Find your peace and truth beyond konspiracy
Major media outlets keep portraying Hillary Clinton as a leftist, but she’s far from it. As a matter of fact, she sounds very much like neo-conservatives. There is very little difference between her ideology and neo-conservative ideology. She is very militaristic.
I’m all for female President, but I cannot support this particular candidate. I’d like to think that she is only speaking like neo-conservatives to get votes, but I doubt it.
I like DemocracyNow, and here’s one of reasons. After I spent a couple of months in India, I find that most of major media outlets do not provide relevant news; more specifically, their news articles and programs are formatted to entertain the local audience (Americans, Japanese, etc.). There is really no objective analysis, nor is there any attempt to investigate today’s events and past events. DemocracyNow, while it is a small media outlet, has its objective analysis; it investigates today’s events and past events. DemocracyNow actually provides news that are relevant and affect so many people around the world, not just in US. This is one news source that I can appreciate even when I’m in India.
In developed western countries and westernized countries, it is often beloved that the business relationship and the personal relationship cannot be maintained simultaneously. Many Indian people seem to believe otherwise; the business relationship can only enhance and improve the personal relationship.
I am not exactly a pathological optimist and I tend to raise many questions and expect problems and difficulties, so that obviously makes me think that the business relationship can often create problems in the personal relationship or it can even break it, but such a thought does not even come to many Indian people’s mind. This is apparently a cultural difference between India and developed western countries and westernized countries.
Many of developed countries are multi-cultural and multi-ethnic. For example, US is multi-cultural and multi-ethnic. The complexity often creates number of social problems, so US has decided to separate church and state since the founding of the country. The country has made its complexity one of its appeals, and the separation of church and state has worked positively for the country over all. Many other developed countries, in particular, many western European countries such as UK, France and Holland, are also multi-cultural and multi-ethnic today as a result of immigrants’ settling in those countries; they are essentially adapting the same approach as US in order to bring balance in their societies. However, this is not the only model of the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic country, nor is it the oldest model. India is actually multi-cultural and multi-ethnic (official languages alone count more than twenty two languages, and a number of different religions are practiced including Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity and Buddhism); India has developed and maintained its multi-cultural and multi-ethnic environment a little differently. When we look at three major functions of the society, the food distribution, marriage and the judicial system, we find that developed countries’ approach and India’s approach are very different.
We need to eat to live; therefore, the food distribution is a major function of the society and it is developed to accommodate everyone in the society. In cases of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic developed countries, they supply all kinds of food that they can physically supply. They supply all kinds of meat including beef, pork, chicken and fish. They also supply all kinds of vegetables and fruits. They also supply bread, pasta, rice, plain flour, potatoes and tacos. Given the food distribution system, everyone in those countries can get whatever he/she wants. If he is a Muslim and does not eat pork, then he can get beef, chicken and fish. If he is a vegetarian, then he can get all vegetables that he wants. This is not exactly how the food distribution system is structured in India; the food distribution system generally limits its supplies in terms of variety so that it serves everyone. Hindus do not eat beef and Muslims do not eat pork; as a result, butcher shops generally sell only chicken, mutton and fish; this creates no conflict. Also most Indians eat vegetables primarily; roughly 60% of Indians are vegetarians and they do not even eat eggs.
Many developed countries around the world promote the idea that any two people ought to be able to get married; inter-racial marriages are becoming very common. However, marriage in India is not quite like that. Even today, it is very common that family members arrange marriages. Two people, a bride and a groom meet just once or twice after their family members make the arrangement, and they decide to get married; something like this is very common. Religions and social classes play very important roles in marriage, and two people of the same religion get married commonly. Marriage is to preserve the existing social structure to a large extent.
Developed countries generally believe in the separation of church and state, and they define laws accordingly. In principle, laws should not reflect religious beliefs or practices. This is not the case in India. India has Indian Civic Law and each religion has its specific laws; there are separate laws governing Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and other religions.
Before I learned that India actually has a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic environment, I personally believed that the model that multi-cultural and multi-ethnic developed countries promote is the right model, but now I do not have as strong conviction as I used to. India’s model seems to be working fine at least in India, and I personally do not believe that it needs to change radically any time soon. It seems that both models have merits, and they can improve as they learn from each other.
Edit: The article is written by J. Watanabe.
Many of those in developed countries fear that emerging economies like India and China would take over the leadership in the world economy in foreseeable future. You can spend hours, days, weeks or even months discussing why this can possibly happen, but the simple fact is that the vast majority of people in emerging economies work hard and honestly and they try to get something out of their hard work. I have been in India for the last couple of months and I have seen how people work. It is a bit of exaggeration to say that most people in developed countries do not work hard or honestly, but too many people work in such a way that they do not exactly contribute to the development of their economies.
First, too many people in developed countries do nothing; they do not work. I am personally for social programs such as tax-funded healthcare and tax-funded education, but the simple fact is that too many people rely on those social programs and do not work; furthermore, social programs in some countries are too generous. For example, UK has some of the most generous social programs and its government just hands out cash to too many people; the government does not hand out just enough cash for people to survive but it hands out more than enough to them so that they can even entertain themselves.
Second, too many people in developed countries force them to feel content while they work for good hours. Not everyone has to have ambition to become a billionaire, nor does becoming a billionaire automatically contribute to the development of the society. However, when people work for good hours, they ought to understand that they deserve certain results financially. It is true that money is not everything. It is also true that being able to find meaning and value in life is very important. However, it is almost a trend to speak of such meaning and value in developed countries today; they focus too much on finding meaning and value, and they start neglecting the fact that they ought to get financial and materialistic results. There ought to be a good balance. Philosophy is very important, but that alone does not contribute to the development of their economies.
Third, too many people in developed countries essentially achieve their financial gain by stealing from others. One of examples is corporate executives’ terminating employee pensions, liquidating what employees already contributed and telling analysts and shareholders that they increased profit. This is not wealth creation; this is wealth extraction. Another example is that those who run businesses while they destroy the environment; this is also not wealth creation, but it is wealth extraction. These practices do not contribute to the development of their economies ultimately, but they only stifle their economies in the long run.
I exaggerated a little bit and wrote that too many people in developed countries either do nothing, force them to feel content while they actually live unfulfilled life or steal from others, but this is not entirely false. The way in which people in developed countries go to work is different from the way in which people in emerging economies go to work. The former go to work to wait for tomorrow while the latter go to work to create something; they go to work to improve their life. There is a tremendous difference between the two, and one obviously does not lead to prosperity, while the other leads to prosperity and creation of wealth.
Edit: The article is written by J. Watanabe.
Business environment in India is a bit different from the business environment in many developed countries; India has a boutique business environment. More specifically, procedures to get various administrative tasks done aren’t exactly straight forward. They are arbitrary and a lot of human communication can get involved; bribing is one of examples. Understanding the environment itself takes time, and actually maneuvering in the environment is quite difficult. It’s unlikely that those from foreign countries can smoothly get administrative tasks done. Furthermore, while I’d risk saying that most Indian people are honest and hardworking, it is easy for foreigners to get tricked by some bad apples; they might not be scammed and have a lot of money stolen, but they can easily overpay for various services. For this reason, it is advisable that you hire a reliable street smart to assist you to run a business in India.
Having a dependable accountant and a banker is essential in India even if you run a small business, and you need a street smart to find a dependable accountant and a banker for you. When you run a business in any country, it is ideal that you have a dependable accountant and a banker; however, this is very critical in India, while having a dependable accountant and a banker is not absolutely necessary to run a business in a developed country. To describe briefly, accounting and banking are more complex in India than accounting and banking in many developed countries; one of reasons is corruption. Corruption is everywhere, so this makes accounting and banking very confusing and tricky, and thus, you definitely need to get help from a dependable accountant and a banker.
Corruption is everywhere, that is, bribing is everywhere, and you need a street smart to pass bribes for you. Every single administrative task requires you to pass a bribe to the public official who takes care of it. Also passing small gifts is not an uncommon practice; this often enables you to get administrative tasks done much faster and without a lot of hassle. The problem, however, is not bribing or passing gifts as far as you are concerned; the fact that you do not know exactly when or how to pass bribes or pass gifts is the problem. This is when you need a street smart.
There are emergencies and they are bound to happen, and this is arguably the most important reason why you need a street smart to assist you. For example, you might become very sick, and you need to see a good doctor to get well. A certain financial transaction might not be going through for variety of reasons, but you might have to get it done somehow. You might need to create a couple of documents from thin air to get a certain administrative task done. There are many emergencies, and creativity is often required to get through emergencies, and you need a street smart who can help you with his/her creativity.
I emphasize that most Indian people are honest and hardworking; also India’s economy is growing rapidly and there are a lot of great business opportunities. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the business environment in India can become quite difficult for those from developed countries to maneuver around. It is essential for them to learn as much as they can, but I highly doubt if they can learn to maneuver around in the complex business environment in India; even if they can learn, they need a lot of time to learn. You need to get things done regardless in business. For this reason, get a street smart when you run a business in India.
Edit: This article is written by J. Watanabe
Money2India is an online wire transfer service to transfer funds from countries outside of India to India. It is supposed to enable you to make the wire transfer much more easily and conveniently, but in reality, it has so many problems; the wire transfer doesn’t go through for variety of reasons in many cases. If your wire transfer simply fails, then you can possibly use a different service, but Money2India often debits your sender’s bank account and then fails to credit the receiver’s bank account. In this case, Money2India simply keeps your money, so you have to do whatever you can to make it credit your receiver’s bank account. It is a battle, and you have to fight hard, but here are some tips and tricks to win the battle.
First, the phone customer support is quite unfriendly. The number that Money2India has on its website, 1800 22 4848, only works for BSNL, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. carriers. If you are not a BSNL Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. carrier, then you are stuck. But there is a workaround, though it is a bit lengthy.
1. Call the ICICI phone customer support. Check this page (http://www.icicibank.com/pfsuser/customer/cuscarenos.htm) and find the local number that you can call from your area.
2. Speak to a customer support representative and tells him/her that you want to contact the Money2India phone support; if he/she tells you that he/she does not have any information about Money2India, then request to speak with his/her manager. Ask the manager the same thing; you ask him/her to connect you to the Money2India phone customer support. You should be able to connect to the Money2India phone customer support.
Second, Money2India’s online account has the email feature to let you contact Money2India support via email, but this often does not work well. Many emails sent via Money2India’s online account get lost quite often. You should just use your registered email with Money2India and email to nri@icicibank.com directly.
Third, you should contact the banker that you opened your bank account with if you opened the account with ICICI. Also you should contact the branch manager of the branch at which you opened the bank account. As far as you are concerned, Money2India is a service that ICICI provides and those who work for ICICI should assist you to resolve any problems that you have with Money2India.
When I used Money2India, I thought that this would make my life easier, but it was not exactly the case. My guess is that many people have variety of problems using the service. I hope that this short article would help those of you using Money2India.
First, I want to state that India has a lot to offer as a country. There are also number of great people. I’d risk to say that the vast majority of Indian people are honest and hardworking. However, business environment in India is still under development. That is an undisputable fact, and there are number of problems. The followings are some of problems of running a business in India.
Banking sector has a couple of problems. To be more specific, those who work in the banking sector are not exactly a problem. My guess is that most of them are honest and hardworking; they’re probably also quite talented, intelligent and capable. However, there are too many formalities and procedures than necessary. For example, it took nearly two weeks for me to open a bank account in India, while I opened the account at India’s premier bank, ICICI. There are a couple of reasons why it took weeks, but it is unusually a long time to open a bank account. I opened several bank accounts, including a business bank account, in US over the years, but it only took one day to open a bank account each time. I have been trying to transfer a fund from my US business account to the new bank account in India for the last weeks, but the transaction has not been completed yet; this also exemplified problems of the banking sector.
There is mañana mentality not in the sense that everyone is playing and partying everyday and not getting things done but in the sense that things do not get done on time. For example, I essentially delegated several administrative tasks to a couple of Indian people; they are very capable but they don’t always get things done on time. One time, I asked me to get me a door bell for my flat (apartment) to one of them because it was very difficult for me to get this done since I did not speak Hindi; I probably asked this over a month ago. I still do not have the door bell. I know him pretty well and I know that he has a very hectic schedule; however, a month is a long time for anyone to get a door bell. This particular task is nothing urgent, so I am not upset about it, but something like this happens often.
Lack of the basic infrastructure stands out. Electricity problem is very visible. Electricity goes off a couple of times a day on average even during winter, while Indian people use less electricity during winter than during any other season. Using UPS, you can prevent data loss, but if you run a kind of business that requires you to use electricity the whole time that you work such as web development, you have zero productivity when electricity is off. Water supply problem is there, though it is not severe; most businesses, specifically businesses in the service sector, do not suffer from the problem because they typically do not use water to run their businesses, but it can become a minor problem. Internet connection works for the most part, but the connection gets cut off occasionally. This can result in the loss of productivity also.
Most problems can be managed, and as a matter of fact, I am running an internet business in India. However, problems described here are recognizable and they do affect. Those of you who plan to set up an operation in India should remember these problems. Chances are these problems will be there for some time.
Edit: The article is written by J. Watanabe.
Business environment in India is still under development; as a result, it takes a long time and a lot of effort to get things done in India. I am currently trying to wire transfer a fund from a US bank account to an Indian bank account using Money2India, which is a serviced provided by India’s premier bank, ICICI; however, the transaction has been taking roughly two weeks. I am hoping that I can complete the transaction in a couple of days, but there is really no guarantee. Difficulty I am having highlights the fact that business environment in India is still under development.
I initially contacted Money2India customer support to resolve the problem one week after I started the wire transfer. I actually contacted the customer support several times; however, nothing got resolved essentially. Also a different person corresponded each time, so whoever corresponded back to me did not understand the history of the problem, nor did he/she understand how exactly he/she could resolve the problem.
I needed to contact a real person whom I could speak directly or meet face-to-face, so I called the toll free number. It did not go through, so I tried the chat program to contact Money2India customer support real time. The customer support told me that there was nothing he/she could do. I don’t know why such a person who could not do anything to resolve the problem answered me. At least I found out that the chat room was no use.
The person that I had a chat with asked me to call the toll free number, so I called the number again, but it did not go through. After all, it’s the same number that I tried calling already, so there was no reason why the call would go through this time. I was not so sure why my call could not go through, so I called my carrier, Airtel to find out why. It turned out that the number was only available to those who used the carrier BSNL, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. I use AirTel, so even though I have landline, I cannot make use of the toll free number.
I had to do something about this, so I reluctantly called the branch manager of the branch at which I opened my bank account; I did reluctantly because this was not something that I should bother senior bankers like branch managers. However, I needed to get this solved, so I called. He told me that he was busy and told me to call again.
When I say “Money2India, This Semi-Scam Service”, I don’t exactly mean what it means. However, the fact of the matter is that the bank that provides Money2India service has been holding my money for over a week. Also I find it very difficult to move the money to my bank account in India from what I experienced so far. Observing the situation, I almost feel like that Money2India has been holding my money against my will. Furthermore, the difficulty and various specific events which I have been experiencing to resolve the problem highlight the fact that business environment in India is still under development.
Global Climate Change (Global Warming) is finally becoming a part of our daily vocabulary, and even oil companies stopped denying the phenomenal. However, it seems that many of those in developed countries blame developing countries for this though developed countries clearly caused it. It also seems that many of those in developed countries prematurely assume that developing countries like India will not address the problem of CO2 emission and accelerates Global Climate Change (Global Warming). It is true that developing countries ought to do a lot to cut CO2 emission, but they are not as wasteful as most developed countries already. India is a great example, and applications of energy conservation exist in India.
Because of lack of electricity and natural gas, a house or a flat in India typically has one small tank in its bathroom to heat up water. One can get hot water using the machine, but it’s not sufficient to take shower. So, he/she typically keeps hot water in a big bucket and then takes bath. Obviously there is no bathtub. This is how one takes bath in India, and this alone saves a lot of electricity, and thus, India does not have to burn a lot of coals which emits CO2.
It gets quite cold in parts of India like Delhi in winter. The temperature can go down close to 0 degree (Celsius) sometimes. However, no one uses any heater. One dresses warm to keep him/her warm, but that’s about the only thing that one does to keep him/her warm in India. This also saves a lot of electricity, and this leads to lower CO2 emission.
More and more people drive automobiles in India, but most people drive scooters and motorcycles to get around. Engines are between 50cc and 125cc; they are quite small. This enables India to emit a lot less C02 than countries in which a lot of people drive SUVs and tracks US .
India has a long way to go to shift from traditional energy sources, such as coals and oil to new energy sources such as solar and wind to emit a lot less CO2; however, it is too convenient for developed countries to blame developing countries like India for Global Climate Change (Global Warming). What they should be doing is quite the opposite; they should be learning how Indian people manage to live without using so much energy.
Edit: This article was written by J. Watanabe