Attocs

Government should provide jobs - so they simply pay people to do unproductive jobs rather than removing some of the hurdles to new business starts, lowering costs of compliance etc etc....gosh I love this country

I know what you mean, have seen the same thing - I just wonder if it is a culture that started in govt? It surprises me for a country that is supposedly struggling to gather the resources to meet the needs of its less fortunate people that there is obviously a mountain of resources being supplied to those that are contributing very little economically but could actually contribute a lot given the motivation/opportunity/incentive

What I find bizarre about this is that where I live, India, this seems more prevalent than anywhere else I have traveled in the world. Its as if the vestiges of British bureaucracy have left behind a middle class with such a sense of entitlement that they seem to have no problem with the obvious fact that their job is meaningless.

Apparently the official policy is that government employees cannot be fired so are simply given something, anything, to do until they retire - don't quote me on this.

The strange thing is that you have a non-english speaking, poorer, class beneath this (of around 600 million people) that simply MUST make an economic contribution in order to survive because no one will pay them anything unless their economic contribution is undeniable.....

Despite my cynicism, I too have had a positive experience with at least one Indian medical institute. Instead of using general anesthetic and an operating theater to work on my friend (which would have required several nights recovery in a hospital) they operated on him under local anesthetic in the dentist's chair. It wasn't pretty but it was a complete success. Other doctors had quoted me 60,000 rupees for the procedure ($1100 USD) but the whole thing was done for 10,000 rupees ($184 USD).

Working with people who live on the street, I cross paths with the medical profession here regularly. Some doctors have proven to be pretty apathetic, but the odd one, through the necessity of giving affordable health care to India's thronging poor, has proven to be truly innovative.

An account of discount surgery here: http://lostinmumbai.org/2013/03/11/9/ Some of the discount was good will but a lot was innovation and the ability to take risks through the absence of repercussions.

I'm a NZer living in India and I see the themes described in this post on a daily basis. One example: http://lostinmumbai.org/2013/04/14/a-man-called-bunty/

does this have anything to do with me getting a 403 from http://kim.com/mega/ ??

erm, is this a joke? If its not I am a kiwi living abroad who is in the country right now (briefly). If you want to catch up I will be coming through Auckland in the next few weeks.

NZ is an extraordinarily picturesque country filled with sweet but naive people. As a small-town kiwi boy I have had my mind blown in the last few years traveling and working in some of the poorest parts of the world. The really difficult thing is coming back and trying to tell people there is more to life than the frequently changing weather conditions or the latest All Blacks result

The people sending the sms messages are very poor and will have the simplest phones on the market, I have one of these such phones and it doesn't seem to be able to send sms to email.

Thanks for the response, any suggestions on the best way to get the sms from the phone to the computer automatically? There could be hundreds coming through each day.

HTTP/SIP/SMPP SMS gateways in the cloud.....is that a do-able option for me?

Thanks

NB we are looking for open source/low cost solutions. Be as creative as necessary.