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I'm no expert, but I'd imagine that India being the world's largest democracy is not guaranteed to be a good thing given that only 33% of Indian citizens get th

I'm no expert, but I'd imagine that India being the world's largest democracy is not guaranteed to be a good thing given that only 33% of Indian citizens get through high school (and 8% graduate college). Many politicians are themselves uneducated, and it's easy to sway the opinions of the masses using religion and hatred as leverage.

Lucadg 7y ago
Good point. Democracy works as its best when the masses are educated, otherwise it looks more like a dictatorship acting randomly. I don't know about India as I haven't been there in years but that certainly rings true to me as I reached the same conclusion while staying in many other countries around the world.
deleted 7y ago
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SOMA_BOFH 7y ago
>Seems like HN has seriously gone downhill. There has certainly been a reddit-like quality infecting the discussions these past couple of years.
pcx 7y ago
Education is a bad indicator for the health of a democracy. Looks like the US isn't doing any better with democracy despite having higher education levels.
- boardwaalk 7y ago
  I don’t think a one variable comparison like that is at all useful.
- sombremesa 7y ago
  Can you tell me exactly what you mean by this? It's a different thing to compare public sentiment (which seems to be vastly different between the two countries), and it's different to compare standard of living and economical factors (which are again vastly different between the two countries). It seems like you are picking one and comparing it to the other, is that correct?
  - sombremesa 7y ago
    Nice, good job - you downvoted me rather than having a good faith discussion. If the denizens of this site operate in bad faith, I'll go elsewhere.
iamsb 7y ago
8% of 1.3 billion is ~110 million people. That is a sufficient to build great companies. Total population of Israel is 9 million and takes in funding of ~7 billion dollars and has been churning out great companies.
- deleted 7y ago
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riffraff 7y ago
That was true of most of western europe a few decades ago too, and countries managed to stay democratic (and in a few cases, become democratic) while growing on all "good" metrics, I don't see why that wouldn't work in India.
- sombremesa 7y ago
  This is why: https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3t59cr/india_vs_usa_cost_of_highway_construction/ https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3t59cr/india_vs_usa_... Repeat ad nauseam, everywhere in the country. India is more corrupt than a neodymium floppy disk.
barry-cotter 7y ago
You’re also assuming the education is adequate which is true some of the time but not others. I’ve been told there are people with Master’s degrees from Indian universities in Economics who don’t know any (statistical) programming language or even the theory being ordinary least squares. A Bachelor’s degree that doesn’t cover that is worthless.
sbmthakur 7y ago
You forgot that you are talking about a nation with more than a billion people. Providing everyone quality education is definitely going to be tough (the Education sector has actually seen many startups in recent years). What matters is that the education coverage should increase every here.

Lucadg 7y ago

Good point. Democracy works as its best when the masses are educated, otherwise it looks more like a dictatorship acting randomly. I don't know about India as I haven't been there in years but that certainly rings true to me as I reached the same conclusion while staying in many other countries around the world.

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[deleted]

SOMA_BOFH 7y ago

>Seems like HN has seriously gone downhill. There has certainly been a reddit-like quality infecting the discussions these past couple of years.

pcx 7y ago

Education is a bad indicator for the health of a democracy. Looks like the US isn't doing any better with democracy despite having higher education levels.

boardwaalk 7y ago
I don’t think a one variable comparison like that is at all useful.
sombremesa 7y ago
Can you tell me exactly what you mean by this? It's a different thing to compare public sentiment (which seems to be vastly different between the two countries), and it's different to compare standard of living and economical factors (which are again vastly different between the two countries). It seems like you are picking one and comparing it to the other, is that correct?
- sombremesa 7y ago
  Nice, good job - you downvoted me rather than having a good faith discussion. If the denizens of this site operate in bad faith, I'll go elsewhere.

iamsb 7y ago

8% of 1.3 billion is ~110 million people. That is a sufficient to build great companies. Total population of Israel is 9 million and takes in funding of ~7 billion dollars and has been churning out great companies.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

riffraff 7y ago

That was true of most of western europe a few decades ago too, and countries managed to stay democratic (and in a few cases, become democratic) while growing on all "good" metrics, I don't see why that wouldn't work in India.

sombremesa 7y ago
This is why: https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3t59cr/india_vs_usa_cost_of_highway_construction/ https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3t59cr/india_vs_usa_... Repeat ad nauseam, everywhere in the country. India is more corrupt than a neodymium floppy disk.

barry-cotter 7y ago

You’re also assuming the education is adequate which is true some of the time but not others. I’ve been told there are people with Master’s degrees from Indian universities in Economics who don’t know any (statistical) programming language or even the theory being ordinary least squares. A Bachelor’s degree that doesn’t cover that is worthless.

sbmthakur 7y ago

You forgot that you are talking about a nation with more than a billion people. Providing everyone quality education is definitely going to be tough (the Education sector has actually seen many startups in recent years). What matters is that the education coverage should increase every here.