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by thewhitetulip 2115 days ago
Considering that the ruling party is BJP (equivalent to US Republicans), this move will directly help Ambani & Adani.

There won't be any tight competition or open interface, it'll be a monopoly by the two business groups who support him the most.

2 comments

This statement is ignorant at best. What looks like a sound business decision, one which opens up the market for more competition, you are twisting it as a politically motivated corrupt move.

By the logic you are stating, any business or market friendly move by any government will have to be targeted at specific individuals or families.

I really want to understand why there will not be any competition or open interface.

The car company decides the interface. If a rival chooses to create an open interface, and reap the benefits, market forces will ensure that all manufacturers do the same.

Moreover, the number of car manufacturers are limited, but the number of battery companies can expand a lot. Perhaps lead way to investments from overseas.

Imagine Tesla being able to open a battery factory in India, and just sell batteries, without worrying about cars and all.

You are either not Indian or you are ignoring everything to suit your narrative.

The current government has put on a lot of regulation to "protect home grown e-tailers" when Ambani was planning to launch an Amazon competitor.

Flipkart before they sold to Walmart had begged for years to give protection, but none was given, but when JioMart was to be launched, suddenly regulation was changed to benefit local e tailers, major benefactor was JioMart.

> Imagine Tesla being able to open a battery factory in India, and just sell batteries, without worrying about cars and all.

Hahahahahahahaha Due to stuoid red tape, Tesla took Gigafactory plans to China. 70% thungs were need to be locally sourced for starting Tesla factory in India and obviously we don't have the ecosystem.

> By the logic you are stating, any business or market friendly move by any government will have to be targeted at specific individuals or families.

Were you living under a rock when Telecom rules were being constantly flouted by Jio? All rules were specifically created to help Jio. The AGR case crippled telecos except Jio. Jio also has AGR but SC put the decision onto the govt for collecting or not. But others are forced to pay regardless if they go under.

> The car company decides the interface. If a rival chooses to create an open interface, and reap the benefits, market forces will ensure that all manufacturers do the same.

Hahahaha just like "anyone can start a startup in India. They can take Amazon AWS servers and domain from Godaddy and there won't be an issue.

Just like "anyone can apply for a business license and start a manufacturing plant"

You blisfully and maliciously ignore that the entire govt machinery has been working overtime to favour Ambani Adani.

> Moreover, the number of car manufacturers are limited, but the number of battery companies can expand a lot

Yeah and there can be many businesses which you can set up. Sure, all you ought to do is as for a license. Sure, govt won't twist rules to favour JioBattery and JioElectricCar

>protect home grown e-tailers

Protection for them has been around when the previous government was there too. FDI norms were eased only in the fag end of 2012.

Additionally, I agree with protecting home grown e-tailers. Now, perhaps the rules favor Ambani, but breaking up large conglomerates is a different problem.

From the perspective of enacting sound laws and regulation, restricting outside e-tailers and promoting home grown ones is always good, atleast until India is a lot more developed.

> Due to stuoid red tape, Tesla took Gigafactory plans to China.

And thereby ending up supporting an authoritarian regime that mocks human rights, and is actively participating in genocide.

Tesla went to China for cheap labor. Do you think ill-treatment of workers in Chinese factories will be reported by "Independent media" in China?

>anyone can start a startup in India. They can take Amazon AWS servers and domain from Godaddy and there won't be an issue

I don't get it. Yes, anyone can actually make a startup in India, they can hire AWS servers, get domains from GoDaddy and there wont be an issue. I know because I did the same.

>anyone can apply for a business license and start a manufacturing plant

Technically true, but it's still difficult. Even in countries like US, you have to grease a few hands to get things done. Sure, it may be the hands of a Senator, but still you have to do it. I would say the exception is Silicon Valley, but examples like those are few and far between. Even SV spends a lot for lobbying.

>You blisfully and maliciously ignore that the entire govt machinery has been working overtime to favour Ambani Adani.

Far fetched.

>Yeah and there can be many businesses which you can set up. Sure, all you ought to do is as for a license. Sure, govt won't twist rules to favour JioBattery and JioElectricCar

Can you run a business in your country without a license from the govt?

Govt. may twist rules, but the rules currently placed are not twisted. I never said they cannot be twisted in the future.

So I was right about your malicious intent. You cherry picked 3 lines and twisted their meaning to suit your narrative.

Anything that didn't suit your malicious intent gets ignored totally while your try to divert attention.

> Protection for them has been around when the previous government was there too. FDI norms were eased only in the fag end of 2012.

And yet you totally neglect that when flipkart begged for speific ecommerce protection none was provided

Only when Ambani reacted to launch JioMart was the protection avoided

Also I love how to totally ignored the fact that Jio abused and how the entire govt machinery has favoured Jio

Also how Jio abused and flouted ALL regulatory things and gave free data calls for over one year when the law explicitly forbids it.

I also love how you ignore that the govt pressurized telcos to pay AGR dues while Jio was let out of the payment cycle

> Tesla went to China for cheap labor. Do you think ill-treatment of workers in Chinese factories will be reported by "Independent media" in China?

Well, Modi govt put red tape so much that Tesla chose to go to a country which blatantly copies IP and patents.

Things are that bad.

>Also how Jio abused and flouted ALL regulatory things and gave free data calls for over one year when the law explicitly forbids it.

Jio was questioned and it argued that IUC (Interconnect Usage Charges, the minimum charges that are to levied on the user for a voice call on any Indian cellular network, these charges are charges levied by a network for a call that originates in another network but terminates in its network) was relevant to normal mobile calls, and what Jio was providing was essentially data calls, akin to talking on whatsapp, it can give away free calls.

It's not like it was not questioned, or it did not explain. Also other operators have opposed the free calls issue because they earn quite a bit of revenue from IUC charges, which are basically a tax on allowing users on one network to call users on another network.

So you can make the call, whether Jio actually flouted the rules, or did it make it cheap for everyone to make calls in the market.

As an additional point, TRAI, the main Telecom regulating body in India, has slashed the IUC charges by half in 2018 and is set to be completely removed by December 2020

> I also love how you ignore that the govt pressurized telcos to pay AGR dues while Jio was let out of the payment cycle

AGR dues are just that, dues. Money the companies were supposed to pay, but did not and accumulated the dues. Jio was a new entrant and has significantly lesser dues (195 crores), compared to other players (Airtel, which has been in the market for decades, owes about 44000 crores). All of them were given a time period of 10 years to make staggered payments, payments that they were supposed to pay, but ignored. That is a huge loss for the country. Even in the courts, the companies did not fight about dues, they fought about whether they were responsible for past pending dues on spectrum, that they purchased from other companies.

All companies went to court, when they were asked to pay past dues of spectrum purchased by them recently. Essentially they were asked to pay for the dues accrued on the spectrum, they recently purchased from failing companies.

>And yet you totally neglect that when flipkart begged for speific ecommerce protection none was provided

Flipkart opposed relaxing rules related to FDI norms and asked for specific protections for e-comerce. The rules were relaxed nevertheless.

>Only when Ambani reacted to launch JioMart was the protection avoided

I guess you meant to say 'provided". I would like to know what specific protections were provided to JioMart?

>Well, Modi govt put red tape so much that Tesla chose to go to a country which blatantly copies IP and patents.

>Things are that bad.

I am curious about this also. As far as I remember, Tesla never showed any interest in building a factory in India. However, what exactly are the "red tape so much" that you are talking about?

> , Tesla never showed any interest in building a factory in India. However, what exactly are the "red tape so much" that you are talking about?

All you have to do is Google. Did you do that?

There are countless tweets and articles about Elon himself replying to Indian Tesla fans that due to Modi govt's inflexible regulation, he can't start a factory in India.

I didn't bother to read the other wall of text since you don't show a propensity to finding out facts which don't fit in your narrative.

> Can you run a business in your country without a license from the govt?

As far as I know, businesses don’t require general licences to operate in the United Kingdom.

Licences for certain activities that have an environmental impact may be necessary (significant use of water, potential pollution of air / ground / water, dangerous material handling).

That is the same case in India.

My brother runs a mon-n-pop store, selling stationery items.

Getting a business license took 1 day, one application and renewed every year online. Cost is about 10 USD per year.

I know many in my neighborhood that don't even have that.

Majority of the retailers have a simple license, usually obtained very quickly from local municipal corporation.

I can start a company for consulting, trade, retail, etc, with the help of a legal counsel and a bit of paperwork in about a couple of weeks.

> Considering that the ruling party is BJP (equivalent to US Republicans)

There are many things wrong with the BJP, but they are not really equivalent to the Republican Party. This is a lazy comparison at best, disingenuous at worst. Their economic, environmental policies and even social issues are completely different than the Republicans.

Yeah. The Modi government/BJP is equivalent to right wing authoritarian governments around the world. Tories in the UK, Netanyahu’s government in Israel, etc.

The Republican Party is on its own little island far far away from any other normal political party in the world. For example, the Republican Party is the only major democratic political party in the entire world that denies the existence of anthropogenic climate change. There are major right wing political parties worldwide that may claim the costs of doing anything exceeds the benefits or that we need to wait for better solutions, etc but no major party denies the basic scientific fact of it happening the way the Republicans do.

There is also other stuff like the prevalence of young earth creationism, the overt religiosity, the lack of any economic principles (e.g. just see their rhetoric on deficits when there is a Democrat in charge vs what they do when they are in charge) etc that sets them apart from major right wing political parties worldwide.

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Since when is equivalent mean exactly same?

Your statement is lazy comparison, disingenuous at worst.

Economic policies? Oh, do you mean the disasterous butchering of Indian Economy which took it to a 8yr low? Or do you mean the 45yr high unemployment level? Or the pathetic rollout of GST when they kept changing rules everyday or the disasterous demonization which screwed up entire informal sector?

Environmental policy?

Is this the same policy wherein the BJP is about to remove all protections provided to Environment by law? It would made it very easy for companies to take out a forest?

Or are you referring to the million trees cut down under the pretense of "development"

Or do you refer to the butchering of part of Arey forest for a metro car shade in Mumbai?

Social issues you say?

So you mean the blatant attempt of destroying Secular fabric of this nation by bringing CAA NRC?

Or do you refer to the police state wherein they arrest everyone who dares oppose them on sedition? Or the arrest-but-no chargesheet-file? Or the malicious rearrests after courts have let the dissenters go?

You are just listing newspaper headline items, I'm not sure how they are relevant when comparing BJP with the Republican Party. Let's actually talk about the policies and contrast. Some of the government schemes announced (and in progress) would make Modi right at home in a Bernie Sanders town hall meeting rather than being similar to the Republicans. Just off the top of my head:

* Modi doubled down on Congress' NREGA scheme for providing guaranteed 100 days of pay to rural workers, whether they worked or not.

* Introduced direct cash transfers to farmers.

* Various farm loan waivers, especially some of the BJP-led state governments.

* Announced a free healthcare under National Health Protection scheme.

* Free housing, electricity and LPG gas connections for the poor.

* Introduced long term capital gains tax in 2019.

* Non-opposition to LGBT rights. I say "non-opposition" because they don't champion it like the Democrats, but are neutral since it's not a big ticket item in Indian society or politics. They passed a bill to prohibit discrimination against transgender persons last year (but there is some controversy surrounding it [1]). Again, a big no-no for the Republican Party.

* Massive push for renewable energy - India doubled its renewable energy capacity in 3 years and on track to triple it in the following 4 years [2]. 47 GW (45% of all under development) coal projects was cancelled just in 2019 [3]. Good luck trying to get the climate change denying Republicans to do this.

BJP's economic polices are as socialist as they come [4]. None of this would fly with the Republicans. That's how they are different - in actual policy positions.

[1] - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/04/7843987...

[2] - https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/energy-speak/new...

[3] - https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/financ...

[4] - https://www.fairobserver.com/region/central_south_asia/india...

I agree with the idea that Republicans are extremely different than right wing parties worldwide.

However, they are no less socialist than anyone else. The only difference is Republican socialism flows upwards.

I mean, what could be more socialist than demanding a foreign company he sold and deciding which limited sets of companies is allowed to buy it. And we don’t even need to get into the outright bribery where they are demanding a cut of the transaction.

That behavior, even without the open corruption, is beyond what most major center left parties in the world are proposing now that Corbyn does not lead UK’s Labour.

True that. I thought you were yet another BJP troll let loose on me.

Yes, BJP is primarily acting like a socialist party.

Also I didn't say equal to Republican, I said equivalent as in both parties are conservative and they both work exclusively for their billionaire donors while pretending to care for common people.

> they both work exclusively for their billionaire donors while pretending to care for common people.

I've got a bridge to sell you if you think this characteristic is exclusive to only BJP and the Republicans.

There is a thin line between favouring crony capitalists and ignoring general public and working exclusively for your cronies.

Exclusively is what both republicans and BJP are experts at doing.

Indian economy is screwed and yet Ambani is getting richer day by day. Adani recently took 74% stake in Mumbai airport

All govt companies are now bankrupt because BJP wants to favour their cronies. BSNL is on the verge of collapse because BJP considers Jio as the "official govt telecom company"