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> Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year old India at best. Well realistically, this is when my family left, but the article seems to cite

> Your vision of India is a mirror house vision of a 50 year old India at best. Well realistically, this is when my family left, but the article seems to cite the same pain points today. Also, I think this comment exemplifies some of the issues with Indian society. The moment one levels a criticism, suddenly, the rather pointed criticism is taken as a criticism of society as a whole. At no point did I criticise India's democracy or accuse it of authoritarianism. There are many centrally planned economies without authoritarianism. Nor is central planning associated with military juntas / coups. At no point did I say anything negative about India's growth story, which as you point out, is astronomical, but slower than China. Overall, I think India's great. I'm just pointing out some issues that I see. It would behoove you, and Indians more generally, to listen to the criticism without getting confused over what's being criticised. Also, the existence of centralized planning in a more concentrated form in China does not mean the centralized planning in India cannot be criticized. Again, we must stay tuned to exactly the criticisms I've outlined, not strawman. > India, on the other hand has a highly federal system of government. Arguably the last few years have seen a lot more top down management but that’s a result of the party in federal government also being in power in most state governments. The US, Australia, Canada, etc all have federal systems. This is hardly an excuse. > And in terms of municipal actions the Indian state is addressing those issues to the point where there are many functions where the Indian equivalent are significantly faster than the U.S. Try getting a passport in the U.S. today vs India. How long does an Indian passport take? > India has also drastically improved government distributions. While the US government was sending literal checks through the mail over COVID Indian monetary benefits are now directly deposited in a bank account. Again, however ahead India is of the US in terms of bank deposits, does not detract from the criticism that the Indian state and Indian culture as a whole is very into central bureaucracy. Actually, I think the check thing is yet another good example. Checks are an extremely distributed form of payment. Basically anyone can write a check on a piece of paper and banks will accept it (within reason). I can have anyone print my checks, and as long as my information is correct, the bank will cash it. Moreover, check fraud is taken very seriously, so that people aren't just doing this willy nilly. As a whole, the US is fairly high trust, so this distributed model works well, and has certain advantages, such as being able to cash checks anywhere, the ability to easily transfer a check to another payee (just write a new endorsement), etc. I'm not sure what Indian system you're referring to, but for me personally, I like being able to hand over money without having to give my life's information to private brokerages.

valarauko 3y ago
> How long does an Indian passport take? I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an appointment at the passport office within a week (socially distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand the next week. Prepandemic I'd say the average was about 10 days, for passport renewal. A fresh passport takes more time since it requires 'police verification', where a cop from your local police station goes physically to your address to verify you actually live there, and gets attestations from your neighbors on how long you've lived at this address.
- anon291 3y ago
  > I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an appointment at the passport office within a week (socially distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand the next week So no different than America? The official site says 8 - 16 weeks, but in my experience, they come promptly within a week or two at most. Unless you have confusing circumstances that require manual review. I had a friend going to Ireland and his entire family had the passports within days but he filled out his form wrong and it took the full eight weeks, including a visit. I mean, we just renewed a passport last week, and got it this week. I'm happy the passport process is so streamlined, but again that wasn't the point of the article. Nor is passport processing times at all related to government intervention in the economy.
addicted 3y ago
> but the article seems to cite the same pain points today. The issues raised by the article are a result of colonial era policies. And it’s not clear what the author means by “Mumbai” because they don’t link or reference most of their claims but I suspect they’re talking about Mumbai proper which is fully built out. The growth of Mumbai is happening in the “suburbs” (very different from American suburbs in that they’re denser than Mumbai proper) and connecting them through a newly built subway system. > At no point did I criticise India's democracy or accuse it of authoritarianism. You claimed Indians have an insatiable appetite for central planning and this has led to a massive waste of human potential. I showed through the Chinese example that Central Planning does not necessarily lead to any waste of human potential and almost certainly is responsible for the greatest use of human potential in the history of human civilization. But more so, India is an extremely federal state, maybe behind only the U.S. and the EU if you consider the EU a state. > It would behoove you, and Indians more generally, to listen to the criticism without getting confused over what's being criticised. I agree Indians don’t take criticism well and that’s a problem. My comment was not because I can’t take criticism. I can write a critique of India today where the footnotes would be longer than the original blog post. Heck I’ve written that (I won’t post because I don’t want to lose my anonymity). The problem is that your criticism is completely wrong and worse backwards. India’s problem has nothing to do with an insatiable appetite for central planning. If anything India’s problem arises from a lack of sufficient central planning. Let’s talk about the U.S. The US is extremely federal but almost all the useful infrastructure in the U.S. is still a result of central planning around World War 2. The highway system, the massive series of dams and other energy projects, land grant colleges, etc. My issue isn’t with you criticizing. My issue is with you criticizing based on knowledge from 50 years ago where the criticism isn’t just wrong but actually backwards.

valarauko 3y ago

> How long does an Indian passport take? I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an appointment at the passport office within a week (socially distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand the next week. Prepandemic I'd say the average was about 10 days, for passport renewal. A fresh passport takes more time since it requires 'police verification', where a cop from your local police station goes physically to your address to verify you actually live there, and gets attestations from your neighbors on how long you've lived at this address.

anon291 3y ago
> I'd applied for a passport in the summer of 2020, during the height of the COVID lockdown. I could get an appointment at the passport office within a week (socially distanced, reduced capacity), and had my passport in hand the next week So no different than America? The official site says 8 - 16 weeks, but in my experience, they come promptly within a week or two at most. Unless you have confusing circumstances that require manual review. I had a friend going to Ireland and his entire family had the passports within days but he filled out his form wrong and it took the full eight weeks, including a visit. I mean, we just renewed a passport last week, and got it this week. I'm happy the passport process is so streamlined, but again that wasn't the point of the article. Nor is passport processing times at all related to government intervention in the economy.

addicted 3y ago

> but the article seems to cite the same pain points today. The issues raised by the article are a result of colonial era policies. And it’s not clear what the author means by “Mumbai” because they don’t link or reference most of their claims but I suspect they’re talking about Mumbai proper which is fully built out. The growth of Mumbai is happening in the “suburbs” (very different from American suburbs in that they’re denser than Mumbai proper) and connecting them through a newly built subway system. > At no point did I criticise India's democracy or accuse it of authoritarianism. You claimed Indians have an insatiable appetite for central planning and this has led to a massive waste of human potential. I showed through the Chinese example that Central Planning does not necessarily lead to any waste of human potential and almost certainly is responsible for the greatest use of human potential in the history of human civilization. But more so, India is an extremely federal state, maybe behind only the U.S. and the EU if you consider the EU a state. > It would behoove you, and Indians more generally, to listen to the criticism without getting confused over what's being criticised. I agree Indians don’t take criticism well and that’s a problem. My comment was not because I can’t take criticism. I can write a critique of India today where the footnotes would be longer than the original blog post. Heck I’ve written that (I won’t post because I don’t want to lose my anonymity). The problem is that your criticism is completely wrong and worse backwards. India’s problem has nothing to do with an insatiable appetite for central planning. If anything India’s problem arises from a lack of sufficient central planning. Let’s talk about the U.S. The US is extremely federal but almost all the useful infrastructure in the U.S. is still a result of central planning around World War 2. The highway system, the massive series of dams and other energy projects, land grant colleges, etc. My issue isn’t with you criticizing. My issue is with you criticizing based on knowledge from 50 years ago where the criticism isn’t just wrong but actually backwards.