I was told by an Indian work colleague that it's a matter of culture and stems from something along the analogy he gave of 'bare minimum', 'if I can get away with it'.

It probably explains why I've seen offshore teams verbally abused and oppressively micro-managed by their managers, to extents that treatment would be illegal in the West.

I'd feel anxious if any life critical sector or even piece of software was developed from any of the large Indian consultancies I've had the displeasure of working with. As this attitude manifests itself almost every time sometime is delivered.

There's a shrew of threads on HN about poor, contaminated pharmaceuticals from India e.g. eye drops. The UK governments website on drug recalls have a large number of Indian manufactured products.