hairband

I think Amazon is having trouble hiring and retaining talent. Given the horrible covid situation in India, the L1 Visa pipeline must have dried up. And their reputation has taken quite a hit given all the stories about PIP and the political/toxic culture, so no experienced engineers wants to go join a place like that. I guess, this is them panicking.

While the above may have been a joke, its not a secret that work life harmony and culture are perhaps the worst aspects of Amazon (talking of the corporate side of course, not including warehouses)

If I read the disable FAQ correctly, then even if you disable it, the bridge would still work. So your device would still contribute to the network, you just won't be a part of it.

Given that, I am not sure if its any use to disable sidewalk, since your network is still being shared.

The disable FAQ:

> If I disable Amazon Sidewalk, will my Sidewalk Bridges still work? Yes. All of your Sidewalk Bridges will continue to have their original functionality even if you decide to disable Amazon Sidewalk. However, disabling means missing out on Sidewalk’s connectivity and location related benefits. You also will no longer contribute your internet bandwidth to support community extended coverage benefits such as locating pets and valuables with Sidewalk-enabled devices.

There are 3 parties involved here: Driver, Amazon, and Customer. Your comment makes it sound like either the driver should compromise and pee in bottles, or the customer should compromise and accept late deliveries. Why can't Amazon compromise, and hire more delivery drivers?

> It's worth noting that "India" did not exist at the time, which made it possible for the British to take over by using these divisions.

Citation needed. What exactly did not exist? What do you mean by "India" here?

The people, the culture, languages etc have all existed for many many years before the British even thought of setting foot in India.

As for the land that we call India today:

Babur (the Founder of Mughal Empire in the 1500s) described "Hindustan" as follows:

    “The country of Hindustan is extensive, full of men and full of produce. On the east, south and even on the west, it ends at its great enclosing ocean (muhit-daryasigah). On the north it has mountains which connect with those of Hindukush, Kafiristan and Kashmir. North-west of it lie Kabul, Ghazni and Qandahar. Delhi is held to be the capital of the whole of Hindustan.”

In case you don't know, Hindustan is the Persian name of India at the time. And in the above quote he is describing Himalayas, and the seas that surround India in East, West and South. Thats pretty much the entire modern day India + Pakistan described by a Persian guy in 1500s. The british landed in India a good 100 years after that

As for being "weak and divided", I believe you are implying that India was ruled by many kingdoms and thus wasn't a unified entity. At the time the British landed, Mughal Empire was the prominent power and controlled almost all of modern day India. Before the Mughal Empire, there were other Empires that controlled almost all of Modern day India + Pakistan. One such empire is the Maurya Empire which reigned from 322 - 185 BC.

Also the British company that came to India was literally named after India and was the East *India* company that was founded in 1600s. Not to mention naming other places after India when they were no where near India like the West Indies or like referring to North American Natives as "Indians"

So please elaborate on what exactly did not exist?

> Perhaps the very existence of India is the most important legacy of the British in the region.

I see this article as an attempt to correct such blatant revisionisms of history. India existed long before the British came. They enslaved, and looted India. And to say that existence of India is their legacy is slap in the face of thousands who died in search of freedom and an Identity and to not be a slave. Would you go around saying the Nazis put Jews on the world map? If not, then don't say the same about India and the British. The British were an occupying force and their biggest achievement in India is that they didn't kill the natives like they did in Australia or America. And they didn't do that because it was more profiting to put enslave the local population than to kill it.

Source on Babur's Description of India: https://www.dawn.com/news/591800/time-check-medieval-india-b...

Not sure if you know, but there are 'Upper Castes' that eat Non-Vegetarian food. Asking someone if they are vegetarian or not, just to ascertain their caste would be a dumb thing to do, especially when you can know someone's caste from their last name (and maybe some googling on top, if you really really wanted to know their caste)

> I thought that was weird, and then started googling their last names and caste systems in India on a hunch.

You saw people asking for opinions from a senior member and your first thought was casteism? How does one even make that leap?

To me this is all political. With the election coming up, its in Trump's interest to look tough on immigrants. H1Bs are easy targets, they don't have any political rights, and a large number of them will likely never have those rights.

You can't target family based immigrants because their families might already have been naturalized and have voting powers. The family GC recipients would also eventually get naturalized, and you don't want to upset potential voter base (however, tiny it might be).

> There has been no meaningful legislation changes to H-1B program in over two decades and I don’t think that there is political capital to make those changes .

This makes it even better. You get to throw punches which makes you look tough, but also doesn't really hurt the other side. Sort of win-win. Although I do think the other side in this is the H1B sponsoring employers and not the folks actually on H1B.

> Yeah alternate app stores exist but when something like this is driven from a nation stare, the Indian govt will most likely mandate inclusion of their AppStore on Android and iOS. Once it is loaded on by default, you suddenly gain 800 million strong distribution channel. It would be a no-brainer for devs to put their app on the strore.

What is the problem with this? If the device manufacturers don't want to preload the Indian Appstore then they can prevent sale of their devices in India. If they agree, and this is limited to India only, then what is the problem?

I understand the mental stress of having people after you all the time, but that doesn't mean that all the people are after you all the time. In this case they may have extended a genuine invitation. And given the historic context, it may have led to him feel like it was a casteist action, that doesn't make his colleagues casteist.

I am sure you didn't intend for it to be this way but your comment is very arrogant. It seems you are coming from privilege and haven't really interacted with the real world yet. Perhaps you are still in college/ have only had high paying jobs like software engineering. Most people are not looking for high-risk jobs, they want a stable source of income that can enable them to provide a stable living for their family. This is especially true for people in countries like India. There is nothing boring or backwards about that. Especially not to someone who is not privileged.

And please do elaborate on why/how a career in medicine boring?

Thats what I am having trouble understanding. how does he know? Unless you take into account the context of them being Indian and his experience in India, they won't be able to tell whether its to figure out his caste, or just to have fun.

Thats what I am trying to say. You can never be sure, and it is only when you attach the context of them being Indian and his experience in India as a "lower caste" person that you arrive at this conclusion that the invitation must be extended to figure out his caste.

And that makes it a very bad anecdote for an article like that, and in general weakens the point the article is trying to make.

Quoting from the article:

> Years ago, these invitations to go swimming with American friends and neighbors were a sign of acceptance. But now the same invitations for his fellow Indians felt like a trap to out him as a Dalit.

Not trying to defend casteism or anything, and Maybe I understood it wrong, but this makes it seem like if Indian guys are inviting him for swim then it must be ascertain his caste, but if Americans do it then its a sign of friendship. This makes it seem like its more in his head.

I think in the context of India it is unfair to call 10% population as Minority. 10% of Indian population is ~135 Million, that is more than the population of several countries.

I am not American so I do not fully understand the legal system in US, but it seems this is a lawsuit that alleges caste based discrimination, and the lawsuit is currently pending judgement. If that is the case, shouldn't all the names be anonymized? Is it acceptable in US to make public the names of the accused but not of the accuser? Its one thing to reveal names when they are found guilty, but thats not the case here.

You can guess a person's caste through their last name

Pardon me for making assumptions but you seem to be not Indian, which makes me wonder how did you know that one of the persons on the interview panel had "very Brahmin last name"?