system needs to be chased out; infrastructure, education and public health issues need to be tackled at high priority. But those are policy matters to a lot of extent.

And that's where I am most hopeful. India is an old civilization, but young nation. The concept of a large society coming together and governing itself effectively by means of policies is still taking root. But it is taking root. And once this learning phase and mistakes era is complete, certainly things will show drastic improvement.

And people that time will blame the good results on the things at hand that time, leaders, world events etc. But sadly no one will think of all these years of frustrations and failures as groundwork for that moment.


-
You deserve what you create, not what you expect.
-

There's just one answer

[mc6809e]

And that's to make more pie.

Re:There's just one answer

[a.d.trick]

I thought the original quote was "let them eat cake"? Or did I miss something.

"Superpower" is over-rated...

[mi]

while China will be a superpower by the end of this century, at that time India will still be a third world country by far

USSR was a "superpower" for decades. Life in it sucked big time. Living in Italy, the UK, France, or even India, would've been much better — if only for the possibility to leave, if you wanted.

Re:"Superpower" is over-rated...

[molarmass192]

There's one MAJOR difference here, China will be an *economic* superpower, Russia was never anything more than a *military* superpower. However, on that note, I'll predict with great certainty that life in China will STILL suck big time, even after it supplants the US as the world's biggest economic superpower. I'd far rather deal with our minor crap back here than the kinda mega-crap they have to content with over there.

Re:"Superpower" is over-rated...

[Rich0]

The easiest way to determine whether a nation is a nice one to live in is to try to walk across the border to leave. In the US, you won't even have to go through a checkpoint. In many other democratic nations there is an immigrations stop, but it is mostly to collect entry visas and keep track of the departure of visitors - so that they can keep track of who is still in their country.

If citizens of a nation can be told they cannot leave (except of course for outstanding warrents, court appearances, etc) then it is most likely not a place that you would want to live. If large-scale barriers to sneaking out are in place, then it is definitely not a place you would not want to live - obviously there must be some reason that people are trying to escape.

If a political system truly were utopian then they wouldn't need to use force to compel people to live under it.

Re:"Superpower" is over-rated...

[magores]

I'm a US citizen that lives in China. It's actually pretty cool here.

And, FWIW, IMHO, ETC ... George Bush is not "minor crap". He's a "huge pile of shit".

Re:"Superpower" is over-rated...

[mi]

There's one MAJOR difference here, China will be an *economic* superpower

I'm not sure about this at all... I think, there are some major social calamities looming for them — too many people remain in dire poverty. If they emerge from those as a dictatorship, they will not be an economic superpower either. If they become decently democratic, I would not mind them becoming economically powerful — same as India or Brasil, BTW.

Yes, I do share this "Polyannish" belief, that a country can not be really strong economically without being decent internally — not in this day and age, when slave labour is woefully inefficient.

Count me with the neo-Cons like Thomas Friedman.

Re:"Superpower" is over-rated...

[mi]

I'm a US citizen that lives in China. It's actually pretty cool here.

You are confusing tourism with immigration...

George Bush is not "minor crap". He's a "huge pile of shit".

Did China's firewall add this last statement to your posting, or would you sincerely prefer Chinese leadership over Bush?

Knowing where you are, though, I know, what the posted answer will be, of course...

Re:"Superpower" is over-rated...

[superpulpsicle]

We Americans should do ourselves a huge favor and STFU when it comes to bragging about our lifestyle. The more I travel around the world, the more I come to conclude that the most miserable people are us.

We are extremely dedicated to a 9 to 5 schedule. Most of us are limited to 3 weeks of vacations, a couple of holidays. We owe way too much money in our lifetime, insurance, cars, real estate. Screwed by taxes. Personally I know of 4 very white suburban-born Americans who moved to China, Japan, Hong Kong for temporary work, and ended up never wanting to move back to the US. Life here is highly overrated. Less than 1% actually live like the superstars on MTV. If it wasn't for the language barrier, I'd move there too.

It's True

[jarhead55]

Being an Indian American and having been to the region often I agree with this article. The many wealthy which reside mostly in the cities are extremely snobby and will go to great lengths to show off their wealth all alongside with children who beg in the streets struggling to find clothes and food to simply stay alive (oh but then i'd be getting into the whole thing about the rich not caring about the poor yada yada yada...its still sickening). The Chinese have dealt with the issue of painful hunger and the Indian government must tackle this issue as well. I do believe that it will be a rough route to go even if the government goes through with such a plan simply because of the diversity that exists in India. Despite the general pride that the country shows, at some level it is undeniable that there is fragmentation with the many cultures that India encapsulates. Some parts of the country, as stated in the article, have also elected communist governments which undoubtedly impede progress as they threated to break a very delicate coalition every time their demands are not met. I believe progress will be slow, but there will be progress as a new highway system that is sweeping the nation will bring economic opportunities to the regions which are not so "software proficient." At least there will be a shiny new road, one that is not made of cheap construction substitutes, to economic opportunity.

Re:It's True

[EugeneK]

Not to disagree with your main point, but extreme poverty exists in the countryside of China too, which is why China's coastal cities are swelling with people seeking jobs to escape that poverty.

Re:It's True

[Anonymous Coward]

jarhead, you dont seem to understand India very well. You are part of the issue we in India have. Almost all the black money coming into India is from people living abroad and most of you cant stop moralizing. How many of you have green cards? Yet, in your late 50s most of you want another citizenship in India, whine about lost culture, support another bunch of culture swamis, rebels, safrrons, and religious bigots, help setup ashrams or some sort of semi-religious "wash-my-sins" establishment and expect respect for that. You chose America. Stay there and dont send your children here for culture-education sessions. Dont buy land in India, accumulate property and generally lay waste to rural economies you have interest in developing or working in. For most of you, its an investment, for most of us in India, you are creating waste. Meanwhile, it's our politics, stay out of it. Try giving advice to the Americans meanwhile. Ask them to take you seriously.
 
Better yet, try China, Jarhead.

Re:It's True

[Anonymous Coward]

> The many wealthy which reside mostly in the cities are extremely snobby and will go to great lengths to show off their wealth all alongside with children who beg in the streets struggling to find clothes and food to simply stay alive (oh but then i'd be getting into the whole thing about the rich not caring about the poor yada yada yada...its still sickening).

The rich does not seem to care for the poor everywhere .... if the rich cared for the poor, there would be no poor in the whole world.

Despite the general pride that the country shows, at some level it is undeniable that there is fragmentation with the many cultures that India encapsulates

Hmmm living in India for the past 30 years, I must have missed the "pride" memo. Have you seen the news. No one living here would disagree that there is fragmentation.

Some parts of the country, as stated in the article, have also elected communist governments which undoubtedly impede progress as they threated to break a very delicate coalition every time their demands are not met.

Wait ...supporting the unions is progress according to the pro-left slashdot, if done in the US and it "impedes progress", if its against the US interests. Thankfully you dont vote here or you would vote again for the extremist right wing BJP.

I believe progress will be slow, but there will be progress as a new highway system that is sweeping the nation will bring economic opportunities to the regions which are not so "software proficient."

I agree with you. There is progress in all the fields and the IT sector has touched so few, that I doubt is the cause for this progress. The government is not doing enough, but it is doing better than what was done in the 70's and 80's

Also I am not so sure about China .... the rural workers need permit to work in the cities (yeah! you need visa to work in your own country!) and many sneak into the cities and work illegally. Also even with education, there is no freedom, which brings another class of problems.

AS for $1/day .... I am living currently on $1 per day. No sir, I do not have your outsourced job. I have no clue how so many jobs are hyped to be outsourced, yet I cant find any in the India I am living in (no I am not in Banglore)

Re:It's True

[Anonymous Coward]

I also wanted to add that ...you seem to feel sorry for me (the person living on $1/day). I dont think I am that miserable.
I rent a small room, eat meals in small shops (its called mess here, which might surprise you). I attend college and work in this internet cafe. I dont have to pay for the internet. Life is not so bad.

You as middle class american might have couple of big cars, a big house and million dollars. But am I more miserable than you ? I dont think so. Bill Gates must have lot more resources than you do. But are you miserable compared to Bill Gates. I dont think so.

Re:It's True

[Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese have dealt with the issue of painful hunger and the Indian government must tackle this issue as well.

The chineese "dealt" with hunger by forcing abortions on the genral population. Seriously I can't think of a worse way to live. Even most African countries sound better.

Btw why must the government tacke this issue ? I thought slashdotters want the government to stay the hell away from everything and let the market repair things. Oh! that applies only for the US. Sorry I was mistaken.
Can you guys please ban us Indians from slashdot ? That way you will not have anyone with conflicting opinions and everyone will say the same thing.

Re:It's True

[freakxx]

This is not more than a crap. Preaching indians after choosing america to live in. anyway, as far as comparing with chinese is concerned, i thing we are in much better position. I came to know china these days a bit more because I am studying here in japan and am having a chinese gf. What china is is only shanghai and beijing. All the money is poured into these very few cities. If you go to internal areas u wont find anything. Starving problem is there also...admission in a good university depends also on ur birth place.....if u are born out of beijing, u need to get 20% more marks than the beijing residents go get into same school...and many similar things. We dont have any such discremination by law. people know much more about india than china and it makes easy for people like mr.jarhead to utter about even after having incomplete knowledge....china is a not much open to get information about...u must know chinese language if u wanna know real facts about china...u need to know Kanjis (damn horrible chars, more than 10000 in number which are in use these days...u need to know more than 50000 if u wanna read any old chinese book, say 100 year old). it is better for mr.jarhead if he speak something after knowing the facts rather than after being ill-knowledged.....and it is much easier after being there for sometime in india...which he hasnt been in last 10-15 years i think...afterall america has shiny highways not made of cheap construction substitutes. Showing pride is also not bad thing...one should show the pride for what he has. But showing pride on others' shiny roads is a ridiculous thing to show pride about.

Re:It's True

[Jim_Callahan]

Yeah, damn those people for taking pride in their success. Y'know, for someone complaining about people being rich when there are poor people around, you seem to own a lot of electronic equipment worth a ton of food and clothing to some indian beggar.

Now drink your prune juice, there are children starving in india.

Ya gotta start somewhere

[maelstrom]

You can't take hundreds of millions of people from a state of impoverishment to the land of overflowing McDonalds (and bellies) overnight.

Re:Ya gotta start somewhere

[Tablizer]

You can't take hundreds of millions of people from a state of impoverishment to the land of overflowing McDonalds (and bellies) overnight.

How about a giant liposuction pipeline from west to east?......well, it looked okay on paper.

Re:Ya gotta start somewhere

[maelstrom]

So that was what Sally Struthers was doing in Africa all that time!

Re:Ya gotta start somewhere

[c.r.o.c.o]

While it is true that raising the standard of living of so many people overnight is impossible, the article is not claiming that. It would take India roughly another 100 years before they achieve the same level as the western societies, given the current growth rates. However, the growth cannot continue at this pace. Energy costs are increasing, new sources of cheap labour are being created (Eastern Europe, Africa, and unbelievably enough, parts of the US), etc, are all factors that WILL slow India and China's growth.

And India does not have 100 years. They are already starting to have communist revolts in the poorest provinces, and growing dissent between urban and rural populations.

Re:Ya gotta start somewhere

[Stephen Tennant]

Here's a good place to start: Dharavi, the world's largest slum.

The sheer scale of dealing with the poverty of just this one part of India gives you an idea of the astronomical scale of effort needed to transform India into a fully developed, (relatively) fair and equitable state.

Re:Ya gotta start somewhere

[XchristX]

Read the article again my foolish liberal friend. Dharavi is Asia's largest slum, not "the world's largest". There are slums in Africa that are way larger.

Re:Ya gotta start somewhere

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't take hundreds of millions of people from a state of impoverishment to the land of overflowing McDonalds (and bellies) overnight.

Especially a country with a large Hindu population. Does McDonalds serve sacred cows? :-)

It's worth mentioning that the Indian Hindu guys I know aren't hung up on the fact that I eat beef - but since I work at an American university, the folks that I'm referring to are already world-travelers, and are usually planning to go home with an advanced degree of some sort.

Anyway, if I were going to invest in an American fast food franchise expanding its operation in India, it would be something like Chick Fila or Pizza Hut -- with a greatly expanded vegitarian menu.

Re:All I gots ta say

[bheekling]

flame bait. someone hold me.

India

[ThreeE]

I'm standing beside myself looking for a Stop'N Go to buy.

Well yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

India and China are doing much the same thing-- trying to concentrate really hard on whom they perceive to be the best and brightest and cordon them off from everyone else, trying to make little anti-ghettos of first world nation inside a huge, uncontrollable nation of peasants.

You think the different classes live different lives in America? In India or China the difference between classes might as well be entirely different nations.

Re:Well yes.

[ShanghaiBill]

India and China are doing much the same thing-- trying to concentrate really hard on whom they perceive to be the best and brightest and cordon them off from everyone else, trying to make little anti-ghettos of first world nation inside a huge, uncontrollable nation of peasants.

This is wrong. I live in China, and the economic development here is very broadly based. Sure, some people are getting rich, but everyone is benefiting. No one is being "cordoned off". The big split is not between rich and poor, but between coast and interior, but that is a hard problem to fix.

Think about this

[theheff]

I have been to India recently. A dollar a day is really more than you would think; it's about 43 Rupees. With this many Rupees, you can easily buy a day's worth of meals. You have to understand the culture before you can start throwing out your ideas about how to fix their economy. In the minds of many in India, change is just not important. Money is not important even, like in our part of the world, but rather things family, friends, and morality. I'm not saying there isn't problems; but before you go working on the masterplan to save India, you might want to talk to them.

Just my $.02.

Re:Think about this

[jma05]

> A dollar a day is really more than you would think; it's about 43 Rupees. With this many Rupees, you can easily buy a day's worth of meals.

Correct. When I was a student in India about 5 years ago, I approximately spent $1 on food per day by eating out every meal (reasonable and inexpensive canteens such as those provided by college, YMCA kitchens etc).

My room rent was $20/month.

This was in a small city. The rural poor would get by with less.

In India, services are cheaper than stuff.
In my small town, a simple medical consultation would cost about $1-$2 now, in a non-corporate private clinic.

Re:Think about this

[cyber-vandal]

You do realise that the cost of living also includes housing, clothing and medical care don't you?

Re:Think about this

[Anonymous Coward]

Okie, lets see. 1$ = 45 rupees

milk- 6 rupees a litre or cow's milk at home in the village:3 rs a litre or less

vegetables:20 rupees gets you about 1.5 to 2 kilograms worth or whatever green stuff (tomatoes, potatoes, capsicus, cauliflower..)

rice-12rs a kilogram

total cost:38 rs

people you can support on 38 rupees a day: 2-3

Am I hungry? No.

Fuel costs not added.probably another 5 rupees.

For another 5 rupees I can go check e-mails, write stuff, read slashdot...

total cost: 42 rupees.

Do I live well? Yes i do.

Am I happy? I am contended.

Am I married? No

Do I have savings? No

Do I need savings? Yes

How old am I? 24

Do I drink? No

Do I smoke? No

Travel: Cycle

Profession: Software/Linux and networks/Academics

However, I will need more as I setup house, take a vehicle, a car, get married, get some loans, finance my education, and the other things in life. All i want to do is try and find a way to go back to my village, do something selfsustaining instead. This american thing wont work out for most of us.

Re:Think about this

[Anonymous Coward]

I too have just recently spent a month in India, Bangalore to be specific. I was there to recruit for my company, a global corporation that shall remain nameless here. I spent the month in a five star hotel, which can easily be considered one of the best in the world. The appearance of a Western capitalistic boom is very much there - until you scratch past the surface of luxury in the hotel and the job hoppers looking for a quick raise after only six months in their current job.

I spent some time in the streets, trying to get a sense of how far this boom is. My drivers gave me the first hint that there is an undercurrent of resentment - the 'middle class' is being priced out of housing, etc. by the 'I/T' crowd. The 'middle class' has not seen an increase in wages, but their costs have gone up. Traffic, power, and water infrastructure have not kept up with the population growth, all driven by the I/T sector, with the I/T crowd being the haves and the rest the have nots. There is also political unrest which surprised me. General comments about how the governement is doing a poor job to fix things like roads, or address things like keeping the non IT population protected were much more common than I thought they would have been.

45 rupies per day can buy a lot, it is true, providing you are not spending them at Western places. Eating at a restaurant that isn't targeted to cater to Western (or far Eastern) tastes is a wonderful culinary experience, and is terrifically low priced. However, people do need to have a place to live, and those costs have risen too fast. Indeed, India needs to see to her overall needs, not just meet the needs of a foreign business set in a few locales.

Re:Think about this

[scwizard]

Mod parent up, this seems pretty interesting.

However I'm still curious. How are dwelling costs over there? Where do you live? Do you own? Do you have to pay maintenance of any sort / how much does it cost to upkeep your home?

Re:Think about this

[cylcyl]

Ummm... Ok, With $10 a day, I can buy a days worth of food in the US as well. but is that a living wage? As in is there enough left for me to take the bus to work tomorrow (forget about having a car and driving)? Is it enough left after that to rent a safe place to live where I would not be at constant risk of being robbed? Is there enough left to support a family? Is it enough to save any money in the hope that there would be a point where you can retire before dying?

So, question is not whether or not $1 can feed a person in India for a day. But is it a livable wage?

Indian way vs American way

[ma_sivakumar]

American century was made not by the people of USA imitating any other country but defining their own principles and working on it. Every other nation wants to become what USA is today - rich, powerful and dictating to the world.

If that is the way New India is going to emerge, it is not going to be. We have a saying, a cat should not brand itself to become a leoperd. India can not mindlessly follow the American success story and carry all the Indians along. We need a unique Indian way which is not capitalist, not communist, not socialist but Indian.

We have a rich tradition and had tall leaders leading us. We try to substitute everything with western values as in China. There is a better way. India can show to the world how to solve the problems of consumption driven economies of the west. We can evolve systems, practices to build a new type of economic development and social order. That would be the contribution of India to the world, not trying to be another China or USA.

Re:Indian way vs American way

[Anonymous Coward]

OK then according to you "Indian way" is:

1. High corruption is highest to lowest levels of politics alike
2. 100,000 farmers committing suicide every x years (x = 2 or 3 or whatever)
3. All the brilliant and smart people migrating to US as soon as they get a degree in IITs and IIMs
4. 60% illiteracy
5. etc etc

Is it what you want ? Do you still think trying to follow US, China is bad ? Did you even ever had a chance to see people and their dedication to their work in US or China ?

What is the use of rich tradition when it cannot solve caste problem ?
What is the use of tall leaders when 75% of them are corrupt, and want to increase reservations in higher education with out even considering infrastructure ?

Infact, some of my friends in my bachelors years told me that they wanted to join Indian politics when they growup not because they want to develop the country or whatever, but because they can earn lot of under-the-table money ! Note that I did my bachelors at an IIT !!!

It is already late, but we still have time to learn lots of stuff from US and Chaina, better late than never.

Re:Indian way vs American way

[truthalonematters]

Well Said !!! that's precisely what is happening right now in India, soon the world will know what that way is

Re:Indian way vs American way

[ma_sivakumar]

"OK then according to you "Indian way" is:

1. High corruption is highest to lowest levels of politics alike
2. 100,000 farmers committing suicide every x years (x = 2 or 3 or whatever)
3. All the brilliant and smart people migrating to US as soon as they get a degree in IITs and IIMs
4. 60% illiteracy
5. etc etc

Is it what you want ? "

None of the above :-). I want an India which solves all the above problems and follows a path whereby consumption is not everything.

If 1 billion plus of India and 1.3 billion plus of China are to be raised to the standards of USA as defined by per capita consumption, think about the cost to the environment and burden on the natural resources. It is just not possible. Having more and more and more is not the solution. There is a better way, that is what India has to strive for.

Is it communism as defined by USSR and China? No. Is it a commune life style, probably yes. Each one working on something which he/she enjoys and gives his/her best to. Each one receiving things which he/she needs. There will be no compulsion, as everyone does what he/she enjoys and no forcing to share as everyone is happy enough to help out the neighbour.

Sounds too fantastic. But it works in limited communities. Have you been to small Indian villages?

Re:Indian way vs American way

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but your "New India" sounds just like every other small town in the history of the world. In the US alone, these small towns have behaved this way for hundreds of years. Whether it's a modern farming community in Iowa, or an Amish community in Pennsylvania, they all work together to keep their community going. And no, this wasn't invented in the US. If this is India's contribution to the world, perhaps you should take a history class and find out what's already been done.

Re:Indian way vs American way

[ma_sivakumar]

You are right. It is not invented in India. But India can do is to marry the community based living to modern technology/market economy and synthesize a new way. I understand that in many parts of the world many communities are leading such a life and that makes my belief stronger that it is possible for the whole world to adapt a more sustainable growth model.

Rerservations !

[Anonymous Coward]

On top of all these problems, current Indian govt wants to increase reservations to some casts in higher educations !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Indian_anti-rese rvation_protests
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/decision-on-quota-is-f inal-the-chapter-is-closed/11063-4.html
http://www.ndtv.com/template/template.asp?template =Education&slug=Students+slam+OBC+reservation+prop osal&id=19127&callid=0
http://alumni.iitg.org/news/show.php?id=37

Who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't matter one iota. Your job is still going to be outsourced there. Say goodbye to your keyboard and monitor, geek, and hello to janitor's clothes.

So in other words

[PingXao]

IOW American companies shipping jobs offshore to India is helping almost nobody there but hurting American workers a lot. Par for the course.

Re:So in other words

[Duhavid]

You are forgetting something.

The executives making the decisions are making
lots on inflated stock prices.

See? It is OK. And those executives will need
lots of servants around the house, and those cant
be outsourced.

Never mind in 10 or 20 years, the companies in the
countries being outsourced to will have all the
expertise they need, and the American partners will
be told to pound sand. And the weakened American
middle class will not have what it take to float
things along.

Re:So in other words

[Anonymous Coward]

IOW American companies shipping jobs offshore to India is helping almost nobody there but hurting American workers a lot. Par for the course.

imho...

"almost nobody" != 1,3000,000

Re:So in other words

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Never mind in 10 or 20 years, the companies in the countries being outsourced to will have all the expertise they need, and the American partners will be told to pound sand.

Why do you think the US has been working so hard to export its IP laws? Doesn't matter if you know how to do a thing, if you are legally restricted from making it.

Re:So in other words

[Duhavid]

Laws change, governments change.
Laws are broken.

Nationalizations happen.

So, they say "yes" to the IP restriction
laws until they know how to do it well.

Then they repudiate it all, and set up
shop, once they feel economicially strong
strong enough.

Note, I am all for India having a strong
economy, and I wish nothing but the best
for them. And any other countries in the
same boat. And America also.

Re:So in other words

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Then they repudiate it all, and set up shop, once they feel economicially strong strong enough.

Kiss goodbye to the largest and richest market for your goods on earth, then. And say hello to trade sanctions from the west (trading partners included). And it will prove a little difficult to get economically strong in the first place when you aren't allowed to use what you know to advance yourself. Thats what IP law is about, in its entirety, letting the west have its cheap goods and prevent the people making them from making them for themselves.

Re:So in other words

[Duhavid]

I am assuming that you mean that India ( for example ) would be
the one kissing goodbuy ( pun intended )...?

In making the goods, they will be advancing themselves. And once
that has gone on far enough, I dont know how this would be stopped,
IP laws or no. Factories would not go out of existance. The knowledge
of how to work the equipment would not disappear. And who knows
how the trading partners will be feeling about this some time out,
they might be a bit ready to do the same, if they havent already.

Look at China today. America does not seem to have
a lot of leverage there economically.

English?

[Tablizer]

The odd thing about India is that the national language is English. There are lots of regional languages and dialects, but English is just about the only language they all have in common.

This should mean that American pop culture and ideas should start leaking in at a increasing pace and have an effect on the population because it is decades of stored-up ideas from the US ready-made for English readers and speakers to absorb. American pop culture and ideas are addictive to the unintiated for good or bad because it is instant gratification, something traditional cultures are not prepared to manage. I expect it will trigger a cultural backlash one of these days, similar to France's "language police".

Then I expect they will take their own twist on our pop culture and the Indian equiv of the Beatles, Stones, B-gee's, etc. will someday land on our shores among crowds of screaming babes. "Lady's and Gentlemen, meet the Insourceez....."

Re:English?

[Dr Caleb]

India was pretty much owned by the British Indian Tea Company for about 400 years, much like the Atlantic Pacific Tea Company in America. Not a big surprise that English is the dominant language.

Re:English?

[net_bh]

Your statements are incorrect at so many levels that I don't even know where to begin. Let's try though:

Official National Language: Hindi Other National Languages: 25 Religions: Everything religion ever practised on Earth because even a minority here is in millions. Ofcourse Hinduism is the dominant religion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_lang uages_of_India

English is a language used only in cities and in some parts of the government. To my European colleagues I explain it thus: Think of the EU as a single country with all your languages, cultures, religions(though they are all based on Christianity), etc. Now mulptiply that problem by 100 and the population by 9 or 10 and that is India.

And its almost funny when you say that a nation with over 5000 years of _written_ history would be eager as a puppy to 'absorb' a 300 year old country's culture and stored-up 'ideas'. Sure, the US media has managed to reach global audiences and create a homogeneous MTV generation. And some of that can be seen in Indian cities. But that is probably India has assimilated foreign influences over the millenia, not just by copying them, but by choosing what they like in them. That is the only way to survive as a people if you don't want revolution every few hundred years. But the western world may disagree...

Re:English?

[Anonymous Coward]

Think of the EU as a single country with all your languages, cultures, religions(though they are all based on Christianity)

Wrong. Europeans only believe in the Almighty Single Currency.

Now mulptiply that problem by 100 and the population by 9 or 10 and that is India.

Except that Indians are far smarter than Europeans. Not exactly a compliment, either.

Re:English?

[colinrichardday]

Now multiply that problem by 100 and the population by 9 or 10 and that is India.

The European Union has a population of 450,000,000. Is India's population 4 billion? Try multiplying the population by three.

Re:English?

[Tablizer]

My understanding that although Hindi is spoken more frequently than English, that it is generally a *regional* language (although a big region). And while it is true that English is mosty or only spoken in the cities, it is the most common language shared among travelers to the various cities when doing commerce. I could be wrong because I get a slightly different story everytime I ask such that it appears to be a complicated situation to measure.

And its almost funny when you say that a nation with over 5000 years of _written_ history would be eager as a puppy to 'absorb' a 300 year old country's culture and stored-up 'ideas'.

But pop culture is easier to absorb because it is designed for instant gratification. It is flavored sugar. Young people don't have to "learn" to like it. I am not promoting it, only saying that it has the effect.

Let's look at our own economy..

[BackOrder]

With the various world trade agreements, I care less and less about other countries. If it's not outsourcing, it's them coming to us. We should begin to care about our own economy and fix it than other's one. We have our own problems, our own jobless, underpaid, overworked, etc.

Re:Let's look at our own economy..

[Anonymous Coward]

We should begin to care? Maybe you mean you should begin to care you fat lazy slob. When was the last time you picked up a sign and joined a protest rally in front of your state capital building?

Re:Let's look at our own economy..

[Anonymous Coward]

"a protest rally in front of your state capital building?"

That's your solution? What would that accomplish?

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD IMMEDIATE PARENT UP

$1 a day? let me tell you about $1 a day.

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Subsiding on one dollar a day sounds shitty and scary to you? Well, it sounds fuck exciting to me. 1 dollar a day. 1 dollar a day. The equity in my house is 300K... three hundred thousand days at 1 dollar a day. Goddamn, thats like 800 years! I could sell my house now and go live in poverty in India for 8 centuries. I could also up it.. What does 10 dollars a day get you in India? Probably a lot more than 1 dollar - at least 10 times more to say the least. Okay - 80 years. But I'm 35 so I won't live 80 more years. Say 40 years. Thats 20 dollars a day. 20 times the poverty level. In the US, 20 times the poverty level is $8K vs $160K. Can I live like a king in India for $20 a day? I can afford it today, for the rest of my life.

Laugh if you will, but I'm selling it all at 45 and retiring to a country like this.

Re:$1 a day? let me tell you about $1 a day.

[Langdon]

I don't think you understand the depths of poverty people living on $1 a day reach. Think of the same lifestyle as a homeless person here, except with no social services, no soup kitchens, no shelters. Not even the shopping cart full of junk. Doesn't seem too exciting to me, but maybe because I've lived next to such people for most of my life.

For 12 years I lived on $10 a day. That's living a low-end grad student lifestyle - i.e. just enough for dialup, a mid-range computer, tiny apartment, the bare essentials. $20 a day would probably get you the same lifestyle as a lower middle-class US worker.

$50 a day would probably better fit your definition of "comfortable" - still quite doable, especially if you sink some money into a local business.

Also note, as more and more money flows back into the country's economy, cost of living goes up (as there are lots of these young call-center workers who can afford more stuff), so in a few more years, plan on moving somewhere else. Africa?

Re:$1 a day? let me tell you about $1 a day.

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Sight set in motion. I've bought property in central america - house in the mountains, view of the Pacific ocean, less than 5 miles from the coast. $35K, $300 year property taxes, $500 year caretaker. Cost of living is dirt fucking cheap compared to the metropolis where I currently live. Sure, it'll get more expensive there. But it will never outpace where I live now. I can work until I'm 65 to live out my years where I live now or I can work until I'm 45 and sit on a beach there.

Re:$1 a day? let me tell you about $1 a day.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, been there, done that.
Lived in the US for 10 years, saved 300K, decided to move to India where I can live *much* more comfortably than in the States. I could retire if I wanted to, but I love the stuff I do - then again, I choose the stuff I do because I don't have to get paid.

Re:$1 a day? let me tell you about $1 a day.

[Silver Gryphon]

Central America is cheaper than the USA in some areas and more expensive in others. I lived in Guatemala for several years and have family still living there after 20. The average employee gets under $5/day. That buys them beans, tortillas, and somehow they have land to grow a lot of their own food and raise chickens. Beef is a serious luxury item, mostly imported. Many of them live over an hour's drive from the capital city; a bus ticket into town for work is only 10 cents, and they riot every time it goes up. They don't rent apartments because apartments go for $200+/month. I lived in one, 400sf concrete with bars on the windows at $250/month. Real estate prices in the cities are now close to similar size cities in the USA. The secret was out decades ago, and we've driven up prices with demand.

Now, the "rich American investors" category that my family falls into... we had higher demands, and as a result had to pay $5 for a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. When I lived there, fresh milk was unheard of. Parmalat (UHT pasteurized, shelf life of about a year) was a dollar or two per quart. Import taxes, shipping and convenience fees quickly raise the cost of the American way of life to over $100/day. If you expect to live on $5 or $10 a day, you'll be making your own Frappuccinos. Ten years ago a Big Mac was just under US$2.00 and minimum wage was US$2.50/day. I think the gap has narrowed some since then but not enough.

I've lived in the USA on $10 per day by staying with family in the rural South, eating 29 cent/pound turkey and growing a lot of veggies. I later almost bought a 3200sf house for $36k. So my point of all this is really that cheap living is possible anywhere, but any location also has expensive living.

I'm still of the opinion that every American can use the good eye-opening that comes with trying to live on under $10/day. It makes one appreciate things a whole lot more. Plus, it limits you to locally grown food, sights and and daily life. So give it your best shot, but be ready for the unexpected.

Re:$1 a day? let me tell you about $1 a day.

[andrewman327]

I agree with that completely. I go to college in Washington DC where I see the full divide between powerful and homeless on a daily basis. The nation's capital has such retched comditions on the "wrong side of the tracks" while there are expensive trendy clubs, bars, and hotels on the "right" side of things.

What a bunch of crap

[SmallFurryCreature]

I got a primitive thought process, all humans are equal. So I should abandon that and go for the far more modern idea of racial superioty. If you judge it by the spawn of human history then all that nazi crap about the master race is very new.

If you are going to attack a system you can't just spout platitudes.

It can be argued that some countries do well when they get rid of differences between members of its population but only if you are incredibly naive. The dutch golden age is often claimed to be a result of it being an open society welcoming the oppressed from other parts of europe. Well if you think being open and treating all people as equals is the same as not actually killing people for not having the majority religion I suppose your right. In reality the Dutch golden age happened when minorities like the jews were being denied many rights and privileges. As for even smaller groups like chinamen or muslims, I suppose not being lynched just like the protestants is a form of equality.

Same with the US of A, give us your hungry and oppressed provided they are white protestants. Japanese were put into concentration camps, with wich america had lots of experience using them on the indians, based purely on race. Claimed for security but german and italian citizens were not interned. Despite the fact that there has been no evidence of japanese-americans aiding the enemy while plenty of german and italian americans did aid the enemy. As for blacks, they only got the vote in what 1965?

Yet america did pretty well before this emancipation of the non-white races did it not?

Japan itself is one of the least cultural diverse 1st world countries around and it did seem to do pretty good by restricting immigration. Oh and by having an untouchable class. A smaller group then the lowest caste in India to be sure but still repressed. More subtly perhaps and certainly not as widely known but they are there.

Equality for all is a noble pursuit but for its own sake not because it will somehow bring prosperiety. I rather live in a poor country that is equal then a rich country wich is not.

You may or may not feel the same way but just saying something general like abandoning primitive thought is insulting. It to me suggests that you do not realize that some of the most primitive cultures around today are far more democractic (they vote on issues, not personalities) and equal then the so called modern cultures.

As for equality leading to all a country that can be is too dangerous. What if someone proves that by killing group X humanity will be better off. Will that see you working the gas chambers to make sure humanity can fullfill its potential?

Re:What a bunch of crap

[Anonymous Coward]

What a strange post. Do you have a point somewhere in there? Or are you just spouting random nonsense?

To take one sample: "I rather live in a poor country that is equal then a rich country wich is not."

So, what country do you live in now that "is equal"? If your current country is not "equal", what country are you proposing to move to?

As for "What if someone proves that by killing group X humanity will be better off" - this supposition is entirely unfounded, since such a "proof" cannot exist. Any discussion based on this can only be worthless.

It sounds to me like you are a half educated person who needs to finish his education.

Re:Did you read the article? Millions starve

[Pizaz]

Malnutrition affects half of all children in India, and there is little sign that they are being helped by the country's market reforms, which have focused on creating private wealth rather than expanding access to health care and education. Despite the country's growing economy, 2.5 million Indian children die annually, accounting for one out of every five child deaths worldwide; and facilities for primary education have collapsed in large parts of the country (the official literacy rate of 61 percent includes many who can barely write their names). In the countryside, where 70 percent of India's population lives, the government has reported that about 100,000 farmers committed suicide between 1993 and 2003.

So I have no idea what you're talking about. Change is not important to them? I guess they like seeing their children die and develop all sorts of diseases stemming from malnutrition and living in squalor.

Dear Author, pls do your homework correctly !

[truthalonematters]

The author , though his name sounds to be Indian, is a person from MARS, b'cos he knows nothing about India and its people. No place on earth has such an amazing amount of diversity and yet the country grows at a impressive rate of 8% per year , check this latest article "The dragon faces Indian FDI threat" by Yasheng Huang, a stickler for time and associate professor at the Sloan School of Management at http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/17 06117.cms Mr author fyivisit http://www.goodnewsindia.com/ to read 100% authentic and unbiased news about how indian poor and rich serve their country and their fellow citizens with amazing success. This site is not biased by any media or any politician or any author like you ! As rolfwind (another blogger) rightly pointed out ... before writing again on things such as numbers on exports, imports and poverty 'n blah blah ... please first check the facts verified ... http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ india.html [cia.gov]. Poverty in india is 25% from cia.gov while in US it is 12% ! so what is big difference if you consider the 1.1 billion population with that of 350million !! Can the author pls point out from he got the magical figure "less than $1 a day" figure ....i think author from MARS !!!

Re:Dear Author, pls do your homework correctly !

[Anonymous Coward]

You are clearly in denial!!! I'm Indian, and I concur with the facts! India has a long way to go to be called a "roaring success"

Re:Dear Author, pls do your homework correctly !

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're from MARS! Learn to write proper English. People like you make Indians look stupid.

Re:Dear Author, pls do your homework correctly !

[Afrosheen]

It's funny how Indians are so myopic about their own country. Despite dozens of studies by the UN and the WHO, they're in a perpetual state of denial. One merely has to walk down the street in India to see just how bad the conditions are. The child death rates are unbelievably high and the gaping maw between the wealthy and the poor only continues to grow. Plus the poor are extremely uneducated with a national literacy rate of only 65%. Even with the US having 12% living below the poverty line, we stand at an excellent 99% literacy rate.

  The link you posted to the CIA factbook was wrong. From the factbook, on poverty in India, they say "Population below poverty line: 25% (2002 est.)". So that's 4 years old to begin with.

  The infant mortality rate is rather high, and if 1 in 5 children in India die, that's pretty damn bad. Luckily for India, and according to the factbook, there are 24 births for each 8 deaths so the population should continue to explode as long as people have something to eat, and with women averaging 2.73 births each, so much the better.

  Actual link to the CIA factbook is http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ in.html .

  It's not nearly as rosy as Indians would have you think. Why do you think they send their best doctors and scientists overseas? They're not doing it to do the world a favor, they're doing it to escape desperate poverty, a wrecked environment, and the depressed state that is India.

Re:Dear Author, pls do your homework correctly !

[1shoonya0]

>The infant mortality rate is rather high, and if 1 in 5 children in India die, that's pretty damn bad That would be a horrible horrible thing. TFA only mentions about "1 out of 5 child deaths worldwide" happens in India.

Re:Dear Author, pls do your homework correctly !

[Afrosheen]

I guess the author was using an alarmist tactic to show that the child death rate is crazy high. If 1 in 5 worldwide child deaths occur in India, how many child deaths per capita does that represent in India?

Re:Dear Author, pls do your homework correctly !

[hearnz]

> If 1 in 5 worldwide child deaths occur in India, how many child deaths per capita does that represent in India? Umm.. given that India has about 1/5 of the world population, if 1 in 5 worldwide child deaths occur in India, it makes the child mortality rate about the same as the average for the rest of the world. Lies, damn lies and statistics...

Deficiencies in the article

[hopethisnickisnottak]

It was not so long ago that India appeared in the American press as a poor, backward and often violent nation, saddled with an inefficient bureaucracy and, though officially nonaligned, friendly to the Soviet Union. Suddenly the country seems to be not only a "roaring capitalist success story" but also, according to Foreign Affairs, an "emerging strategic partner of the United States."

Has the NY Times been asleep for the last 15 years? Because it's been 15 years since India began reforming its economy. The present Prime Minister was the finance minister at that time and was responsible for opening up India's economy, which, till then, had been a disgusting molasses of socialism (and crawled along at around the same pace). The USSR died many years ago. Since then, India has been realigning itself according to its self interests. The idea of a strategic partnership with the US seems natural to many of us in India because the other option is a totalitarian China right at our doorstep.

But trade and cooperation between India and China is growing; and, though grateful for American generosity on the nuclear issue, India is too dependent on Iran for oil (it is also exploring developing a gas pipeline to Iran) to wholeheartedly support the United States in its efforts to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

WRONG! India has voted against Iran at the IAEA twice and has supported further action against Iran. The Gas pipeline was in the conception stage and has pretty much been put in the background, not only because Iran's developing nukes, but also because they aren't honouring their own commitments.

Nor is India rising very fast on the report's Human Development index, where it ranks 127, just two rungs above Myanmar and more than 70 below Cuba and Mexico. Despite a recent reduction in poverty levels, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day.

This is true. And we're ashamed of it. But that doesn't imply that nothing's been done to improve their lot. Recent steps include the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme etc.

Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy.

The author has a fetish for these so-called new economy companies. We don't. We have Pharma cos that are setting up plants left right and centre, we have steel companies fighting each other to be allowed to set up plants, we have automobile giants like Scania and Maan coming along, we have huge infrastructure projects being developed, and so on and so forth. The author would do well to remember that while only 1.3 million people may be employed by the sunshine industry (as other cliches go), more than 300 million people form the middle class. Think about that number. That is the population of the US. I come from the middle class myself. And life isn't a daily struggle for survival as most will put it. Life is comfortable. Life is good. You might want to consider why so many young graduates are preferring to stay back in India for work instead of going abroad.

No labor-intensive manufacturing boom of the kind that powered the economic growth of almost every developed and developing country in the world has yet occurred in India. Unlike China, India still imports more than it exports.

We import more than we export because we're an economy fuelled by domestic demand, unlike China which has become the world's supermarket. The middle class is consuming products which are being manufactured here or are being imported. I'm not an economics major, but from whatever I've read, I can tell that this is definitely a good thing.

This means that as 70 million more people enter the work force in the next five years, most of them without the skills required for the new economy, unemployment and inequality could provoke even more social instability than they have already.

Re:Deficiencies in the article

[truthalonematters]

Well Said , you are 100% correct about the deficiencies this article The author has no idea about anything in India or Indian !

Re:Deficiencies in the article

[ram346]

Some facts may be true in the article and there is a lot to criticize. What the author misses to state that there is no other alternative. Wealth creation may start in pockets and then spread by re-investment. Its almost impossible to imagine that one billion people start creating wealth simultaneously as there will never be so much financial capital, ideas and skills available to do that in an instant. It requires its natural pace. To the author: Dude, someones making a start. You may think its a myth but lot of people have started believing in it.

Re:Deficiencies in the article

[Quiet_Desperation]

Has the NY Times been asleep for the last 15 years?

No, just in their own (very) little world.

Re:Deficiencies in the article

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont usually read comments on Slashdot, this one was very well written. good job! Western media can
write a million articles on the eastern world, but they will never get things close to completely right. they are an infant in comparison to the East which has ancient cultures thriving to date. Materialistic wealth is all thats known to them. That person on 1$ a day is many times happier than the millionaire working 12 hours a day in the US. And he will most likely live about the same age as that guy too.

Re:Deficiencies in the article

[mikegre]

Shaun...that was a great post. Thanks for taking the time to write it. I live in New York and so I have the opportunity to meet and react with lots of people from India. Over the past 30 years my impression of them as decent, honest, intelligent, hard working, family oriented people has only grown. Your thoughtful post has only confirmed this. Thanks again.

Re:Deficiencies in the article

[hopethisnickisnottak]

Thank you for your kind words, Mike.
I haven't had the pleasure of knowing enough Americans, but the ones I met were the same as the Indians you described. And they have a wonderful sense of humour when it comes to cracking jokes about themselves :)
Besides, you guys are forgiven every sin for having invented Jazz!

Regards,

Re:Deficiencies in the article

[The Cydonian]

I think the point that India's extreme left (Pankaj Mishra, Arundati Roy etc) misses, and misses completely, is how inherently course-correcting the system has become. Two years ago, we had major infrastructure problems; now we have the world's cheapest telephone system, the Railways has a surplus, most electricity boards are making a profit, etc. We've had massive population growth in our urban areas, but look at the predicted growth levels from now to 2015; most of it will taper off to a trickle.

That, as a summary, is my major beef with Pankaj Mishra's Op-Ed; he seems to be looking at current problems and thinks things are either stagnant, or will become worse. Yes we seem to have intractable governance issues, yes there's no coherent political leadership to address them, but no, that's no reason not to be optimistic. I don't know if India will be a superpower or not, but I think it is very reasonable to suggest that in twenty years time, the majority of Indians will be living in conditions that can approach international standards.

Re:Predictable Responses

[mano_k]

We saved you in World War II, so go to hell! If it weren't for us, you'd all be speaking German now!

But I *am* speaking german?!?

The author is right, and pessimistic.

[univgeek]

The facts that the author of the article presents are absolutely true. There can be no question that life in India is miserable for a vast number of people, in cities, towns, and villages. Communal and caste-based tensions do exist in many places.

There is also no easy way out. Every $ or Rs. that is spent in India helps. Every cent of Investment or export by India helps. Much of it trickles down to the poorest in the cities and villages.

What's needed is an increase in literacy and increase in jobs. Neither of these are short-term, easily achievable goals.

Manufacturing must increase - providing opportunities to semi-skilled workers. Efficiency must increase, allowing for cheaper goods and trickling down to more profits for the millions of small businesses. Farm efficiencies must increase - through better processes or crops. Farmers must get a bigger share of the final price.

While all these are very important issues, the sheer size of India prevents easy action on any of them. We will get out of this mess, it will take time and money.

The author seems to know a lot of Indians who have settled abroad. I know a lot of Indians who've come back or are planning to do so very soon. They're bringing investment with them, they're bringing the contacts and business knowledge that will help them serve customers in the US or Europe. And they will each bring jobs for a few more people.

If the only way we can earn the money is through taking the high-tech jobs of Western countries we're not going to say no. If we can earn money by designing and launching satellites for small developing countries, we're going to do that too. If we can earn money by taking every service job in the US or Europe that's up for grabs, well, we're going to do that too.

India may become the back-office for the rest of the world, we'll still have people left to do other things. India may end up doing most of the unwanted service jobs for the rest of the world. India may do very high-technology services for other countries. That's fine too, because a billion people need a billion different things to do.

The West has drained an incredible amount of wealth from India/China/Africa/America and used it to kick-start their own economies. Two hundred years of plundering cannot be undone in a few dozen years. We're on our way back up, and we'll get there.

All of us have not fallen to the myth of Western superiority in economics due to any inherent advantages. We know what the Western economies owe the rest of world. We don't have the option of plundering other countries' natural resources or enslaving millions of Africans, Indians or Chinese people. We have to get out of this hole with only our own resources. And if it's going to take a century, then we're going to take a century. You can either help us, or hinder us.

Re:The author is right, and pessimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am impressed by your hope. It is not misplaced. I, too, expect that the victims of imperialism will soon find a way to work though the problems it caused. You seem to imply that the west built its economies on the backs of eastern nations, and I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Exploitive diamond mines in Africa certainly didn't hinder western economic development, but it definitey didn't make or break it. If western countries weren't already on their way (on their own) to having such powerful industries, they wouldn't have been been able to plunder the "savage", underdeveloped world.

The way I see it, western people just love money and power, and they'll sacrifice quality of life to obtain that. Through imperialism, they forced these ideals on people who know that there are more important things in life. Despite the exploitation, I'm not surprised that the exploited had trouble making their way in a new, westernized world. Imperialism destroyed ways of life that the rest of the world could have learned a lot from. I would rather see a return to the good old days than see a determined attempt to "cope".

I'm guess I'm not so sure about this though, and that's what the AC is for.

Re:The author is right, and pessimistic.

[univgeek]

I think you'll have to read and realize just how much wealth was moved from India to the UK. Much of the 'old wealth' was created on the backs of fortunes made from the East India trading company for instance.

The destruction of the old-economy of the colonial countries lead to some of the worst human rights and human life destruction ever. From having no famine before British rule, to famines every decade. From having self-sustaining villages to desolate wasteland.

On the other hand, we did learn some of the values of science and freedom. Exposure to western modes of thought have taught us to appreciate and value the millenia old philosophies we have. We have had a lesson taught to us that we will remember - we will not be imperialist for a very long time.

I wouldn't like a return to the 'good old days' though. We have learnt a lot, and we need to go forward with a good blend of Western rationalism and pragmatism, and Eastern philosophy and attitude to life.

Re:The author is right, and pessimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think you'll have to read and realize just how much wealth was moved from India to the UK"

No, you are the one who needs to reconsider this matter. Despite the period of Britain's colonial rule, India still has far more resources than Britain ever will. Think of it this way - if all the "wealth" was returned, it would solve India's mess? Clearly not. Do you really think Britain is somehow today holding India hostage? All they've got to do is release "your wealth", and presto! all your problems are solved?

The example of Africa you cite further up is even more ludicrous. Colonialists like Cecil Rhodes single handedly plundered the entire continent? Do you appreciate just how big that continent is? No, the colonialists took less than 1/100000000th of what's still there waiting to be dug up.

In their case and yours, the problem is overpopulation combined with bad management. Accept it and fix it. You can't blame dead and gone colonialists forever.

Re:The author is right, and pessimistic.

[univgeek]

Do you think that the breadth of what the colonists did was plunder? They destroyed the entire support structure that had developed over centuries. Their ideas of land ownership destroyed the previously self-supporting villages. King Leopold of Belgium practically destroyed the Congo. They destroyed industry and banned capital goods production in the colonies. The early industries in Europe were doing roaring business importing raw materials and exporting finished goods. Do you think that no Indians could create factories in India? There were laws and English guns which prevented Indians from starting factories.

Why do you think Indian laws still make it difficult to start capital-intensive, manufacturing industries? Because they are based on 200 years of British (mis)rule when any form of local mechanised industry was severely frustrated. Apart from this, even handloom and other handicrafts were systematically destroyed. In one instance, the British cut off the thumbs of all the master weavers of a particular area because the hand-woven cloth they produced was better than the machine woven imports.

The colonists set back the human development of the colonised nations by at least a century. I am blaming the dead and gone colonialists for having put us through all that misery. I am not sitting here doing just that though. We are working to get ourselves out of the mess that we were left in.

You may have read a version of history written by the victors, where the colonists were bringing civilization to 'tribals' who had no culture and no society.

That could not be further from the truth.

I completely agree that our population and management are the problems now and no return of wealth (without interest at least) is going to solve our problems. But it helps to understand that our problems were not all self-inflicted. And the wealth of the Western nations is not all clean.

Re:The author is right, and pessimistic.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't read the AC posts you're replying to, but just a couple of comments on yours:

1 - every nation has been colonized, some a long time ago, some in the last 150 years. Romans colonized Britain, Britain colonized Scotland, Scotland colonized Canada, etc. Each colonization period brought lots of misery but also advances in the forms of technology and ideas from other parts of the planet. I'm thinking along the lines of the Monty Python "what have the romans ever done for us" skit. I'm not defending colonialism but it's human nature to exploit whoever the hell you can.... this has improved over the last 50 years but we've still got a way to go. Aliens observing us from space would be pretty impressed by our progress, or so I'd hope.

2 - something that rarely gets brought up when we talk about slavery in Europe is that the Arab world enslaved and transported just as many Africans as the Europeans did. I'm not offering it as a justification but to point out that slavery per se didn't build the economies of the Americas (though it was integral to the plantation business model).

It's hard to say specifically how far back colonization set local cultures because often they operated in stasis for a long time. Other than that I agree with your points and moral outrage about colonialism. I'd also like to point out that we shouldn't just be debating histories fine points about this stuff - colonialism is still going on today - eg the Han colonization of Tibet.

Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some facts that the author seems to have completely overlooked:

1. India is the world's largest democracy and has been for some time. Successful elections for 60 years - not once has it had a militaristic regime or religious zealots threatening to take over the country. India has also never invaded another country.

2. Perhaps the most secular country in the world - It has a sikh (minority community) Prime Minister, Muslim President and Italian ruling party chieftan! Put in power by a 70% Hindu nation that is illetrate and poor. Which other Western nation has a similar track record? When will we see an african american President, voted to power by a rich, educated populous?

3. India has the second largest Islamic population in the world after Indonesia. All living harmoniously. The insurgency in Kashmir is primarily brought on by cross-border infiltration of mis-guided, Pakistani trained, mujahideen - same variety as Al Qaeda. And hey, India has had its people slaughtered since 1989 with the West continuing to ignore "state sponsopred terrorism". Why? Cause India chose to align with Russia, not in ideaology but for transfer of technology on MiGs and other hardware that the US was unwilling to do. Instead, America backed Pakistan and rebels in Afghanistan (read Al Qaeda) and we all know how that turned out... misguided beliefs of rich western nations against an impoverished India? Back in 1947, India had just been raped by the British for some 300 years and left to fend for itself.

4. A non polarized world - India pioneered the non-aligned movement to promote a healthy co-operation of nations, back when the cold war had pushed educated, rich, western nations to stock pile nukes and guarantee anhilation for the world. Who was thinking about the rest of the world - the billions living in impoverished nations? How effective is the UN? More than 2/3 of the global population is not even on the security council.

5. True India has many impoverished people. But look at the scale of the problem - 1 billion people! Not something you can change overnight. India has done well to maintain democracy, create robust internal industries and excel in the services sector. And so what if they claim Lakshmi Mittal as one of their own - he does still own an Indian passport. Things are changing and its in the right direction. More money is flowing in to the country, more jobs, more prosperity. India's liberalized economy is some 15 years old... given time who knows, its still a damn decent shot at success.

6. India's manufacturing sector is the next big thing - just check out their Automotive, Pharmaceuticals, Heavy Engineering & Aerospace industries. The government's focus like China is industrial growth. Recent announcements of Special Economic Zones is akin to what China did 15 years ago. Results will flow given time. And remember, the Chinese had a strong, communist government forcing change down people's throats... India needs to deal with democratic politics - the process of change is obviously slower.

I could go on, but the message is clear... The Indians are coming, not to fight or takeover the world, just to be respected as global citizens, at par with Americans, Europeans, Japanes, Chinese and the rest of the world.

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[squidguy]

To be fair, here are some facts that you appear to have overlooked:

... not once has it had a militaristic regime or religious zealots threatening to take over the country. India has also never invaded another country.

Uh huh... are you forgetting about when the BJP came to power, backed by Shiv Sena? If not religious zealots, then what? And, up until that point (and discounting Deve Gowda), Congress I was the only party to rule. As for invasions, what of Bangladesh (East Pakistan), Sikkim, Sri Lanka (ask Rajiv about that one). Seems a little skewed.

3. India has the second largest Islamic population in the world after Indonesia. All living harmoniously. The insurgency in Kashmir is primarily brought on by cross-border infiltration of mis-guided, Pakistani trained, mujahideen - same variety as Al Qaeda. And hey, India has had its people slaughtered since 1989 with the West continuing to ignore "state sponsopred terrorism".

True, but are you forgetting about Ayodhya? Maybe that issue belongs in the religious zealot category, but it does spawn muslim hatred towards hindus...and perhaps adds a little salt to the Kashmir fire (not directly related, but the wounds don't heal). Yes, Pakistan is far from innocent in this matter.

Stop drinking your own bathwater.

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[the_masked_mallard]

perhaps you should check your facts ... the invasion of east pakistan was hardly an invasion. refugees were pouring into india in the face of atrocities being committed by the pakistani army. it was not for the sake of any imperial ambitions that india invaded. similarily ... ipkf was invited to sri lanka. india has had non-congress govts. before deve gowda ... morarji desai (1977), charan singh, vp singh (1989). as for the bjp's "fanaticism" ... nothing spectacular happened during its rule which hadnt happened under previous regimes.

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

And to add to this, the so called zealots BJP/Shiv Sena were voted out in the last election by the majority Hindu population... how do you explain that?

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[harisheldon]

Sikkim joined India after a 97.5% of its citizen voted to join India in a referendum. India liberated Bangladesh after the leaders of the Awami League party who had won elections but were prevented by the generals from taking office asked India to stop the genocide. The elected government of Sri Lanka requested India to enforce the peace treaty. After the Gulf War 2 the Bush administration requested India to police the Kurdish parts of Iraq. Indian diplomats, military personal and politicians talked with various Kurdish leaders and found that there wasn't widespread support for Indian troops in the Kurdish regions. So, India decided *not* to send it's troops in keeping with their wishes. Sorry to burst your bubble but in each case India intervened at the request of leaders with popular vote. When there wasn't popular support for intervention, they didn't.

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[squidguy]

s for the bjp's "fanaticism" ... nothing spectacular happened during its rule which hadnt happened under previous regimes.
Thanks for the history lesson about the other non-Congress I governments...I should check my facts before speaking. But, I vaguely recall a couple of nuclear detonations...

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[squidguy]

It's really a point of view case, isn't it. One could argue that Sikkim "joined" (or was annexed into) India based on a case of "Finlandization". Although India entered Sri Lanka with the blessing of the Sinhala government, it overstayed its welcome.
And what of Azad Kashmir?

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[the_masked_mallard]

the first nuclear explosion was done by a congress govt. in the 70s. as i said .... nothing which hadnt happenned before

Re:Pakistani propoganda perhaps?

[the_masked_mallard]

azad kashmir is a sham ... elections are going to be held there and each candidate has to publicly support pakistan's claims on kashmir. he cant stand for kashmiri independence. contrast this with indian-kashmir where separatists are allowed to contest. incidentally, azad means free, quite an oxymoron in this case.

the bulk of PoK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) is composed of "northern areas", which are under direct control of the government. the pakistani government is also changing the ethnic composition of this region by migration from elsewhere, a trick used by their chinese buddies in tibet too.

dude ... get ur facts right before spouting any random junk!

read up on the roman empire

[Anonymous Coward]

Read up on the Roman Empire and you'll find quite a few similarities to USA. On many levels.

Over-hyped.

[ruzhen]

I'm from India. I know the truth of what's happening here by virtue of the fact that I live here. And the truth is, my country will never become a developed nation. The population has gone to a point where even if you try to curb it, it'll have a steady growth. It's standing at 1.2billion now and even a sharp decrease in the birth rate will still mean that the population cannot be curbed. 'cause 1.2 billion, friends, is a _lot_. The only ones who think India will become a developed nation[some even people a super power, heh] are loyally blind Indians and foreigners fooled by statistics of India's IT growth. We lack basic amenities lack drinking water in almost every region of even the posh areas. The air is polluted, the condition of the roads is pathetic in many place. We can't even meet our basic needs. 25% of the population lives below the poverty line; 25% of the population is unemployed. That's 250 million. More than the population of 90% of the countries in the world. It'll only increase. The percentage might go down eventually, but the number will still increase. We Indians are mostly deluded. We do have brain power, the educational system here is rigorous, but it's more about just memorizing things and learning them rather than understand the concept thereof. We will never become a super power.

Re:Over-hyped.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from India. I know the truth of what's happening here by virtue of the fact that I live here. And the truth is, my country will never become a developed nation

I just have one question: What would an indian goatse.cx look like?

Re:Over-hyped.

[ujjalpathak]

India will never become a powerful country because of people like you. You seem to be so much "worried" about your fellow Indians while you're enjoying AC and surfing internet. Give me a break. First off, you don't even sound like you're from India. Nice compilation of "facts" there.

Re:Over-hyped.

[jcr]

It does not follow that because India has these problems today, that you always will. There are many historical examples of countries raising their standard of living from near-starvation levels. For a nearby example, look at China: tens of millions killed by famine in the 1950s and 1960s, and having an economic explosion today.

-jcr

Re:Over-hyped.

[XchristX]

Three years ago, few people in India had heard of cellphones, now, even Hijras run around with ipods (I've seen 'em in Calcutta) and slum dwellers in Narayangaon (a small village in rural maharashtra) have a basic mobile.

  Don't be a typical self-hating Indian and pander to these useless liberal India-haters here. We're not there yet, but we'll get there.

  Remember "Hum honge Kaamyaab"? Bet you forgot.

Re:Over-hyped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi there.

Nice ring to that rant. BTW, "enjoying AC and surfing internet" reeks of you being obviously Indian, (clueless, but proud all the same) and if you don't realise it beforehand let me give it to you on a silver platter: you're hypocrite enough to pull this off. This is the biggest problem with Indians: Multiple standards. Doesn't-apply-to-me syndrome. and the "So what? Look! the US of A does it that way too!" that follows. I suppose you're just another typical sampling of those million cubicle monkeys employed by a multinational (ooh! shiny!) HQ'd in America. Fucking Tool. I suppose you do your country proud when you ass-grind patents and "knowledge-process outsourcing" for the rest of the world, not India.

I'm not the AC in the earlier parts of this thread; however I am an Indian.

For a change, dude, THINK. USE YOUR GODDAMN BRAIN TO THINK. That's where most self-enlightened Indians fail spectacularly.

There is a ruling class here, and a rainbow of lower ones that's collectively called society. It probably isn't any more different than the rest of the world, but our tradition and culture are filters (the rose-coloured goggles type ) to the rest of the world to look at India in awe, as if people here only live by wrapping themselves in saris and stuff like that (I hope you get it).

Stratified society has many reasons - and greed, the most successful import from the west, has caught on very well here to keep it that way. Earlier, people would weigh out the good/bad, the moral and ethical stuff, the contribution of the value system (more likely 'sanskaar'). Today - well, you see what's happening. The most successful business conglomerate (Reliance) has two "phoren-return" MBAs slugging it out against each other over their father's barely-cold ashes. Nice dirty linen for the rest of the world to feast their eyes on. The Birlas/Lodhas : something with the same undertones of greed. Sanskaar, my ass. That's what's happening in India today. That's the real problem, if you open your eyes enough to see it as such.

Look at our obsession with the film industry. All you see are self-righteous, barely-clad sluts with double standards (rakhee sawant-mika singh scandal anyone? mallika sherawat-jackie chan publicity? I'd lose an entire day going on and on here.) All that the film industry does is makes you pay through your nose for zero-value (negative, should i say) stuff that will never enrich anyone's lives except their own. And there are tools *do* flock to theaters to waste their time, money and grey/white matter on such obvious piles of bovine ecxrement.

Today nobody here gives a shit about stuff that previously had value - like values themselves (clue for you: morals and ethics). Why bother about whether you're not allowed to eat pork and beef if the rest of the world does it too? who gives a friggin' damn about religious and family values (ahem, except when it comes to marriage, talk about double standards again) everyday? If it takes a man's flesh and blood to make things work (been to Calcutta?) then so it be, is our attitude. Yes, we screwed up. But noone has the balls to admit it. We're all cuddled up nice and warm and safe in our layers uopn layers of multiple standards. WTF, but true.

We might be going through an economic revolution, but there's something more sinister - we're losing our collective wisdom to greed. We're trained, from the days of school, to admire and follow others - i.e. to be apes and tools. Somehow I feel that people like it that way, even if they don't know what it's like. And you'll find hordes of Bill Gates ass-kissers who don't have a fucking clue about how he made his fortunes by screwing it up for the rest of his race. That's India today. And with an I&B minister who supplies his personal signature for Microsoft ads. Talk about "forward-thinking". Hehe.

The problem is that we're not thinking long-term, or we're not thinking at all.. Much like today's America.

The below-the-belt part is that we've brought it all upon ourselves.

Re:Over-hyped.

[ruzhen]

You got me. I'm actually pretending to be an Indian so that I could partake and offer my opinion on a topic on a nerd news site. Good job, Sherlock.

Re:Over-hyped.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are such a pessimistic loser!

Re:Over-hyped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Today nobody here gives a shit about stuff that previously had value - like values themselves (clue for you: morals and ethics). Why bother about whether you're not allowed to eat pork and beef if the rest of the world does it too? who gives a friggin' damn about religious and family values

Hmmm another one of those hindu superamists. Who are you to say that I cannot (or can) eat beef or pork. I dont give a frick about religious values because I dont belive in God. The real problem is people like you who do not have tolerance for others then lack of "moral" valuse. All the problem casteism etc etc can be eliminated if it werent for people like you.

Btw I DO want to see skin in my movies and will kill you if you protest against one more movie for showing too much skin.

Re:Over-hyped.

[SteeldrivingJon]

"and having an economic explosion today"

For the (admittedly large) minority of the population that lives in the urban centers.

Meanwhile, in the rest of China there is increasing unrest, including a 2004 uprising of 100,000 farmers that was put down by paramilitary troops.

Rural unrest is a serious problem in China, with tens of thousands of protests last year, many violent.

Farmers in villages whose land was seized by developers for construction projects often directed their anger at corrupt local officials who skimmed off the profits of the sale.

In the meantime, the difference in incomes between those who live in the country and those who live in urban areas is growing.

On average, rural workers earn less than a third of those in the cities.

Re:Over-hyped.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't realy care about what religion you are, so don't bring that in here. Tolerance depends on what you can tolerate internally by yourself, not what's outside. So quit giving me the spiel.

Fine, dude - go ahead, noone's stopping you. Eat all the pigs you want. Watch all the porn and skin you want. All I'm trying to say is don't fucking crib about "india" again, when you cannot uphold a culture It won't happen due to forced-ignorant fucks like you.

You're not going to be part of it.

As I see, you have no retributive words for my other points. If you want to harp about a single thing, go ahead. And remember what I said about double standards.

Have a nice day. Maybe someday you'll find out why you didn't believe in $deity.

Re:Over-hyped.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are going to repeat the mistakes of history.

Nice site but like any traditional analysis...

[MMaestro]

Its fundamentally flawed. The U.S. imports a LOT of material goods but it also exports a LOT of intellectual property. Windows licenses? Tech support? Countless patents? (For better or for worse)

This is why most economists actually WORRY about India's sudden growth. Take away the outsourcing factor and you're not left with much. It doesn't hold a candle to China's industry (although it has the population), it doesn't come close to having the surplus base needed to supporting a nation of thinkers (U.S. land of the plenty and coincidentally land of the "smartest"?) and it doesn't have the social system to support a middle class (a caste system is STILL in place.)

Re:Nice site but like any traditional analysis...

[Glonoinha]

I never thought about it that way. It sounds like what you are saying is that simply by stopping outsourcing, America could completely destroy the Indian economy.
Fascinating.

Re:Nice site but like any traditional analysis...

[MMaestro]

America could single-handedly destroy the economy of Nevada by outlawing gambling. (Tourism undermined and gambling gone, Las Vegas is a ghost town in the middle of the desert. Its not big trading state, farming is minimal, its not an industrial center, its no Silicon Valley or Hollywood.) Its not that hard to destroy an economy when it strongly reliant on a few sources of income. The garment industry in China is so large it actually holds political power, the unions in Europe have shown that they can EASILY shut down their nation's economy and the economy of Russia panics everytime theres a scandal/crackdown/high ranking industrialist/government official being arrested.

Economies aren't these super powerful entities that are impossible to dent. Hell just look at 9/11. The world's economy paniced, stocks went down fast, governments braced for war, it took the U.S. MONTHS to recover from the shock, let alone the aftershocks (Afghanistan invasion, bin Laden escaping, Iraq invasion, arguing with the U.N., the constant talking of outsourcing, China becoming an industrial superpower while the U.S. is busy fighting Iraq/Iran/North Korea/Afghanistan/"terrorism")

Re:Nice site but like any traditional analysis...

[sethstorm]

America could single-handedly destroy the economy of Nevada by outlawing gambling.
They did a little disaster on the Midwest and the Rust Belt on the manufacturing industry, and even left it in a manner that recovery would require a universal open-door admissions/merit blind total funding policy to all universities. Look to Ohio/Michigan/Indiana/Pennsylvania and see what disaster you'd have if Nevada had to survive on corporations that tax evade but serve California.

an indian blogger's take

[the_masked_mallard]

http://www.sandeepweb.com/2006/07/07/india-hater-p ankaj-mishra-returns/

Of course they're being helped -- a lot

[CurtMonash]

I'm sorry, but that was a pretty stupid comment. Of course jobs help the Indians a lot. They help the people with the jobs and they help some more Indians that those people buy goods and services from. The gist of the article was just that there are lots MORE people to be helped than seem likely to be reached in the near future by merely the growth engines that are already going strong.

If you look at not just those 1.3 million workers and their families, but the top 100 or 200 million people in India, you have a relatively healthy country. The problem is the other billion or so who desperately need to be dragged along. Or so I understand; I've never actually been to India myself.

ill-informed author

[u19925]

there are too many factual errors and at other places the emphasis is completely wrong. i can go and show these line by line, but let us look at some of the obvious errors: "stock market, ...fell nearly 20 percent in two weeks, wiping out some $2.4 billion ... in just four days" The above calculations implies India's stock market worth of $9.6 billion. Companies like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Reliance, ONGC etc. EACH have more market capital than this. "As if on cue, special reports and covers hailing the rise of India in Time, Foreign Affairs and The Economist have appeared in the last month." Looks like author believes that TIME and Economist are ill-informed. "India is too dependent on Iran for oil " India buys Iranian oil at market rate. What is wrong with that? "country's $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa" How many economists are needed to tell the author to look for PPP instead of GDP? Besides, in 1980s, India's GDP was below that of GDP of almost all the sub-sahara African nations. So this is not a bad achievement. "India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106." Ten years ago, the same was said about China by magazines like Economist. "accounting for one out of every five child deaths worldwide;" 1 out of 5 children are in India. So this is just an average. "100,000 farmers committed suicide between 1993 and 2003." Per person, suicide ratio in India and USA is similar. Also there were more than a million suicide in India in the same period. So 10% of them happened to be farmers is not odd given the fact that farmer population in India is atleast that much. "The potential for conflict -- among castes as well as classes -- also grows in urban areas, where India's cruel social and economic disparities are as evident as its new prosperity." First the author has clubbed the two things: classes and castes. Here are my questions: 1. Can you show me any example of caste conflict in urban areas? 2. Can you show me any example of class conflict in urban areas? "The main reason for this is that India's economic growth has been largely jobless. Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy." Ever heard of trickle down effect? Let me explain. The 1.3 million job in IT sector are high paying jobs. These people employ large number of people in secondary jobs from school teachers to bank officers. Suppose instead of 1.3 million IT jobs, India had 5 million in small sector jobs (Indian govt favorite darling). In this case, most employees would be dependent on govt for welfare in areas of school, medicine etc. Besides these people would contribute more toward all the ills that the author has talked about from infant deaths to malnutrition to suicide. "But the anti-India insurgency in Kashmir, which has claimed some 80,000 lives in the last decade and a half, and the strength of violent communist militants across India, hint that regular elections may not be enough to contain the frustration and rage of millions of have-nots, or to shield them from the temptations of religious and ideological extremism." Again author has clubbed two totally unrelated things. The Kashmir problem is India-Pakistan conflict left over from the partition of India in 40's. The communists on the other hand are supported by the same like minded people as the author of the article (look at other similar articles and you would find that most of them are communists. E.g. Praful Bidwai). "Many serious problems confront India. They are unlikely to be solved as long as the wealthy, both inside and outside the country, choose to believe their own complacent myths." Who says people are complacent? Absolutely not. Most wealthy people in India and abroad recognize all the problems that India faces and they are working hard toward solving them. Some of them in the process get rich and communist people author of the article feel jealous of their achievement and write such venomous articles.

Re:ill-informed author

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent post is bang on. A few more errors/omissions:
"communist insurgencies (unrelated to India's parliamentary communist parties)".

I believe he's referring to the naxalites who are essentially terrorists,but pretend to be Robin Hood types. They have no political agenda. But that wouldn't read well, so "commies" it is. What a hack...

Re:ill-informed author

[Anonymous Coward]

there are too many factual errors and at other places the emphasis is completely wrong. i can go and show these line by line, but let us look at some of the obvious errors: "stock market, ...fell nearly 20 percent in two weeks, wiping out some $2.4 billion ... in just four days" The above calculations implies India's stock market worth of $9.6 billion.

No, I'm afraid you're wrong here. The quote says the stock market fell 20% over two weeks, and that $2.4 billions dollars was lost in four days. I think that's a very reasonable number.

Re:ill-informed author

[1arkhaine]

For what it's worth, I found this to be a very interesting comment. I apologise on behalf of the moderation system that it is so low on the page, and thus will not receive the readership it deserves.

ill-informed author

[u19925]

Since I didn't format properly, posting it again (it was slow connection, so I didn't preview)....

there are too many factual errors and at other places the emphasis is completely wrong. i can go and show these line by line, but let us look at some of the obvious errors:

"stock market, ...fell nearly 20 percent in two weeks, wiping out some $2.4 billion ... in just four days"

The above calculations implies India's stock market worth of $9.6 billion. Companies like TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Reliance, ONGC etc. EACH have more market capital than this.

"As if on cue, special reports and covers hailing the rise of India in Time, Foreign Affairs and The Economist have appeared in the last month."

Looks like author believes that TIME and Economist are ill-informed.

"India is too dependent on Iran for oil "

India buys Iranian oil at market rate. What is wrong with that?

"country's $728 per capita gross domestic product is just slightly higher than that of sub-Saharan Africa"

How many economists are needed to tell the author to look for PPP instead of GDP? Besides, in 1980s, India's GDP was below that of GDP of almost all the sub-sahara African nations. So this is not a bad achievement.

"India will not catch up with high-income countries until 2106."

Ten years ago, the same was said about China by magazines like Economist.

"accounting for one out of every five child deaths worldwide;"

1 out of 5 children are in India. So this is just an average.

"100,000 farmers committed suicide between 1993 and 2003."

Per person, suicide ratio in India and USA is similar. Also there were more than a million suicide in India in the same period. So 10% of them happened to be farmers is not odd given the fact that farmer population in India is atleast that much.

"The potential for conflict -- among castes as well as classes -- also grows in urban areas, where India's cruel social and economic disparities are as evident as its new prosperity."

First the author has clubbed the two things: classes and castes. Here are my questions:

1. Can you show me any example of caste conflict in urban areas?
2. Can you show me any example of class conflict in urban areas?

"The main reason for this is that India's economic growth has been largely jobless. Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy."

Ever heard of trickle down effect? Let me explain. The 1.3 million job in IT sector are high paying jobs. These people employ large number of people in secondary jobs from school teachers to bank officers. Suppose instead of 1.3 million IT jobs, India had 5 million in small sector jobs (Indian govt favorite darling). In this case, most employees would be dependent on govt for welfare in areas of school, medicine etc. Besides these people would contribute more toward all the ills that the author has talked about from infant deaths to malnutrition to suicide.

"But the anti-India insurgency in Kashmir, which has claimed some 80,000 lives in the last decade and a half, and the strength of violent communist militants across India, hint that regular elections may not be enough to contain the frustration and rage of millions of have-nots, or to shield them from the temptations of religious and ideological extremism."

Again author has clubbed two totally unrelated things. The Kashmir problem is India-Pakistan conflict left over from the partition of India in 40's. The communists on the other hand are supported by the same like minded people as the author of the article (look at other similar articles and you would find that most of them are communists. E.g. Praful Bidwai).

"Many serious problems confront India. They are unlikely to be solved as long as the wealthy, both inside and outside the country, choose to believe their own complacent myths."

Ignorance

[Anonymous Coward]

It is overwhelming to see the never ending ignorance about India in US.

It is going to be difficult to understand India if you start with benchmarks in US.

Take an example, earnings of 90% of the mass in India is unaccounted in GDP. So jumping on GDP/population equation, which might work in US or other countries, will give you wrong picture.

Millions of starving kids is a reality in India. But the reason is not entirely poverty. It is lack of education, lack of health awareness and culture. For example, the starving kids in naxlite afftected areas are results of non-faith in government. They blow up hospitals, kill doctors and other government staff. Education might change it, but long way to go.

There is huge change in India since 1991. HUGE. Difficult for people from US to understand. They cant be blamed. Their culure is different.

I wish, India becomes wealthy, without sacrificing Indian values and traditions. This is not going to happen. The western culture is getting in. This is welcome in some respect but I still like India the way it is.

PS: You guys dont have to jump on conclusions about India. It will make its way to economic superpower.

Bogus

[sanman2]

Hey, as a person of Indian descent born in North America, I just want to enlighten the Gringo tourists with their North American english -- the phrase "backward caste" is an actual part of the lexicon in India, and it's commonly used by members of the said communities. It's like when Africans are called "black" -- black relative to what? Don't try and reflexively transpose linguistic conventions that you're familiar with to other countries where the evolution of language has been totally different. Does the NAACP have an antiquated name? Colored relative to what? The word "caste" is an english word, and not a word of local origin. The British may have liked to use such clinical terms, but post-colonial India has merely inherited that terminology baggage, rather than coining it.

Re:Bogus

[Ohreally_factor]

I'm not pointing fingers or blaming, I'm just pointing out that such linguistic "baggage" is a clear indicator of how deeply caste-ism or racism is ingrained into the culture. It's no different here in the US (maybe even worse). Have you ever actually met a black person? Judging from my experience, they don't actually exist. I'm met many brown people, some exceptionally dark brown, but no one actually black. We might even question why skin color is such a huge distinguishing characteristic, often the major characteristic used to define a person. But it's a linguistic convention, so that makes it OK. I'm just saying.

Re:Bogus

[sanman2]

Buddy, I'm born in North America, and raised in both countries. My roommate is black and so are my neighbors, you cracker.

"Have I ever met a black person?" -- pffft.

According to you I couldn't have -- I must have been too busy polishing the diamonds handed to be by the sweatshop workers in my gem-cutting business in Mumbai. Oh, a Shylock's day is never done.

Re:Bogus

[ObitMan]

Black skinned people do indeed exist.
There was this fellow named Sam that lived down the street when i was growing up.
He was Black. In fact he was so dark that in the summer he looked like he had blue skin when he tanned a bit.
Now i'm a nice mocha color and get Golden Brown when i tan. But Sam was a Blacker than Black man.
And i've met several gentlemen from Kenya, Mali and other African nations that have skin coloring that would meet the description of black.

Re: Hey Genius

[sanman2]

Hey Genius, India isn't located in the Middle East.

NYT

[sanman2]

I consider the New York Times to be a European embassy on US soil. They're just some sort of ugly bastion, as far as I'm concerned. They're a very ethnically partisan newspaper. The Gray Lady is really looking dour and gray these days. When blogging first emerged as an alternative to traditional media, I saw the NYT issuing rapidfire articles aimed at discrediting blogging. They gave up on that tack when they saw how useless it was. I've never seen them write a positive article on India. If you literally do a search of NYT articles on India or any Indian, every one of them is negative. Likewise, I've never seen them write a single positive thing about Russians. It's like NYT is trying to re-launch old European imperial campaigns in the guise of liberalism. I don't accept ethnically partisan liberalism at all, and whenever I see NYT spin happening, it always telegraphs its ethnic biases.

Re:NYT

[XchristX]

Glad to see someone has the sense to look at NYT for what it is, a liberal stink - pot from Ewwrope. It continues to amaze me why the American Left bows so obsequiously to Eurotrash-esque snobbery, when the Americans pretty much saved those worthless morons from annihiliating themselves, or from spending the rest of their lives fellating Wehrermacht soldiers, and America is bigger, more evenly populated, cleaner, more civilized (Europe had a genocide not 10 years ago, last genocide in America was over 120 years ago), more pluralist (race riots in Paris, Anti-Semitism on the rise in France & Ukraine, Neo-Nazi gangs rampaging the streets of Moscow, Hindu Temples & Sikh Gurdwaraas desecrated in Russia, Muslim women banned from wearing Hijabs in French schools ... ) than any damn Ewwropean country. America does not need to look up to Europe. America is better than Europe (I'm not American btw). I've been in the US for 4 years now, and I am very impressed with the overall ethos here. Americans can tell Europeans to fuck off.

Re:NYT

[sanman2]

The thing is that they're not even real liberals, they're just Atlanticists -- the new politically correct form of Euro-centrism -- in a liberal guise.

They love to screech and squawk about the huge military spending spree by the Bush admin, but when the question of NATO funding comes up, they'll screech and squawk just as hard in defense of the NATO gravy train.

On the Iraq war, they try and make themselves sound like saintly liberal peaceniks, but on the issue of building bridges towards Moscow and retiring the old ColdWar relic that is NATO, then suddenly the NYT sound like die-hard Cold Warriors, spies who haven't come in from the cold.

So I find their ethnically slanted and selective liberalism to be deplorable. Depending on which ethnic group they're commenting on, and depending on that group's disposition towards Europe, the NYT will selectively call the glass half-empty or half-full.

Selective liberalism is not liberalism at all. Liberalism is indeed very amenable to being misused by those who wish to wage machiavellian games of geopolitics under a humanitarian pretext, accompanied by holier-than-thou posturing and platitudes.

The Gray Lady is looking very old -- like a dinosaur, in fact.

Re:Predictable Responses

[king-manic]

We saved you in World War II, so go to hell! If it weren't for us, you'd all be speaking German now!

Actually the russians saved europe from having speaking german now. The US/Britian just made it so a larger portion of europe dont' have to learn russian. You may want to look back and see how little the US actually did in either world war in the european theatre. Now the pacific theatre, that was all the Americans.

Comparing with China

[Anonymous Coward]

The Indian nobel laurelate Amartya Sen made the point that the literacy rate in India is much lower than the literacy in the east asian countries such as China, and therefore the chinese factory workers has ended up being more valuable than the Indian factory workers. On the contrary India has a lot of well-weducated people. As a result of this difference the cheap plastic industry has ended up in China whereas the Indian economic growth is centered around a comparatively small middle class. In other words the lack of investment in education of the poor has lead to inequality. I warmly recommend Sen's book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199257493/qid=11 52349068

On the contrary I recently heard a talk of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who was one of the arcitects behind the Indian move towards market economy in the 1980's. He said that according to some of the standard measures of inequeality the inequality is India has not been rising. Here is a summary of a similar speach

http://info.worldbank.org/etools/BSPAN/Presentatio nView.asp?PID=1069&EID=328

Personally, I don't know what to believe. Perhaps some Indian slashdot readers can enlighten me.

West chooses dictatorship over democracy

[Anonymous Bullard]

India is a democratic nation where its citizens enjoy certain unalienable human rights. Its people have full rights to form labour unions. Its political parties must not only appeal to the electorate but they also need to compromise their policies with those of other government parties, follow the rule of law and last but not least perform well enough to earn re-election.

In China the ruling Communist Party (CCP; with policies closer to a capitalist fasist party) does exactly what it wants in order for China to become the greatest power on earth under their rule. Sacrificing their people and even swallowing up neighbouring nations to reach that aim doesn't bother the CCP dictatorship one bit.

Case in point: The CCP recently finished the building of the massive Three Gorges Dam. Millions of locals had to be relocated with much if not most of the meager compensation stolen by opportunistic party officials. People attempting to report facts about it face arrest, suspicious muggings or worse.

In India far smaller dam projects face long delays or even cancellation because the locals have various means of defending their rights.

In China, business people with the right guanxi (political connections) can take over anyone's land and if the locals riot as their last recourse, the Party's paramilitary police will quickly take care of it.

If democracy and basic human rights meant anything to Western business people and Western politicians who are responsible for the "rules of engagement", the West would choose to invest in and trade with democratic developing nations (like India) instead of expansionist totalitarian regimes (like China).

As long as democracy and basic human rights are only paid superficial lip-service by the West, free countries will lag behind the dictatorships. Beside the West losing (selling out) its fundamental moral foundations, such policies will also encourage developing countries to adopt the more dictatorial forms of government since they are proving to be more beneficial in terms of foreign investment. In fact China is increasingly channeling its own foreign investments into Central Asia, Africa and South America, further undermining the West's half-assed efforts at encouraging democracy and human rights in those countries.

Democracy and human rights certainly incur some financial costs but are we surrendering it all up just to help global corporations rake in short-term profits? It wasn't the corporations who suffered when the Stalins, Hitlers, Maos and Hirohitos went on a rampage; no, it was people who took the bullets in the name of their continued freedom.

If today's people still value those ideals, then global trade could easily be harnessed as a force for good. If countries like India were to be given preferential trade treatment over expansionist dictatorships like China, it would force the Chinese people to rethink their system and policies instead of giving them an edge over free societies.

Re:West chooses dictatorship over democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

i can only correct the following sections of your comments.

India is a democratic nation where its citizens enjoy certain unalienable human rights.
how many of these "citizens" are enjoying this "unalienable human rights"??? very few....people with money, power enjoy them, but everybody else, dont have them.

Its people have full rights to form labour unions. Its political parties must not only appeal to the electorate but they also need to compromise their policies with those of other government parties, follow the rule of law and last but not least perform well enough to earn re-election.
all of this handled, again by power, money and extensive corruption. nothing in the govt, even local govts...happens without money. this is the fact and you have to experience it first hand, to really comment on it... show me an honest politician (well..its oxymoron), but it is extremely difficult for such a politician to survive.. it is simply the survival of the fittest(most corrupt) in Indian Politics and all levels of its government.

let me give you some simple facts:

1. can you get a drivers license, without bribing an official???
2. can you get fair police protection, without bribing an official???

what i am saying is... there is extensive corruption at every level, and it is difficult for a citizen (whether forward or backward caste, living on a $1 or not), to enjoy life/$1 (or fundamental rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_Rights_an d_Directive_principles_of_India#Fundamental_Rights ) in India. Corruption is the root of all trouble in India.

Re:West chooses dictatorship over democracy

[dfjghsk]

I agree with you.. but it's not just the west who chooses to do business with China and other oppressive regimes. From the article:

Looking for new friends and partners in a rapidly changing world, the Bush administration clearly hopes that India, a fellow democracy, will be a reliable counterweight against China as well as Iran. But trade and cooperation between India and China is growing; and, though grateful for American generosity on the nuclear issue, India is too dependent on Iran for oil (it is also exploring developing a gas pipeline to Iran) to wholeheartedly support the United States in its efforts to prevent the Islamic Republic from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

If India really feels that way about the west.. then they are being hypocrites.

Re:West chooses dictatorship over democracy

[kbahey]

The title of your post caught my attention.

The West does indeed prefer dictators. But it is a more complex picture:

- Captial Is Cowardly (TM), and prefers stability. If a country is seen as stable, then investment captial will flow. India has been seen as being stable due to democracy and economic reforms in the past 10-15 years.

- Foreign Policy Prefers Dictators. They do not have to go back to the people to ask for permission, and are better peons in the geopolitical game. They are also disposable. Examples abound: from previous villains like Saddam (vs. Iran), Noriega (Panama), Qaddafi of Libya (now docile), and many others.

So, if you look at Pakistan and India, the USA is happy to outsource to India (cheap, economically stable, skilled labor), but when the time comes to invade Afghanistan, Pakistan is key because it is run by a dictator who needed US support. A similar picture emerged by Turkey's refusal to use its borders with Iraq, but the American base is in Qatar, and Kuwait (although Kuwait had an axe to grind against Saddam due to him invading them in 1990).

Title too indimidating?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Myth of the New India
Posted by Zonk on Saturday July 08, @01:22AM
from the would-be-nice-though dept.

I don't see the problem

[m874t232]

In the US, because of tax policy, you can make an argument that the rich have actually gotten (on average) richer at the expense of the middle class and the poor; a "trickle down" argument doesn't work in the US because what "trickles down" is arguably money that's been taken out of the pockets of the people it is supposed to trickle down on.

But in India, the poor were poor before and the rich seem to be getting richer because they are making money abroad. The money that's entering India and ending up in the hands of this small elite really does add to the overall economy and some of it will create new business opportunities for other Indians.

So, yeah, it's a myth that India has become this powerhouse of educated, low-cost middle-class workers. But it looks to me like they are better off than they were before. Increasing inequality is a problem, but arguably an acceptable one if it is due to some people doing well without other people falling off the social ladder.

1$ a day....

[jozmala]

I lived several months about that+rent in a western democracy.
And if I wanted to optimize my spending I could do it today too after looking the price of the food.

Now everything is cheaper in india, I'm considering living temporary to india. In india living $ per day doesn't even have to make any sacrifices on lifestyle. I don't know much about rent and that short of costs of living in india but something tells me those are not in the same order of magnitude as in Finland. But the lack of infrastructure or pollution that was mentioned here might put me off...

What's going to happen when machines can

[DarrylKegger]

do everything that people can?

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[ichigo 2.0]

People won't need to work anymore, and can spend their time pursuing something worthwhile.

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[DarrylKegger]

Who's going to feed/clothe/shelter them?

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[ichigo 2.0]

Think Marxian utopia à la Star Trek. Before the industrial revolution there was 0% unemployment, but I think you'll agree that even the unemployed of today have things better than even the royalty of that time. When technology has advanced far enough that human labour is unnecessary (human mental labour will still be needed though to design and program the machines), things will be well indeed. We still have a long way to go, but after the 3rd world gets industrialised and technology progresses for some decades, it'll be possible.

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[DarrylKegger]

So labour replacement technologies are going to trickle down to the have-nots? Or will the marginal cost for the 'haves' of gifting the benefits of this technology to the have-nots become so low that large scale charity will occur? How will this look as a process in getting from here to there?

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[ichigo 2.0]

The latter. Eventually production of some things will become so inexpensive that some people will just give away the product for free, eventually this will cause corporations to disappear from that part of the market. An example of this would be software, eventually software companies will have to give up their "make copies for nothing, sell for profit" business model as people are willing to make copies and give them away; most likely the companies will start to produce some value adding services that allow them to give away their software but charge for services. Eventually technology will advance to the point where the same can be done with physical products like food, clothing and shelter; this is when the machines will be doing all of our work. There will probably be a cutting edge that the unemployed won't be able to afford, but with time even that will trickle down. In the future no one will have to work just to stay fed/clothed/sheltered, and can work on more important things, like advancing science or whatever else one likes to do in their free time.

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[DarrylKegger]

If we could focus on and expand on food for a moment; currently and in the past there are/have been famines in developing countries, the causes of which are generally attributed to political and/or civil reasons. For many years now there has been a global oversupply of food so the problem is clearly one of distribution. Assuming this to be true; how will technological advances circumvent political and social blockades to nutrition?

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[ichigo 2.0]

Through improved and increased communication between individuals. As more and more people get online and come in contact with new ideas and people, the average level of awareness of the voting population will grow. In time they will effect the needed political changes. In developing countries this will not be as easy, the developed countries will have to remove blocks to free trade so that the developing countries are able to export their wares to us more easily. I believe this will enable them to eventually industrialise to the same level as the developed world, and eventually become completely automatised as well.

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[DarrylKegger]

What should I do in the mean time?

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[ichigo 2.0]

Send all your money to me in preparation for the automated future.

Re:What's going to happen when machines can

[DarrylKegger]

Hmm. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Rubbish!

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

This is normal for a post-industrialised service economy. You import more than you export and your primary growth is in the services industry.
 
It's not "normal" because there is no historical precedent. All the US is doing is borrowing from abroad to fund its consumption, which is due to the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. All that borrowed cash will need to be paid back with interest, which I don't see happening since the US makes very little the rest of the world wants ... unless of course the US finds a way to export personal trainers.

Re:Rubbish!

[Anonymous Coward]

"All the US is doing is borrowing from abroad to fund its consumption, which is due to the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency"

But the US defines the dollar. All it's got to do is say the dollar doesn't count anymore, we've got all the goodies, and we're not paying anybody anything.

"only" 1.3 million in IT and business processing?

[TheLink]

Seriously, I thought the whole idea of IT is that you replace masses of "mindless" labour with computers. You don't really need that many people. And it is better that you don't have that many people doing IT stuff, because it is actually quite painfully obvious that most people aren't very good at it.I don't really think it's such an important industry either.

There are far more important and genuine problems India faces.

Article is crap.

Check the statement out: "2.5 million Indian children die annually, accounting for one out of every five child deaths worldwide"

Well, roughly 1 out of every 5 people worldwide is Indian, so they're doing average. The average is not good, but try getting 1+ billion people above average. No "A"s but not an "F" if you grade on a curve.

IMO even the USA isn't doing well either in terms of culture, lifestyle, safety, corruption etc. I'd think places like Denmark, Netherlands are magnitudes better. But it's usually easier for small homogeneous societies - and India isn't one of those (well each Indian village/town is probably one of those societies - so there must be one or two stellar villages ;) ).

Multiple versions of truth

[tobby]

India is really a sad country, most of us are immune to this, we'd rather not face it. When I first came here as a naive 16 year old 10 years ago the poverty even in a city like Bombay shocked me, there is too much suffering here.

In villages the caste system is alive and well with lower castes living on the periphery and not sharing even the same resources like water. In cities you don't see it untill its time to get married, then even the most educated Indian becomes caste conscious. We are very religious as a people but not moral, for us sex and public posturing is more about morality, as individuals we have no integrity which reflects in the massive amount of corruption, how other Indians less fortunate than us are treated. For instance you could be praying all day and yet have little qualm in mistreating the people who work for you. The state and its various arms have no respect for the people, unless you are someone important even the most basic decencies are not extended.

This is everday life, there is a VIP culture, a culture of servitude which means that no rules are followed, no system adhered to, anything goes if you have the right connections. Thats why the environment is a mess, and administration ineffective. Whatever little resources is available is wasted.

And you can't run away from a population of 1.3 billion ever increasing. Even the most talented and commited administration can't solve this over the next 100 years. We can't have a welfare state and provide even bassic amenities. We will always judge ourselves by standards that are significantly lower than any western country. I think Europe at the moment is the good example of how to get things right. But indians will point to morality, as if they have a monolopoly on things like family values and caring for kids, what about trying to give people a decent chance at having a life, that's not important in the face of pretension and posturing. So every small success is magnified. We are insecure so any response to this article can only be defensive. But if we don't recognize the problem we can't solve it. We are inadequate, the systems and laws are there but we can't implement anything because of a overwhleming lack of integrity.

On the business side, the IT revolution has definitely made life better and its another small step. Companies are profesionally managed nowdays, no bosses wife intefering in your work. People are better paid. More people earning means more spending and this has a roll on effect. But we are not innovating, india has not innovated. BPO and IT services is the most boring work in the world, there is money but no challenge at work. We don't have a culture of R&D, taking a risk, making a product, and taking it to market, we don't have the appetite for that sort of invstment with no guarantee of returns, so much easier to to mop up service contracts, hire people here and refine a process and take the money. No risks. So don't compare this to Silicon Valley, thats a bit of a joke. The pharma industry have a similar business model, and here things could get dangerous especially with no effective regulation and human testing.

The entire world is living on science and technology that really picked up with the renassiance. We should not be shy to acknowledge this. Western civilization is the moden world, its a massive achievement for as as humans and as cultures we should learn form this human achievement and not try to posture about our failures so far.

Re:Multiple versions of truth

[aamitan]

Yes, Problems are simple to solve but practicalities take toll off you. You gotta have loads of wisdom, strength to fight social evils none more evil than to disregard logical thinking and simply, who calls the shots wins them all. Population is always a big problem but you have so many cultures over here that it becomes difficult to address the country as a whole and requires the action to be modulated to the customs of various religions. I too agree that India cannt be better than china. yes, they may be floundering human rights, but here also, it isnt exactly democracy here.

Re:Multiple versions of truth

[Anonymous Coward]

You are one of the very rare honest indians I have encountered on the internet. Most hindus insist that India is SHINING, despite all the glaring evidence to the contrary. I just want to slap these bastards in the face when they lie like that.

FACT: India leads the word in child malnutrition.

FACT: India leads the world in child labor.

FACT: India leads the world in child prostitution.

Fact: India's population increases by 19 million a year while IT employs only about 1 million.

FACT: India is abjectly poor EVEN by third world standards.

FACT: Indian hindus are among the most corrupt, callous, immoral people on earth.

FACT: Indians on average have the lowest measured intelligence of all races.

Re:Multiple versions of truth

[Anonymous Coward]

That's exactly what they want you think, and you got suckered right into it dumbass.

They want you to think they're inept, incompetent, and totally non-threatening so you won't even bother taking measures against them because who in their right mind would waste resourses to counter a bunch of retarded perverted poor people?

But then 20 years later while you got your back turned looking at the Middle East, China, or Europe for the next big threat, boom, they hit you with the world's largest middle class block and all the economic power that entails. Imagine suddenly hundreds of millions of middle class indians with their trillions of dollars in cash buying and spending growing their internal economy while you stand their slack jawed by the progress you wrote off many years ago as a fairy tale.

You sir are going to be the reason that we (whatever non-India country you're from) are going to fall behind and end up cleaning the sewers for our untouchable overseers, because you too easily trust your first impressions like a fool.

And then there's Friedmans view

[kilodelta]

Where he paints a positively glowing story of India in his book "The World Is Flat". He gets lots wrong but lots right in the book. Namely that business will go to the cheapest places in the world.

In one chapter of the book he even says that some untouchables in India are feeling the benefit. Something tells me he didn't get the whole story.

Western (double) standards

[bayankaran]

Pankaj Mishra is correct.

It was not so long ago that India appeared in the American press as a poor, backward and often violent nation, saddled with an inefficient bureaucracy and, though officially nonaligned, friendly to the Soviet Union. Suddenly the country seems to be not only a "roaring capitalist success story" but also, according to Foreign Affairs, an "emerging strategic partner of the United States."

When India conducted its first thermo nuclear experiments in the 70's, one of the striking cartoons to appear in American news papers was of Indira Gandhi (then Prime Minister) appearing with a begging bowl alongside the leaders of US, USSR, Britain, France.

Western worlds fascination with India grew after the second world war - when the West asked the question - why after all the technological and other progress we ended up with two world wars? Searching for answers they looked at India - a civilization which has never been an aggressor in its 5000 plus years of existence - but imbibed all attacks on its soul and territory with typical nonchalance.

Now the western suits are salivating at the market of a 300 million middle class. For the last two decades the shills have been demanding the only way for India to progress is to open up though similar experiments in countries like Argentina ended up tragically. What they don't realize is that India was and is open for the last 5000 years!!!

What a dollar buys in India

[sisukapalli1]

I read quite a few posts talking about what a dollar can buy in India, with most examples talking about a meal at a restaurant or a road side shack. That seems to be from the perspective of a "college student/single guy" outlook.

Another way of looking at what a dollar can buy is by looking at what the corresponding monthly expenses would be like. Eating out is sort of a luxury/uncommon in many places in India (let alone, gasp, everyday!). People cook at home -- and that gets the costs down significantly. In fact, I remember reading somewhere on how one can have a healthy meal for dollar a day per person in the US (something about buying things that are in season, etc.)

A dollar a day is very low for one person even in India. The picture may appear more depressing if we look at that money from the perspective of western eating habits.

S

Re: Hey Genius

[fatman22]

You have a marvelous grasp of the obvious. The point is what happened in Iran could happen anywhere and is a lesson that should be remembered by any government. Too many of them won't and will eventually wonder why they are no longer in power.

Misinterpreted article! Its surely not that bad.

[Georgej74]

The article misinterprets facts in many ways. There are some facts. Overall the picture looks good, not that bad as mentioned in the article and there is hope. But I rather call them as challenges than bad. They are not to be ignored. But there is no silver bullet either. If you discuss with people from India, while they are proud of the growth, they are don't hyped about it as the media reports. World media is worried since they had to drastically change the way they portrayed India for a long time.
Here are some views on India's growth gathered from various sources.

Media Image
Why is every one so surprised by India's growth? It has to do with the image of India portrayed by world media. The image portrayed was that of a poor country with a huge population aligned to the communist Russia. Few years back we never saw a an Indian multi-lane paved-road in the media, even when they existed in may places. Today media is forced to change that image as more and more people are visiting India. World media is worried since they had to drastically change the way they portrayed India for a long time.

$1 perception
As many pointed out in the replies, $1 is much more than most of us know. A loaf of bread is $1.5 (Rs67) in US is about $0.2 (Rs10) in India. While gas price is higher than in US, the MPG of most of the vehicles are much higher than in US. And many ride motorbikes that have 120MPG. So comparison is not apple-apple when you say Oh my God, people live in India for $1 a day.
I saw comments mentioning that the meal for less than $1 is in roadside shack. That is not true. Go to the wealthy part of the city and try to eat for a $, if we get one, that may be in a shack. If we go to the villages where poor people live, you are surely not going to see a star rated restaurant. But believe me, I have had and, most places we can eat food without upsetting stomach. But as the same person rightly pointed out most of the people cook food at home. And don't forget they grow vegetables at home and may be one cow or goat for their milk.

World has changed
No one is saying India will have an easy walk. World is different than it was during the industrial revolution. This could be a new form of economic revolution. And the background of the countries are not the same.

Wealth ratio
- Ratio of income earned by a country's richest 10% and the poorest 10% is 7.3.
That is, the richest 10% of the population is a little over seven times as rich as the poorest 10%.
- China which has a ratio of 18.4.
- United States 15.7.
This numbers show that the gap of wealthiest and poor are much better than many wealthy countries.

Middle class growth
When we say the percentage of middle class is growing, what does that mean? It means people from lower economic class is joining middle class. Isn't that good? There is no silver bullet, it cannot happen in a day or few years. It is improving at a good rate, given the population.

Per capita income
- In 1996, India had a per capita income of $380.
- In 2004 India's per capita income has risen to $620.
- While many other Asian countries have not got that seen that growth.

Growth Rate - a different view
- From 2000 to 04 with annual growth rate of 6.2%.
India was not second but the 17th fastest-growing nation in the world.
- From 1990 to 2004, India moves up to being the fourth fastest-growing economy, behind China.
- From 1980 to now, India does indeed come secondbehind China.
- It is this that gives the big hope to India - Consistent and steady growth - at least till now.

Challenges are not just in India.(from BBC article)
- Rising inequality is largely a concomitant of globalization and, hence, for a single country to take action against this is to take the ri

Poverty, infant death...etc a world wide problem.

[Georgej74]

An article dated Sep 2005, based on UN report show that poverty is in rise even in US.
UN Hits Back at US in Report Saying Parts of America are as Poor as Third World. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0908-06.ht m

Some highlights...
Child mortality is on the rise in the United States
The infant mortality rate in the US is now the same as in Malaysia
Blacks in Washington DC have a higher infant death rate than people in the Indian state of Kerala
Child poverty rates in the United States are now more than 20 per cent

The article is biased.

[Anonymous Coward]

The author of this article is completely uninformed about India.

Just wanted to quote some excerpts from the article.

"Despite a recent reduction in poverty levels, nearly 380 million Indians still live on less than a dollar a day."

1 dollars = 44 indian rupees roughly. The population of India does not live in manhattan on one dollar a day. 44 rupees daily implies (44x30 = 1320 per month). As a student, I was paid close to Rs. 1000 per month for my expenses, and I managed to pay my rent and also for the groceries and other stuff. I never slept hungry or lived in a slum. I just lived a normal student life (in rural India). In rural India, a person with Rs. 2000 per month has a better life quality as compared to a person living on Rs 15,000 per month in Mumbai. It is all subjective. Granted, that the standard of living in India is still far below than that of the developed west.

The primary reason why still there is so much poverty in India is unequal distribution of wages, aka low cost of services that do not require skills.

"The Indian government no longer effectively controls many of the districts where communists battle landlords and police, imposing a harsh form of justice on a largely hapless rural population."

This sentence is utter bull shit. I have travelled most parts of India and it simply is not true. It was true in sixties though. I would suggest the author to make a visit to India especially the rural portions (and remote corners of Bihar) to get a feel of the change that has occured especially since the last decade.

Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

for both exquisite language and the attribution of facts. Thank you XchristX for being both funny and enlightening.

Trickle Down Economics will Raise Their Boats

[Tetravus]

Or something... yeah that's it.
This is a wonderful opportunity for economists to observe the effects of an income influx into a society that isn't a simple redistribution of existing wealth. As for rural Indians, it's probably not the opportunity they'd hoped for but perhaps some good will still come of it.

shoes for their kids to walk to school

[r00t]

My grandpa didn't have that. He was born on a low-yield farm in Iowa, in the early 1900s. He also didn't have running water or power. He didn't get oxen or horses, just mules. At the time, places would even put up "No Irish" signs!

He wasn't lazy though. He worked his ass off to become a dentist.

So I do not think shoes are a requirement.

There might be a problem if your culture is such that you feel your fate is predetermined, your class is predetermined, and it's the government's job to support you.

Re:shoes for their kids to walk to school

[aanantha]

He wasn't lazy though. He worked his ass off to become a dentist.

Well, then you are justifiably proud of him. I won't bore you with details but my father also pulled himself out of the poverty without any help from any government. But he was inspired by someone, and the one he was inspired by was inspired by someone else. Ultimately without inspiration and drive it doesn't matter what help you get, you won't get very far up the ladder. Some are inspired by family members, some who don't have family members to look up to get inspired by their teachers. Sometimes you need an outside source.

So I do not think shoes are a requirement.

The bit about the "shoes" is a reference to stories of Tijuana maquiladora workers not being able to give their children shoes for the long walk on a rocky road to school. Not surprisingly that resulted in many of them not sending their kids to school, thereby perpetuating their cycle of poverity. There will always be people who dig themselves out of every bad situation because they have the drive to do so. But there are threshold levels of minimum income people need before any more than a freak number of children can make it out of poverity. The most significant level is the one where the child has food to eat and access to public education. Without food, their minds cannot develop. Without public education, they obviously can't learn anything.

There might be a problem if your culture is such that you feel your fate is predetermined, your class is predetermined, and it's the government's job to support you.

Bitter, are we? You know, not every place in the world is like America. We don't have mass starvation here. We don't have rebels gunning down innocents in the streets. Every child has access to a high school education. You don't get murdered for moving up the ladder.

Re:shoes for their kids to walk to school

[yndrd1984]

Without public education, they obviously can't learn anything.

I have to disagree. Plenty of people teach themselves things, or learn them from other people, every day. The idea that public education will help the poor has a short history, and I have yet to see any solid evidence that it actually works.

5000 Years Of Culture Perhaps a Disadvantage?

[Anonymous Coward]

And its almost funny when you say that a nation with over 5000 years of _written_ history would be eager as a puppy to 'absorb' a 300 year old country's culture and stored-up 'ideas'.

Both China and India have written histories that go back thousands of years. In both cultures the language can be traced back so many years. But is a long cultural history an advantage in modernizing a society?

I venture that the answer is a firm "No." Some reasons:

1. to communicate requires assimilation of a culture, including it's myths, history, and perspectives on life. This takes more time for longer histories,
   
2. time spent learning the culture is time not available for developing science and new ideas that might improve productivity.
   
3. Science today is largely Western, English is the "lingua franca" of science and in India, English is fairly widespread. Based on this, I would expect India to more rapidly assimilate ideas from Western science and culture than would China.
4. In the case of Chinese literature (I don't know about Indian languages), lack of a phonetic language is almost crippling. It renders organization difficult (e.g., Chinese dictionaries are not nearly as useful or handy as dictionaries for Western languages, since they cannot be alphabetized).
   

To be honest, I view India as Western and Eastern at once, being so large and broad that it easily can contain and contribute to many cultures simultaneously. In contrast, China is distinctly, well, _China_, and still sees itself as the center of the world. It's leaders actions reveal that cultural attitude clearly.

Discussion? Is it better today to have 5000 years of culture behind you? [Or, to the young student, _before_ you?8-)]

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[dfjghsk]

why do you think it doesn't exist? National Geographic did an entire feature about the caste system in India.

Link to Article:

Branded as impure from the moment of birth, one in six Indians lives -- and suffers -- at the bottom of the Hindu caste system.

...

Discrimination against India's lowest Hindu castes is technically illegal. But try telling that to the 160 million Untouchables, who face violent reprisals if they forget their place.

...

The sins of Girdharilal Maurya are many, his attackers insisted. He has bad karma. Why else would he, like his ancestors, be born an Untouchable, if not to pay for his past lives? Look, he is a leatherworker, and Hindu law says that working with animal skins makes him unclean, someone to avoid and revile. And his unseemly prosperity is a sin. Who does this Untouchable think he is, buying a small plot of land outside the village? Then he dared speak up, to the police and other authorities, demanding to use the new village well. He got what Untouchables deserve.

One night, while Maurya was away in a nearby city, eight men from the higher Rajput caste came to his farm. They broke his fences, stole his tractor, beat his wife and daughter, and burned down his house. The message was clear: Stay at the bottom where you belong.

India ... Poor ?

[sunsrin]

Nope, World Bank says ... India was the 12th Wealthiest nation in 2005 - here

Depressing, Fatalistic Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you are wrong, but fear you are right. Perhaps India as it exists today is unable to bootstrap itself. OTOH possibly parts of India can bootstrap themselves into a better situation. Are there regions that might break away and become independent in the hope of advancing their situation? My guess is no. Thus, if you are correct, there is no hope.

Until You are kidnapped...

[Anonymous Coward]

and are ransomed for your "fortune" by the Marxist rebels who live in the region.

Better to sell that property and rent some rooms in the city, where you can dress and act like a poor crazy man. You'll be much happier - better food, better social connections and you'll get some warning before the scheiss hits the fan.

Interesting...

[Yarou]

It seems that whenver India makes a few small gains, the NY Times (and several other newspapers), feels the need to strike it down, and distort the picture, shedding light on India's weaknesses, rather than its strengths. However, it doesn't matter. 50 years from now (hopefully), the negative attitude about India will go away, once these newspapers run out of bad things to say about India.

Hm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious, where do you get your information about the degree and nature of class/regional differences within your country? The state-run media?

I am sorry if this question seems rude, I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm legitimately curious.

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[ppanon]

Parent wrote:
why do you think it doesn't exist? National Geographic did an entire feature about the caste system in India.

Probably either

a) he lives in an area that's isolated from the worst cases (i.e. the Indian equivalent of the Hamptons) or

b) he knows it exists but realizes that there could be a big backlash against companies that outsource to India if it were more widely known how widespread caste discrimination is in India.
In the long run it's not sustainable, but all he cares about is his lifetime.

It's similar to the right wing rant by XchristX that started with:
Just about every source you have quoted is strife with self-hating left wing bias.

To quote Stephen Colbert: The facts have a liberal bias.

No matter what happens its going to be a difficult adjustment period in moving away from a caste system. When S. Africa tore down apartheid, there was a huge increase in crime from many of the poorest blacks because it became easier for them to see how much of a disparity there was between them and the ex-ruling white population. However that crime drove out of the country a huge portion of the educated elites that had made S. Africa the economic powerhouse of sub-Saharan Africa. Whenever ruling elites lose their inherited advantages they are going to be unhappy about it and resist change, and a big proportion of people who have grown up as second-class citizens aren't likely to take the transition to "equality" well if that equality only exists in the name of the law.

It takes generations (and significant economic trauma) for those transitions to happen. The US is only now starting to approach the end of the process of black equalization that was marked by the Civil Rights movement in the 60's, or even 100 years earlier with the American Civil War. And there are still significant pockets of racial stagnation (*cough* Washington D.C. *cough*).

Re: Hey Genius

[sanman2]

Hey fatman, unlike the Pahlavi dynasts, India's democratic polity has mastered the art of populism, which is unfortunately why India has been poor for 60 years. Because while populism may get you votes, it doesn't necessarily produce economic growth -- quite often the contrary, actually.

India needs industrialization, because the fact is that most people can't become programmers or even call-center workers overnight. No country can skip the necessary step of creating a blue-collar working class.

Great Knee Jerk

[Ohreally_factor]

I read your post and I got that you were born and raised North America. Maybe you should read my post for comprehension before you start calling names. (I'm of partial asian descent, so I'm tickled that you call me cracker.) I'm to believe that your roommate is literally black and not a shade of brown? Are his teeth black, too?

Anyway, whatever your heritage and upbringing, it obviously didn't involve instilling maturity. I believe we're done here, unless there are more names you'd like to call me. Something about the shape of my eyes or the color of my skin might be more racially appropriate.

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[immerrath]

Of course it exists. Just in fewer places. Just like racism still exists in many small towns in the USA. And India has to deal with a whole lot more diversity than the US.

Articulate Indian Comments

[chiao]

There seem to be a lot of articulate Indian voices amongst these Comments. I wonder what others feel about the comparison with Chinese voices on the articles on China.

George Bush Says the Following

[Master of Transhuman]

"I just gave nuclear technology to India, which has eighty million more Muslims than Iran.

Y'all feel safer now?"

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[dfjghsk]

160 million people are in the bottom caste of Indian society. That is a far larger problem than racism in america.. the two don't even compare.

Now they tell us

[StreamCipher]

>unemployment and inequality could provoke even more social instability than they have already

Gee, now they tell us. Wouldn't it have been better for this to come out before trading you-know-what for mangos?

our economy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because all of us slashdotters live in the same country right?

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[XchristX]

My Dear pasty-faced Shaheb:

  National geographic is well known to be racially biased. They even had an article claiming all Indians are cannibals and eat rats (most Hindus are diehard vegetarians, even dirt-poor ones). They are the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" against Hindus. A hoax.

  They also have articles demeaning African people, while completely ignoring the strides made by countries like Uganda and Ethiopia in recent years. They are the left-wing racists I spoke of earlier. Godlessness breeds racism. The Nazis were godless, as was Stalin, and as are American Liberals.

  Legitimate criticism of developing nations is fine, but National geographic veers away from academic criticism and goes into racist rants and raves against all non-white non-christian countries (even though 87% of Uganda's population is Christian, just not white; That's enough for National Geographic to label them as 'soulless niggers').

  National Geographic also had article (I read them as a kid) denouncing Zionism as Racism, so they are New (ie Left Wing) anti-Semites as well. They are overwhelmingly supportive of "Palestinian" (a ficticiuos nonexistent country) terrorists and demean and denigrate Israel (they had a completely biased article against the Kahane Khai party, for instance; they have ignored all the positive contributions that Kahanists made during the Palestinian Intifada).

  Liberals in America portray Hindus as animals, and encourage hate-crimes against them. Liberal bastard Jonh Kerry insulted all Sikhs as terrorists, and Hillary Clinton made derogatory remarks against Hindus in public.

  In contrast, conservatives opened the National Prayer Day in the US Senate in 2001 with a Hindu prayer, many members of the India Caucus are Neo-Conservatives, and Neo-conservatives generally present unbiased and fair views whenever they discuss Hindus.

>To quote Stephen Colbert: The facts have a liberal bias.

  So does spin.
        --Bill O'Rielley ? (Whom Colbert parodies).

WTF?

[tanveer1979]

Dude, where are you dreaming. $50/day means 50*45 = Rs 2000+/day. That means around 70,000rs/month. that means you know what, "UPPER MIDDLE CLASS". Lifestyle : Maid for cleaning, Another one to do the cooking, taking wife out every other day, nice car, Own 3 bedroom apartment. $10/day is something a starting BPO worker earns, and $20 a day is something a BS degree guy joining Intel/TI/AMD etc., earns.

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[XchristX]

Oh, and read this article about the hypocrisy of the liberal left:

http://www.bnaielim.org/schmool042206.htm

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[immerrath]

Two reasons why that doesn't appeal to me: one, there are many govt. mandated benefits for those in the "lower" castes -- today, it's almost a disadvantage to be one of the "forward" castes in India, if you want a job, or to enter college. Two, the importance of a sociological problem cannot be judged by the raw number of people affected by it -- there are too many other factors in play. I could make arguments about the population of India and how casteism is by no means the biggest problem these people face. I could also make arguments about how the most developed nation in the world suffers from the same racial discriminatory issues and ignorance and paranoia and xenophobia.

democracy`s propaganda like communism of CCP

[anotherview]

much if not same money was stolen by the famous inefficient bureaucrat of democratic india just like corrupt CCP; All over the world, business people have right to take over anyone's land if they had bought the land,if not ,the police will help them.This world was controlled by capitalist,not democracy; not long ago Western business people means colonialism,expansionism ,child labor,slavery and viper.After they have gotten most of resource on the earth,they means democracy now.

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[dfjghsk]

there are many govt. mandated benefits for those in the "lower" castes

If that is true, what does it matter if there government benefits.. does that mean it doesn't exist? A person in a lower caste with government benefits is still a person in a lower caste. A poor person with welfare benefits is still a poor person. An unemployed person with unemployment is still unemployed.

it's almost a disadvantage to be one of the "forward" castes in India,

You're from one of those 'forward' castes, aren't you? You don't see how bad it really is, because you aren't at the bottom of this system (which is the same reason why you see little wrong with it). Are you seriously going to try to argue that those at the bottom of the caste system almost have it better than those at the top?

I could make arguments about the population of India and how casteism is by no means the biggest problem these people face.

That I can agree with. India has many issues it must face.. the caste system is one of those, but it is arguable whether it is the biggest.

I could also make arguments about how the most developed nation in the world suffers from the same racial discriminatory issues and ignorance and paranoia and xenophobia.

Even if that is true (although I don't agree (completely) that it is)... it doesn't change the fact that the caste system exists in India. and that it is grossly unfair to those at the bottom.

On the receiving end of Indian outsourcing...

[rayk_sland]

"Since the early 1990's, when the Indian economy was liberalized, India has emerged as the world leader in information technology and business outsourcing, with an average growth of about 6 percent a year." Has any slashdot reader actually had a good experience with outsourced indian customer support? Not me. After having to deal with one manufacturer this way, I make a point of saying thank you every time I dial a support number that doesn't end me up in India. I am not putting Indians down. I just think that the cultural differences are too great for them to handling support (even in English) for North Americans. My experience was very frustrating.

Re:On the receiving end of Indian outsourcing...

[rayk_sland]

Foot-in-mouth-itis alert.

Lots of North Americans would be able to communicate with Indian phone support better than I... those of Indian descent. I'm very sorry if this last post sounded racist. Most of North Americans are of immigrant descent. I don't want to imply that those of European descent have more right than those of Indian or Asian. And I don't devalue the technological acheivements of Indians. I just wanted to say I found the experience less than ideal. (not to mention that slashdot isn't read all around the world either, making my post, as if to north americans only, even stupider)

Re:Cultural Problems -- THE CASTE SYSTEM IS REAL

[immerrath]

You're mistaken. I don't think the caste system is forgiveable, I'm just claiming it's not as bad as it is portrayed.

Re:Predictable Responses

[king-manic]

Mark me troll if you like but the truth is Russia had a much larger effect on Germany then any single other member of the allies. If you look at the troop attrition on the eastern front you'll notice germany hurled themselves against russia and had most of their army smashed there. The Allies simply halted russia advance after. The giant myth that the US saved europe from germany in either world war is just that, a myth. In both wars, britian had a larger effect against germany then the Americans as even lowly canada did as much in WWII and much more in WWI then the US.

Re:Misinterpreted article! Its surely not that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Per capita income
- In 1996, India had a per capita income of $380.
- In 2004 India's per capita income has risen to $620.
- While many other Asian countries have not got that seen that growth.

You pathetic little hindu beggar! So proud that Indian has a per capita income of $620! That makes India dirt poor EVEN by third world standards!

To Grok the Indian mind.........

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Shantaram written by Gregory David Roberts. I think that he is one of very few western people who truly understands the Indian psyche. You also get a cracking good read - I am a SF/F fan and had to be coerced by a friend into reading this book - and it turned out to be one of the best I have ever read.