chakde

Personally I don't think there's any doubt that Google's search quality has fallen down over the last few years.

There have been a few instances where what I was looking for was not found on Google and I gave up looking for it. Later (after a few months!) when by chance I tried the same query on Bing, the results showed up right on the first page. Surprised by this, I rechecked it on Google and it appears either on the 3rd or 4th page - something I would never check earlier.

Since then I started always doing a backup search on Bing for anything important, to see results I might have missed on Google. By now, I'm using them 50:50.

Also attended a lecture on Bing search, and learnt that their approach is a little different, which could acount for this observation.

My point is that it is culture that affects happiness, not merely internal or material well being.

So taking into account cultural variations is meaningless when what I'm interested in measuring is the end result.

Well what gets measured gets improved.

What's subjective to you is pretty objective to me - the health impact of unhappiness, for example, will reflect in healthcare costs. Which btw makes up 15% of US GDP. Now is that even real GDP or just a manufactured problem - with doctors and lawers and insurance guys all making money off of health problems of consumers.

See this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:International_Comparison_-...

Well comparing GINI across similar sized countries: India (36.8), Russia (39.9), US (40.8), China (46.9), Brazil (49.3), India is the lowest of the group.

While its true that most european countries have slightly lower GINI, they also have a higher 10% ratio (highest to lowest) than India.

So it's pretty hard to argue from the actual statistics that inequality is the outstanding problem of India as it is often made out to be.

But it's perhaps true that the contrast is more visible in India than elsewhere - with slums next to high rises.

I think the reason for this is that growth is relatively narrowly focussed around a few metros, which then attracts a big influx of job seeking rural population. The other big countries never had such a big rural population to begin with.

Sustainability and environment count for something. Perhaps a lot. Self-reported happiness obviously counts for a lot.

GDP does'nt take any of that into account.

This is quite true and surprising. A european once mentioned that one problem is too many fat people in the "developed countries".

See the distribution of worldwide obesity here - http://wiki.medpedia.com/Image:World_map_of_Male_Obesity,_20...

and

http://www.healthyfellow.com/241/weight-loss-news

Probabaly from driving cars and watching too much tv and computers.

Well props to you for truthfulness. I don't think anyone is rubbishing the PM personally.

I was reading the Progress Principle today. It makes the point that setbacks have an outsized influence on one's mental makeup - much more than progress does. Check it out.

What corruption leads to is a set of daily setbacks to individuals. On the one hand the govt says this problem is impossible to solve. On the other the protestors say they have researched the issue and here is a way to solve it.

Which one do you pick and support ? It's a no contest to me.

I may have been ambivalent in April. But now in Aug, seeing that the govt has watered down their version of the bill so much that their lokpal won't even accept allegations of corruption from the general public ... it is clear they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That made me more interested in the topic and I read the bill and both sides of the argument. My conclusion is that this is the chance to grab. Even if it reduces corruption by a few percentage points it will be a victory, and will release energy for the tasks that you mention so urgently need to get done.

I'm sorry but you sound very presumptuous - you could'nt bring yourself to stay a single day in situations where people have stayed their lifetime - or clean the toilet yourself - and you presume to dictate what is best for them ?

About the shift in perceptions about Manmohan Singh: a person who is an A player in one position may well be a C player in a different position. It is a fact that despite RTI which only affected the lower levels of the govt, the corruption on the higher levels has only increased in the last few years. The oratory you miss also affects the effectiveness of the government itself.

I think if you are interested in the subject it behoves you find out more about the what and why before sounding off confusedly on the topic. More like Kejriwal and less like Manmohan.

What he is actually saying is that people are supporting Anna without necessarily understanding the reasons why - then he proceeds to lay down the reasons how we got to this situation after 43 years of the bill and the recent increase in public pilfering.

Also given is the example of the cleanup of Hong Kong corruption using an independant body with powers.

Interesting links. But the constitution does not say government should be small. And flip side of great business freedom is potential for greater exploitation. So you'd likely face headwinds as strong as Anna is facing if you were in his position.

Have you seen this or not ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CHcKlIsvAQ

It is not adding another layer, it is refactoring the system based on good evidence that this has worked before.

People talking about real cause and root cause are welcome to start a movement to solve that. When you are able to convince a few friends and gather a few followers, please let us know.

Corruption exists for historical reasons and because the Govt has not had the spine to go after pilfered assets and corrupt officials as it was perceived as too big a problem.

Similar problem existed in Hong Kong and was solved using similar means as this bill.

The reflection argument only works when the people have visibility into the government machine, which did not exist until recently, with greater mass media, RTI and even youtube/facebook etc. Even people from villages are on these channels.

The janlokpal bill is as good an example of people shaping their government as anything else.

25% is about right for indian gdp around mughal period. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/08/history-of-world-gdp/

these early wins were against muslim rulers who did not have that much support of their majority populace because of taxation issues and also suffered from lost revenues due to the new trade routes.

the hardest wars were against the hindu/sikh rulers - marattas, rajputs and sikhs who were not subdued until 1850s with great effort.

The greatest good for the smallest number ?

Re: most benevolent structure ever to have existed

here's a reference on internal tariffs from R.C.Dutt since it is very hard to locate online.

"The transit duties became more oppressive under the British Rule than they had been under the Nawabs. For the Company's power was more far- reaching, absolute, and undisputed, and each low- paid officer, at each Chowki or toll-house, had the means of exercising greater oppression. The evil grew without cessation for sixty years, and as late as 1825, Holt Mackenzie, then Territorial Secretary, condemned it in the strongest terms. " ..

"But Holt Mackenzie spoke to deaf ears. The East India Company would not willingly sacrifice even a re- venue of ;!{^2 2 0,000, or any portion of it, for the prosperity of the internal trade of India. Professing the utmost anxiety for the material welfare of the people of India, they were unwilling to sacrifice a shilling to promote that welfare. If the abolition of the Inland Duties had depended on the East India Company, the duties would never have been abolished under their administration. "

None at all.

But the whole fascination with idol and temple breaking which Indians can't fathom about Islam turns out to have its origins in the Judaic story of the golden calf.

It's not the discovery of america, it's the fact that India was actively deindustrialized by the British railways which had a negative feedback loop on Indian industry, whereas in America the railways had a positive feedback loop in manufacturing. It's not that America is ahead but that India was cut down. Also you can read up on internal tarrifs in India which were deliberate British policy to kill the market of goods produced in India, not the doing of one or two men like Clive or Hastings.

Let me close my argument by asking you to read a document that warned of British intentions to the Americans just before the American revolution - Common Sense by Thomas Paine. All the things he warned America about the British crown came true for India, whereas America which was also not united at the time - there were more loyalists than revolutionaries and many different colonies - got the warning in time and got its unity and independance early on. India was not so lucky and did not discern the threat or receive this kind of explicit warning and suffered for it.

There's no bias there, I am clearly stating facts from the Indian perspective not some utilitarian world good perspective. In case you believe in that perspective, the question to you is why America chose not to continue being a British colony.

As far as unity argument, like I said the history of the time has to be examined carefully and it turns out to be false as far as British intentions and actions went. Churchill said was no more a country than the equator for example. Also why UK been so opposed to EU and unification in its own backyard.

1. yes it's not the sole cause. the bigger cause perhaps was the discovery of the americas - an entire continent almost the size of asia lying undiscovered right next to the europeans for 15000 years since the last ice age, until Islam's kick led the europeans to search for new routes to India, ultimately leading to the discovery of the Americas. with a discovery like that anyone can become powerful if they put their minds to it. it's amazing that despite such a discovery the British still had to resort to colonialism for centuries to build their way to modernity.

the other cause which you I'm sure you're thinking of is better systems of writing, publishing and central system of goveranance - I'd agree with you there that european systems were better at the time. having said that europe as a whole was'nt that far ahead of india/china before colonialism began.

2. India was politically united in 300BC, about a 1000 years before the UK was in 700A.D. Hugo Grotius in discussing international law around 1600 talked of India as a single entity. the muslim empire around 1600s still had India politically united. culturally and even linguistically India has always had great inherent unity - contrary to the image sometimes portrayed in the west. India was not united by the British - they divided into innumerable princely states and sundry other divisions. It was Sardar Patel who united India after its independance despite all the efforts of the British for the opposite effect and hopes of getting India again once they were out of bankruptcy dues to WW2. You cannot grasp this until you read history of that period very carefully. America helped a bit - basically out of its own selfish motive so that the markets that were captive by the British would open up for itself.

Anyways thanks to Nehru and Gandhi most Indians (at least middle/upper classes) don't have much sting left of the British period of history. Different parts of the world that used to be apart were joining together and there was upheavel that accompanied it which could be expected. But the continuing pain in the peasants and less fortunate classes is very real. Nehru in his biography penned the feeling of loss that Indians feel when they visit America and see how rich it is- and wondered if India would not today have had a sunnier disposition if the British had not turned things so much upside down once they gained political control. He also thought that the loss of American colonies made the British even more vengeful in India, which I think is true.

All that does make it hard to hear the narrative of how Indian success owes itself to British - I mean wow, that really takes the cake does'nt it.

While it is true that India tolerated a variety of cultural norms amongst its many people before the British, practices like those you mention were fringe practices and by no means mainstream. It was Indian reformers like Ram Mohan Roy who asked for British for help in removing them. The British being the much stronger party do deserve credit for heeding these demands, but in relation to the widespread damage Indian industry suffered under them, these were things that made for good press rather than something that bought about a systematic positive change. It was only after the 1857 war/mutiny fought by the Indians which ended the 257 year old East India Company that Indians were given greater share and responsibility in self governance. Not doing that would have been a fundamentally unstable government system. This very limited civil governmant participation is what eventually grew to a movement which led to independance. You only need to read the writings of Lord Curzon to see that the British never intended to leave India and on the contrary wanted to expand their control over China and Japan as well.

A few points

1. There is a much bigger correlation with India than you suppose.

You can a. build universities and schools to train people b. create favorable tax and corporate structures to foster industry c. capture markets to make a and b and c into a positive feedback loop that makes rapid advancement possible.

Guess which of these is the hardest. It is c - having a captive market. The british captured the Indian market through money and cunning and proceded to systematically weaken then denude native industry then force export their own goods under the pretext of governance. The ratio of manufactures turned from something like 4:1 in India's favor in 1800 to 1:4 by 1900. This entire period was the one of greatest growth for the industrial revolution and it was in fact financed by India. As a french guy wrote, even if the french lost the war to the brits, it was beneficial for europe as this arrangement reduced the cost of development for all of europe. There was no capitalism or industrialism in the west before the Brits came to India.

2. There is no simply comparison between famines under the British, where supplies were not sent out even though they had control of them, and instead levies on starving peasants were increased 10% year over year and famines before and after. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770

3. It has become standard practice in the west to use the caste system to whitewash British exploitation. Fact is British rule made the situation for the poorest in India much worse than it had ever historically been economically. Poor people could'nt even buy salt which was monopolized by the British for almost 200 years. This salt tax which Gandhi nonviolently protested against was not repealed until the British were kicked out of the country.

4.There was a popular election in 1939 which Jinnah lost even in muslim majority provinces in India. When Nehru tried to pressure the British to leave, Jinnah took the opportunity to get the Queen's support to launch a party which never got even the Muslim popular vote for a new country in the name of Islam. Hindu-muslim is kind of a false label for what actually happened.

Nothing against the British really - they took advantage of history when it was in their favor. It's just the false propaganda that they were somehow hugely beneficial for India that needs to be called out, something which has become truth by sheer repetition.

There are entire generations of british historians since WW2 dedicated to the PR propaganda of how good the british were for the colonies and until very recently the western opinion has been entirely shaped by this propaganda - almost any book written by a British historian of which you'll find countless in your library have the same basic point of view.

Opposing viewpoints are not hard to find if you actually take the time to look. See Mike Davis' Late victorian holocausts and the making of the third world which I think is the best explanation of why the differences between east and west are now so great.

Or R.C.Dutt's "Early economic history of the british empire". It's seriously astounding how much money was funnelled out of India and used to build modern Europe and America, while the native Indian industry was killed off.

All this makes the British PR effort entirely justified of course.

Indians came across the 3 monotheistic religions in reverse of order of their birth and their ethos being completely different from their own, did'nt realize their aggressive nature - India had become pacifist since the time of Buddha and Ashoka. By the time the british came, India had already been weakened by the Muslim rules which itself had fallen out of dominance because of new trade routes. So India was doubly weak and this allowed the British to use their resources to easily win and weaken India even further.

The fact that a few Indians were able to leverage the internal dissensions within Europe to their advantage gets very little coverage but was the real story of how the course of history was overturned.

Answer: Probabaly higher than yours because only only low class people ask crass questions.

Here's the book to actually understand India:- "Late victorian holocausts and the making of the third world". http://www.amazon.com/Late-Victorian-Holocausts-Famines-Maki...

As Nehru and others had observed, poverty in India is highly correlated with the length of British rule in that part of India, Bengal being the poorest and Punjab the richest. This is actually true of the world in general - compare Africa with Japan - prosperity is highly correleted with the colonial experience a country had.

Caste is almost irrelevant - the Gini coefficient which measures inequality is much higher in the US than in India.

India which was 25% of the world's economy in 1800 was essentially crushed by the British to make way for their industrialization via a captive market. Internal trade in India was crushed by internal tariffs. Railroads which had a positive network effect in the US, had the opposite (destructive) network effect in India killing its manufacturing base and driving millions to unemployment and dependance on agricultural land which lead to the widespread poverty you see today.