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Comment by tn13 | Hacker News Reader

One of the biggest difference between US and India is the constitution. Indian constitution does not give freedom of speech to its people. So government can pass all sort of laws.

The 1st amendment to US constitution gives people freedom of speech and ensures that government can not pass any laws against it. On the other hand all the "rights" that Indian constitution gives are subject to other government approvals which means you can have Right X to the extent that other existing laws allow.

Despite that several of laws except the IT laws are pretty good and time tested. IT law however is horrible and puts a prohibitive cost on various IT businesses.

Indian classified company Quikr (like CraigList) has hired 200 people just to screen each and every post to make sure it is not "offensive".

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And nowhere in the world you'll see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_politics_in_India

Is Quickr any good? From my experience, craiglist india is full of spam.. Every board is filled with men trying to hook you up with prostitutes.. No matter what board it is..

Ya Quikr is good, you can also try olx.in

CL India is very popular if you are into illegal things.

I managed to sell my bike on Quikr so clearly it works. Indian business face trust issues by default.

I had seen people selling iPhone 5S for INR 15K on quickr and thought its a scam !

>>Despite that several of laws except the IT laws are pretty good and time tested. IT law however is horrible and puts a prohibitive cost on various IT businesses.

"Time tested." lol. Many laws in India date from the times of British Raj, and were outdated even then! -http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-29516976

Indian constitution actually give no rights. The constitution says the govt can make laws that can make restrictions, and so no absolute right is given, and hence freedom is also restricted.

Actually Indian constitution does give Freedom of Speech http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#In... but agree there are some restrictions which I assume are valid and are there for other countries too. There are problems enforcing or protecting these rights when you are up against corrupt politicians and organizations.

There is a big technical difference between Indian Constitution's interpretation of right and say that of American constitution.

When it comes to US constitution, the 1st amendment is the stricter condition that each and every other law should meet. Any law passed that is not consistent with 1st amendment thus becomes invalid.

Opposite is the case with Indian constitution. All the rights given by Indian constitution are totally subject to other laws passed by Indian government. Which means "freedom of expression" is a right as long as no other law prevents it. So basically government can deny you that right any time and in any case it wants.

There are total 8 grounds on which a government can pass a law to further lower the freedom of speech. These 8 grounds cover almost every possible case.

You explained correctly. It is like constitution is subordinate to laws.

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