Thank HN: Our friend is Safe and Sound
jacquesmattheij.com
jacquesmattheij.com
I am one of the HNers who knows the details on this case. And I can say, with great confidence, that without tremendous generosity from Jacques, a talented young woman that he has never directly met would be in very bad circumstances indeed.
I would like to thank Jacques and Daniel for everything they've done for me. They've saved me, a complete stranger, more times than I can count.
Once we were sure that she had indeed been taken we worked on making sure that there would be as strong a response as we could muster.
Thank you HN for pulling together a miracle that saved me by the skin of my teeth.
Thank you pg for creating this amazing community.
I believe it was stated that this all got started because some influential guy got crossed and is now pulling strings to make your life bad.
Now given that we're on HN I can't help wondering if this is in any way startup related; Are we talking some kind Startup vs Big Corp situation here? If so I figure it might be of value and interest to the HN community to know at least this as an outline.
Should startups in India and elsewhere fear the same situation?
The only startup connection is that the person to whom it is happening is a person who would like to be heavily involved in startups, and whose talents would make that a natural thing to do once this situation is resolved.
India does have potential issues for startups around corruption, bribery, a slow legal system and so on. However I'm not aware of any shocking targeting of startups.
Start-ups in India have nothing to fear from the fall-out of this case or from similar circumstances, it is a very much private matter.
Start-ups are involved in a different way though: start-ups have provided some of the funds, start-ups are what brought us together and start-ups have enabled us to create a support network.
So in a way there are a lot of tie ins into the start-up world but only positive ones.
I'm sure I speak for many here when I say that your and swombat's combined reputation is definitely enough to be able to make such requests, even without details, whenever you need.
If it is more than speculation that would be better, like insider stories.
Do people aspire to join the civil services because it opens up this wide possibility to be corrupt and wield power ? I have seen that many do, sometimes by the dormfull.
I am Indian, but it is as inpenetrable to me as it is to anybody else.
I've never dealt with anything like this before so it is hard to gain any insight into what motivates people like this in general.
Also, community (tribe, caste, same language) in India is super important. So if the higher up is from the same community, there is a higher likelihood that the cop will accede to his request. Another issue is that it is easy for a cop/public official who refuses demands from politicians (or any one important really) to get "transferred". This means that the person gets uprooted from wherever they were leaving and gets moved to a random part of the state or country. As you might imagine, not many people prefer doing this.
Of course that's an idealists view and in practice people will be guided by other things including their personal interests.
Caste is likely an important factor in this particular case.
For a police officer who does not comply to pressure from politicians and the goons, following things can happen in the order of severity.
1. Transfer order to Police Training center 2. Transfer order to Naxalite area (Naxalites are terrorists who rule certain part of India where the government law is no obeyed). 3. Suspension order. 4. The local politician may enter the police station and slap the police. (Have seen this happening). 5. The local politician may strip the police officer in front of general public and his subordinates. 6. The police officer may come under a running truck.
The real problem with police system in India is that it is still governed by the same laws that were formed by the British. British rulers used the police force mostly to control the natives by use of force. Top level politicians were given too much control over police force de facto and de jure. The Indian government did not bother to change the police system because they found it too convenient.
Indian police has very limited training. Only some officers are allowed to have handguns. Since India does not manufacture Guns neither imports them the guns given to these officers are the ones that were caught during smuggling. These guns don't work. During the 26/11 Islamic terror attack on mumbai many officers died only because they guns jammed and failed to fire.
Training of police is centralized. New recruits are passed through some basic training which involves jumping around, marching and introduction to laws. Thats all. After the join their job there is no training for them what so ever.
Why the hell do people join Police then ?
Most of the people who join Police force buy these job by paying the local politicians. A job of constable (lowest position) costs around $10,000. After that you have to pay anywhere between $10000 - $50,000 to get a transfer to a desired area. Price will be higher if opportunities to take bribes in that area is higher. The police then jsut wants to augment their salary by expecting bribes.
Every time you want to renew your passport you have to visit your local police station. Even if you have not criminal record the police takes anywhere between $10 - $50 to give you that certificate.
Powerful people use Police like servants of their house or in some cases like slaves.
Recently, there was the case of Ashok Khemka who spoke out against nepotism and such. He was relieved of his responsibilities (as a Director General/Inspector General in the Revenue Registry) immediately and seconded as a Managing Director elsewhere (a fairly low level position compared to his experience and seniority). There is also a wiki page about him. An honest and upright officer. His qualifications are also excellent (PhD in CS, MBA + IAS).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Khemka
If such hardship can be faced by a very senior government officer, the smaller fish have absolutely no chance but to relent.
Simple threats work. Being transferred to a hellhole with little to no electricity, poor roads, far from where your family lives; or worse, transferred to a naxalite or some other unstable region.
Yes. Leave a few rare ones every few years - who eventually turn up dead at some petrol pump or end up destitute - almost everyone joins to earn millions in bribe. The way they talk - "kya maila?" - "revenue?" - "Are koi nahi. Power toh nahi but paisa kisi se kam nahi hai isme bhi" ("what cadre did you get?" - "revenue" - "Oh, it's ok. There's no power but money is no less than anywhere else". This is what they plan before joining from toppers to tail-enders. I used to believe their topper's interviews in those magazine, before I personally came to know some in college and after.
Pissing off someone in a powerful position in a country like India is not a good idea. Persisting in this and getting away with it for a year or more is something that can get you in a boatload of trouble, even if you've done nothing wrong because it makes all those people look pretty silly.
After all, what use are all those connections and all your wealth if it does not achieve the goals that you've set...
In this particular case there are lots of twists and turns that make this more bizarre than what you could conclude from what is written here. Let's just leave it at that I have had the boundaries of what I thought people were capable of putting each other through thoroughly tested and subsequently breached.
There are no 'winners' in this case, only losers and some temporary reprieve. Let's hope that in the long run this whole thing can be laid to rest without any chance of repercussions or repetitions.
One of the prosecuting police officers in this case - that I've had some correspondence with - is on the record as wanting to beat me up for interfering with his case. Sucks to be him, and good for me I'm not anywhere near India. Of course if you don't get your way as an officer nothing trumps a little police brutality or the threat thereof to show who is the boss.
I guess a holiday in India is out for the moment ;)
When the police is no longer acting in the interest of every citizen of a country but structurally works at the behest of the rich and powerful you get all kinds of messed up situations.
In this case the protagonist got lucky, she knew a guy who knew a guy who happened to hang around on the same forum as she does. And the last one knew a good lawyer. Collectively that forum is a very powerful entity. If not for that this would have ended very differently. Six degrees ftw.
And for every person like this there are an untold number who are not in the possession of connections to some international community.
That's the really sad part.
Don't just hope. Evaluate the situation and avoid the areas where you(I mean your friend) might be in trouble. I don't know about your situation, but in general, someone used to having things his way doesn't take kindly to not having things his way.
> One of the prosecuting police officers in this case - that I've had some correspondence with - is on the record as wanting to beat me up for interfering with his case.
That sound totally out of world for you, but it sounds pretty normal to me.
> I guess a holiday in India is out for the moment ;)
Don't worry too much about it. It's not like you land in India, and they meet you at the airport. People you have pissed off have no means of knowing if you are in India. But yes, if you do come to India, avoid crossing paths. Also, even if you do cross paths, you have established that you have access to legal help and you aren't going to just roll over. That would exclude regular cops from messing with you again.
But without giving away too much of our game plan, we are working on something better.
In spite of living in India, the people in question were not able to react as quickly at that time (I'm not in contact with them currently)
I would like to request that at some point, maybe 6months...A year... Please do take time to write about what it took for you to "unbreak" the system. I can guarantee that you would be doing a huge favor. Things like how-to-identify-a-good-lawyer, wouldn't be out of place at all.
They did not count on a group of 'filthy foreigners' to do as much as they could to balance the equation and to throw a spanner in the works.
Compared to filthy rich and very influential within India we could have still lost the case, were it not for a lawyer that was willing to go over and beyond the call of duty and a staunch cadre of supporters. I'm happy with the outcome but all too aware of how close a call it really was.
The only thing that helped to identify a good lawyer was to find one that didn't start off with how much their retainer would be but to find one that started to ask pertinent questions and that set aside his schedule instantly. That was still taking a chance but fortunately that turned out to be the right choice.
Let's take this to email, j@ww.com
That is a very relevant hack.
Yes, that may have played into it.
> (even if, possibly, you didn't have that power)
We did and we still do but we chose to keep it in reserve in case we ever need it. Once that bomb is detonated there is no going back and it would make our friend stand out in ways that are not helping her.
The problem then becomes one of how effective you frame the case. Without a lawyer it is safe to say you're screwed so the police did what they could to make it so our friend would be arraigned without representation. They'd already squashed previous affidavits by another lawyer (who had disappeared without so much as a trace, go figure).
So there was a good indication this was going to be a railroading, which was born out by the subsequent unfolding of events.
Even so, and in spite of having a lawyer (and a good one) it is scary how close this whole thing came to unravelling. We had several bits of good luck thrown our way (one of which was the involvement of a second judge) as well as a very competent lawyer and together those proved enough to swing the whole thing in our favor, but that was by no means certain and I probably slept about 10 hours combined over the four days while the whole thing played out, and I'm pretty sure Daniel didn't get much more. We're just about done dealing with the aftermath (which is why I finally had some time to write this up).
I'll need a whole new set of nails.
I think part of our luck was that the more people are involved, the harder it is for corruption to succeed. India, from what I can tell, is a very corrupt society, with bribes changing hands all the time. If you can get the job done with just the police being bribed, that might cost you X. If you need to bribe the judiciary too, and that includes judges, lawyers, a reputable firm, etc... the costs would quickly mount. And, of course, the lawyers themselves are paid (and not cheaply).
Basically, one lesson from this is that if you are facing a corrupt system, enlarging the case, dragging more people, more different groups into it, makes it harder for the corruption to have its effect.
It is reminiscent of the North Korea vs. South Korea debate, where the US likes to hold up South Korea as an example of how democracy leads to economic success, when in actuality the export-based economic model used to this day by the South was put in place while the country was under a series of brutal US-backed dictatorships that it didn't emerge from for more than 2 decades, when it had already been set on the path to economic success.
Indeed.
> Our (the US) government often likes to hold up India as a counter-example to the oppressive regime in China, but in practice, it seems there is little difference.
I think in general India is a bit better than China, but I'm fairly sure that you could move this whole affair to China with very little difference.
The Koreas are one of those scars on the world that will take a century to heal. There are a few others, I have 0 hope that any of them will be resolved within my lifetime. The big losers are the people of those countries used as pawns in a global game of chess that they probably don't even realize is being played.
I would not hold up South Korea as being exemplary in anything particular but they're trying hard to make it work.
I think that, their history of dictatorships set aside, South Korea's economic success should be lauded. I can't think of a single other country that has grown so quickly in such a short period of time, despite the odds being against them.
They have little in the way of natural resources, and are a small country. After more than a millennium of being ruled by a backwards monarchy, followed by 36 years of brutal colonization by the Japanese, followed by a horrific proxy war between the US and the Soviets that split the country in two and left it poorer than India and Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by a series of brutal dictatorships, they have managed to become a developed nation with a democratic government. Korean "chaebols" (multinationals), such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG, have gained worldwide renown, and Korean cultural power abroad (particularly in the rest of Asia) is growing rapidly with each passing year[0].
They certainly received outside help and a lucky confluence of incidents in the global economy, but they have to be given credit for seizing the opportunity. Take a look at this blog post[1] for more info.
There are undoubtedly a lot of issues with Korean society, such as discrimination against women, discrimination against foreigners, really messed up schooling that make students work too hard and crushes their creativity, critical thinking abilities, and individualism (no matter what Obama says about SK's educational system), a general societal tendency towards groupthink, and corruption. But that doesn't invalidate what they've achieved.
0: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/18/3516562/k-pop-invades-ame...
1: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/02/is-koreas-economy-ove...
According to http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/results/ it is actually China that is better than India on corruption, but neither has anything to be proud about.
And I agree. This case could easily have happened in China. I suspect that it would have turned out worse there.
It is not unheard of, of someone having to fight the good fight against great odds and the occasional corrupt public servant causing grievance. I also assure you the average Indian is not corrupt, and since the those in public service are selected from the same average Indians, they are not as you have repeatedly in these 2 threads made them out to be.
To execute an arrest in India requires the police to file a FIR (First information report) and for a judge to approve an arrest warrant on the basis of information in the FIR. Much like in the US, there are jurisdictional rules governing state and federal oversight. Your friend was arrested in the state of Maharashtra and taken to the state of Delhi. Given these facts, you are claiming collusion among multiple state and federal agencies and judiciary, acting out on blatantly false information in an FIR.
From having spent 24 years in India in a upper middle class family, I can assure you from anecdotal evidence that I never crossed paths with anyone in a position so powerful to exert such clout. It quite simply is the case that people with such clout rarely if ever socialize in places that most people do.
All of this begs the question why and how did your friend come to be involved with such people and why her support structure is so poor as for having you to make a public request for help. More over all information in this matter is in the public domain the moment a FIR was filed and can be obtained by anyone with a request under the auspices of right to information act.
The very fact that you received help from the very people raised in the same society that you claim to be corrupt should make you reevaluate you belief in the account of events you have received.
In summary, I'm sorry I don't believe your account of corruption and discrimination without basis against your friend. They is likely an element of truth in what you say but your account is almost certainly skewed. I also do believe that your friend is innocent until proven guilty.
I request you to immediate STOP your innuendo on account of hearsay against a country I hold dear
Well, that's really good for you then. I highly doubt you and our friend have much in common.
> All of this begs the question why and how did your friend come to be involved with such people and why her support structure is so poor as for having you to make a public request for help.
Yes, this strikes to the heart of this case, but frankly it is none of your business. The only thing that matters is that it did.
Much as I regret it things happened exactly as related.
And if you keep rejecting evidence that does not support your hypothesis on how things really are out of hand then you'll never be able to change your point of view.
So the fact that you can not imagine something or that it has not happened to you or is not something you have heard about happening does not preclude such a thing from being real. Merely quite unlikely, and given what I know about this case I highly doubt another one exactly like it will happen, but at the same time the general case of it is probably repeated several times per year with various outcomes depending on the actors.
> Much like in the US, there are jurisdictional rules governing state and federal oversight. Your friend was arrested in the state of Maharashtra and taken to the state of Delhi. Given these facts, you are claiming collusion among multiple state and federal agencies and judiciary, acting out on blatantly false information in an FIR.
Indeed.
And what's even more interesting here is that the police pursued this folly knowing it full well to be false after having been informed of that very fact by a large number of individuals and organizations.
Of course it hurts that in a country that you hold dear there is corruption.
But keep in mind that I have not railed against India or against Indians in general. Only against those particular Indians that have in this case bent the law to suit their purpose, to unjustly pursue one that need their protection and not their persecution.
> In summary, I'm sorry I don't believe your account of corruption and discrimination without basis against your friend.
Your beliefs are of no concern to me, all that matters is that which is real and that which isn't. This is about as real as it gets.
It's not hearsay if you're in the middle of it... and what you have or have not experienced has 0 bearing on what we are experiencing right now.
It's a good thing you engaged a lawyer and quickly brought the judiciary into the loop. Not because you'll get instant justice but it will bring everything under scrutiny. The victim's enemies would now be deterred from taking extreme measures.
(A personal experience - We almost became a victim of a police officer trying to take over our hard earned property by hook or crook. It's because of my dad's presence of mind that we came out of it relatively unscathed (we still went through a lot). He engaged a lawyer, escalated it to his superiors and filed a petition with the human rights commission too. All happened so fast that the officer had to stop furthering his plan. It still just bought us enough time to sell the property and get out of it. But at least, the alternatives would have been much worse.)
Your story about the property sounds very believable with what I've seen so far, and I wonder what happened after you sold it, if the buyer got the same treatment that you had or if this was the last of it.
And trickery like that happens everywhere, even in countries that on paper have very little corruption, I've seen a case with quite a few common elements in Canada.
In fact, my mother suffered major depression, unable to believe that even in a country like Canada corruption is present. Even to this day she is having troubles getting over it, but life goes on.
I'm glad your friend is safe now. The world really needs more people like you and Daniel.
Generally, the way it works is if your property is worth 20, and you can may be get 22 out of it if you try, you sell it to someone for 15 who can handle the trouble.
Property battles are among the ugliest and most underhanded types of disputes to get involved in here. Sons using the cops and litigation to kick the mother/parents out of the house levels of ugly.
Correct. You just made my point. For starters better judgement would prevent me from putting myself in a position of compromise as your friend has seemingly done.
> Yes, this strikes to the heart of this case, but frankly it is none of your business. The only thing that matters is that it did. > And if you keep rejecting evidence that does not support your hypothesis on how things really are out of hand then you'll never be able to change your point of view.
There has been no evidence presented either for or against at this time. Just hearsay, primarily your account of events.
> So the fact that you can not imagine something or that it has not happened to you or is not something you have heard about happening does not preclude such a thing from being real.
I clearly stated in my previous comment that there is likely an element of truth in what you say. Your response by not taking the time understand what has said clearly indicates an emotional response. Your judgement is this particular matter is clearly clouded.
> Only against those particular Indians that have in this case bent the law to suit their purpose, to unjustly pursue one that need their protection and not their persecution.
Your credibility as it may be on HN has no standing in a court of law. You are neither a witness nor a defendant. I would very must like to see this particular case go to court and the full extent of truth be revealed. From your responses it is clear that you prefer this not be the case. "Satyamev Jayate" (Truth prevails) is inscribed on India's national emblem. I have far greater faith in the Indian constitution, than your ranting and raving on this forum.
> But keep in mind that I have not railed against India or against Indians in general. >Of course it hurts that in a country that you hold dear there is corruption.
Yes you have. Your claims of police brutality, collusion of state institutions, corruptions and other such are railing against India. I requested you to stop this. I have no interest in your or your friends particular standing/stake in the matter.
You are making a lot of claims here without knowing any of the details of this case. My friend did not have any opportunity at all to change anything about themselves or to exercise 'better judgement' that would have prevented any of this from happening. Their only alternative to being prosecuted would be to give themselves up, and I hope you will agree with me that that is not an option.
> There has been no evidence presented either for or against at this time.
HN is not a court of law, you are not a judge and you have no right to any evidence.
> Just hearsay, primarily your account of events.
You will notice that:
1) 3 long time HN'ers with an impeccable reputation have confirmed this, 4 if we include the subject, but since they've posted anonymously in this thread (and they should) we'll exclude them from the tally.
2) A reputable Delhi lawyer thought the case was serious enough to take it on, on extremely short notice.
3) Two judges agreed with our view of the case.
Those things alone would seem to have enough weight to counter your incessant unbelief. I find it hard to imagine that in light of that you would persist. So if you have no dog in the fight, why would you be so categorically denying something happened if you don't have all the facts?
> I clearly stated in my previous comment that there is likely an element of truth in what you say. Your response by not taking the time understand what has said clearly indicates an emotional response. Your judgement is this particular matter is clearly clouded.
I took out more time than I am obliged to give you as level headed a response as possible.
> Your credibility as it may be on HN has no standing in a court of law.
HN is not a court of law. But in a real court of law not one but two judges agreed with my view of this case. What makes you think you can trump their judgement?
> You are neither a witness nor a defendant.
That did not stop me from contributing to the case. The fact that I did make myself available as a witness (as did Daniel) and helped to arrange for a lawyer shows you that I am more than peripherally involved.
> From your responses it is clear that you prefer this not be the case. "Satyamev Jayate" (Truth prevails) is inscribed on India's national emblem. I have far greater faith in the Indian constitution, than your ranting and raving on this forum.
Well, truth prevails, but light is the best weapon you have in case truth is about not to prevail and there is more to this world than your limited view of it. Arraigning a young person after forcibly moving them from their home without representation and with submarine claims against them is a surefire way to make the truth not prevail. I sincerely hope that you won't ever have your bubble burst because it will likely be a rude awakening. If such should happen feel free to call upon my help, I'm not going to hold your ignorance here against you.
Going to court does not automatically mean that justice will be done. It's a distinct possibility but by no means a certainty.
> Yes you have. Your claims of police brutality, collusion of state institutions, corruptions and other such are railing against India.
Of course it does not rail against India, but that is what you want to hear. You are essentially making a straw-man argument here, and in the process you have revealed something that I had a question about so far: Why is it that within India people are not standing by each other in a situation like this? You have helped me by supplying a partial answer to that question.
They are simply facts.
Facts you do not like, but facts nonetheless.
> I requested you to stop this.
Asking me to stop this is asking me to deny the facts. That would be a very dangerous thing for me to do, and it goes against my nature.
> I have no interest in your or your friends particular standing/stake in the matter.
No, that much is clear. So then maybe you should not engage those familiar with the facts of this case and pretend that you know more about it than we do.
Because I DO have a stake in the matter, my friends' standing is of importance to me and the injustice that is being done to her is as well. What you believe or do not believe is utterly irrelevant.
Moreover, it's not exactly a closely-kept secret. If you read the Indian news on a regular basis you will discover such stories from time to time.
It also seems to me that the quality of the government institutions in India varies quite a bit from place to place, not to mention from individual to individual.
I do not think that jacquesm has indicted the whole country, but I can appreciate it may be difficult to take what he has said from a foreigner posting on an international forum. You might consider that in light of the claims he makes he has avoided sweeping generalities that many others would not.
Every system has bad actors. Open identification and criticism of those bad actors marks a robustly free society, not a weak one. Talk of positioning, imprudence, insult, and hushing up... that trips alarm bells.
If you look at issues such as how big a deal caste, religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc are, India looks like a much less enlightened country still. Being (presumably) a Hindu male of fairly high caste and normal sexual orientation, it is as easy for you to ignore this as it was, say, for a white southern gentleman in the USA 50 years ago to ignore the glaring problems there. That doesn't make them not real - it just makes it easy for you to not believe that they are real.
Now for a random point of comparison. I grew up in Canada, which is in 10th place on the global corruption index. And yet my wife's family knew a girl who was raped and murdered, the murderer was caught, there was clear evidence, and yet he walked after bribing the right people.
You would say this is impossible? An eyewitness saw him pick her up hitchhiking, and wrote down his license plate. She then picked the driver out of a police lineup. The suspect's semen was found in the murder victim. The medical report said that she was strangled, and cited physical evidence such as bruises on her neck.
The judge ruled that the sex could have been consensual, and it was not impossible that she could have drowned in her own saliva. (She did have excess saliva, but not a tremendous amount. 16 year olds don't generally drown in their own saliva.) The bruising on her neck was ignored. The police then did not appeal. Nobody else had standing to sue, and double-jeopardy rules meant that he could never again be sued for her death. The case died there.
This happened in a country that, evidence suggests, is substantially less corrupt than India. Why then would I be surprised that there can be egregious instances of corruption in India?
However, I disagree with - "The average Indian may not be corrupt". We are corrupt beyond what we choose to acknowledge.
It depends on whether you call only the bribe taker as corrupt or both.
In my opinion you should consider both and that would mean that average Indian is corrupt. There is not an instance when you cannot get a simple task done without corruption.
Thankfully now, birth and death certificates in cities are partially digitized - and there is no 'need' to bribe and get it.
Consider this example, when I went to the corporation office to get the birth certificate of my son, another delighted father of a kid who was there for same reason was insisting that the clerk should take the Rs.100 out of his generosity and happiness of getting it so quickly!
Of course I wouldn't pay, but what do you think is the expectation from the clerk when he serves me next? Who is the corrupt person here?
If the crime happened within Delhi jurisdiction and FIR is with Delhi police and the court issues arrest warrant, it needs no collusion for the police to go and pick you up from Maharashtra. Also, getting an arrest warrant is trivial if the accused somehow doesn't appear in court.
> From having spent 24 years in India in a upper middle class family, I can assure you from anecdotal evidence that I never crossed paths with anyone in a position so powerful to exert such clout.
All it needs is a FIR, accused not appearing in the court(depends on the violation), and you get an arrest warrant.
> More over all information in this matter is in the public domain the moment a FIR was filed and can be obtained by anyone with a request under the auspices of right to information act.
What? Are you assuming the victim or jacquesm and friends didn't know the contents of the FIR?
> The very fact that you received help from the very people raised in the same society that you claim to be corrupt should make you reevaluate you belief in the account of events you have received.
People helping you doesn't negate people who have wronged you. There is nothing to re-valuate - the events aren't mutually exclusive.
> I request you to immediate STOP your innuendo on account of hearsay against a country I hold dear
Take a breath. Being born in India doesn't automatically grant you expertise on all things India, neither does it grant you the right to deny everything that is bad about India.
You ask how may a person might come in contact with powers that be in their daily course of work. If anecdotes are the currency we are trading in, here is a well known one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binayak_Sen
Please. A lot of departments are pretty much fully corrupt. (RTO, Registrars, Excise etc)
You should read this - http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/paperwork-aka-the-corru...
I would guess that the person in this case involved got on the wrong side of a important political or bureaucratic entity and they pulled strings to make sure the discretionary powers were used in specific ways after filing a "bogus" complaint. If the police were behaving honestly, they should have told the complainant to bugger off, but because there were important people showing "interest" they didn't.
My guess is that this sort of thing is really nothing unique to India. It's just that the people who exploited in such ways in the US (to pick a familiar example) would likely be poor immigrants, young black males etc. who lack the connections required to get their stories heard. Perhaps one important difference is that politicians seem to have a lot of leverage over police authorities in India.
In theory, the judicial process will correct these mistakes. But in practice that takes money, time, and there are intermediate steps possible that cannot be made good in any reasonable way.
It may be bogus, but that doesn't mean that it isn't serious. Or that you should be confident of a just outcome.
I couldn't help, but I saw/read the original thread.
The 'whatever happened with 'x'?' feeling is something I have quite frequently and most of the time other than the initial burst of coverage there usually is nothing afterwards to indicate how the whole thing ended.
Depending on how strong you feel about a subject that can be quite irritating.
Not that I would have managed to help in this particular case in any big way but I think we should always be wary of helping people who wont even put the facts before you. Hope we dont see more such request for help on HN.
I am saying this because in past I have faced situations like this and after I offered help I realized that I was in fact siding with the bad guys.
$('#if-you-read-this-you-should-follow-me-on-twitter').remove()
But what with the re-generation time of the blog and the fact that this wasn't meant to be a blog post to begin with (HN has an upper limit to the length of the text in an article header) I feel that leaving it in there is ok.
It would be a ton of work to get it excised for just that one posting and frankly I have more urgent things to do than to worry about being perceived as politically incorrect.
Those who know me do not care and those who don't are probably not going to be persuaded that this wasn't a ploy to get some more twitter followers or karma points.
So, now that we have that out of the way, and since you started it: I personally don't like it - even if I agree - when people are bitching all the time about formatting and things external to the body of the article that is posted.
It isn't rare at all to see a whole thread about an interesting or important text unravel into a discussion about fonts, style sheets in general, various plugs for readability or suggestions like yours. It's off-topic and detracts from the original message, which was a simple, genuine and heartfelt 'thank you', without any ulterior motive or other ploy. I'm not selling you anything, not trying to get people to click on advertising and I frankly couldn't care less about how this impacts what people think of me. I simply felt that we owed HN a sign of gratitude and found the easiest way to express that.
Of course it is much easier to nit-pick about style and format rather than to contribute positively (or even negatively) on the substance. And so you'll find lots of people vote such non-contributing stuff up, which often crowds out the real discussion.
I used to work in a bike repair shop where they had a large sign that said 'if you've got nothing to do, don't do it here'. Something similar applies to off topic gripes about the format instead of the message.
>external to the body of the article that is posted.
Well you see, that is EXACTLY the problem.
The way you formatted the blog, the "you should follow me on twitter" thing it is COMPLETELY indistinguishable from the body of the post. I can promise you that every single person that reads that blog post to the end also reads "you should follow me on twitter". It's even the same freaking spacing as another paragraph. I'm pretty sure this is intentional, hell, I'm doing much a similar thing on my own blog:
http://doda.co/7-python-libraries-you-should-know-about
>It would be a ton of work to get it excised for just that one posting
Really? I feel now you're just talking from the rear.
Here. I took a look at your blog. jQuery is already included. It's even simpler than what I wrote above. Just put this inside your thank-you-hn.md file:
<script>$(document).ready(function () { $('footer').remove()})</script>
Really, even if you won't do it for this blog post, just change the wording to "Follow me on Twitter". Really do you care about these few percentage points of followers that only would've followed you had you had that more aggressive wording in your footer? You put some great content on your blog - I feel you should do it justice by letting it shine on its own without the personal marketing tactics at the bottom.
You don't get to decide how I allocate my time and half an hour or more is time I currently do not have to spend on something as un-important as this.
> Really? I feel now you're just talking from the rear.
I think we're done discussing this. Thank you for your contribution.
Please point to the location where I say I'm deciding how you allocate your time.
>I think we're done discussing this. Thank you for your contribution.
That language was probably more harsh than it needed to be. Still I've been hacking on my blog for the day and (granted it is much smaller than yours) I couldn't fathom how changing one line could ever be described as "a huge amount of work" when it currently looks like this to me:
<change line in editor. save the file>
$ fab deploy
Sorry for the language above - really I just like your post and am saying how I find it could be improved.
You are still telling me how to allocate my time.
For historical reasons my blog is a mix of badly interacting scripts called 'octopress'. I already spent a day and a bit just getting it to work properly and to migrate the content from Drupal.
Whenever I so much as touch it something breaks. This can be for random reasons, a misplaced character here or there does wonders. Drupal sucks (for different reasons) but at least it worked.
Octopress is nicer in theory but it simply does not scale beyond the trivial, there is a lot of content in those pages and clearly octopress has a problem with that. Just correcting a typo takes several minutes (if it works at all).
So let's make a deal here: you allocate your time and you run your blog and I won't tell you what to do or change, and I will do the same with mine.
And if and when that rainy Sunday with nothing to do rolls by (I wish...) then I'll spend the time required to re-write the software underpinning the blog to improve the turn-around time. Likely that will be several Sundays.
Until then I thank the guys that wrote Octopress for doing the job they did. Figuring how to make the template to change for just one file is beyond my current level of knowledge and I do not have the time right now to improve on that. It most definitely is not as easy as you make it out to be, this is a generated blog, not one built up from separate pages of pre-rendered content. So any change I make to the end product is automatically reverted on the next generation. The pages themselves are flat text (markdown), and do not have the ability to output javascript.
As for whether it works or not: yes, it works. A 'call to action' as it is called has been proven to work long before Drew Curtis added his to his twitter button.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
As the article already relates, it is not my story to tell anyway and the person it is about is still not in a position where they are free from potential fall-out if their identity were public knowledge.
There is no guarantee that this will ever be the case, but if and when she decides to go public is up to her, definitely not up to me or anybody else.
This has been going on for a long time now and the end is not in sight yet.
As for the movie rights, we've been joking about that, but I personally could do with a lot less realism in the excitement department and I'm pretty sure so can our friend from India. Boring is good.
Good question though!
One might even say, ill-congealed social proof.
At any rate, with little more than a website (incidentally hawking domain names to the tune of $100,000 a pop) and a plea (albeit a sizable karma locker to go with it), you've just witnessed how a feat of this order, spanning continents, could be nicely dusted up.
Before I further explore the sheer naivete of the intentions of HNers involved in this effort, I just want to note that my motives are nothing but pure. I have very little interest in the actual veracity of what is claimed so far. Just the array of potential outcomes(good or bad)that can spring in these scenarios. All other facts kept constant, there is nothing claimed so far that could obviate even some chances of foul play.
Without revealing a single identifying detail pertaining to the case, this Jacques Mattheij has convinced you that you should dutifully aid him in -- for all intents and purposes -- this illusory junket.
He has even name dropped PG in there some where although PG hasn't chimed in yet. [ I'm assuming that none of you have checked with PG to corroborate what's been claimed here with the exception of those chosen few who claim to be in the know including this 'btilly' and 'swombat' fellows. ]
Here:
We all at HN, have no idea what the case is.
No, you are wrong in that. There are a few HN'ers that
know the real identity and some of the details behind this
(pg for one). And I'm pretty sure they'd agree that
keeping her identity a secret is of paramount importance
with respect to her safety.
The only consolation here is that this person (or others involved in this case) haven't sought any coin, just some yellow-page help. This might only be a consolation if you value your coin more than having your trust violated.
From the looks of it, nothing more will come of this.
We live in an age of elaborate human-powered ornithopter hoaxes [0], hipster grifters[1] and name-dropping hucksters[2] all plying their trades and advancing their conquests, largely online.
The old adage is increasingly relevant: "Look Around the Poker Table; If You Can’t See the Sucker, You’re It."
Be keen, not just singly but in herds as well.
At least don't be derisive of those who want to use their dose of circumspection. HN has been increasingly getting a lot less accommodating of the anti-herd view, even when that view is rationally argued.
[0] http://gizmodo.com/5894904/man-flies-like-a-bird-flapping-hi...
[1] http://gawker.com/5212970/meet-kari-ferrell-criminally-hipst...
[2] http://betabeat.com/2012/08/shirley-hornstein-shirls-credit-...
I would have happily helped(except I didn't know any criminal lawyers in Delhi). All it would have cost me was a couple of phone calls. What exactly would I have lost if it were an elaborate con, and what does the conman get?
I have been let down in past by people I have trusted/helped, and it did make me irrationally bitter for some time. But ultimately, I got duped in the past doesn't mean I refuse to help anyone ever.
> This might only be a consolation if you value your coin more than having your trust violated.
Listen you piece of shit. I value helping someone in need over my ego being violated when I realize I was duped.
> At least don't be derisive of those who want to use their dose of circumspection.
Let me explain it to you again. People cry wolf all the time. That alone is not reason enough to avoid any and everyone who cries wolf. You aren't the first person to have figured it out. As I said before, worst case scenario for someone helping if the story were made-up would have been a few wasted calls. The worst case scenario for not helping when the story isn't made up is letting an innocent(yeah, I don't know it. I would rather the court be the judge) suffer consequences. Making the choice is a no-brainer.
Stop flattering yourself. You haven't unearthed something everyone else couldn't see. The difference is you are just a bitter asshole pretending to be smarter than the naive people who jumped to help.
That's a pretty cheap thing you're doing there, but if you enjoy it then have fun. I hope that you'll never have to rely on others to help you solve a problem larger than what you yourself can cope with.
To reduce this to some ploy to take advantage of 'gullible HN'ers' is utterly ridiculous.