• Infomatics90@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    I have seen the exact same behavior here Canada with companies that are led by Indians. They treat it like a sweatshop. and this was an office.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      There was quite a few in the UK as well, mostly in Leicester (large Indian immigrant population there). People being paid £3 an hour when it should have been about £8 at the time.

      https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/13/poor-working-conditions-persist-in-leicester-garment-factories-finds-survey

      If you buy cheap clothes from the likes of BooHoo you should know that they’re made in these places, and if you buy expensive clothes, then they’re probably made in the exact same conditions with a nicer label sewn in the back and a better PR department to handwave away any wrongdoing.

    • Bruncvik@lemmy.world
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      I work with a few Indian development teams, and “sweatshop” is an apt description. We work on software dependencies, as specified by them. After we deliver, they decide it’s not what they wanted, change the specs and treat it as a “drop everything else” bug. It gives me no greater pleasure than telling them to relax, that we’ll get to it in due time when we have the capacity. I like to think that a few of their managers already popped a vein.

      • Infomatics90@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        yes it has been and these places still exist today. They especially love taking advantage of their own.

          • Infomatics90@lemmy.ca
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            2 days ago

            Once the international students go home (hopefully) here in Canada this will not happen anymore, because Canadian’s wouldn’t stand for it

            • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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              2 days ago

              Any chance you could be anymore racist with your demands? “I blame the Indians” (while working in Canada). “Once the International people leave it will be fixed!” (still, working in Canada).

              How about highlighting a specific company who’s founded from India and treating employees bad in your neighboring Canadian community that has impacted you? Maybe some news articles or reports of the mishandling and abuse? Or we can just vaguely and anecdotally continue blaming “THEM” and anyone who’s International?!

              Remember, Anti-work doesn’t mean Anti-immigrant.

                • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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                  2 days ago

                  Hating companies you perceive from a certain ethnic community is also racist. Are all “Indian” companies like this or are you making blanket statements against a race? Are all the companies exploiting workers founded from India, or again, are we singling out an ethnic group as antagonists while ignoring the governing body? Can someone be born in India, become a Canadian citizen, operate a company under Canadian law and on their soil, and it’s still the “Indians” fault?

                  You’re right about the international student part, that would be Xenophobia added onto racism.

                  1. A fear of strangers or foreigners. 2. A strong antipathy or aversion to strangers or foreigners.
    • Hector@lemmy.ca
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      I’ve been subject to the same treatment by a white person in Canada. Three out of my 5 colleagues were from India because apparently they were the only ones that could take it. They didn’t fire me they made my life hell until I quit because of my mental health crisis. They made me sign bad performance reviews, the manager and her assistant shouted and screamed at me and made me work on holidays and kept accusing me of things that are not true until I quit. They did this to other people as well and no one had any grounds to sue them because they knew how to play the game. It’s not just Indians that do this in Canada. Some Canadians do it too. This happen in the national capital region no less.

      • Infomatics90@lemmy.ca
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        2 days ago

        Yes I have been treated like shit from “white” managers as well (although i don’t know what white means here).

    • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz
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      1 day ago

      My partner took an “anonymous” survey at work once.

      When the results came out, it categorised the results. Site, m/f/o, role.

      Turns out that there was only one female engineer at her site… So everybody knew she was annoyed about some specific things.

    • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
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      I love those.

      I filled one out onetime and one of my teammates told us it’s really anonymous.

      So I bet him $100 dollars that I could prove it wasn’t.

      we filled them out and a couple days later I printed off his survey and taped it to his monitor.

      he was pissed. I told him he could keep the $100 because the look on his face was worth it.

      I had access to the drive where all the reports spit out. in the reports were the IPs of the submitters. I knew his IP and just grepped it. I’m sure leadership does the same thing.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      The stoner dudes high as balls 247 who don’t give a shit and are not stressed a bit: :DDD

      • Victor@lemmy.world
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        stoner dudes high as balls 247 who don’t give a shit

        Bro where do you work where this is not caught in the first interview

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          I’ve been high in most jobs I had, every now and then at least.

          Not when driving a taxi, but we used to get insanely high for the night shifts at the taxi dispatch call centre where I also worked with the younger coworkers (<35) I had. As long as you get the necessary shit done, why’d anyone care? The night shifts were boring as fuck, you’d have like a few to a few dozen calls an hour. Meaning that mostly you’re just having to browse the web while waiting.

          And Finns genuinely couldn’t even tell when I’m high as balls, the willfull ignorance in Finnish social interaction is quite strong.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
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            As long as you get the necessary shit done, why’d anyone care?

            I don’t, I just couldn’t imagine many work places where you’d work in a team or interact with clients or customers or coworkers where this type of thing would be accepted.

            But ah, Finland ✅, and night shifts ✅, and younger crew with little to no management around ✅, still able to perform a not so crucial task requiring not a lot of brain power ✅. I’m all for it dude. Have fun while working, that’s the bomb. ❤️

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
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              Well, 25-30. But the older ladies at the dispatch smoked weed as well. Well few of them did. One liked opiates. Most drank.

              I don’t work there anymore, but it’s somewhat complicated logistics. You arrange school rides for kids and patient rides to hospitals and have to make sure people aren’t late for their planes and trains leaving in the morning.

              It’s just that for the first several hours, it’d be every calm during the night. Sometime around 4am people start leaving for trains, buses, planes. Then around 5-6 you have people going to hospitals. Sometimes they’re disabled and need a taxi that can fit a stretcher. Then it’s the kids after that.

              But like some people like caffeine aa they feel they need more energy to perk up. It’s the other way around for me.

              But yeah thanks though it was fun. I was kinda pissed during corona when they finally took remote work as my home workstation is far superior to what they were when I worked there, and I kept actually using a team viewer connection back then as well (~2012) so could’ve easily done the work from my home.

              And yes you’d might wonder what sort of company allows an employee to install remote control software on their computers?

              A small company with a large turnover which never understood their dispatch center or technology properly.

              But like if you made a poll on some programming community here on how many of them work while high…?

              I know softwares see developers in rather esteemed positions who smoke every day. Not all day necessarily but

              • Victor@lemmy.world
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                I’m a software developer and, while I don’t smoke all day, I’m a night owl. Some days I’ll go to bed at 2 AM several nights in a row, and after that, I basically go a couple days where I don’t get anything done. So I might as well practically have been smoking all day being high as a kite. 😅

        • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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          I’ve seen this in upper management. Dude has zero f to give. I mean like drugs removed them.

          Me: Mai dude building is on fire Dude: it’s fine only 16 flights of stairs. I’ll wait out the rush.

          He never had sense of urgency.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    Don’t ever engage with culture sensing surveys honestly. The only place they weren’t a trap (ironically) was the US Army where they did it on paper, punished people for putting their names on them, and walked right past your entire immediate chain of command to their bosses with the results. And the one time things were truly bad they literally brought in a Sociology expert to study our unit and figure out how things had gone bad, it resulted in all new leadership and team building exercises, in a war zone. (These results do not extend to other branches, I had one done by the Navy and it was corpo trap bullshit, got a lot of the Army guys there by surprise.)

    • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I have always engaged with every one of them and have been negative quite often yet never anything bad came of it. Probably because we have employee rights where I live. So the actual problem is americas lacks of rights.

    • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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      I worked for a youuuuuuge international corporation that did a survey in the late 1990s.

      They took them extremely seriously and trained and replaced the poor performing leadership.

      It led to a big jump in profits.

    • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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      Or engage with them but expect the repercussions.

      I’m very candid when this shit comes around my corp and am extremely nuanced in explaining the culture challenges.

      The trick is to not explicitly call anyone out and highlight it’s a systemic problem.

      • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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        In our corp, our managers get the answers and results without the names of employees that gave the answers. Did not see anyone regretting being honest on the survey yet.

        I am wondering more and more if it is the corp I work for that is unusual, if it is because it is in the EU, not US (even though corp is US based), or if just the people with worst experiences are the most keen to share them…

        • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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          There probably is a confirmation bias at work here. People with healthy workplaces are probably less likely to complain online?

          Same that they anonymized the data but c’mon I know people writing style I could tell which coworker wrote what if they narrow it down enough like by department.

          • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
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            Yes and no. The survey is always scoring something 1-10 and then a text field on explanation/how to improve it. If you are too worried, you can just give the score. Even so, most people just fill them in normally and as I said, I did not see anyone regret being honest. But that is indeed likely partially because we are not in the US.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        That’s a very fine line though. and you’re hoping they don’t fire you just for being the bent nail.

        • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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          Oh I agree but thing is it’s principles for me. I spoke to a coworker recently about this in relation to a bad worker and if they should go to HR. My argument is I can’t rely on other people to speak about the challenges so it’s beholden on me to do that for those that may not want to take that risk.

          It’s only a job. I make damn good money but if I got let go because of my principles that’s a good reason.

          • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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            Yeah I’m with you on this one. All of these people saying “don’t say shit” think they are being smart (and I imagine most of them haven’t even been in the situation) but the reality is you are just making things worse for everyone else and getting fired after something like that is actually extremely uncommon because it’s very easy to point to and demand severance or just for making a lot of racket if that’s not an option.

            It’s very easy to get laid off in the US. They don’t need to resort to such tactics. most of the time internal culture things are either ignored or decent people higher up make some small changes in their own departments/areas specifically. I find it’s a great way to subtly point to toxic leadership, especially if other people are doing it.

            • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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              The last time I went to HR on toxic leadership it was very well known. I told them I’m the ideal employee. I’ve been here (at the time 10 years) rarely make a fuss. Never been to HR before. I had a well thought out letter explaining the challenges I was seeing and how toxic it was and how it was impacting myself and my coworkers.

              They asked for names. I gave none. I told them they have the names (I had good info these people were well known). I explained that people are leaving the org, good people are not coming here. They need to address it. About 1+ year later there was a huge clearout of leadership then another a couple of years later. People who were well identified as toxic.

              I like to think my speaking up helped with that, and I’m still here. More people need to stand on their principles damn the consequences.

              • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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                Yeah it definitely has a “writing your congressional rep“ quality to it. Your one note or comment is rarely going to move the needle unless there is something truly illegal going on like workplace harassment that is undeniable, but when a lot of people keep bringing up the same issues/departments/people (maybe not explicitly) it can make a difference. Sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the oil lol

                For those jumping in on this conversation, I am not saying it is always like this. I’m just saying it often is. Most companies operate at least somewhat practically when it comes to these things. They don’t want to hire new people, they don’t want inter-departmental strife. They don’t want projects not getting done because of toxic leadership. Beyond a certain threshold they often will act. Often it takes way too long and requires way too much from employees, but still, sometimes they act.

                YMMV especially depending on the industry.

      • BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works
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        Lesson I learned the hard way: if any study comes around on your satisfaction, don’t answer it. If management comes asking why you haven’t answered the study, apologize, you’ve been swamped, you’ll get get right on it, and you lie your ass off.

  • huginn
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    The stressed employees were almost certainly the high performers lmao

    • Dogiedog64@lemmy.world
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      And when output and production drop 35% next quarter, you can be damn sure they’ll whip out the “We’re a family here!!!” talk as they announce even more layoffs to pad the bottom line.

  • rabber@lemmy.ca
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    Whenever you are having a bad day just remember you had like 1/4 chance of spawning in India

    • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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      There are ten livestock animals in captivity for every one human. You’re still lucky to be born a human anywhere on earth, because we are the monsters.

      • Allah@lemmy.world
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        problems:

        1.EDUCATION SYSTEM: The education system of India is blamed every now and then for being too theoretical but not practical and skill-based. Students study to score marks, not to gain knowledge. This so-called modern education system was introduced by the colonial masters to create servants who could serve but not lead, and we still have the same education system. Most of the person thinking present time to become employee instead of become employer.

        1. HEALTHCARE SYSTEM: It is true that world’s the most populous democratic country cannot provide proper healthcare facilities to its entire population. India is becoming a hub for medical tourism but all these facilities are not available to local residents, who are poor. Healthcare is a neglected issue in India, as major attention drawers are agriculture, infrastructure and IT. Lack of resources in rural India is a major concern of the day, leading to most of the problems. 50% of all villagers have no access to healthcare providers; 10% of babies die within a year of their birth; lack of nutrition caused stunned growth in 50% of all the babies. If you want to see the practical example just go for one day visit for Govt. hospital and also Pvt hospital , you will see how peoples are suffering in Govt hospital and how much money private hospital are making

        3.CORRUPTION: The most widely spread endemic in India is corruption, which must be handled quickly and wisely. There is hardly any office, in both private and public sector, that is untouched from this disease. There is no telling how much loss has the economy suffered because of this. Though most of us are concerned, when the time comes to act, we, the people of India, are found lacking. The most widely spread endemic in India is corruption, which must be handled quickly and wisely. There is hardly any office, in both the private and public sector, that is untouched from this disease. There is no telling how much loss the economy has suffered because of this. Though most of us are concerned, when the time comes to act, we, the people of India, should not be found lacking.

        4.POVERTY: A third of the world’s poor live in India, and 37% of the total population in India lives below the international poverty line. 42% of children under five years of age are underweight. Most of the poor in India live in villages. Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal have the poorest areas. High level of illiteracy, lack of healthcare facilities, and limited access to resources are some of the basic problems in poor areas.

        5.SAFETY OF WOMAN: The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals that there were 3,09,546 incidents of crime against women in 2013 in India. Crimes against women have only shown an increase in the last five years. Safety is definitely one of the growing concerns in our country, particularly with regard to woman. Technology and access to it can solve many issues that women face in their day to day lives. Many startups have already taken the initiative to introduce products in the form of apps to ensure safety for women. They utilise features like GPS tracking, safe and unsafe areas on maps, ways to send alerts to emergency contacts, and scream alarms. But the main problem this thinking of the men behind it.

        6.AIR,SOUND AND WATER POLLUTION: India has four of the five most polluted cities in the world. It’s not just the air – we are badly polluting our rivers and agricultural land through the excessive use of chemicals, plastic and careless disposal of waste. Pollution has the ability to reach massive proportions and destroy the ecosystem if we do not stop abusing natural resources before it is too late. Along with that, planning for the optimal utilisation of water needs to be on top of the list because water pollution and wastage can leave our country dry and barren in the next decade.

        7.UNEMPLOYMENT: Unemployment is the major problem in India. This problem is not unsolvable. In India 92% people are in unorganized sector. some people are doing small works like porter, pulling a cart etc, they earn very small amount of wages. This could be solved if we youths unite and gain support of government and start some cottage and small scale industries, where people could work for their welfare. This makes Indian youths a role model to all the people in the world. So, government should give the opportunities to all the citizens by establishing factories, schools, hospitals then i thick unemployment will be reduced in India

        8.CHILD LABOUR: This is the worst social evil in India. Children are exploited and are made to work in dangerous places like cracker factories. They are not treated properly. Like other social evils there are rules and laws made to stop the child exploitation but nothing has been ever properly implemented in India and hence you can still see teenagers and children working in the shops and factories.

        9.ILLITERACY: The Illiteracy level is well below the world average literacy rate of 84%,and of all nations, India currently has the largest illiterate population.Despite government programs, India’s literacy rate increased only "sluggishly,"and a 1990 study estimated that it would take until 2060 for India to achieve universal literacy at then-current rate of progress.The 2011 census, however, indicated a 2001–2011 decade literacy growth of 9.2%, which is the slower than the growth seen during the previous decade.On one hand, India has a state like Kerala that boasts of 93.91% literacy in its state alone, while on the other hand there is a backward state like Bihar with 68.8% literacy rate.

        The percentage of illiteracy in India is alarming. Though 74.04% of people were counted as literate in 2011 census, there is a wide disparity between rural and urban areas and male and female population. The condition in villages is worse than in cities. Though a number of primary schools have been set up in rural India, the problem persists. Many people who are counted as literate can barely read or write. Hence, providing education just to children won’t solve the problem of illiteracy, as many adults in India are also untouched by education.

        10.POPULATION: Today, India’s population is 1.4 billion, and it is increasing, is the second most populous country in the world. The figures show that India represents almost 17.31% of the world’s population, which means one out of six people on this planet live in India. With the population growth rate at 1.58%, India is predicted to have more than 1.53 billion people by the end of 2030. It is a curse that hampers development and harms society. According to sources, India has about 33 births a minute; 2,000 an hour; and 48,000 a day. The availability of resources is unable to meet the increase in population. With a rapidly increasing population, the resources per person will decrease further, leading to the next two major challenges that India faces.

        Education System The education system of India is blamed every now and then for being too theoretical, but not practical and skill-based. Students study to score marks, not to gain knowledge. This so-called modern education system was introduced by the colonial masters to create servants who could serve but not lead, and we still have the same education system. Rabindranath Tagore had written many articles offering suggestions to change the education system of India. But still, success is as elusive as ever.

        Basic Sanitation Sanitation is yet another problem, but one of the biggest, in India. There are about 700 million people who have no access to toilets at home. Slum areas do not have toilets. People are thus forced to defecate in the open, which causes numerous diseases like diarrhea, cholera, dehydration etc. Many rural schools also have no toilets, because of which parents do not send their kids, especially girls, to school. Due attention was drawn towards this problem by Gandhiji but nothing much was done. A growing population is the biggest challenge causing these problems. For example, the sewage system in Delhi was designed to meet the needs of a population of three million people. But Delhi now has more than 14 million of population. This is not just the case of Delhi; every state and region in India is the same.

        Though 12 million toilets claim to have been built under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in the last five years, as per a UN report, 44% of the population continues to defecate in the open. Sanitation, solid waste management, and drainage continue to pose challenges in India.

        However, according to Swachh Bharat Mission website a total of 100 Million toilets were built in India, and all the States, Union Territories, Gram Panchayats, and Districts declared themselves Open Defecation Free (ODF).

        Healthcare System It is true that the world’s most populous democratic country cannot provide proper healthcare facilities to its entire population. India is becoming a hub for medical tourism but all these facilities are not available to local residents, who happen to be poor. Healthcare is a neglected issue in India, as major attention drawers are agriculture, infrastructure and IT. Lack of resources in rural India is a major concern of the day, leading to most of the problems. 50% of all villagers have no access to healthcare providers; Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is 34 per 1000 live births; lack of nutrition caused stunning growth in 50% of all the babies, and 36% people in India have no access to toilets.

        Despite the country’s medical tourism bringing in $2.8 billion in 2020 and being the fourth largest medical devices market, the healthcare system for the Indian citizen has been a disappointment. According to a report by NITI Aayog, the country has 1.3 hospitals bed per 1000 population with almost 50% of it concentrated in states like Karnataka, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra

      • Allah@lemmy.world
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        The Past The Indian economy lacked competition, which meant it was less innovative. This situation kept out foreign investors and knowledge, resulting in limited access to advanced machinery and equipment from the developed world. Additionally, the basic products needed to create new factories, machines, and equipment were managed inefficiently. Consequently, India adopted some of the worst aspects of both systems.

        As a wise man once said, “You should never half-ass two things; whole-ass one thing!” Thus, India’s economy in the 1940s and 50s grew slowly—so slowly, in fact, that India decided to ask for foreign aid. By utilizing elements of both a Soviet and a Western economy, India maintained a good relationship with both sides of the Cold War, taking advantage of this by securing funds from both.

        By the 1950s, foreign aid had become the largest source of investment in India, yet the economy continued to grow slowly. The leaders realized they were doing a poor job and concluded that the reason for the sluggish growth was the government’s lack of control over the economy. As a result, existing businesses were nationalized, and private enterprises were allowed in fewer industries. Throughout the late 50s and early 60s, the Indian government became increasingly involved in economic management.

        However, relying more on a failing system did not resolve its inherent issues. The more control the government exerted, the less efficient the economy became, leading to an increased demand for foreign aid.

        India was caught in a cycle: the more it took control over the economy, the less efficient it became. As it lost customers abroad, government tax revenues declined, increasing reliance on foreign aid. This, in turn, compelled India to exert even more control over the economy to manage the aid, further diminishing efficiency and leading to more lost customers.

        From the outset, India faced significant challenges: a culture that did not emphasize innovation, the potential for regional divisions following the British military’s departure, a government that controlled essential aspects of economic growth, and a form of capitalism that stifled healthy competition. It became clear that the economic system in place was fundamentally broken and incapable of fostering growth.

        Independence from the British ultimately resulted in dependence on the Soviet Union and the United States to sustain the economy. Meanwhile, other countries were achieving far greater success. Western Europe and Japan rapidly recovered after World War II, while South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore experienced significant economic growth. The people in these regions were becoming wealthy at a much faster pace than India, all while thriving as capitalist nations. Clearly, government control of the economy was not an effective strategy for achieving prosperity.

        The present India faces significant challenges in various sectors. Its education system is inadequate, with only 55% of 10-year-olds able to read and understand a simple story. Many people lack access to healthy meals daily, contributing to nearly half of all childhood deaths being caused by droughts. The financial system is also in poor shape; unhealthy banks, which are crucial investors in an economy, lead to fewer investments.

        Foreign companies often find it difficult to do business in India, preferring to operate in countries like Bangladesh or Vietnam. Additionally, the Indian healthcare system struggles to care for its entire population.

        As more developing countries implement effective economic policies in the 21st century, competition will increase. Whether India can compete with better-managed nations remains uncertain. While it is unlikely that India will become a superpower within the next decade, many believe we will eventually witness its rise as a dominant global power. By 2050, India is expected to surpass the USA in economic strength, becoming the second-largest economy in the world, right behind China.

        Provided the Indian government avoids major mistakes like those of the past, this optimistic outlook appears plausible. A world with India as one of the three superpowers seems increasingly likely.

        India’s government employee count is basically the opposite of that of China and the United States. Whereas in the US and China, by far most government employees work at the local level, and only some at the state or federal level. In India, it is the other way around. Most of India’s government employees work at the state and, to a lesser extent, federal level, whereas only a few work at the local level. This can explain why India’s local governments were not able to invest or help foreign investors around the rules on the same scale as their Chinese counterparts did.

        But if just local capacity was the only problem, then it could simply be solved by giving the local governments more money to hire more people, right? Well, sadly, that will likely not completely fix the problem. You see, there is something really strange going on with India’s local governments despite high unemployment. Many local governments have thousands of unfilled open positions. Even worse, some of India’s poorest local governments do not even spend all the money that they get from the central government. So what else is going on?

        Well, this brings us to Kapur’s second explanation of why, in this case, local governments are not living up to their potential: India’s infamous caste system, which divides people into a hierarchy of social categories based on their birth. But before getting into that, we should note that the caste system has effectively been outlawed. However, despite that, in many parts of the country, it is still very much a political reality.

        The caste system can explain India’s dysfunctional local governments in three different ways. Firstly, realizing that the caste system was still strong at the local government level, India’s founders on purpose made sure that local governments were not too powerful, which can explain why this graph looks the way that it does. Secondly, even if a local government has adequate capacity, they might not have the right incentives, meaning that they may frustrate the implementation of well-meant central government policies because it is not in line with the caste system.

        As an example, Professor Kapoor mentions that quite a few federal education programs where schools were built to improve the education of girls failed at the local level because, and I’m quoting, “what happens within the classroom is affected by caste and gender norms.”

        The issue of governance Thirdly, in some extreme cases, the caste system even leads to government vacancies potentially being left open because they only have candidates from higher castes. For example, in their book The Narrow Order, Professor Acemoglu and Robinson describe how, in one of India’s poorer states, Bihar, the state had thousands of vacancies for engineers that were not filled despite high unemployment. Why not? Well, because those qualified to be engineers are typically from higher castes. But because the province’s reigning governor, Lalu Prasad Yadav, was from a lower caste, he refused to fill these positions.

        Of course, as a consequence, everyone suffered because the government here was so severely understaffed that it could not even spend all the money it got allocated from the central government to upgrade the local infrastructure. But okay, that is an extreme case which may not be applicable to all states. However, it is applicable to the third reason why its local governments are not enabling businesses like their Chinese counterparts, and that is that India is a democracy.

        Now, I want to stress that in itself, this is not a problem at all. Sure, in China, the incentives of a promotion in the party meant that local governments could override local concerns to build infrastructure and go out of their way to attract foreign firms. However, in well-functioning democracies, this does not need to be a problem, since the democratic process itself could give local governors the incentive to invest in their cities and to attract foreign firms. After all, if you as a local governor grow your economy, then you’re more likely to be reelected as local governor again.

        Indeed, democracy has produced the vast majority of growth miracles, ranging from West Germany to Italy to Japan and to the United States. However, unlike these countries, Professor Kapur claims that India is a so-called precocious democracy, meaning that the country became democratic before it was perhaps ready to become democratic. Professor Kapur discusses three reasons why this is holding India’s local governments back.

        The first is that a precocious democracy can get into a vicious cycle in which it delivers poor public services like schools and health care. As a consequence, wealthier people will exit the public system and start using private schools and hospitals instead. Therefore, they are now less willing to pay taxes, making local government services even more dysfunctional. Indeed, as Professor Kapur notes, local governments in India, in particular, seem to be very hesitant to raise their taxes, the taxes that they need to improve their cities.

        But sadly, there’s more. The second reason why being a precocious democracy is holding India back is that, because India is so divided, local government officials that were elected by their specific caste, religious group, or any other interest group tend to prefer rewarding their voters by giving them subsidies or other specific benefits rather than investing in public services that can be enjoyed by all. Finally, in precocious democracies, politicians will tend to emphasize public goods that are highly visible and relatively easy to provide.

        • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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          That’s a lot of text to not mention that the main issue is British Imperialism. The UK was only interested in resource extraction from India, meaning minimal investment was made into the area for centuries.

  • EABOD25@lemm.ee
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    Well, that is going to backfire because they just made all new stress for the current employees

  • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Please tell me this is fake. Please?!?!!??

    True story: I once worked for a startup where the head of HR kept a spreadsheet he called his “naughty and nice” list. For every employee he had a score that boiled down to “risk to the company”. He would send out surveys like this and say things like “your feedback is strictly confidential”, then use the responses to determine people’s scores. Of course other things like any kind of complaint he overheard went into it too.

    • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
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      It seems that it’s most likely an out-of-touch marketing stunt. The company, Yes Madam, is apparently launching some sort of corporate wellness program type thing so they are likely going to pivot this publicity into “Treating employees like that would be awful right?! But companies do have stressed employees and should take care of them with…blah”.

      I hope it fully backfires and they go out of business.

      EDIT: It just hit me that they are going to say “We didn’t have a single employee who indicated stress on the survey, because we take care of our employees.”

        • lad@programming.dev
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          Additionally, the company introduced a ‘De-stress Leave Policy’, allowing employees to avail up to six paid leaves annually for mental health and rejuvenation

          Wow, such generosity! Also, they did write that they are ‘family’ in the statement 🌚

          • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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            And “in home massages” where that means the CEO will come over and massage you if you are pretty and they have a fake promotion to dangle over them.

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        3 days ago

        Not that this wouldn’t happen, but for me the screenshot looks a bit edited (though I’m just viewing on my phone): look at the clarity of the text in the email, then at the signature and logo. Might be that somebody just swapped out the text in an image editor.

    • state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de
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      Years ago I heard this story about a company in India that held a fire drill. Once everybody was gathered outside, they made the announcement that for about a third of them their key cards wouldn’t work anymore because they were fired. My colleagues from India at the time said that sounded very real.

    • lunarul@lemmy.world
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      The only thing I could find is that Yes Madam is a real company and that the sender is indeed the HR head of that company. So if it’s fake, someone kept the header and signature of a real email. Or maybe a real email sent on April 1st? I have a hard time believing that this is real (not that a company wouldn’t do this, but the fact that they would admit to it so blatantly like it’s not a bad thing).

      • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        There’s a news article linked in another comment.

        It was real, and 100 people were fired.

        • spujb@lemmy.cafe
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          In response, YES Madam stated on LinkedIn, apologising for any distress caused by the campaign. The company stated that it “would never take such a step” and that the action was intended to draw attention to the critical issue of workplace stress. source

          I don’t even know what you were citing, but now that the news is out let this be a lesson to not just take everything in the news for granted. All the slop outlets were just reading the same screenshot in this post verbatim and did no original reporting.