Comment by suprgeek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by suprgeek | Hacker News Reader

(Speaking as person who has spent 10+ years in each country) India is no where close to America. There are so many enormous fundamental differences that anyone making such a comparison needs to be looked at as naive at best.

- India's population id 4X that of America

- More than half the population is below the poverty line

- India is amongst the most corrupt nations in the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_perception_of_corrupti...

- The level of very basic Infrastructure (Roads, Water, Electricity, Sanitation) is non-existent in Villages, poor in most cities and tolerable in the so-called "Metros" (top 8 cities) - 6 hours of power cuts are common in summer in the Metros

- There is more stress on "Exam taking" than on "learning". Sports is limited to Cricket - a nation of a billion people boasts of 1 -2 Gold medals in the Olympics. Mediocrity in everything.

- Indians by and large "play it safe" in everything. The level of innovation is very low (witness the number of international awards won by Indians IN india -Nobel Prize, Fields medal etc is next to zero). A very twisted shortcut based method of "Jugaad" is praised so he who discovers the best method of beating the system is rewarded.

I despair for my country. We are headed in the wrong direction and keep accelerating. <rant-off>

You have summarized it well and I agree to most of your points. Its ridiculous how educational institutions have such a narrow focus on exams and the grades you score rather than actual learning. While this might be true in other places too, its ingrained in society here and any deviation from the set norms is not accepted well. Teachers are not paid well either and that adds to the problem.

Perhaps its because of this that innovation and research are very limited here.

Another fundamental difference is the constitution and the laws. Atleast on the book, the American constitution provides far more rights to the citizens than the Indian constitution. India as a country is far more regulated by the government. This means there are more avenues for corruption to happen since you need the permission of the authorities for almost everything. I feel the entire country is moving towards an authoritarian state with so much power vested in government institutions.

There are just too many things to list that its overloading my head when I try to list them out.I hope that the nation moves forward in a direction of its own, taking in the good values while discarding the propaganda.

>number of international awards won by Indians IN india -Nobel Prize, Fields medal etc is next to zero)

Well at least its not zero.Rabindra Nath Tagore got it for his brilliant work - Geetanjali, Amartya Sen got it for his work on poverty and famines, C.V Raman got it for discovering what is now called the Raman Effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_of_India

Also there have been notable achievements that perhaps have not been acknowledged with an award.For example J.C.Bose was the first to use a semiconductor junction to detect radio waves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose

Sen is not "an Indian in India" he was at Harvard and Cambridge.

Well yes he did spend most of work life outside India.But then he was in India for significant periods too.

For example between 1961 to 1972 he was at the Delhi School of Economics, where he completed his work Collective Choice and Social Welfare

> Indians by and large "play it safe" in everything

If you're an Indian businessperson, you have two options - copy the US and make a good ROI, or risk everything on creating a new product for a potentially better ROI. The choice is obvious - it's far cheaper (and more beneficial) to play catch-up than innovate.

The question is - why is India still playing catch-up?

I don't know that much about India. I'm guessing that corruption is one part. I've heard Indian culture can be anti-business. Perhaps politics are more sectarian than policy-based - they don't vote for a party because it has good policies (or seems to have good policies), but because they identify with the candidates (same religion, caste, region, family, whatever). Democracy doesn't seem to work when elections are fought on sectarian lines.

I believe you misinterpreted his words. Being an 'Indian businessperson' itself is not done much because of the 'play it safe' attitude. Yes, Indians are that risk-averse.

Well, most people around the world are averse to business. Is there really a bigger proportion of Chinese or Russian or Egyptian businesspersons than Indian? (In fact, India has a handful of extremely business-minded communities -- the Marwadis and the Gujaratis, and to a lesser extent the Punjabis, Sindhis and Malayalis. If anything, India does relatively well on this metric.)

Well the Marwadis and Gujaratis have been traders and businessmen since ancient times. It's kind of like the son of a farmer being a farmer himself. How many daily wage labourers have started their own businesses? Or for that matter, how many IT MNC employees have?

I do not know if there is a bigger proportion of Chinese/Russian/Egyptian businessmen, but I do know that the amount of social stigma attached to leaving a well paying job to do a startup is significantly higher in India than in most other countries.

Chinese are also massively risk-adverse (despite having a massive respect for businessmen). The only Chinese who start businesses are those who have the luxury of being able to afford to take risks (rich parents), and those who can't afford not to.

Interesting point ... Do you think the geography of the region played a big role in keeping the tradition alive? I'm always surprised to see how my community (Bengalis) are so resistant to business - even though I have read Bengali traders ventured into overseas trading way back in history. What I felt was Calcutta becoming the capital during British India, generated a lot of government jobs for 200 years. That growth led to the downfall of the entrepreneurs in our region.

Growing up in Calcutta my Mariwari and Gujrati friends were always excited to talk about business. It was clear how their parents encouraged it. I was clearly taught business is a strict NO-NO. Get a stable job and settle down. When I look back, in a class of 60 odd people in my computer science undergrad class 95% "settled down". Only two dared to kick their job and go for a startup.

Perhaps... I'm not entirely sure why this is the way things are. The histories of specific Indian communities are often completely fascinating, and I wish there was more literature on the subject and I had more time to read it. :)

I agree with your last line. We have numerous parties that are "caste based". Bigger parties typically have alliance with the smaller "caste based" parties because they can win the votes of people who are of particular caste.

One such example of a party(there are many) is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattali_Makkal_Katchi [From wikipedia] >Ramdoss had earlier worked with the Vanniyar Sangham (Vanniyar Union) founded by him in 1980. PMK is based amongst the Most Backward Class Vanniyakula Kshatriyas community.

Vanniyar is a caste in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu

suprgeek is right. Standard deviation is too huge in all aspects of India.

true!

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