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Comment by mozumder | Hacker News Reader

Basically you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India.

Not sure if this is something Apple is ready for.

While there is tons of corruption in India; this isn't an example of it. It's just another example of a policy that doesn't gel well with the western business models. This isn't something that you can brush aside with a bribe, it's a policy created for a reason. Not to extract bribe money.

I'm not sure even bribing would help in this case. The government is pretty serious about the manufacturing push.

I'm quite happy that Apple is not allowed to dump refurbished crap here. They sell enough phones already. They can continue that or they can start manufacturing here and open their store.

How did you conclude based on this article that you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India?

> you need to bribe everyone to do anything in India?

Not everything, but almost everything that has to do with Government. I had to pay bribe even to get my Passport, driver's license and police clearance certificate.

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

Not sure this is true for many parts of India.

As a foreigner living in India I wish I could throw money at someone to make the process of securing documents like police clearance easier. That's simply not the case though.

I have no doubt that corruption is rampant but your examples don't square with my experience.

I don't know what time period you are talking about, because I got all of those (except police clearance, I didn't need that) in the last 5 years and none of them required any bribes. There were inefficiencies and frustrating bureaucracy, but no bribing was necessary.

How long ago was this (especially the passport)?

Those of us with on-the-ground experience in India and without a vested interest in trying to whitewash the business and governmental environment there know it to be true.

Agreed. Considering I've been there a few tiems myself. An example I can give confirming this is that I've had a freinds uncle who had the money to afford a flat in Mumbai but the owner of the flat property didnt want to give permission. Anwyays it took a lot of "negotations" for that to go through.

How is that bribery? Sounds like negotiation tactics.

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

Correct, sorry I wasnt that clear and thanks for clearing that up since I was writing this from my phone.

Thanks, that makes sense now.

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