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Why is this person's photo on EVERY.SINGLE.WEBSITE in India.

I know the answer. Just unbelievable self-promotion at public tax payer expense.

Is there a similar case elsewhere in any other democracy that's comparable.

Don't be triggered, its okay. Take a deep breath
Is the same case for state schemes as well. Regional non centre party CM's pictures are everywhere from Ration cards , bags , televisions , electricity cards etc. Nothing new.

By the way , I loved the press conference (https://youtu.be/NaMUQQtlrNA?t=296) of the minister (seems well informed atleast from the way he spoke - may be good secretaries , still)

> Nothing new.

The sheer scale and ubiquity is definitely very new. It's even more pronounced now than compared to his first term.

> seems well informed atleast from the way he spoke

Well, he did study electronics and communication engineering.

Who is this person?
Prime minister of India. Politics in India is very messy.
State level politics, sure. But country level politics has been consolidating for a while now. Major players are mostly two, INC and BJP.

There have been efforts to bring forth a coalition of smaller regional parties to amalgamate into a third national contender, but these efforts have not been very successful.

I would not put INC and consolidation in one sentence. Actually it is the other way, INC fragmenting into regional satraps - that gave BJP enough wind behind its sail.
A good proxy for a party’s influence is how much declared assets they have. By that definition, there are regional parties like BSP that are better funded than INC. it’s safe to say that INC is a national party only nominally.
Doesn't every populist politican do this when and where they can? I'm sure I recall Trump adding his 'brand' to a number of things he barely had any say in, whilst he was in office.

I imagine a number of the % of public tax payers who are ardent Hinduists are probably quite happy to see Modi's mug on things. He's their guy, after all.

There is a reason for it.

A picture goes very far than any words.

A lot of new schemes are introduced by this govt, and there is a tendency in Indian politics to show or lap up to those currently in power.

So its not like this person is demanding a photo be put, but lackeys will do it anyway.

Also, the govt structure is different than in the US. The administrative department is under the control of politicians. So you have this effect. A byproduct of colonial government. In the US, the birth of US was marked by rejection of British.

In India, it was not the rejection of British, but, a good faith handshake goodbye that marked the birth of it.

Believe me. The moment the govt changes, the pics will change, or be removed.

ass kissing by the ruling political party wants to create big-brother/mao/kim style obedience among the masses. seriously the old fart is a parasite
Every day is a campaign day in India -- every year there is election of State legislators or Municipalities/Panchayats/Zilla Parishads.

Modi mastered it -- more than others. I went to India recently, every Gas Station has a big ass banner of Modi about some LPG scheme. I mean, if every web site bothers you think about this on a road trip.

You can do cult as long as you competently deliver but when things don't go your way, the posters will remind people of him and his failure -- it is a double edged sword. A blunt instrument of propping image.

It’s a legacy feature of Indian democracy. Prior to this almost every public building (universities, Stadiums, Zoos, Office Buildings, Parks, etc) were named after Nehru, Gandhi or someone else from ruling family. Those names still exist.
except they are all dead people who did good and it's a way of honoring their 'legacy'. this is much much different.
did good part is arguable but to answer your question Indian democracy is very personality driven (for the most part). We took the presidential election and merged it with parliamentary election. People in most states still vote for the leader of the party and not necessarily for the candidates in their constituency. Its like we took the worst part two systems and put them together.
Every bench in every park in India comes inscribed with the name of the Mayor who installed it. This is different, but not much different.
You can take the state of Tamil Nadu as a counter example. A lot of welfare schemes have photos of politicians both dead and alive. Mostly presented in a way that implies the old guard is passing on something to the new one. It's there in a lot of other states come to think of it. But of course no one did it to such an extent at the national level than modi. Almost every other scheme is under his name
A lot of schemes coming from Modi & central budget is passed off as schemes from the state with picture of Stalin (DMK TN chief minister).

So much so that DMK is called the sticker party, at least among the well informed.

Including our vaccine certs.
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Thought of a new project: modi.jpg - document which all government websites have this person's photo on the homepage.
Collective fucking madness.

It's tiring to be subject to the constant narcissism. The human toll of the incompetence of this government is incalculable. They've set us back decades, if not forever, because I have no clue how our dumb bureaucracy and spineless civil society are going to deal with destruction that climate change is likely to visit on the subcontinent without completely fragmenting.

It might be annoying but it’s fairly benign afaik.
Narcissistic personality issues maybe?
That is how it works both in democracies as well as dictatorships, where few people have the time or incentive to be well informed, they associate the good schemes with the person/party symbol attached to the scheme.
The initial attempt failed in spectacular fashion back in the 1980s.[1] Given that the same incompetent bureaucracy still runs the country, this is never going to happen.

[1] India's Semiconductor Failure (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isBYV6QWDIo)

The failed enterprise was a government owned and managed entity. The new attempt is to help setup private sector managed entities.
> The new attempt is to help setup private sector managed entities.

I get that. But these projects cannot run on political will alone. Ministers change. And parties can lose in elections. The only constant is the bureaucracy. And I have very little trust in their competence.

Yes, something that failed 40 years ago is a good indication that it will fail today. Fantastic observation.
It was more likely sabotaged, this is incredibly common. The state is too soft on terrorists & anti-social elements.

As a poor country we can not afford to deliver first world "Human rights" especially for hardened criminals.

> The Scheme for setting up of Semiconductor Fabs in India shall extend fiscal support of up to 50% of project cost on pari-passu basis to the ...

>The Scheme for setting up of Display Fabs in India shall extend fiscal support of up to 50% of project cost on pari-passu basis to the approved applicants ...

>The Scheme for setting up of Compound Semiconductors / Silicon Photonics / Sensors (including MEMS) Fabs and Semiconductor ATMP / OSA...

These were taken from the boxes at the bottom. Does this read as repetitive in Indian English as in American English? I had never seen the phrase "pari-passu" before either. It seems like this project is just starting, and is going to be looking into how it could grow a domestic manufacturing chain for semiconductors.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pari_passu

> The Scheme ...

They keep using that word, I don't think it means what they think it means. /s Though maybe they just plan to write all their support code in LISP.

A Scheme in Indian English does not include the “evil” connotations. So it’s more like an initiative or project.

There are many such idiosyncrasies that make more sense if you accept that it’s a different dialect (rather than assuming they’re using American/UK English incorrectly).

Very common in the subcontinent in the context of a planned residence area, even after their completion some may be called xyz scheme 1, xyz scheme 2 ...
It is a common latin expression. Maybe more common in romance language countries.
Coming to the main topic --

1. Every major design corp has India campus, so India definitely has the talent for design

2. Coming to Fabs -- India lags big time. Why?

I am going to give a half-informed answers -- please fact check and correct me.

a. Dust -- at least the lower peninsula is Dusty (this has to do with Monsoons & Western ghats ..)

b. Water -- It is very hard to find the kind of intensive water facilities that do not go against agriculture sector

c. Silicon -- comes from Quartz and Indian Quartz comes from Andhra and Telangana is not of great quality

I can see India having fabs for domestic consumption and lower end.. not for export or bleeding edge.

note: Please down-vote if you think that is right and also provide feedback where I am wrong -- that would actually help here.

d. Politics. Large industrial projects in India, especially those with a lot of foreign investment potential get politically co-opted, so it's a very risky move for any large company - you need a lot of political capital to setup a new large fab in India. (which is why this ISM thing is important - it sets up the stage from the center)
e. Bureaucracy. - Incompetent and corrupt with massive colonial hangover.
> a. Dust -- at least the lower peninsula is Dusty (this has to do with Monsoons & Western ghats ..)

Huh? Your cleanroom standard for semiconductor manufacturing is more stringent than air quality in Switzerland. I think general air quality matter less when you can use sophisticated cleanroom equipments.

This sounds like complete speculation?
Not complete speculation - its a view of a by-stander. I have family working in Fabs but do not fully understand things and trying to piece things together.

I know the fact Silicon does not come from Sand but mostly from Quartz. That is not speculation.

I do not know the effects of dust in air with respect to how that will have effects on Fab.

Fabs are water intensive -- that I know and growing up Indian states always used to have water tensions

As disclaimed -- I do not know it fully but I am not completely clueless as you suggest.

The quality of quartz-rich minerals used to charge the metallurgical silicon furnaces barely matters for semiconductors. The purity required for the final silicon is much higher than any mineral resource found in nature.

See this presentation "Manufacturing of Silicon Materials for Microelectronics and Solar PV" for an overview of how industry turns quartzite and coal (dirty) into ultra-pure silicon:

https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1497235

If I were to guess, I would say that India's largest obstacle to domestic silicon production and refining is the price of electricity. The processes need a lot of electricity so they tend to be located in areas where it is available at low cost.

The point is not to produce semiconductor that goes against the likes of TSMC but to decoupe the supply lines for critical application (military, governments) from one source. The same reason they and every other country is building a gps replacement
Dust and water issues are present in Arizona too. As someone who did their undergrad engineering in India, I suspect the reason is different - India has no materials science talent. Because there are only a few universities teaching the subject, and it's often heavily focused on steel-making as it's metallurgy heavy.

As per my observations, even most of the graduates don't continue in the field, they either go to foreign countries for graduate studies, and almost never come back - or switch careers to IT/Consulting/Finance through an MBA within a decade of graduation.

None of this matter - Between Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel & Arizona.

You got desserts, water scarcity, earthquakes, security risks - pick two.

I live in Denmark and I have never seen a Made in India product. Maybe they should start with electronics manufacturing services before moving onto semiconductor manufacturing? Just like China did.
India is more known for its services exports than manufacyturing exports. You might have seen folks from TCS or Infosys etc. or Indian doctors and nurses in your neck of the woods.
Here in uk many are restaurant workers, street cleaners, etc. Manufacturing would greatly improve india quality of life.
as if no uk citizen is a hotel worker or street cleaner
Indian economy went into Service sector after agriculture.
Maybe that was not a good idea. Compare India with the countries that focused on manufacturing at it's pretty obvious that the latter fared better:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export-oriented_industrializat...

I’m not so sure about that.

Manufacturing comes with its own problems, the chief one being all sorts of pollution. I think it’s fine that the country jumped directly into services.

India has the 6th highest GDP in the world. And is on path to become the 3rd highest in the coming years. The only question is whether India can surpass GDP of US or China in the next 30 years. Let's wait and see.
I am not sure where the stat is coming from but india has one of the lowest gdp per capita. Industrial development is badly needed.
Its true, that per capita is very low, but you should see that india is a huge country which had a lot of poverty and illiteracy in the past. And huge things take their own time to build it's momentum, so I know for sure that future is very bright.
India doesn’t produce a lot of consumer goods. However, there is a good chance that the lab equipment and chemicals used were manufactured there. For some reason, most drain caps in the US happen to come from scrap iron mills in India..
I have seen speciality pharma equipment and medication from India. I live in middle America.
There are more electronics manufacturing even in Bangladesh than India.

Foxconn tried to setup in India in 2004, and ran away in terror 3 years later.

Wistron got union wrecked once they delayed the salary for "just" one month.

Companies in India basically have budgets for union strikes.

Continuing your racist tirade against India, I can see, with your false anecdotes.
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Middle America resident. My set of open ended wrenches was made in India. They’re holding up well enough. Though I must admit they don’t see a whole lot of use.
Do you use a computer?

Well, some of the software stuff on it is from India. Enjoy!

India is mainly known for second tier customer support than software.
Looks like you created this account today to specifically bash Indians.
Every major software company have big development center in India, Microsoft, Samsung, Google, IBM, Amazon.

It is just wrong to say india just provide support. That was the case like 20 years back

I recall maybe some clothing items, or houseware/decorations/textiles from Ikea and Zara Home.
I have a pair of sneakers made in India I bought in the UK.

That’s only interesting because it’s the first pair I’ve seen sold here.

I’ve also noticed Indian metal working stuff turning up on ebay and Amazon.

I generally think of India for service but it’s really interesting to see if it can become a manufacturing hub too.

India needs home made electronic components so badly. As it is doing experiments in electronics is expensive enough. Hoping localized manufacturing and factories may reduce it a bit.
Funny factoid: Fairchild Semi, them being Hinduism obsessed hippies, seriously considered setting up a factory in India. They went to meet Indira.

What Indira did? Shooed them away, and told to blacklist them for visas.

"Thinking machines," they thought, would completely annihilate the bureaucratic work, and babu jobs for their progeny.

Sorry, that is not a fact, but a racist anecdote.

Indira, typical Indian can't understand semiconductors and behaved like an uncivilised tribal... is what you want to convey?

You won't talk about the thousand ways Indians were kept from immigrating to the US or acquiring computers and mainframes using sanctions.

> Indira, typical Indian can't understand semiconductors and behaved like an uncivilised tribal... is what you want to convey?

No... Indira indeed understood semiconductors, and "what those thinking machine thing is" way batter than most of her contemporaries. She was very educated.

In fact, she was promoting computer education heavily, yet her vision for the computer was complete opposite of business minded Americans.

She seen computers to be powerful, and heavily restricted machines in the future, gated behind the elite "oracular class" to prevent proletarians from computing something wrong (like finding out cong fudging economics figures.)

For her vision of computers, mass manufacturing was not needed, and, worse, it was dangerous. She didn't mind computers costing millions of dollars, or being the size of a mountain, and only available few pieces per country as long as the owner would be her/the government.

She later conceeded on this towards the end of her reign once she seen the industry choosing the Fairchild's path irreversably, but the ship has long since sailed.

Criticizing one particular politician for a technical/economical decision is racist now ?
Indira is part of the dynasty. Her father Nehru the first Prime minister won 0 votes within the congress. Yet as fate would have he was propped up by M.K. Gandhi, the non-member dictator of the congress party.

I as many other Indians suspect today was just a continuation of the colonial rule.

So Indira like her father was a continuation of the colonial rule.

Why don't they reduce the insane taxes on computers and other stuff used in manufacturing? Simple things like laser cutting machines or lathes are taxed at ~27%. How do you expect people to compete in the global arena?