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OT
From the news reports I read, these were on contract labour and the contractor had not made payments. This sounds similar to the violence at the Maruti plant some time back - the company handing off labor management to 3rd parties and turning a blind eye to issues related to labor issues(not my employee, not my problem). Thankfully, this time no harm to lives is reported.

The incident hopefully does not turn into a negative industrial investment sentiment - at a time where the nation needs to get more people employed.

In the video, I see several "SRS travels" buses, these buses are/were used for employee transportation for some IT companies in Bengaluru. Leads me to think that perhaps there was employee transport facility.
Given the location of the plant, one would assume that many employees would commute from Hoskote/Kolar (the nearest big towns) - both being ~20kms away and if transport was not provided. As you mention, the amount would turn out to be a significant one.

Ignorance, lack of respect for rules, illogical rules and regulations are bigger factor than anything else. All this doesn’t costs anything.

If we were better disciplined, had respect for others many things would have improved. We can drive a million Rs car but we won’t know what’s yield or how to drive in lane.

Regarding the IPhone factory wages, such lower pays by contractors etc is just an excuse. If the factory owner wants they can do direct transfer of salaries and costs pay the contractor a commission for managing.

It’s a shame that our minimum wages are so low, if we have to grow, it’s high time to increase these irrespective of the consequences. I am sure, consumers can pay little extra and demand will instead increase due to the better buying power of masses.

Sorry, I missed the source for this part. Here it is (Source: The Hindu dated 01-June-2018).

Okay, but I think I can be excused for making the assumption that you meant USD :).

I am not making excuses or offering opinions or peddling narratives. Just making facts plain and clear how chaotic the situation was before the 24th March announcement. Every state had their own myriad lockdown/curfew rules.

Here is an example dated March 20th:

Source: Deccan Herald dated 20th March.

Green shoots continue to emerge, here is India's Chief Economic Advisor:

V-shaped recovery of economic activity continued in Oct... IIP & eight-core index further inched up to pre-COVID levels. The broad-base recovery in IIP resulted in a growth of 3.6 percent in Oct-20 as compared to a contraction of 6.6 percent in Oct-19.

The full Twitter thread is here: https://twitter.com/SubramanianKri/s...247062529?s=20

True. Long ago I had this problem with the agency that was providing security service. They were collecting even PF amount from us, but not submitting to the government. Finally the PF department came after us. They told us that outsourcing manpower is all fine for logistics, by we are still responsible for people getting paid. If someone works in my building, and I pay for his/her service, I must also ensure the person gets paid. Since then we insist that the security agency must show proof that they are current on payment for the guards working for us.

So this Taiwanese company can't act like innocent bystanders.

No, the Karnataka minimum wage is not low. It is quite high, even by local standards. The contractor was breaking the minimum wage law in this case.

https://www.simpliance.in/minimum-wages/karnataka

For a moment, lets leave the politics of this aside and discuss something which is much more intriguing. What exactly is the co-relation between political freedom and economic development?

Increasingly, people yearn for a 'less democratic' model of governance which will be able to provide development without being weighed down by multiple interests. A system quoted often is China (and I would add Vietnam which is trying to replicate China though in a manner nowhere near as regressive) but even there, an average Chinese person in 2008 enjoyed more personal freedom as compared to 1988, much more freedom than in 1968 during the times of Mao and even more than 2018 given the regressive steps Xi has taken with his own form of atmanirbhar-ism, increasing authoritarianism and increasingly aggressive behavior internationally. This could be seen in India as well where we saw the highest economic growth when we had the most (economical & socially) liberal governments. So, the question is, can China continue to grow while becoming more authoritarian? India being a democracy is a bit of a open question (can go either way).

Here is the video which gave food for this thought:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7om35BjQQM

If a country is rich in scarce natural resources (Eg: crude oil, natural gas), economic development seems to happen even without political freedom (Eg: Russia, Middle Eastern nations). But if a nation has to depend on its citizens' ingenuity for growth, it looks like economic development happens only when there is freedom/ democracy (Eg: Western nations).

Only China (no political freedom, but strong economy) & India (relatively robust political freedom, but weak economy) seem to be an exception to the above "rule".

It's unfair to compare India with Australia, still I will give some examples to show how two countries are the same. Sydney Opera House initial budget was 7millions and ended up costing 102 millions. Incompetence of Victoria government allowed second wave of covid, which costed multiple billions, and health minister was made a scapegoat, Victorian premier continues to be in office. There are multiple premieres who are trigger happy, they would close the borders for months and do not allow anyone to perform even the last rites on humanitarian grounds. I can go on and on and on. The point I want to make is there is no ideal system or a country. It's very unfair to compare India to other countries.

More than political freedom, I think what investors and the population expect is consistency and stability in the economic policies. If there is broad consistency, no matter which government comes in periodically, investors would invest in that country and there would be economic development.

That's where China could succeed, even without political freedom; An investor in China in the 90s or 2000s could reasonably be assured that their investments would not go kaput totally (if the right hands are greased). No western country/company takes a moral stand against China.

Western Europe/US/Canada/Japan/Australia etc have built their systems and institutions over decades so well that there is this consistency and predictability in policies. African or South American countries to a large extent don't have this kind of institutional stability and hence there is less economic development.

India is getting there; there is broad level consensus among all political parties on the major reforms (e.g. GST), though I see worrying signs state level infrastructure projects get scuttled (e.g. Andhra Pradesh capital city development) when governments change.

Was the budget blowout attributed to corruption of some sorts or merely a planning disaster? And you had to go back 50 odd years to find one and you did not mention it, why?

The fact is that the state's health minister had to resign, whether scape goat or not is merely an opinion depending on your political leaning or what you want to believe. Second the multiple billion dollar spent as a result was spent on public households and small business's not on personal/governmental excesses. And how did we do - Migrant crisis, millions of people left penniless without jobs, most vulnerable poorest citizens including children left to die on the roads?

One one hand you are asking for the resignation of the State Premier for not handling Corona virus second wave properly and on the other hand you are asking the state to risk infections? The regulation were clearly laid out and no one was allowed to break them - not political parties doing their events on whim, not religious places or the kin of the politicians doing as they please.

I never said Australia is an ideal country but it scores very high on human development index (6th overall), India is at 129 below countries like Iraq and thats 2019 ratings. And this is mostly down to how people conduct themselves and their government.

Why is it unfair to compare India to any country? Both are democracies, free market economies. How long till we keep making that excuses? If South Korea can go from almost bankrupt to a fully developed country in half a century, China can be an economic superpower with massive domestic consumption in 20 odd years, what excuse do you want to make for India? The excuse is that people keep finding excuses - population, bad politicians and politics, no comparisons [you can add more...]

Not when Indians are stealing from Indians. For all the chest thumping about Apple manufacturing iPhones in India, Indian pushing to be a manufacturing powerhouse, companies moving out of China due to COVID, this is the result. Is it the fault of the workers who werent paid by the contractor or the fault of the government who does not have labour protection laws?

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/79712635.cms

I did not quote the year of completion since I believed people know that its not a new monument. I quoted the cost which occurred
40+ years ago and not the adjusted amount for the day.

I wanted my response to be a-political since I have nothing to do with Australian politics as of now. I wanted to say something about Australian prime minister holidaying in an exotic beach when Australia was burning. But holidaying in exotic beaches sounds too familiar to Indian politics, so kept away from that.


Lets not hide the truth, I have watched politically backed protests(US origin) in the middle of pandemic LIVE, I know what social distancing guidelines were followed. I also know how a Cruise ship was allowed.

I do not have any bad things about Australia, I like it too, may be one day I might call it home. I agree to your point this is mostly down to how people conduct themselves . The way most Australians followed covid restrictions was amazing, but I did not see same back in home.

South Korea's past is not democratic, the present is also dominated by Chaebols. President pardons convicted Chaebols chairman. China less said the better. Look I am not going to say bad things about other countries and similarly I would not say everything is great in India. Every country is unique and has its own issues. A country(democratic) is as good as its people. Politicians, politics,..... are just excuses.

Okay so let me get it straight, it was 50 odd years back and the cost blowout was not due to corruption or miss-appropriation. So what exactly is the issue?

The media called it a horror show, the public derided him so much so that when he went to a community affected by the bushfires, a woman simply refused to shake hands when he put his hand out. And bear in mind as it is important, its not because it affected the response to bushfires in anyway, it was a moral position that the media and the people took against him for simply going on a leave with his family. He apologised publicly for it too. Again, I fail to understand what are you looking for here? How does it even compare what the politicians are upto in India?

There is nothing to hide. Those were black lives matter protests after the incident in USA and werent related to a political party whatsoever but people coming out to protests even though they were advised to stay inside and follow the COVID regulations. The matter was also heard in court on behalf of the state government as they wanted the court to make it illegal as protests are a fundamental democratic right. As for the cruise ship, there was no ulterior motive to it as you want to imply. It was a simple mischaracterisation of the ship as low risk back in March. You are just cherry picking stuff without any context what so ever and are heavily opinionated. I am even tempted to call it motivated.

Most Australian were paid $1500 a fortnight if they were in any job, they had free COVID tests along with free healthcare. Even quarantine for the first few months for returning Australians was free and in a 5 star hotel no less. What exactly did the Indian government do for its citizens and your response to that is "we should not compare" and some cherry picked incidents without context.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarat...h=2b03aaca6dbe

You are wrong about South Korea. You need to read up on the history of what happened and why it happened. Ignoring that what is your point exactly? Is democracy good or bad? Did they progress because they werent democratic or they did because they are a democracy? What about China then? Or you just take a stand on right or wrong now because you have the full benefit of hindsight? Country building is a process, nothing is perfect from start but from 1948 to today, I would say that the South Koreans have done mighty well for themselves and their people. Yes China has massive issues too but look at what they have achieved in the last 20 odd years. Their GDP is 5 times that of India from being almost equal in 1987. GDP per capita India was richer than China in 1990. In Nov 2019, China is 4.61 times richer than India in nominal method and 2.30 times richer in ppp method. Have you had a look at big Chinese cities? They are better than the best of Europe or USA in term of infrastructure. They are doing better on the environment front too with only one Chinese city on the top 10 most polluted cities list, while a staggering 6 Indian cities make the list including our capital Delhi and just 3 cities from Pakistan. Yes our much maligned neighbours are doing better than us but again if we dont compare we would never know and therefore would never have to do anything. Or compare when it suits us or worst cherry pick events/incidents without proper context.

P.S. This is going off topic and I dont think i would be responding any further.

And the quoted article is saying exactly what I said. Let me quote and clear your confusion
"India is 18 months away from getting its first ever exclusive pair of VVIP planes as Air India’s brand new Boeing 777-300 ER aircraft left for the US on Friday morning to be overhauled for use by the President, Vice President and Prime Minister of the country."

Notice "brand new" I dont think brand new means using existing commercial planes.

And its clarified here "In February and March, Air India added three Boeing 777-300 ERs to its fleet, completing an order of 68 planes placed in 2006. Two of these three planes have been set aside for VVIPs."
Meaning of the 68 brand new planes ordered, last 3 arrived and of the 3, 2 have been exclusively set aside for VVIP travel.


"The plane will be modified to include VIP enclosures, a press conference room, on-board Wi-Fi, and a patient transport unit for medical emergencies, among other requirements."
The brand new planes have travelled for retrofit NOT exisiting commercial air planes!

You are laying too much emphasis on a reporters view of what is "brand new" :).

Fact is, Air India had these planes in March 2018. And then the planes flew back to Boeing in June 2018.

Whether Air India flew them commercially during the three month period (Mar --> June 2018), and whether it can still be classified as "brand new" after 3 months, is the only question that only Air India and the reporter can answer.

Anyway, these planes were not ordered during the pandemic or anywhere close.