[aravindwarrier]

Sorry to interrupt the free flaw (pun intended) of thoughts ,I would like to put in a few more cents and be gone from this thread (this is pointless argument and any body can go on defending their respective POVs till aeons to come.)

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

I am not averse to a poor guy getting rice or whatever at 2 Rs/Kg. The thing is, is he really getting it? The government machinery is a complete waste and if the poor guy isnt getting what he is promised at the cost of my money.... my money is being wasted and I have the right to be frustrated.

By all means.. You have every right to be frustrated.LOL. But as per me, If that 2 Rs/ kg rice reaches atleast one out of ten target households, I am happy that I could contribute. I dont know about other places, but i can proudly say that a lot many of the dowtrodden are deriving benefits of PDS, at least in AP as I have first hand info (I cannot say the same with similar amounts of confidence about my home state, KL)

Almost everything dude.... do not convert dollars and pounds into Rs and say they are getting their stuff costlier than us. Compare it keeping in mind the salaries we get and the cost of things we buy.

You are definitely wrong here dude. I do not know how you happen to have such a wrong notion. There are definite standards to compare the cost of stuff. One is Purchase parity-it simply means what will be the face value(in currency terms) @ different places for stuff with the same intrinsic value. Another could be Big Mac index this is simpler and easy to understand and very american. How much does a Big Mac burger cost @ different places? (this can get skewed espically in countries like india,where its considered upmarket and sold at a premium.Duh) Iam waiting for the day when India becomes a super power and our economists coin THE BIG IDLY INDEX (the germans might not like that though lol). Cost of living index can also be another metric althogh that varies from city to city, and cannot be taken in face value as much of the indian population is not urbanized and at the best our entrants to the list could be the four metros+Blore and none of them still fare in the top 50 of the world. Still you maintain that things are costlier here? Too bad you are being underpaid.

For the unintiated:

Purchase parity: Purchasing power parity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Big Mac index: Big Mac Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cost of living index:Moscow tops in cost of living; London close behind. They have pdf list of 50 cities as well.None of ours figure in the list.Hopefully because they have lower cost of living.

An average indian cannot afford anything more than 2 square meals a day and its a fact.

That is sad and is a fact.Although that should be a matter of concern, being a car forum we should have stuck to the graver issue " An average indian cannot afford a BMW and its a fact " where we could have had a very easy agreement, rather than dwelling into pointless rants like this,where opininions might differ

What changes are you talking about here? I see youth for equality coming out opposing reservation because it affects them directly, but none of them had the courage to stand up and say, that I will fight for this country if you vote for me. Why not bring the change instead of waiting for it? We are not progressing my dear... I still dont get clean water, 24 hour electricity, pothole free roads, clean environment and I live in the capital of this once great nation. I cant even imagine the pight of someone living in an interior village in UP.

We are not progressing? We are not changing?
I'm keying these down at 12:47 am, from my LAPTOP, to be posted in an internet forum, acessing internet thru my OTA connection from TATA, this from a not so known village in AP. Ten years back I couldn't have imagined this.My tenth std brother is accessing Yahoo MSGr and Orkut sitting in class thru his mobile via WAP/GPRS. Back when i was in school, even mobiles were yet to be introduced. Recently I did a drive from Chennai to Blore in 3 and half hours flat in a verna, at times even doing 180 indicated. Couldnt have imagined that would be possible 7 or 8 years back.
Now if you look at the "plight of someone living in an interior village in UP"
you can see not much have changed for him in the past 7-8 years.
And yet we are ranting. We the privilleged. We the educated, who work for foreign multinationals for fatten their coffers with the money saved by employing us for a pittance. We the sophisticated, who can spend RS 2500 for 750 ml high energy fuel for our souls.We the liberated who are the first ones to jump at an opportunity to go ONSHORE.

We do not qualify to speak this way.Much of the perceived notions about the Govt, and the Ruling machinery is wrong,and needs to be corrected.I am not talking about politicians/police here.Neither am i justifying the corrupted. I am just underlining the fact that there is a silver lining amidst all thos dark clouds and that is becoming more prominent and visible for the elite and the middle class, and not the common man.

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

First of all, I am sorry for going offtopic.

You should be. There is every reason for you to be.

But then there is what is my point.

What is that point, eh?

We are not only paying more for cars but also for fuels. And that is what is my point.

Oh this is it eh? Nice point.I'll give you ten points for that. lol

My father works with reliance and I know what is refining and selling good fuel. IOC and other government suppliers along with government are simply too corupt.

Kid you are, repeating the same thing again. Kindly provide proof, as claimed in your earlier post.Pls keep in mind that this sort of allegations are akin to character assassination.IOC employs tens of thousands of officers, and majority of them god fearing, hard working individuals like you and me (on second thought,like me only because most of them might not know what is refining and selling good fuel.Complex things for normal people to know,Don't you think?)

There is an old proverb in malayalam. It says "If ones dad climb on an elephant the son dont get his A$$e$ sore" (Mallus forgive me could not find proper words. Somebody offer to word it better.Please)

I am sticking to one point of fuel, because if that is good many of our problems will be solved.

One problem kya?All will get solved.

I agree with you all completely that why are we made to pay soo much for cars as compared to developed world.

I too agree to that. And we should hav been discussing that only instead of this pointless mudslinging

Someone somewhere pointed out this protectetion ( that is doing us bad only ) policy to the late independence. Well, if you read all my posts in this thread, you will realize that Japan was almost ruined to Ashes after World War 2 and how the Mighty Toyota was basically born out of. They faced Nuclear Bombing in 1945, not long before our independence in 1947. They have the problem of EarthQuakes and space scarcity from day one after the 1945 incidence.
We never had space problem just after 1947. We never had serious earthquake problem just after 1947. Still Japan is way, way ahead of us.
Why? Its basically the Indian mentality. The indian thinking moral should or rather is suppossed to come up.

So now that we have identified the basic issue,and solution also provided by the identifier, things have become much easier.
Now all it takes is to recall all the Indians to their A$$, and reload mentality 1.1 with bugs fixed.
On a serious note, If you accept the fundamental difference between Indians And JAPs in the beginnning itself, why offer to compare.And what does this comparison prove? That things are cheaper ther than it is here? Think again.

Then today it wont be toyota leading the world. It would have been TATA.

I hope to see that realized one day.

Originally Posted by sbasak

I don't see any problem on current Indian auto industry. Compared to 1990s, now we already have lots of reasonably priced cars in our market.

Well some people are yet to notice the change it seems.No point telling them either.

Although, cars are fuel are comparitive expensive in India, many other things are far cheaper (compared to developed countries) - like cost of education, insurance, manual labour etc.

Exactly . If you keep aside the luxuries, Fundamental things like food clothing shelter(exception our thickly populated metroes where we are fast becoming world leaders)

We cry why BMW is not cheaper in India and in western world people cry why stereo of BMW costs as much of a whole car (i.e. Nano)

We win some, lose some

BRAVO.

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

There is unending debate, but let me talk about the automotive industry.

What happened now? Fuel got over?

Rather than have different segments of taxation like lenght and engine, why cant we have rule like Japan. Just fix size of engine and physical dimensions and then fix tax. Rather than have complex things.

You are right, but then remeber-Fundamental Difference- I recollect some YETIPOST about the indian complications-hilarious, yet thought provoking.Iguess same applies here too.

What is the quality of education, insurance, manual labour, etc.

Quality of education is good i should say.Again this applies for the middle/upper class only. Insurance? Was a good honest business till a couple of years back.Now its a fish market.(No offence meant.but I am fed up with foncalls for products i dont want) Manual labour? one of the cheapest (barring bangladesh etc..)

We cant argue in this fashion that we have relatively cheaper education actually I dont agree with that, inquire at any reasonably good institution for MBA fees and you will come to know

Stick to minimum ten topic in one post for gods sake.It was cars first, then government, then fuels,the mentality, then again automobiles, now MBA. What fuels you aggo?

We need better roads, less tax on cars and fuels and simultaneously develop very effecient and clean public transport.

Slowly but steadily we are going that way. Dont expect miracles.If you do, then better watch some hindi movies or some Purana episodes.This is India and not JAPAN

Its very very difficult, but not impossible. If we dont do it now, we will suffer. USA came up radically only after it made excellent highways. China made huge impact only after developing and implemention some of the most ambiitious raod projects.

Indeed.You are very true

We i.e our great Indian economy has suffered horribly with countliess loss of lives only because of bad roads. Had our roads been good, our ecenomy would be in a better state as would be we

Again you are right.

Charging excessively for cars is what is happening. As per your claim, we have cheap manual labour, still the cost of cars is so high wheather with less local content or more. And we dont get the full safety equipment like we do in developed countries. Less equipment + extra cost.

May be because our cars are not hand made.Benleys, Rollers etc might come out cheaper if produced here.

It is fishy. No arguments can satisfy this.

Thanks for realising that. Now peace.

Originally Posted by adityamunshi

Sorry for going a bit off topic. But as aagoswami mentioned, its all about the indian mentality.
We choose our leaders based on other frivolous issues and then complain about the same people. And when it comes to doing something, nobody bothers. If you have a road accident there'll be a mob waiting to beat you up but there wont be anybody to stand up for the gross misuse of public funds that is slowly draining our country today.
Imagine where we would have been if only half of that money was being put to rightful use.

Agreed. But does it serve any purpose in discussing such thing, other than the fact that it brings out the ignorance in the minds of the noveau riche in the forum?This petty bourgeousie attitude where anybody who is poorer than you is untouchable and any body richer is corrupt, do not suit this forum.I dont have any point to prove here as I also agree that cars are overpriced here. But then blaming and accusing any and evry except the self under the indian sun also do not prove any purpose.So does half cooked/uncooked knowledge about ones own country and resorting to compare it to others basis this.

Now how better i can conclude this other than with a JAI HIND ?