Well, I do think the companies discriminate. They sell whatever is feasibly in the market and within the limits of the law. India has pretty bad roads and average speed in cities are often slower than bikes speeds in Mountain view so many Indian cars do not really need airbags and various other safety mechanisms not to mention lower value of life itself.

You do get top notch, safe vehicles as well, it is just that most Indians dont consider the marginal safety worth the price.

To add another perspective, I purchased a Maruti car in India about 4 years ago. On paper every variant from the lowest to the top has an 'optional' version with airbags.

In practice, the waiting period for any variant with safety features other than the top speced would be "over 6 months, no gaurentees". ie: as a customer, I was forced to buy the top end variant -- with alloy wheels, chrome trim and all sorts of other crap which I did not care about because I wanted the safety features.

I think that maruti is using safety features as a way to upsell customers who care about safety. The difference isn't a "marginal cost". For some models, the difference is 30% the cost of the car.

No wonder it's so difficult to source good Tea in India.

I didn't think Tea of all things would be brought into this discussion, perhaps British?

Coincidently, my ancestors lived in tea plantation estates, worked under British longer than most of my country men until the estates were bought by the Tatas and Birlas.

So here are my two cents for good tea in India - You can get good tea in plantation estates at almost any outlet, but obviously great tea like anything else is of export quality and it's fairly easy to get if you know the right person in the tea factory at the estate. Fun fact, no tea sold in the market is 100% just tea, they are the mix of tea and lot of other stuff which shall remain unknown to enjoy a good cup of tea.

So, let me plug my favorite tea place, Sancha Tea Botique. I loved them when I was still in India.