Indian PM Narendra Modi's Reelection Spells More Frustration For US Tech Giants (techcrunch.com) 66
An anonymous reader shares a report: Amazon and Walmart's problems in India look set to continue after Narendra Modi, the biggest force to embrace the country's politics in decades, led his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party to a historic landslide re-election last week, reaffirming his popularity in the eyes of the world's largest democracy. The re-election, which gives Modi's government another five years in power, will in many ways chart the path of India's burgeoning startup ecosystem, as well as the local play of Silicon Valley companies that have grown increasingly wary of recent policy changes.
At stake is also the future of India's internet, the second largest in the world. With more than 550 million internet users, the nation has emerged as one of the last great growth markets for Silicon Valley companies. Google, Facebook, and Amazon count India as one of their largest and fastest growing markets. And until late 2016, they enjoyed great dynamics with the Indian government. But in recent years, New Delhi has ordered more internet shutdowns than ever before and puzzled many over crackdowns on sometimes legitimate websites. To top that, the government recently proposed a law that would require any intermediary -- telecom operators, messaging apps, and social media services among others -- with more than 5 million users to introduce a number of changes to how they operate in the nation. Reuters adds: After Modi's win, about a dozen officials of foreign companies in India and their advisers told Reuters they hoped he would ease his stance and dilute some of the policies. Other investors hope the government will avoid sudden policy changes on investment and regulation that catch them off guard and prove very costly, urging instead industry-wide consultation that permits time to prepare.
At stake is also the future of India's internet, the second largest in the world. With more than 550 million internet users, the nation has emerged as one of the last great growth markets for Silicon Valley companies. Google, Facebook, and Amazon count India as one of their largest and fastest growing markets. And until late 2016, they enjoyed great dynamics with the Indian government. But in recent years, New Delhi has ordered more internet shutdowns than ever before and puzzled many over crackdowns on sometimes legitimate websites. To top that, the government recently proposed a law that would require any intermediary -- telecom operators, messaging apps, and social media services among others -- with more than 5 million users to introduce a number of changes to how they operate in the nation. Reuters adds: After Modi's win, about a dozen officials of foreign companies in India and their advisers told Reuters they hoped he would ease his stance and dilute some of the policies. Other investors hope the government will avoid sudden policy changes on investment and regulation that catch them off guard and prove very costly, urging instead industry-wide consultation that permits time to prepare.
Re: (Score:2)
And if American companies get caught greasing any palms overseas, they can get in trouble with their own government.
Re: So this is why... (Score:2, Interesting)
The safety of the Indian population always comes first. The British taught a brutal lesson.
Wait (Score:2, Funny)
I thought Narendra Modi was where the Enterprise C was destroyed.
Re: (Score:2)
Why no Indian equivalents? (Score:1)
Why are there no significant Indian equivalents of American companies like Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft?
The Chinese have equivalents. The Russians have equivalents. But why not India?
It's not like India has a shortage of people. Its population was over 1.3 billion people the last time I checked.
There is access to technology, knowledge and capital.
Many Indians even have some competency with the English language, at least when it comes to understanding it.
So why, despite no obvious barriers, has India
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
"There is access to technology, knowledge and capital."
And their culture revolves around cheating, bribery, and stealing to get ahead. The barrier is that you're an honest person trying to start an honest company there, you have to compete with everyone doing shady shit, and trying to hire people that likely cheated their way through school. Good luck!
Re: (Score:2)
China and Russia were not colonized. India was. That is the difference. Indians don't have any pride in their country, and readily consume European culture (or in the eastern part of the country where people are racially close to Chinese, they consume Korean culture). It is only their poverty and historically close ties to Iran and Russia that is stopping them from becoming the biggest market of European/American tech.
The new government (the keyword in Hindu nationalist is "nationalist") seems to have a vis
Re: (Score:1)
Uh huh.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/09/india-tried-to-stop-cheating-in-school-so-half-a-million-students-just-skipped-exams/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.91d7c6493d06
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, it is BULLSHIT because it has got anothing to do with topic at hand. You do know that the CEO of Microsoft and Google were literally Indian?
Re: (Score:2)
Mostly because the big tech companies like Microsoft, Google,Apple, Facebook are full of Indians so Indians dont feel these are foreign companies. Indians in general are pro-American and trust the US and its companies. Its been mutually beneficial. India has supplied top flight technical labor and US companies have grown the Indian economy my moving bacoffice work to India. There simply hasnt been a clashing point till the recent hostility about visas.
Re: (Score:2)
There can be debates about the quality of talent provided and the clusterfuck that is integrating an organization's IT services with a foreign culture 12 hours away, but the reality is that a bunch if Indians filled a bunch of IT labor gaps at a low price (very low at a unit cost per hour) and some level of "good enough" quality that organizations kept using them.
There are a lot of critiques of this strategy, from the value of the product produced, the coordination friction, the undermining of American tech
Psst... they are the equivalent (Score:2)
Google and Microsoft are run by Indians, lol. Guess they are the equivalent :P
Re: Psst... they are the equivalent (Score:1)
Yup. That's why they have imported 600,000 Indian "guest workers" to Silicon Valley, while there are tons of unemployed American programmers.
Re: (Score:2)
That's it? The Slashdot trolls have become feckless, too? Gee, I was hoping someone would claim credit for the golf hack.
At least no one claimed to be the hacker, eh? I'm sure if #PresidentTweety had any idea it might have been someone from India he would have tweeted it out by now.
Dont bite the hand that feeds (Score:2)
The American tech industry has grown on cheap Indian tech labor and free access to the second largest market in the world. With Trump's visashenanigans now the Indian companies have nothing to lose by playing hardball and are lobbying the govt to take a more protectionist stance ala China and develop local champions. There is no shortage of developers and if needed most of Apple , Google and Microsoft can be recruited by offering to match their US salaries while spending time closer to extended family. Ther
Re: (Score:1)
The privileged often find justice to be unfair. Every country has been sucking the US dry since Reagan. That has been great for the ownership class, since they aren't really American but have a global lifestyle. Finally the US has found a backbone and is defending itself the way India, China, the EU and all the rest have been doing all along.
If you want the US "to be more fair on the trade of services," that means India is going to take a big hit.
Re: (Score:2)
Yet another bullshit. India opened its market to foreign countries in 1991 - literally after the collapse of USSR and USA succeeded in forcing India to open its market.
Let me repeat so you can remember it: USA forced India to open its market.
Before 1991 India had its own cola drinks, toffee companies etc. They went out of business after Pepsi and Coke came in 1991. Large number of Indian companies were wiped out by dollar-influx, all so that some poor racist idiot can drive 4x4.
Globalization has started to
Murica has "grown wary"?? Fuck off! (Score:3, Interesting)
Dear US corprations:
You don't own the world!
You're leeches, as per the definition of profit!
India is a sovereign country.
Your leaders are nuts, and your corporations only want to meddle with foreign countries. Going so far as to topple governments, install dictators, breed terrorist groups and murder foreign citizens on foreign soil willy-nilly!
I am no fan of nationalism *at all*, and find it insanely stupid, and even I think: And you're surprised they elect nationalists that want to lock you out??
So: You've "grown wary"?? How much more arrogant and condescending can you get??
Fuck off and die, leeches!
And leave Americans alone too! No exceptions!
Can you blame them? (Score:4, Interesting)
The re-election, which gives Modi's government another five years in power, will in many ways chart the path of India's burgeoning startup ecosystem, as well as the local play of Silicon Valley companies that have grown increasingly wary of recent policy changes.
Can you blame them? Seriously, just look at how all the Silicon Valley companies treat there users: a source of information to gather and sell. Companies from SV or elsewhere only have themselves to blame for any strict regulation coming their way since corporations have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted. Serious data breach? Just say, "opps, won't happen again," and do nothing about it or keep it completely secret. Those assholes are crying all the way to the bank and frankly they need to shut the fuck up when someone finally puts them in their place.
Modi's bank note debacle is beyond imagination (Score:3)
Indian banks are hard to deal with. So many Indians store their money in a mattress.
Then, over night, Modi declared the larger notes worthless unless they were cashed in at a bank. Which for millions of poor Indians was impossible to do, even after queuing for days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It is amazing that he survived that and then won big at the election.
The question is whether the bank note issue has made him think more carefully, or the election has fed arrogance?
Re: (Score:3)
When the demonetization hit these corrupt government servants, price goun
Why call it nationalist? (Score:3)
OK for decades India was ruled by the other party Cong-I. That is the "not-nationalist" party. So were the Western media showering great praise on the Indian government for it being not-nationalist? When terrorists were wreaking havoc in India, did it get any special help or media attention? Now why would they give you a rats ass?
Re: (Score:2)
Indians being patriotic to India is a crime? Shouldn't every party in every country to be "nationalist"? How can anyone expect them not to be nationalistic?
Except the BJP isn't Indian nationalist, it's Hindu nationalist. In that they believe India should be a state only for and of Hindus. India is roughly 80% Hindu, which means that roughly 260 million people (take all of the non-Hindu population out of India and put them in their own state and it would be the 4th or 5th most populous state in the world) would be marginalized, if not outright oppressed.
Re: (Score:2)
BJP's fight against instant-divorce has earned it a huge vote bank among muslim women. The old-guard is well connected and media savvy in the West. They are the ones propagating anti BJP stories in the Western media.
BJP is winning in muslim majority constituencies. BJP is not appeasing the leaders of the minority religions and is going dir
B$ (Score:1)
Its been this way for years, a non-citizen cannot work legally in India unless they are transferred within a corporation.
If the US were to reciprocate and limit South Asian visa access and Indian headshops, tariff or ban Indian dry goods like iron works and tractors Modi would change his tune.