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US Senators Urge India To Soften Data Localization Stance (reuters.com)
Two U.S. senators have called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to soften India's stance on data localization, warning that measures requiring it represent "key trade barriers" between the two nations. From a report: In a letter to Modi dated Friday and seen by Reuters, U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Mark Warner -- co-chairs of the Senate's India caucus that comprises over 30 senators -- urged India to instead adopt a "light touch" regulatory framework that would allow data to flow freely across borders. The letter comes as relations between Washington and New Delhi are strained over multiple issues, including an Indo-Russian defense contract, India's new tariffs on electronics and other items, and its moves to buy oil from Iran despite upcoming U.S. sanctions.
Global payments companies including Mastercard, Visa and American Express have been lobbying India's finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India to relax proposed rules that require all payment data on domestic transactions in India be stored inside the country by October 15. The letter is most likely a last-ditch effort after the RBI told officials at top payment firms this week that the central bank would implement, in full, its data localization directive without extending the deadline, or allowing data to be stored both offshore as well as locally -- a practice known as data mirroring. "We see this (data localization) as a fundamental issue to the further development of digital trade and one that is crucial to our economic partnership," the U.S. senators said in the letter that has not been previously reported.
Global payments companies including Mastercard, Visa and American Express have been lobbying India's finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India to relax proposed rules that require all payment data on domestic transactions in India be stored inside the country by October 15. The letter is most likely a last-ditch effort after the RBI told officials at top payment firms this week that the central bank would implement, in full, its data localization directive without extending the deadline, or allowing data to be stored both offshore as well as locally -- a practice known as data mirroring. "We see this (data localization) as a fundamental issue to the further development of digital trade and one that is crucial to our economic partnership," the U.S. senators said in the letter that has not been previously reported.
US Government once again trying to do the exact opposite of what you'd expect. Why is it other countries recognizes the threat of storing data about their own citizens outside their borders, EXCEPT the "5 eyes"? Could it be India ALSO wants to backdoor encryption which would at least in theory prohibit them from storing OUR data?
Which would also make it very difficult if not impossible for companies to outsource to India. That isn't such a bad idea.
Two U.S. senators have called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to soften India's stance on data localization...
Question is, how about nations minding their own business?
Is that too much to ask?
they know damn well how outsourcing works and they'll be damned if you're gonna do it to them. Wanna do business in our country? Then you damn well better hire our people.
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In the US, you can only buy senators and above.
In India you can buy any one.
True democracy.
They have learned India First...... as has much of the world.
They have also learned no deal is better than a bad deal.
Oh, they have learned that the USA treats is "friends" pretty much the same as it treats is enemies and that the USA will interfere with local elections, trade, etc , etc.
What would happen in the Indian economy if USA-based credit card issuers stopped honoring their cards issued to Indian citizens in that country?
Perhaps some local outcry to the Indian government, but I doubt that outcry would change things.
The Indian government might counter the likes of Mastercard and Visa with something like their own Rupee-Card that is good everywhere in India...and nowhere else.
Americans are lobbying for the right to steal/mine a foreign country's citizens' personal data. India should tell the US to go piss off, and take its Microsoft/Google lobbying home with it.
First, we try the carrot:
" Two U.S. senators have called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to soften India's stance on data localization "
if that doesn't produce the expected result, the stick is used:
" That's a nice H-1B visa program many of your citizens are currently utilizing. Would be a shame if something happened to it. "
Want to take a guess which way India will go in the end ?
You know that you're talking about the country with the world's largest biometric database of its citizens, yes?
That's a bit like saying Facebook would defend itself against handing over data to the government. Yes, it's nice that they don't bend over, but mostly they don't out of pure self interest, not because they give a shit about you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This move by India will make it harder to pump all that information straight to the NSA's ginormous server farm in Utah. After the Snowden and Vault 7 leaks plus the revelation that the US was tapping Angela Merkle's personal cell phone, every country should be treating the US as the hostile foreign power that Russia has been accused of being.
Same applies in reverse. There's a reason why India has been the stickler in all global negotiations on trade for last half a century. They don't need the world trade. Their economy is self-contained, able to consume what it produces because of its healthy demographics. Example of this is in the fact that even China was forced to sign up to medicine patenting and payment regimes, as China needs foreign market access, and that was one of the fields powerful enough to actually get China cut off.
India still hasn't. They told the world powers insisting they sign or else to get fucked. And they do to this day. Which is why the "fake medicines" are overwhelmingly produced in India, and most of them are about as good as genuine stuff, and there's nothing that patent holders can do about it in spite of massive efforts both on their own part, and on the part of their parent states.
India can afford to walk away from essentially any negotiation on trade should its interests dictate it does so even when threatened with massive economic sanctions. It's unique among all the major states in the world in this ability.
If you think Russia isn't trying to do at least as much, I have bridge on the Moon to sell you.
As for being allied, that's about alignment of interests first and foremost. And for the time being, US interests remain firmly aligned with those in Western countries. Trump's election didn't change that. The only thing that it changed in equation is the opportunity costs of the others, increasing them, while still keeping them well below the benefits.
The Republican party has been on a decades long campaign to buy out the state legislatures (spearheaded by the Koch Bros) with the goal of calling a Constitutional Convention and amending the Constitution to their liking. I assure you they're not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.
And you'd be shocked how much power your State Attorney General and Corporate Commissioner have. They're definitely being bought. Hell, the Sherrif
In America our oligarchs buy out everybody above dog catcher. Nobody bothers with Dog catcher since they already bought out the mayor and he'll get the catcher in line as needed...
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Yeah, you do "own" a bridge on the moon if you believe that baseless tautology. Russia's entire defense budget is a fraction of the last increase to Pentagon spending. They have an economy smaller than austerity-wrecked Spain. The United States has a thousand military bases around the world - can you name one of Russia's outside of Syria or Sevastopol? Little computer tech is made in Russia, and Russia had nothing to do with building the internet or financial infrastructure that these two Senators want to remain back doored for the NSA.
All this "all things are equal, intent equals capacity derp derp" is just deflection from the fact that not only is the United States the biggest asshole in the world today, it is worse than all other assholes combined.
The refugee crisis that has enveloped Europe, cost the EU huge sums of money, and has led directly to the rise of far-right wing parties - is the direct result of America's illegal wars. If war comes again to Europe, it will start in Ukraine - thanks to the United States overthrowing the elected government under Obama, and now arming literal neo-Nazis under Trump. Some "ally".
From that article:
Private businesses or individuals have been banned from requesting an individualâ(TM)s Aadhaar details, meaning the 12-digit number cannot be a requirement for services such as opening a bank account or establishing a mobile phone connection.
.
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The justices also struck down a so-called "national security exception" that allowed investigative agencies to access a person's data without a warrant.
So, better than the USA. Or any of the Five Eyes members.
Have gnu, will travel.
You know, sometimes people tell me that Russian trolls aren't a thing.
Then I get someone like you, who is trying to pretend that things like budgets are the primary defining features, rather than results. When was the last time you remember US pulling something like Crimea? If anything, we know that Russians have capabilities that even US lacks, such as ability to enact bloodless coups. As we have seen with Ukraine, US led coup went bloody real fast.
And as for the rest, "illegal wars", etc irrelevant moralizing, vae victus.
The 4th Amendment applies within the jurisdiction of the US governments, including for "foreigners" living in the US.
IANAL, YMMV, So-called Conservative Politicians May Differ.
The gigantic US market is based on debt and that debt is cheap because everyone in the world has a lot of dollars and nothing to do with it but invest it in US. Why does everyone have so many dollars? Because they need dollars to buy oil so just to be safe they keep their reserves in dollars. If the Khasshogi incident leads to Saudi pricing oil in Yuan, say bye bye to the US market and then noone needs to listen to the US.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Everything that is called corruption and illegal in India is called Lobbying and perfectly legal in USA. There are no criminals if nothing is a crime.
**Life is too short to be serious**
To add , as a percentage of GDP foreign trade is minuscule in India. Most USD investments into India are NRIs investing back into India and that will not stop regardless of whether India has good relations with the world. Even if it was made illegal, Hawala offers a way.
On the other hand India has a trade deficit with almost all countries except the oil producing countries. India could close its borders and as long as it got enough remittances to cover its oil import bill the economy would keep chugging along. Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Caterpillar, GE, Coca Cola, Pepsi, John Deere, Monsanto might witness an increase in shareholder suicides.
**Life is too short to be serious**
Seriously, they are being smart about this. Most Indian companies KNOW that a number of their own are cracking American systems for the Russians. For this to happen, they need access to either source code (i.e. a software engineer) or more often, handling production sys. admin. Then they leave a nice back door on the foolish American companies computers. Said indian individual walks away with $100K (10x what the Americans pay), and the Russians either walk away with millions or with loads of new intelligence. Smart on their part.
So, India is being smart. American politics and businesses are loaded with fucking idiots at the top.
BTW, another good example of this is the person that was Target's CIO and was cracked, was fired, and then went to work for J.C. Penny. What does she do? She moves loads of IT to Bangalore and to the same companies that screwed her over at Target. What a joke.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Russia has nowhere near the scope of the US to be an asshole. The Ruble is not the international reserve currency so all trade goes through New York not Moscow hence the US has opportunity to spy on all world trade transactions. India is demanding that at least domestic trade transactions not be spied on by not having the data go through New York
**Life is too short to be serious**
Lets talk about the outrage over the Saudis kidnapping the Lebanese PM. Who did they learn from? The US kidnapping the Panamian President.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I have to give you that...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That is the function of healthy demographics. They have more young workers than old workers, which means that consumption part of the economy is able to consume everything that is produced without the need for external markets. At the same time, the older generations who have the money have plenty of investment opportunities in the same younger people, so foreign investment is equally irrelevant in most fields.
It's a microcosm of world economy on its own. No other large country is in the world has this, because demographics are very unhealthy across most of the world's major states.
That's nice. How is this relevant to what I said?
This is the second reply you make to me on this topic where you clearly don't read my original post.
Let me repeat it.
>And as for the rest, "illegal wars", etc irrelevant moralizing, vae victus.
Strong do what they can. Weak suffer what they must. Which is why Russia try to do what US does and more as to not have to suffer as weak do. And US does what it can to stay strong to achieve the same effect. Moralizing doesn't work in geopolitics because of its utter irrelevance. Which is why most people on the planet who haven't been completely insulated in ridiculous propaganda bubble of modernity that tries to assign geopolitical actions on a "good vs evil" dimension generally don't subscribe to this model of thinking. It's highly unnatural.
Probably by the same sort of people that told you that Saddam really didn't have WMD's or planned 911. You know....people that aren't gullible fools.
Budgets are a measure of capacity and intent. Stephen Hawking may have always wanted to be a professional boxer, but really wasn't in a position to be one. Putin could be evil James Bond villain that western exceptionalists pretend he is (intent) but he doesn't have the capacity, and he's not in a position to do .01% the level of planetary spying the NSA does on a daily basis.
Results? Where's the Russian equivalent to the Five Eyes, where they try to not just spy on the rest of the world, but each other's own citizens to get around pesky FISA laws or the 4th Amendment. Where's the Russian equivalent to the backdoors the FBI/CIA/NSA have in communication networks, consumer electronics and operating systems. Did AT&T give Putin direct access to its hubs they way it did for the USG? Where's the history of Putin spying on the personal communications of allied heads of state?
"All things are equal, intent equals capacity derp derp"
You mean accept a democratic vote to re-join Russia? Never. Do try and explain why the US-backed junta in Ukraine would have any legitimacy, but a super-supermajority vote for self-determination has none.
Stomping your feet and shouting "la la la I can't hear you" does jack and shit to change the fact that the US has been a horrible ally to Europe, and Jack left town.
vae vict i s. If you're going to be a twat throwing Big Words around like they're supposed to mean something, you might want to spell them correctly. Now, onto your equally obnoxious avoidance of ghoul's points:
Capacity and intent. See above. If the ruble becomes the world's reserve currency and Putin uses the resulting infrastructure to spy on everyone's business, then we can talk - but not before then.
"All things are equal, intent equals capacity derp derp". Again. All this prattle about propaganda bubbles is just projection on your part, to keep ignoring the indisputable fact that the United States is not just the biggest asshole on the planet, but bigger than all other assholes combined. Putin is nothing more than the latest in a long line of boogymen used to frighten western exceptionalists like yourself into shitting the bed on command, to justify being a continent sized Sarlacc orifice with an insatiable appetite.
Thank you for successfully reinforcing my point above. I couldn't have done it better myself.
I agree the strong do what they wish and the fact that US prosperity is built on the largess of the Saudis (if Saudis sold oil in anything other than USD the whole US economy comes crashing down), the Saudis will do what they wish and the US will take it like a good boy.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I've no idea why you think that "US prosperity is built on largess of the Saudis". US prosperity is built on the fact that it's the only major state in the world that doesn't have to invest significant amount of resources into border defence against peer competitors, coupled with the fact that it has more navigable interconnected rivers than entire rest of the world combined.
Or did you forget that US became a major power before Saudi Arabian oil was ever discovered?
The US was a middling country till WW1 its primary export being crude oil. After WW1 and 2 US got a lead as the rest of the world was destroyed. Around the same time Saudi oil started coming online. The period of US being a Superpower has coincided with the period of Saudi-US alliance.
**Life is too short to be serious**
You're utterly ignorant of history outside the talking points you copy pasted. Noted.