Comment by addicted | Hacker News Reader

Comment by addicted | Hacker News Reader

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Actually, the real question should be what's going on in India. Your personal anecdote about not knowing women who don't work due to family pressures is ridiculously easily contradicted by the actual statistics.

But here's a personal anecdote as well. My father's company had a female worker quit after she was promoted to basically being 2nd in charge from a fairly low position in HR (she's really brilliant) because her family insisted she had to have a child, and once she did they insisted she quit the job (she was offered 6 months maternity leave, as well as the ability to work from home. Her family was against it). He's also seen 2 other women have to quit their jobs because of family pressures in the past 2 years. So he's seen more women quit work in the past 2 years because of family pressures than the entire 2 decades he was running the company prior to these 2 years. And this is in Mumbai, not a distant rural village.

Everytime someone writes/says something negative about India the first (and often, the only) response is to whine about the messenger instead of actually doing something about the issue at hand. After we do nothing to actually fix the issues, we wonder why people keep writing about all the issues India has.

I had a look through New York Times on India (note: I have no connections with India, it was in response to a poster's comment about prejudice toward India and its subsequent brash dismissal that caught my attention).

Many of the articles on India are negative. However, bad news sells. So, I wouldn't have expected anything different. There were some general non-negative articles (Whales dying on shores, LGBT laws gaining momentum). There was an absence of positive articles about India from a quick search.

By contrast, I looked at Australia in the New York Times. Most of the articles were on sport and bushfires, so, there's definitely a different focus and attitude. Australia seems to be social events, India social unrest and injustices.

I consider the New York Times to be prejudiced at times though. However, the article in question was well written, despite a lack of explanation of why there are less women in the Indian workforce than there were in the past. One example of NYT prejudice I remember was about Australia's first female PM, Julia Gillard. The NYT described Australians (collectively) as misogynistic because we dared to criticise a female Prime Minister about her looks. I searched at the time and found ONE media reference to a criticism from Germaine Greer - a prominent feminist - about Gillard's fat ass (I saw 'ditch the witch' after this article). I contrasted this to other PMs: John Howard in a bondage pose with his nose up George Bush's ass among many personal attacks on him (conveniently ignored), tony Abbott in his budgie smugglers and exaggerated lips, etc. The NYT must have had very big blinkers (or my prejudice comment holds).

The reality is that India does bad things AND the media is very prejudiced. I think the dismissal of prejudice in the media is dangerous.

Maybe, a letter to NYT suggesting some positive things in India may help raise awareness.

I'm curious what positive articles do people think the NYTimes could carry about India? Keep in mind that being a US based newspaper, human interest stories about positive contributions by individuals outside the US are very unlikely to make it into a US based paper. What usually works is a wide systematic positive story, often through the lens of a few individuals.

When India was growing rapidly, and basically created a massive new middle class in the 90s on opening its borders, the NYTimes had a lot of positive stuff to say (Friedman, of The World is Flat fame, was one of the biggest promoters of India). This was a massive positive systematic change, that was covered widely.

But since then what positive systematic changes does India present that would be useful for an audience halfway across the world to know? There are a ton of individuals doing amazing work in India (and note, even this article focuses on the strength and bravery of individuals who fought the system) Indian institutions are famously terrible, and are getting worse. Frankly, the only possible positive stories that you could do about India that come to mind are the rapid rise of solar energy (however, all of that is in the planning stage at the moment...we need to see how it materializes). That's pretty much all I can think of.

Frankly, India doesn't help itself by screwing up situations we could have used to build a better image. You bring up Australia and sports. China did the Olympics, and it was an amazing spectacle. It truly changed people's perspectives of what China was capable. India had an opportunity to do something similar with the Commonwealth games (although that would understandably be ignored by the US media anyways)and that was a massive disaster which only served to emphasize how terrible and corrupt our institutions are.

Edit: I think the NYTimes could do a really great positive (and relevant to the US) article on the Indian Electoral Commission. They basically moderate the elections, and have done a really great job in ensuring largely free and fair elections in a chaotic country which is otherwise awash with corrupt institutions. It's actually pretty amazing that India has maintained and strengthened democracy in the past ~70 years, and the EC has a huge role to play in that.

India has 7-8 major languages (and many minor ones), a couple major religions, culture variations, and lots of people.

Has a lot of problems no doubt, but it is amazing they can keep the country together and make it work. Plenty of countries with only two languages that have internal strife.

I have no intention of defending the NY Times or the person you are replying to. I have a general question. Why is it necessarily good that the country is kept together? Would India be better off if, e.g., partition had not happened?

I guess it depends if you think the country is more powerful together and in the end the avg Indian is better off.

Yes, some might argue that separate states would be better.Of course some might argue "true India" is India+Pakistan & Bangladesh.

I would like to hear some Indians say what they think in response to your question.

India and world would've been better off without partition. It has only created regional instability. The government could do a lot better, I mean there are still many archaic laws, from before India got freedom, in the constitution. Overall India seems to be on better track even though the progress is slow. Amount of educated youth is also rising. Corruption is declining as a result of media coverage. There is a lot of room to improve, but the fundamentals look good.

Because of partition part of british india was turned into Pakistan. Pakistani civilians do not hold any grudge against Indians is my general opinion. Its their Army and ISI that does not like peace for very silly reasons. I do not get what they are trying to achieve. I hope they'll clean up the mess they have created and finally become a good, democratic and progressive country.

>Would India be better off if, e.g., partition had not happened?

That would have been an even greater feat than what it is now.

> There was an absence of positive articles about India from a quick search.

Why does that matter?

But India is too huge and varied for a normal guy to fix issues. I am from south coastal area. These days i hear govt radio ads about "beti bacho" save girl child. Down here the idea of abortion because girl is not common at all( Does not mean they don't want a boy). Or having a toilet in house. Of course i don't the case in rural areas, most near by places would be considered as towns rather then rural area.

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