I sure hope this turns to reality and the tide rises the rate of innovation that has meaningful social impacts on problems like poverty and disease plaguing the developing nations.
There are 17,000 cults aka castes in India.
They're destroying India because they literally hate each other.
To strengthen India, it is better to give autonomy to FC/BC/SC/ST/Minority regions with a single passport and currency across these regions viz http://goo.gl/A8F6
I am from India, and I assure you I dont hate anyone based on their caste.
If you go back and look at this "known" person's history, he repeats same asinine sentences over and over again.
IMHO, I think that is what China is doing right - no problems caused by special treatment of majority groups.
This is a list of communal riots in india. Go figure who hates whom
That seems somewhat contrary to what I have read. Details?
I'm particularly referring to Canada (which I'm most familiar with since I'm Canadian). Canada continues to fall behind the US in terms of productivity and technology investment. Apart from a few of the major population centres and Kitchener-Waterloo we have little in the way of a startup culture. We do have a strong tradition of entrepreneurship but it appears to me that this is mainly focused on traditional and particularly service-based businesses.
Technology firms here will also tell you that Canadian companies are slower to adopt new technologies than companies in the US, India and China.
Countries like Canada that have let innovation stagnate because they currently enjoy a high standard of living may be in for a harsh wakeup call as Indian and Chinese companies start to really come into their own.
Most of the issues are related to their inability to innovate and their use of old technology (and methodology).
I don't mean to be rude but sometime I viewed Canadian technology companies as the western-but-India-in-the-past kind of company.
Many companies in Vancouver is looking for 7-10 years experienced (enterprise) Java developers. Gone is the need of fresh-grad/junior developers position.
Guess what the fresh-grads do?
1) Go back to Asia (most immigrants came from Asia)
2) Go south of the border to Google, Microsoft, or Amazon.
The cycle breaks down there. Tough really.
I've been here for almost 10 years since college and I'm starting to plan my move to south of the border or to Asia.
There's also the issue of talent drain and pay. I'm currently south of the border working for double what my going rate is in Canada. Most of the people I went to university with are also here (as in the USA).
Yes, for the people not familiar with Canadian software, double. I'd like to be closer to home and live in a more progressive society, but it's a 50% pay cut to do so.
I continue to struggle to understand why things are this bad. How is that a mere hop across the border can easily double one's pay? What prevents Canadian companies from being compensation-competitive with American ones?
Part of it is the distinct lack of "real" engineering jobs. A lot of work I've seen either belongs to the thoroughly disreputable gaming industry, or working as Java monkeys pounding on keyboards... neither option appeals to most top talent.
The other part is the culture of satellites - much of the software work I've found in Canada is at satellite offices of American companies, and having worked at one before, it seems that it's less "satellite office" and more "place full of cheaper people so we don't have to pay Californians to do the menial stuff".
But still, what's with the lack of high-paying software gigs in Canada?
We are soft. Our duvet's are too fluffy. And we can't rely on our natural resources forever.
However, I couldn't find the stories.
As China and India continue to modernize, their innovators will enjoy much more success in feeding their native markets. Simply: if you're a software entrepreneur in India, does it make more sense to compete with western software companies for western business? Or to sell software that runs on the kinds of machines Indians own, architected with Indian cultural preferences at the fore-front and can grow along with the growing Indian market?
You're hopelessly behind in competing with the west for western markets, but unbelievably advantaged in competing with the west for native markets.
They're only focused on us, for now, because their wages are so advantageous as to make up for the pains in bridging the culture-barrier. As they continue to modernize, those wages will rise well past the point where it makes business sense to continue.
Edit: To clarify, I'm not doubting your statement, especially since I've been hearing it frequently these days. I'm genuinely curious.
Bankruptcy.
The legal ability for an individual or a business to fail.
Seriously.
If I don't get buried in a mountain of business debt from a (legitimate) business failure, then I am free to try again with a different business idea or different business model, and to pivot and to hone my business skills, and to see what else might work with the customers and with the investors.
Countries and regions with punitive laws around business failures and particularly around the legal exposures and debt incurred by legitimate businesses will inherently operate at a competitive disadvantage.
Carefully balancing the societal benefits and costs of non-putative bankruptcies (and of non-putative layoffs, for that matter) is critical in encouraging new business ventures.
On the other hand, relaxed bankruptcy laws can be taken too far as in the housing crisis since homeowners took in huge profits by flipping houses during the housing bubble but can just walk away from their mortgages if they're underwater which means the loss is eaten by the banks/taxpayer.
Think too about the "crippling long-term debt" on the other side of the contract, too.
Loans are built on standard contract law. There are penalty clauses and associated costs with exiting the contract, and you (from whichever end of the deal you're on) have to expect that those exit clauses might be exercised.
When thinking about these "strategic defaults", consider the responsibilities of and the systemic risks that occur on the origination. If you're originating or are repackaging what may be questionable loans or derivatives, or are incurring excessive leverage, isn't that also a systemic risk?
It's a balance.
The folks that are severely upside-down (and staying that way) won't be consumers, they'll approach indentured status. They'll be paying for the losses they've taken by not walking away, and (given that these folks are taxpayers, and if they have any money left) in taxes, and (indirectly, economically) by not being able to buy the products and services that businesses are looking to sell (meaning a slower recovery).
If this topic is interesting, here is some "light" reading out of the University of Arizona: "Underwater and Not Walking Away: Shame, Fear and the Social Management of the Housing Crisis":
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1494467
And playing devil's advocate here, if you're +not+ exercising what you're entitled to within a contract (and from either end of the deal), then what does that say about the sustainability and efficiency and equality of the business system?
And yes, this sort of legal and contractual mire can bury a country and an economy. As we're seeing.
I should tell that they have been trying this since last few years and one of the reason why the idea worked is that this startup reached out to people personally. The same is the story of Red Bus (http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/24/yes-you-can-build-a-web-com...) which reached out to the bus companies.
The trend I am seeing is that IT companies in India have bigger challenge in making people adopt the technology than marketing or anything else.
There are many companies in this niche but they won't succeed until they reach out to these people who are not literate to begin with.
What is really the truth is that the wealthy nations are unheard of the situations in poorer countries. What is obvious in our community (banks, credit cards) is not at all in some areas in the world. It's rare to see the problems when the problems are not in front of us.
The good thing about cheaper technologies is that, they are more accessible, could improve the conditions of people faster and have more impact.
"It takes an American executive to disrupt cumbersome Indian banking", "With globalization, Americans go on to innovate overseas", "U.S. education is the driving force of innovation in modern India" and so on.
Note: they could probably do just fine with local education and an Indian COO. Point is you should be cautious with extrapolations from a single story.
This is the umpteenth time that this user (known) has literally copy pasted the same responses every time any article with India as a focus comes up on HN .. caste this, less than $1 that, etc etc.
Wish there was a way to ban trolls ..
Indians are brainwashed to believe that (voting in elections == democracy) and a solution to all problems.
(I believe that India and China have a relatively bright future. I do not believe in the narrative whereby the United States faces problems, because we live here and can see them, but China and India must inevitably be on a smooth trajectory upwards with no bumps, because we don't live there to see the bumps and in China's case we are probably having the bumps deliberately and systematically hidden from us. Just as Japan's inevitable triumph over the entire world turned out not to be bump-free either. In fact, doesn't anyone learn from history...?)
This is an excellent guide for innovation for India and much of developing world. Companies like EKO etc. have taken these lessons and are building upon those ideas.
