[f1vespeed]

As a US-raised Indian I'm not familiar with the macro details. But I've been living in India for the past few years working for a startup, so let me identify some low-hanging fruit.

1) Incredibly, shockingly poor hygiene. Dirty black rags being used repeatedly to dry plates at restaurants. Idlys being cooked on plastic sheets inside hot streamers. Infernoes of uncollected trash burning on streets. Rats and cockroaches everywhere including your toothbrush at night.

2) Utterly horrifying road conditions. Potholes large enough to cause motorcycle crashes every 100 feet. A culture of not giving the other motorist more than 6 inches on any side. Driving on the wrong side of the road, including on highways. It's incredibly stressful to think about your odds when you leave the house.

3) A political system that no-one is optimistic about. Stories are rampant of politicians buying votes by giving free household appliances away to the poor, and then doing nothing in office to help them.

4) An education system that isn't remotely good enough. Miserable professors, antiquated curriculums that churn out the IT coolies we're so famous for.

5) Congestion so bad you hardly ever leave a 5-mile radius. People tend to hang out based on which neighborhood they live in, because a trip to a friend's place more than 5 miles away can turn into an hour-long slog on terrifying roads.

6) A culture of being cheap. If you're only willing to tip your waiter 10 rupees, it may help out your savings rate, but it certainly won't help the waiter buy his kid a computer someday. Same goes for our beloved household servants, who get paid $150 per month at best, $40 at worst to clean our floors.

But to voice a conflict that everyone who lives here talks about, I'm not a pessimist about India by any means, because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions.

[spiderPig]

Very well articulated.

I'm a kid who came over to the US for higher studies. All these problems are deep-rooted in our culture. The culture doesn't encourage innovation and curiosity is shunned in most of the schools. Kids get into this rat race of scoring high grades without even realizing it.

(I'm going to go off on a tangential rant here onward):

Sadly, it looks like most of us are proud of it. And the ones who come over to the US are bringing this culture over with them. I was a TA in a top 10 university for a Compilers course and the number of these purportedly 'smart' kids that you could observe the Dunning-Kruger effect on was laughable. Most of them were frankly deluded into thinking they were these amazing engineers. Their primary goal was to get a job at Microsoft/Google/Amazon. None of them had the curiosity to find out how a compiler actually worked. They just did the bare-minimum necessary to get a good grade. And not surprisingly almost all the students I busted for cheating were Indians.

My plea to the kids coming over to the US at the risk of sounding unpopular: You're culture has failed you. Our culture doesn't encourage scientific thought and reeks ignorance. Please leave that behind with you.

Understand, observe and get inspired by the great scientific culture the Americans have built here. Let's not ruin that.

[f1vespeed]

>> Understand, observe and get inspired by the great scientific culture the Americans have built here. Let's not ruin that.

Say that in India, and some guys will fly into a rage and say: 1) All the great scientists in America came from other countries, so many are Indians 2) We had levitating Mars-visiting Rushis before Neil Armstrong ever "supposedly" landed on the moon. 3) The Europeans lived in filth while we had an advanced civilization in the middle ages. Therefore we are inherently better.

Of course you WOULD fly into a rage if you could never leave and establish yourself in a more "luxurious" country that "isn't your own". Until then, for the sake of your own sanity, you have to believe there's nothing wrong with your country and that you weren't failed.

[zenbowman]

I've definitely met those types of Indians, for whom a job at a big company is the holy grail, and the majority of them come from a position of financial insecurity.

On the other hand I've met others who have a much more scientific bent, so I don't think its "Indian culture" that forces people to be anti-innovation.

It's the conservative strain of Indian thought which naturally dominates the brains of people raised in financially insecure conditions. Poverty breeds materialism.

[err_badprocrast]

> The culture doesn't encourage innovation and curiosity is shunned in most of the schools. Kids get into this rat race of scoring high grades without even realizing it.

I'm not trying to take anything from what you're saying, but my experience is that applies just as well to US school (high school, at least.)

[intended]

Having been to both places - the similarity may be there, but America has just started on the path of wiping out the ability to think from its children.

We've been 'teaching the test' for decades now. No child left behind has just started for you in comparison.

The Indian education system is busy creating mental athletes who are literate, but incapable of actually working outside of their experience set - essentially training fencers instead of fighters.

[f1vespeed]

If we continue slashing arts, music, woodshop etc. in favor of more AP classes you'd end up being somewhat right, but still, you have no idea the difference in education quality

[lordofbackland]

Your problem with the culture is the problem with almost every culture of the world( including USA). The "great scientific culture" of USA is to lure the smart people all around world. "And not surprisingly almost all the students I busted for cheating were Indians"- on side note, my personal observation is Indians are extreme harsh on other Indians if the first one is part of system. I actively avoid immigration line checked by Indian looking staff whenever going to USA or UK.

[kamaal]

>> because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions.

Well we don't have any other options. We need to work, or we will be wiped out. You have no clue, what a person can do- or how hard he can work when he is faced with a such a situation in life. I've personally been there, and I can tell you throughout my teens I've had situations where it was doing good in the next exams or going back to poverty.

When you go through that, you don't complain of lack of sleep or rest, you don't complain you just have a pair or clothes, or that your home is just a room where the whole family sleep packed and you get one small little corner where you need to your studies under a dim bulb to compete with a million people.

You just realize you have no other option, you work, work and work until success becomes inevitable- indifferent to the circumstances. That is something like a small glimpse of what I and some of friends went through to get where we are today.

Not sure if teens in US go through the same thing. But sometimes when I hear about the pain US citizens talk of when IT outsourcing is mentioned, those are not easy chances we are getting. For many of us, those have come after going through toughest situations you can probably can't even imagine.

[bokonist]

I'm not a pessimist about India by any means, because it's amazing how much the people of this country have achieved through individual hard work in the face of so many poor institutions

Well, the Indian people are ultimately responsible for the institutions of India. So why don't the institutions get fixed? Potholes, uncollected trash, rats - these are not particularly hard problems. Plenty of societies have figured it out. Why have these problems persisted for so long in India?

[capex]

Because these are not the problems, just the symptoms. The problem is a deep class divide between the haves and have-nots. Those who climb out of poverty never look back. Those who are already rich feed on people staying poor, uneducated and miserable. That's the vote bank easiest to manipulate.

I am not from India, but neighbouring Pakistan. We just had our national elections and the only hope, Imran Khan's PTI lost. Nearly everyone I know in Pakistan has voted for PTI, but through a combination of election rigging and a mass of poverty-stricken people being coerced into voting for the wrong guy resulted in the status quo being maintained.

[bokonist]

The problem is a deep class divide between the haves and have-nots.

Britain of 1850 had a deep class divide, but they managed to keep the trash off streets. The rich do not have an interest in sewage running into the rivers or slums that are breeding supergerms. The upper class in England and America drove all the public health measures (such as sewers, clean drinking water, vaccination campaigns, etc.) in the 1800's that made cities livable. What is different about India? Why is this not happening?

[capex]

Well I bet the Indian cities would've been better if there wasn't Europe and US to live in. Most people who can't stand the filth and the misery of others, just leave.

To an extent, this is also about the poor man's education, specially about values. Out of planet, people and profit, just profit matters for most. Of course this also leads to corruption. I feel this stems from a general feeling of injustice in the country, where people feel they've been wronged in general, and now doing the wrong thing is the only right thing to do.

If a solution to this problem of values is to be sought, it would lie in the long haul route of educating people. A different type of education where values and morals are asserted more than skills and achievements.

Why the upper class is displaying a complete apathy towards these mass problems is a belief that things are not going to change, no matter what. The class divide plays a role here, a distinct detachment of feelings about the average poor man and their living conditions.

[f1vespeed]

Personally, I don't have the energy for a monumental struggle with local government to get potholes filled and streets cleaned. I'd have to convince a bunch of regular people first that the streets are miserable, a fact that they attenuated a long time ago for their own sanity.

I'm also not inclined to just go fill the potholes myself.

[yalogin]

All of them very true. One of the biggest problems is corruption is rooted in the culture. Every person believes every other person can be bought. And its true as well. The people making laws are corrupt to their bone but if the people in charge of enforcing are corrupt as well that leads to hopelessness.

[harichinnan]

Missing the trees for the forest. The "hard-working" Indians come from well off families, who can afford private school education for kids. Very few actually move from desperately poor to middle class. I take exception to IT coolies desc. Back when I was in India, my first it coolie salary was more than both my parents combined salaries. At some point before moving to school, I was making more money than the president of India , being an it coolie. It's not how much inr transalated to dollars I was making that mattered. The salaries, low compared to here would bu you a lot of things that you can never afford in us. Like a maid to clean your house, a chauffeur for your car and the like. What is expensive is, real estate in cities because of absense of city planning and anything imported, like cars, gasoline, electronics etc.

[chailatte]

I am a huge pessimist about India. here's why.

1.) Everyone in the thread is ignoring a huge point raised by the author: this is the last biggest bubble we will ever witness in our lifetime (and possibly for many lifetimes) due to

a.) unpeg of gold standard

b.) shift from farm to factory work

c.) shift from one income to two income household

d.) machine/software advances

and many other factors has produced the greatest economic growth we have ever seen in history. However, due to

a.) unsustainable financial gambling

b.) wealth growth only in top 1%, mostly through rentier effects

c.) robots, automation and artificial intelligence resulting in jobs destruction

d.) population slowdown, shift to older demographics

the second dip in global economic depression is happening. and will induce so much deflation soon that 99% of the world population will be very very poor. for 3-4 generations.

2.) due to the lack of hygiene/lack of transportation/too many people/bad weather/trash everywhere/homeless everywhere/fecal matters on the streets/too many doctors prescribing antibiotics, resulting in super-resistant viruses, there will be a huge epidemic sooner or later that might wipe out millions of people, and nobody will be able to do anything about it because the crash in the economy.

3.) Growth in IT outsourcing is no more. Foreign investments are down big. There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english.

[kamaal]

>>Growth in IT outsourcing is no more. Foreign investments are down big. There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english.

No and I thing you've got it wrong.

We are soon hitting a stage where we don't have to depend of foreign investments. Its happening, software is but just one aspect of foreign investments. There is real estate, retail sectors, education, manufacturing, automobile etc. That list can go endless.

Nearly every global company today understands if they don't come to India now, the local companies are going to eat their lunch big time and leaving all doors of making a entry later permanently shut.

Every time I see somebody good leave India I feel bad for them. They have no clue what they will miss over the next decades. With hardly any competition in a country where demands are rising so rapidly, almost anything you make people want will sell. Even if you make it badly.

Consider this with settling down in US, something like next half of your life will simply go in 'getting somewhere'. You will simply going there for your kids. And consider yourself lucky if they value your sacrifices and do something big out of it. Else there will be a situation where post 30 years your kids might want to come to India to settle there kids.

[joonix]

I think you overestimate how much people are willing to live in shitty conditions in exchange for business opportunities. The US may not be a boomtown but it has opportunity to live a comfortable life if you can add value. Most people would prefer quality of life + "just getting somewhere" (the American standard) over living in a dump + business opportunities.

[kamaal]

There no 'shitty conditions'. Not by what I perceive and experience.

People who opted to stay in India to reap the benefits of the IT boom in the 90's are in something like a million times better conditions than the guys who left to the US in the 90's.

If you want to be super rich, this is the time to be in India. And it will be at least for the next half century, there is too much room to grow and there is far little genuine competition.

[openforce]

Business opportunities, money, being rich is not what life is all about. Clean air, clean water, good work culture, honesty and respect for other human beings is what is missing in India. There is somebody in every corner looking to con you here in India. Conditions are very pathetic. Its a rat race in the cities, with every person trying to outrun the next guy. People are aware of the money they can make and are blinded by it. All they see and respond to nowadays is money.

[D_Alex]

> There no 'shitty conditions'.

Based on my 2 trips to India - Mumbai and Chennai - this is either naive or dishonest.

I'll go further, and say that out of all the roughly 50 countries I visited, which include Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Indonesia, Phillipines and Solomon Islands, conditions in India were The Shittiest. Sorry.

[test001only]

I think you are overestimating the demand for talent here. Recently Infosys announced that they are going to change the workforce ratio to 70% freshers and 30% seniors. There are very few companies which value true talent in India. You have to fight and pay bribe to get anything that has interaction with a government organisation. Broken or no roads, fly over and metro that are taking years together to complete. As far as I am aware only very few percentage of people became rich in the IT boom of 90s but most of the people who went abroad during that period are well to do today (this from random sample among my relatives and friends).

[gurvinder]

I will prefer to be "not so rich" in a country where majority is "not so rich" rather than be "super rich" in a country where majority is "super poor".

[f1vespeed]

I've lived half my life as a kid in Bangalore and half in the US. All I can say is if you're willing to eat Chapati and Dal and never go out to "do" things while living in the San Francisco area, basically, if you live like an Indian, you won't have trouble "getting somewhere". It's not like rent is cheap in India, and getting your kid into a decent college is way harder.

[kamaal]

Bangalore today is nothing like when you were a kid.

The amount of effort you would expend to take you to 'getting somewhere' in the US, will take you miles ahead in India these days.

As I said the demand is huge, genuine competition is no way existent.

[f1vespeed]

Actually, I'm back in Bangalore now working for a startup. The work is interesting, but the pay is only $18,000 for the same product management role that netted me $60 grand just out of college in San Mateo. Sure, I face absolutely no competition, since there is very little product talent here. Doesn't mean I'm going places in terms of a lifestyle or financial security. If I live like a peasant compared to my life back in the states, I save less money. What's disheartening is that so many goods and experiences are hitting dollar prices in this city right now. (Meat, nice produce, beer, good clothes).

[cscurmudgeon]

There are better countries for companies to invest in that have better infrastructure and speaks better english.

You might want to reword that. :)

More seriously, I am optimistic because 1) the older generation will die off and 2) almost 50% of the grad students in any top US university are from India. (This includes programs in AI and Robotics. Count me in that too.)

[chailatte]

I don't claim to speak good english :)

1.) the young generation is still corrupt and apathetic and spineless 2.) assuming your number is correct (which I doubt), 90% of those students who overpaid for a masters are staying in the US

[cscurmudgeon]

I am curious about this. Other than the US, UK and a few Scandinavian countries, what countries do you think speak English better than India?

1) The younger generation is much much less corrupt.

2) Almost nobody pays for a masters in science and engineering. Those who do startup eventually end up doing it in India. I know a bunch of my friends running profitable startups.

[chailatte]

http://www.ef.com/epi/

Phillipines Malaysia Singapore Argentina Lots of eastern european countries

They all have way better infrastructure than India

[cscurmudgeon]

http://www.tholons.com/TholonsTop100/pdf/Tholons%20Top%20100...

Look at those rankings for outsourcing. Also, we should look outside of outsourcing: there is a reason why the top research labs of IBM, MSFT, HP, GE etc have labs in India and not in those countries. More Indians will move out of business process outsourcing and into hard core technology and research outsourcing.

[Spooky23]

You missed the biggest thing IMO -- there isn't much nationalism or national unity. I don't see Indians being particularly proud of India.

Some of the smartest people I know are from India and Pakistan. Most of the folks I know came from modest backgrounds, and none of them look back at all.

[jalayir]

Most of the points above are hyperbolic and quite silly, to be frank. For example - "robots, automation and artificial intelligence resulting in jobs destruction" - I suppose just like the personal computer lead to "jobs destruction"?

[sstrudeau]

Actually, yes. Just like advances in agricultural technology lead to job destruction in agriculture. We went from a majority of the global human population working in agriculture to a tiny minority in a few centuries. That labor was largely absorbed into industrial manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs have also been destroyed by automation (e.g., why a growing manufacturing sector in the US is not adding new net manufacturing jobs). The service sector has absorbed much of that labor, but on the low end, those jobs tend to be much more poorly paid and stable (which explains no income growth for the bottom 80% of the US population in 30+ years, despite a growing economy). Computers and automation are starting to eliminate service sector jobs as well (and not just on the low end). It isn't clear which "sector" will absorb this new labor unlocked by growing productivity, but it is clear to see how these change can create a growing economy but also growing inequality which can lead to a less pleasant society overall...

[ekianjo]

> 2.) due to the lack of hygiene/lack of transportation/too many people/bad weather/trash everywhere/homeless everywhere/fecal matters on the streets/too many doctors prescribing antibiotics, resulting in super-resistant viruses, there will be a huge epidemic sooner or later that might wipe out millions of people, and nobody will be able to do anything about it because the crash in the economy.

Haha. No. Lack of hygiene does not actually result in super resistant viruses. If at all, it results in people who a stronger to existing viruses and bacteria since they are able to live in such conditions. We rather see that tourists going to India tend to fall sick very often because they are not used to the viruses and bacteria there.

And lack of hygiene is not something new. We've had lack of hygiene for like millenia in Human Kind history, yet the human race still thrived. I'm not worried about that.

[glesica]

He meant that over-prescription of antibiotics will lead to resistant viruses (probably meant bacteria) not that the conditions themselves will lead to such an outcome. Not saying I agree or disagree, just clearing that up.

[harichinnan]

You get cheap "broad spectrum" antibiotics instead of more nuanced and expensive ones in the west.

[chailatte]

India ‘Has Lost’ Superbug War

"India has lost the war against the toughest forms of antibiotic resistance, largely because of poor sanitation, unregulated use of antibiotics and an absence of drug resistance monitoring, according to the man who discovered a type of drug resistance in bacteria in New Delhi."

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/04/23/india-has-lost...

[lifeguard]

That is a pretty outline with no supporting data.

China has been very nervous about the Indian economy for some time now.

[chailatte]

> China has been very nervous about the Indian economy for some time now.

lol right. go to shanghai or hong kong, then go to mumbai, and tell me that with a straight face.

[lifeguard]

check out BRIC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRIC

STRATFOR:

"Because India's population will surpass that of China in 2030 or so, even as India's population will get gray at a slower rate than that of China, India may in relative terms have a brighter future. As inefficient as India's democratic system is, it does not face a fundamental problem of legitimacy like China's authoritarian system very well might."

-- R. Kaplan

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/india-china-rivalry

[chailatte]

China GDP: 8.3T (2012)

Brazil GDP: 2.5T (2012) Russia GDP: 2.1T (2012)

India GDP: 1.9T (2012)

India isn't even in the same league as China. India has to compete with Russia/Brazil. BRIC is an old grouping from years ago.

Having a huge population and being democratic doesn't automatically give you a bigger economy. Look at South Korea (1.3T) or Japan (6T) comparatively.

[lifeguard]

China will follow a similar path as the USSR. Dynamic efficiency is not very good in state managed economies.

Also, read the CIA world fact book pages for China/India.

[cscurmudgeon]

No matter how shiny your prison is, you are still living in a prison.

[snowwrestler]

Every single one of your pessism factors was true in 1932, and we all know how the world economy did after that.

The economic potential in genetics, robotics, nanotechnology, nuclear energy, space exporation, etc. are enormous. We just need to keep moving forward.

I'm not saying that you're wrong about the negative factors; they are all risks to a better future. I'm just saying that they can be overcome; it's been done before.