India Pushes Back Against Tech ‘Colonization’ by Internet Giants
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
This is the main point. The main reason the government wants data to be stored locally and is also looking at controlling companies is for surveillance. But unlike China, not all platforms have Indian created equivalents. Fortunately for the citizens of India, regardless of the state of surveillance in the U.S., the U.S. companies do fight a lot more against these controlling measures than any Indian born company ever would. Indian companies like Reliance Jio, which considers "data as the new oil" (the parent company, Reliance, was built on crude oil), and many others have had a thirst for more data for sometime now. [Incidentally, the logo of "Jio" is a mirror image of "Oil" in a certain font]
> “There is a strong feeling in many quarters that the reason that India has not been able to develop a Tencent or Baidu or Alibaba is because we have not been nuanced in our policies.”
This sounds kind of naïve. It's not because of data related policies that these haven't happened.
> "Officials were furious after the Cambridge Analytica scandal this year revealed that Facebook had shared private information on 87 million users, including 560,000 Indians, with a political consulting firm that had sought to influence Indian elections."
This is ironical, because the governments (both central and state governments) didn't even acknowledge issues or took responsibility or made a statement that data leaks from their own sites would be dealt with seriously. Their game is like this — "if we leak data, then it's not an issue, but if someone else is, then we will be outraged". It's just pseudo-nationalistic sentiment that the current central government has been fostering. A search for "Aadhaar data leaks" will show many such instances and the lack of a decent response from the governments.
> "They also warned that India has fewer legal protections than the United States against government searches and data requests, so private data stored in the country could more easily end up in the hands of the police."
This is very true. The central government has shown that it has very little interest in getting a good privacy law in place. The one recently released publicly has so many issues that concerned citizens have started https://saveourprivacy.in/ . Please share this site with every Indian citizen you know.
As an Indian citizen, my only hope is that foreign tech companies resist the crippling moves by the executive. The courts move very slowly, but they're the (mostly) dependable arm here.
> Mukesh Aghi, the chief executive of the U.S.-India Strategic Partnership Forum, a policy group whose board includes top executives at Cisco, Adobe, and Mastercard, said that India risked hurting its own economy by imposing stringent rules on foreign tech companies. He said
> “It requires deep pockets. It requires world-class technologies. It requires a global supply chain,” Mr. Aghi said. “These companies are creating jobs.”
> Ajay Sawhney, the information technology secretary, who is helping to draft the regulations, said the government was keeping an open mind as it developed the final rules.
> “Our framework will be fair to all stakeholders,” he said. “We deeply appreciate the value that the tech companies and their platforms bring to our country.”
When I've read about the Chinese government's concerns over social unrest, I've empathized with the dissidents. I mean, Tibet and Xinjiang are occupied nations! But I get that China is an extremely diverse country, overall, with lots of ethnic tension.
And conversely, when I've read about the Indian government's concerns over social unrest, I've empathized with the victims of the dissidents. Muslims persecuted by Hindus. Women persecuted by misogynists.
So damn, it's a hard problem. And worse, with increased migration driven by social chaos and war (and eventually, by global climate change), it's becoming an issue in many places. Including the US, where I happen to live.
Would you say that for Puerto Rico? Or California and Texas for that matter? Or how about Hawaii? Or, heck, anything that's not an Indian reservation...
Or does it only apply to China's neighbors, with which they had millennia of history with rulers and populations going back and forth? E.g. the Qing Chinese ruled Tiber as far back as the 17th century...
I have friends in Mexico who think of the Southwest and California as occupied territory. And yeah, the Native Americans totally got screwed.
You're correct in pointing out anti-Chinese bias. As you say, there's a long back-and-forth history. And Tibet wasn't such an idyllic place before the latest Chinese occupation. As I understand it, it was basically a theocracy. Maybe even repressive, but with effective programming.
Only when there's no real prospect of it, and as long as such discussion remains a fringe activity that gets lost in the media noise. Oh, and as long as those discussing it are white, and not e.g. native american, or latinos, and such.
There's a long history, from this:
"In the mid-century, the "Cointelpro program" was a project conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to surveil, infiltrate, discredit, and disrupt domestic political organizations which it classified as suspect or subversive. The police documented thousands of extensive carpetas (files) concerning individuals of all social groups and ages. Approximately 75,000 persons were listed as under political police surveillance. Historians and critics found that the massive surveillance apparatus was directed primarily against Puerto Rico's independence movement." (wikipedia)
to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre
that suggests that they can't really discuss it that openly.
This didn't go down very well either:
Edit: Again, I'm doing my best to avoid being racist or whatever. It's just mind-boggling how diverse India is. It's like thousands of cultures have been shredded and displaced for thousands of years. And somehow remained incredibly distinct and segregated.
What if US will also be affected badly by global climate change? Then these "uncivilized" people won't be coming to your country.
But first, there will be maybe a billion coming north. And there will very likely be concentration camps.
Edit: Also, please don't read my comment as being anti-immigrant. What concerns me is the likely authoritarian response from US governments. And I'm concerned both for them, and for me.
Free press is a hell of a thing. It plays a big role in where your sympathies will end up.
It's pretty clear that Tibet considers itself occupied. I know that some in Hawaii do, but do you think they're the majority?
I am sick of people painting India as some bad place where minorities and women are treated badly. Sure we have problems but this narrative of the persecution needs to stop. Give me one country where women are safe. Next compare per capita crime towards women with the top countries in the world and we can have a conversation.
Incidents with minority get all the press. The ground reality is more two way. I remember the whole town being shut down for Muslim processions because who would risk angering the mob? My muslim brothers and sisters generally have a much better status and bonding in India than at least in the US.
I am willing to answer, please ask away.
In Switzerland it is 10%. In Japan it is 15%.
India is after US and Sweden. I am using DuckDuckGo and this was the third link in search results on crime against women. I will look up the OECD stats as well.
This source seems.. questionable.
Also this uses reported rapes, which are affected by culture of reporting and how broadly rape is defined. That Sweden, with one of the highest levels of gender equality, is high on the list, showcases how useless this data is to compare countries.
Look at the numbers for India and others then look at the population difference (gigantic) then draw a conclusion.
What is accepted as entirely normal treatment of women and children within a marriage in the subcontinent would make your average westerner very uncomfortable. This would be obvious to anybody who has experience with both cultures.
I didn't really mean to say "how India is so much like China regarding surveillance and social control". It's obviously not.
What I was trying to say is how India is so much like China regarding the arguments for surveillance and social control.
I mean, what would China look like now without so much surveillance and social control? Would it in fact look a lot like India? If so, The Chinese government has clearly gone too far. But maybe it would look more like total chaos. In which case their policies, though repugnant to the liberal West, might be prudent.
I honestly have no clue. But it's not a possibility that can be rejected out of hand, I think.
Chinese history offers a good hint. Whenever the central government was weak anarchy, war, pestilence and starvation plagued the land.
Actually Hindus have been persecuted a lot by Muslims. In Kashmir all the Hindus were driven away[1]. Very few Hindus are left in Pakistan and Bangladesh whereas the proportion of Muslims in India is going up since independence.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Kashmiri_Hindus
Very few nations have done well after rampaging on an ethnic cleansing agenda.
This argument is ludicrous. India isn't ahead of Pakistan and Bangladesh because of "diversity of thought". That's so reductionist I'm frankly astounded.
Fraud/corruption/money laundering prevention regulations are definitely an incredible hindrance to opening and keeping a bank account in India, however.
Small and big airports where you can be checked and scanned 3-4 times from entrance to flight. And flying into an airport they check again. And not by friendly people either (contrary to China strangely where border patrol often have a little friendly chat to practice their english; had my bag checked 0 times coming in). Cannot enter an airport before a few hours before your flight even if you have lounge access. Guard said ‘terrorism’ when I asked why (for the umpteenth time as they usually do not answer).
And yes, my friends with businesses who live there complain about the corruption restrictions. But I think that part goes for China as well.
Edit; as I hear from my friends, it all got really bad only like 5 years ago. I did not go then; I have been going for 3.
India has had a lot of terrorist attacks on its soil over the past 40 years. I know of at least 5 major attacks in mumbai alone.
That said, after the TSA was created, flying in America became a pain.
I think the only time I saw someone get turned away was after a bomb blast at a cinema. It was some dude with a computer SMPS in his backpack -- I knew what it was, but the security guard didn't. But that was just once in my lifetime.
I'm not (blindly) defensive of India just because I happen to be Indian. There are plenty of things wrong with India. But this isn't one of them.
The metal detectors are just security theater in almost every single place except at airports. When the person doing the checks is asked what it is they hope to find or detect, the answer usually is that they've been told to wave it around. It's just an inconvenience to people than anything to do with security as such.
Its quite possible, that the China model is a better looking model for most countries - once you get over the lack of freedoms part.
Also china has way more money than India and time investment in its structures.
If it turns out that China has actual deep self correcting ability, even with a centralized command structure, I expect most countries to follow suit in some way or form.
But I must ask, where is freedom of movement restricted in India, unless you are in states where effectively martial law has been imposed?
This kind of dissonance lulls one into complacency and prevents effective dissent against growing surveillance states and blindness to other problematic issues like demonizing dissent and continuing discrimination against minorities.
One can argue the Snowden revelations, secret courts, secret orders and processes exposed far greater magnitude of surveillance and threats to democracy at home - with no one held to account years later - with the scope and magnitude expanding unopposed.
The complete lack of mainstream activism, protests, any efforts to hold people accountable or get people like Assange and Snowden back home makes comments against China untenable. Without that, commentary about China seems mere posturing and hypocrisy than borne out of any real concern about the issues at hand.
There is no comparison whatsoever. China has iron clench on its citizens, particularly over net. India has next to zero surveillance.
>> Muslims persecuted by Hindus. Women persecuted by misogynists.
This is patently BS! Please stop regurgitating this narrative! India has second largest Muslim population in the world, Hindus population has been steadily dropping while Muslims population has been increasing. There have been multiple muslim Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Chief Ministers. Infact, India's most of political parties have been accused of favoring Muslim population. India's most famous movie actors are Muslims, many cricketers (India's real religion) are muslims. Wipro and many other successful software companies are owned by Muslim. Had there been persecutions of any sort, there would have been hardly any such examples. So, please stop this BS! Most of such news are blown out of proportion by vested interests, particularly those who look for help from outside India. If you talk to an average Muslim, they would be much happier to live in India than in any of its neighboring states.
In the US, the white population has been steadily dropping while the black population has been increasing. We have had one black president, and several black members in Congress. In fact, one of the two major political parties in the US is often accused of favoring black people. Many of the US's most famous actors and actresses are black. Many of the top sports personalities are black. Had there been any persecution of any sort, there would hardly be such examples.
Whatever the situation is in India, I don't know. But your line of reasoning does not shed any light on the matter.
I was pointing out how everything he listed is not indicative of much. You have a lot of great aspects to India, and a lot of really horrible injustices there. Neither should be used to mask or highlight the other.
There is a national security component that you are missing. The day we do not needs borders for people, we will not need a border for data. But we are not there yet.
> “There is a strong feeling in many quarters that the reason that India has not been able to develop a Tencent or Baidu or Alibaba is because we have not been nuanced in our policies.”
This is very reasonable. Your country does NOT need a new Google or Tencent. Because they already exist. The only way India can develop its own companies is by creating an artificial scarcity thru regulation. I see quite often asked Why does Europe not have tech giants? The easy answer is that they already exist and there is no way that small start-ups can fight them.
This does not mean that to create that needs is good for the citizens. Maybe it is good that Europe depends on Google, Apple, etc than to try to create new local ones, as non-tech businesses can benefit early from their technology. But if the goal is to create your own tech giants, it is not possible when you are competing against well established cash-rich monopolistic companies.
> "They also warned that India has fewer legal protections than the United States against government searches and data requests, so private data stored in the country could more easily end up in the hands of the police." The central government has shown that it has very little interest in getting a good privacy law in place.
From my perspective, you may prefer that your data is in hands of another country, not even because they are more ethical but because they are just less interested in what you are doing. Local police in NewYork does not care what you are doing in New Delhi. So, the effect is the same. Your data may be safer in hands of people that have no political nor policial power over you.
Programmers that don't work at tech companies work somewhere else, investors that don't invest in tech companies invest in something else. So it's wrong to say that just because a country doesn't have any tech companies it's poorer, and that protectionism for tech companies will make it richer. (This insight, and the ideology it refutes - mercantilism - are 200 years old[1].)
> I see quite often asked Why does Europe not have tech giants? The easy answer is that they already exist and there is no way that small start-ups can fight them.
Germany alone has SoundCloud and SAP.
I find it amusing that you'd mention these two in the same breath. I'm glad SoundCloud didn't go under, but it's not like it's all wine and roses over there [1].
There are several European unicorns in the last decade (Spotify and Adyen for example), if you wanted to focus on startups. Alternatively, if the focus is companies in Germany that hire software engineers like SAP does, there's always Siemens, multiple German financial industry firms, SUSE, and so on.
Yes, but maybe at a lower salary
> investors that don't invest in tech companies invest in something else
Maybe at a lower return. Countries that don't invest in high-growth sectors (which means high-tech) will over the long run have lower growth rates than ones that do.
> So it's wrong to say that just because a country doesn't have any tech companies it's poorer, and that protectionism for tech companies will make it richer.
When companies have a monopoly, they are able to generate an economic rent, which makes everyone except their shareholders poorer.
Furthermore there is the sovereignty argument: a country not in control over its information infrastructure isn't really independent.
So if a country can generate its own equivalents of Twitter, Facebook, Android, Google search, etc, there may well be a good case for it doing so.
Well, perhaps in the short term, yes, it does create artificial scarcity through regulation. However, if those barriers don't remain in place forever, you can have created a real competitor in those markets.
I find this argument somewhat like saying, without trying any sort of emotional appeal, only to create an analogy, that you shouldn't waste time protecting a baby or make any sacrifices for it. The baby doesn't do anything that adults can't (they already exist), and it simply diverts resources from the adults (dealing with temporary artificial scarcity). All true enough, if you don't concern yourself with the future.
As an India citizen, why are you not hoping that Indian developers and government grow competent enough to built software with quality that is at par with foreign software?
As an Indian citizen, I find this deeply troubling. We have a lot of software developers here, but what is the dynamics by which government software turn out to be crappy? (Btw, I think irctc raily ticket booking is a work of art) I think instead of pushing against the laws, we should be pushing for more quality in software used by the government. Make the development of such software to be open, and reviewable..
The big multinationals are harder to push around.
I'd imagine, providing Google doesn't get too much negative feedback from it's upcoming censored China search engine, they'll likely make a censored version for India if they see it as a big enough market. Hey presto, the worst of both worlds!
And having the source open and reviewable does not help with that? The problem with depending on is - this might not be apparent in a short term - is that it allows foreign control over the matters here.
Basically what you are asking is something like asking to be ruled by a foreign power. Because local rulers might pushed around easily by pushed around by local corruption and influence.
Basically there is potential for oppression either way. Do you prefer it to be by your own people or foreign powers?
>likely make a censored version for India if they see it as a big enough market. Hey presto, the worst of both worlds!
I don't know because It looks like that is the worst of the both worlds to me..
The Indian government is in no mood to keep anything open and reviewable, or open to take feedback on. Look at all the data leaks because of Aadhaar and its linkages with various things. There is no openness or even admission of gaps. So I don't see this attitude changing in the near future, even if the parties ruling the country change in the coming years. Please look at the data leaks due to Aadhaar linkage and the responses from UIDAI and the state government arms so far.
> Basically what you are asking is something like asking to be ruled by a foreign power. Because local rulers might pushed around easily by pushed around by local corruption and influence.
> Basically there is potential for oppression either way. Do you prefer it to be by your own people or foreign powers?
I'll answer these together. Based on all the data leaks seen, how poorly government websites and data stores are managed, how government officials respond to security issues with denial first (and filing cases against security researchers for responsible disclosure), and how government officials also routinely use Gmail for communications, my guess is that any data that a technology strong country like the U.S. or China desires is already in their hands or is just an arm's reach away. So my concern with the internal powers having more control is very much valid and upsetting for me, more so when local corporates are also interested in tracking and profiling people, building things with a lot of sensitive data that can be easily demanded and obtained by the government.
> The big multinationals are harder to push around.
Thanks, that was what I was hinting at, without providing details. Fin Tech companies have also, in the recent times, fought in the Supreme Court for the biometric based resident ID scheme called Aadhaar because they stand to benefit from tracking people and their transactions. ISPs in India have also shown that any John Doe orders to block several sites are implemented without any questions whatsoever. Indian companies, in my knowledge, do obey government orders without question (as long as it doesn't affect their profits too much) than foreign companies would. We have seen the resistance from others, like with Blackberry being asked to provide interception by the Indian government several years ago and other instances (like the recent instance of WhatsApp being asked to control the spread of fake news and allow the tapping of conversations).
> I'd imagine, providing Google doesn't get too much negative feedback from it's upcoming censored China search engine, they'll likely make a censored version for India if they see it as a big enough market. Hey presto, the worst of both worlds!
I hope it doesn't come to that, and in reality, this won't be so easy to get done in India like it is in China.
In my view this is not just an 'India' thing, I'm kinda skeptical of the general anti-tech panic that's been brewing over the last couple years. I think the status quo is pretty good and don't want a bunch of government regulators from the US, Europe, China, India etc to be getting all up in Google's business telling them how to run Youtube.
China, India, Russia, etc... all have domestic populations that need to flex their political muscle to achieve freedom in their respective countries, the west can't and won't save you unless there is big money involved (with that money will come foreign corruption)...
Protip: Solve your problems locally, and reap the economic benefit of building your own Indian/Chinese Google... it isn't rocket science and the exercise will be good for your people.
Exactly.
And I'd also rather we have end-to-end encryption being commonly available so that no options, except perhaps normal cellular telephony, can be trivially tapped by governments.
Strange that they see no value in creating and more in manufacturing.
To do the kind of manufacturing and industrialization China did in the time it did, you need a top down organization that does whatever is needed without having to waste time with people's "rights".
Requires a certain level of development before freedom should be introduced. Especially post colonization, where colonial corruption agents are not fully removed from power in the systems in place.
Indeed, batteries are not included in list of components that can be imported duty free to bonded customs zones, as they don't qualify for being "electronic components."
But the situation is the same for all bulk commodities that have to be locally sourced. That is dictated by the initial purpose of free customs zones: give concessions on high value components, but for whatever Chinese industry was good at manufacturing back in nineties, give none.
The companies wanting to make EVs, are completely free to establish companies outside of free customs zones if they don't want to pay double duty.
Open markets require a certain level of development. Post-Xi (and his anti-corruption measures), this will be possible.
Do you have evidence to support this claim? You seem to be conflating these countries’ governments with their businesses.
Also, can you clarify what you mean by “attacked their population”?
Remember the Opium Wars and the families it made rich (most famous, Coolidge (descendants of Thomas Jefferson), Roosevelts (through the Delano family), Forbes (John Kerry's family), etc.. in the US). On the otherside of the pond, in 1890 (peak opium crisis), 30% of Britain's GDP was illegal opium smuggling to China.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/3/30/opium-at-harvar...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_%26_Company
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0AJ59vqzzg
The seperator between government and companies isn't as big as you think when this much multi-generational wealth and political power is invloved.
Kind of funny that many don't know their own history (Roman history is tough...going through 300 years of US history is trivially easy but most still don't).
And by the way, US tobacco manufacturers also managed to addict most of Southeast Asia. I highly recommend Drugs and Rights by Douglas N. Husak (Rutgers, 1992).[0]
0) https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/drugs-and-rights/0C9669...
Remember in international trade, atleast 3 seperate entities end up with copies of every transaction (buyer/seller/shipper).
It's why I consider it more trustworthy...
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-history-rev...
The opium epedemic and wars drove the Chinese economy into the ground.
British invasion and colonization of India pushed one of the top trading nations and #1 GDP (China & India competed to maintain #1 status for 2000 years) in the world into the ground.
US and Western Europe is facing this growing opioid issue today (during an economic decline), if we are not careful, we will see very clearly the effects (both socially and economically) of opioids poisoning the gene pool en masse.
It seems the history books you have been exposed to detail a narrative that economic/trade flow history (narrative independent) does not recognize...
What followed a decade after was very telling though (I will skip the Boxer Rebellion but worth reading up on)....
Boxer Rebellion (somewhat Euro-centric perspective, but I will leave it to your objectivity, to see the otherside) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFjHff-zaKY
In 1905, Roosevelt signed a secret treaty with the Japanese on his Imperial Cruise, allowing them to expand into Korea and the rest of Asia.
I don't blame you for not knowing this history, most US historians are/were unaware. Even congress was unaware of the treaty until the documents were released many many years later (post nobel peace prize being handed out).
It's a big part of why most Americans believed Pearl Harbor was potentially a precursor to a Japanese invasion attempt... When it was actually just a slap for breaking a 4 decade long secret treaty that greenlit Japanese expansion (USA renegged on this treaty during the 2nd Sino-Japanese war).
Imperial Cruise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0AJ59vqzzg
You mean the ones from the 1800's? Seriously?
The Coming War on China (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rTVwLNhojI
I'll admit I don't know much about China, but this seems like a very board statement. Could you expand on it a bit? What powerful minority are you thinking of? Aren't they already growing? I mean, China has pretty much taken over a ton of manufacturing.
I'd get my fake news elsewhere:
* England is just one part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
* Germany's economy is rather bigger than either the UK or FR - why not mention them?
Germans werent huge Opium pushers at the time (compared to the English, French, and American). So score 1 for Germany, good decision on their part.
I would expect not having major part of your economy propped up by illcit trading has long term positive consequences, Germany is enjoying the fruits of that to some extent.
You can predict what people with ill-gotten gains do with their money (it's a different discussion but consider what corruption costs society/economy when looking at the 2nd and 3rd order effects of corrupt money).
Opening markets in Europe immediately afte WW2 were a major contributor to preventing another European war.
As someone who's also Indian, and also remembers Indian pre-colonial and colonial history, I'm entirely on board with taking active measures to ensure we don't repeat the past.
Yes, all governments have an incentive to spy on their citizens - just look at Australia or the US or the UK. But India has very legitimate reasons to oppose foreign control of its technological infrastructure. And unlike those other countries, India has also established a right to privacy.
I can’t speak for what it’s like in India though, and I can understand how having data locally can be an avenue for corruption like you say.
To me one of the pleasures of the world is different cultures, ethnicities, food, local politics, etc. I don’t want a “homogenized world” in which everything seems the same in different countries.
Of course homogeneity is not what we want, and not just because it's boring for visitors. But, I don't think that encouraging people in a different country/region/community (especially a smaller one) to roll their own tools is helpful either. There is so much work involved in creating and maintaining all this stuff - and the resources required are often in short supply. It seems much better if we can all leverage off each other to make better things, to be shared with the wider community.
I think the issue is more about preserving the right amount of local control over tech used locally, rather than building that tech locally from local tools.
In the beginning it quotes a railway official saying enough of foreign influence. The Indian railways on the other hand is working closely with Google to deliver free wifi in nearly 400 stations. Google has even formed a susidiary to do this - Google Station.
There may be data protection and privacy requirements which come in - but that is not about colonization. A lot of the awareness on privacy is coming as more and more Indians come in touch with the internet and start wrestling with these issues. More importantly, it is the widespread use of Aadhar, a biometric unique identification system by the government which has also triggered the supreme court to look at data privacy issues. Surely a journalist worth their salt would mention this.
Rather than any push back against tech colonization, i would argue that what we are seeing is a greater awareness on the part of government and citizens about the need for data privacy, as well as concern around misuse of social media. And it will extend to local and global players, obviously.
I am not as worried about the ease with which Indian citizen's privacy will be violated if these laws pass - systems such as Aadhar are far greater threats to our privacy and those come with the full force of the law and have support from every government in power, whether NDA or UPA or some third alliance. Plus, I would want foreign companies collecting data about Indian citizens to be accountable to the Indian public. The Bhopal tragedy is a good example of what happens when a foreign company isn't accountable to Indians in any manner whatsoever.
Of course, one might doubt whether Indian efforts to secure our data will withstand NSA or Chinese efforts to crack them, but we won't know until we try!
They are on the right track, America is going off the deep end and can no longer be relied upon as a trustworthy and sane ally. The EU is desperately trying to get away from that sinking ship but you can't undo 70 years of geopolitical and economic reality easily.
Data protections like the EU did may sound good. But it took the EU years to develop the framework, another 4 years before into effect, and even more time before it's fully adopted.
India doesn't exactly have a record for graceful administration (thinking of the currency debacle). And if you do this with less elegance than what the EU did.. you risk creating a huge (expensive) mess..
Tech platforms bring a lot of value. By enabling commerce and many local enterprises. Trying to move too fast could have very bad consequences. Even the slow stuff the EU did, was somewhat of a mess..
And then let's not even get started on the mess access to private information without a warrant would bring..
I hope they move slow make something with less negative side effects than what the EU did. Then this could be good.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_India
Because they don't answer to the country's government.
US-based internet companies answer to the US government only. This is an implication of nearly every site's terms of service. For example, Y Combinator's says you can't post illegal stuff and even mentions the US directly. The implication is "don't get us in trouble here in the US -- we couldn't care less what's legal or illegal in your country." Not very respectful of their sovereignty.
Obviously, indian authorities hold nearly zero power over these companies. They can't enforce indian laws on US citizens. It's not like they can show up at their doorstep and arrest people for failing to comply with a court order or something. Their only law enforcement weapon is to block the site, preventing them from reaching indians at all. That's why having local alternatives is extremely valuable.
As someone who is concerned about user and data privacy, I like these developments. What's anti-colonial about it other than just a catchy headline?
So the US closing up trade at this point is immoral from a historical perspective and shows an obscene level of hypocrisy when compared to what it has promoted for the 50+ years post WW2.
Never forget India was #1 in world GDP (for more than 1000 years) pre-invasion.
You're making some sort of moral argument, but the argument against protectionism isn't moral. Protectionism is stupid from an economic perspective, no matter if India or the U.S. does it. If there's a moral argument to be made, it's against protectionism: It denies citizens to partake in free trade and therefore makes them poorer.
What's in it for India if everyone has to use the (inevitably crappier) Indian version of Google, Facebook or Amazon? It's not like anybody outside of India is going to want to use that stuff, so it doesn't bring in foreign capital. It'll just reallocate local tech talent to a domestic market that is less profitable than the international market. It makes no sense.
That's exactly why people need to bring in emotions and hot words like "colonialism": To make a psychologically powerful (but irrational) case. It might just work.
> Never forget India was #1 in world GDP (for more than 1000 years) pre-invasion.
I'd be skeptical about estimates on GDP dating to 1000 A.D., but if there's anything to learn here it's that you should probably spend some of that GDP on defense, lest you get invaded by tiny-old Britain.
I only mentioned Britain because I followed it by compounding China and India.
If we are only talking China specifically, it was invaded by a mixture of 8 nations simulataneously (multiple times), including British, Americans, French, Germans, Russians and the Japanese in just the 19th century (see Opium wars through Boxer Rebellion).
This is not a statement which should be made nor accepted without sound reasoning to support it.
Why should any given historical event have moral relevance to decisions today? From when do we start? Why?
Second, history is almost always far more complex than such arguments assume.
So did India had already fixed it's railroads and now is taking on the internet?
This is also raising an awareness among some of Indian population.
They were in plan of rewriting their history books, about their world's first University, astrology mathematics, Vedic sciences, medical sciences ... The list goes on. Obviously India contributing more than 27% of GDP for more than thousand years and there achievements in mathematics, Number system, trigonometry,calculus, algebra and Invention of surgery...
There open-trade system, and being a free culture, they used to have places for debate, and everybody can worship which ever God they want, if one doesn't like any God, you can create one and pray.
There used to be a lot of competition for admissions to Indian universities from all over the world.
And ofcourse yoga, mediation, home for Hinduism, Buddhism,...
They're Vedic knowledge was extraordinary.
Indeed. For some more examples:
https://www.altnews.in/bjp-science-ganeshas-plastic-surgery-...
Let's talk of basic common sense, when people colombus discovered (if they consider it that way), America he called the native people as red-Indians, it's not that colombus was searching for America, but he indeed sailed to find India.
But what i consider Mahabharat, is a collection of stories teaching people how should one behave in life.
I don't remember the exact name of the character, but their is a person who thinks one should be good to everyone but later he realises one needs to fight and defend others when somebody is taking advantage of one's goodness. That's what they call as Dharma.
Without having any valid argument to support, don't do downvote just because you feel something is not right.