7 ms·

The conditions are because the rural economy has deliberately been kept very weak. You can't blame poor people for trying to make a living. Go outside of your

by enupten 11y ago

The conditions are because the rural economy has deliberately been kept very weak. You can't blame poor people for trying to make a living. Go outside of your big cities to see the country for what it really is. I wouldn't necessarily want go by what established Hinduphobes like Gardner Harris have to say about the country.

dominotw 11y ago
>The conditions are because the rural economy has deliberately been kept very weak. Curious. By who?
- rattray 11y ago
  While I wouldn't agree with enputen's characterization of "deliberate", it's entirely possible that they've been kept weak by a class of strongman lenders & landlords. Not an evil cabal, just a bunch of people who have the strength to play unfairly in the market and haven't been stopped. I don't have any special information here; it's just a hypothesis I find plausible.
- enupten 11y ago
  The Indian state inherited from the British of course. I don't know if there is a conscious effort in this regard, but I'm convinced that it has been continuously waging class war against the non-Anglicized citizenry (for obvious reasons). The reluctance to tackle entreched political forces who make up the middle men means that farmers end up getting about 10% of what is paid by the end consumer. This is a tragedy. http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/Middlemen-pocket-lions-share-as-farmers-suffer/2013/11/19/article1899129.ece http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/Middlemen-pock... http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/02/26/farmers-struggle-to-escape-middlemen/ http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/02/26/farmers-strugg... The reason you don't hear much on this is because English media doesn't really have any rural correspondents. This is a area ripe for bringing in disruptive technologies. I don't know if there are startups working on this. I think MSR India has something on the political disenfranchisement front, and there some startups doing micro-credit.

by enupten 11y ago

dominotw 11y ago

>The conditions are because the rural economy has deliberately been kept very weak. Curious. By who?

rattray 11y ago
While I wouldn't agree with enputen's characterization of "deliberate", it's entirely possible that they've been kept weak by a class of strongman lenders & landlords. Not an evil cabal, just a bunch of people who have the strength to play unfairly in the market and haven't been stopped. I don't have any special information here; it's just a hypothesis I find plausible.
enupten 11y ago
The Indian state inherited from the British of course. I don't know if there is a conscious effort in this regard, but I'm convinced that it has been continuously waging class war against the non-Anglicized citizenry (for obvious reasons). The reluctance to tackle entreched political forces who make up the middle men means that farmers end up getting about 10% of what is paid by the end consumer. This is a tragedy. http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/Middlemen-pocket-lions-share-as-farmers-suffer/2013/11/19/article1899129.ece http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/Middlemen-pock... http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/02/26/farmers-struggle-to-escape-middlemen/ http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2014/02/26/farmers-strugg... The reason you don't hear much on this is because English media doesn't really have any rural correspondents. This is a area ripe for bringing in disruptive technologies. I don't know if there are startups working on this. I think MSR India has something on the political disenfranchisement front, and there some startups doing micro-credit.