wtmt

There’s an element of nationalism in this episode, amplified by the Indian government. This company, eMudhra, is a publicly listed private company. But the union government of India nevertheless felt obligated to downplay the issue (it always goes with a denial about any issues reported) and even went on a belligerent tone.

Quoting from a news report [1]:

> The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Wednesday said it has taken “serious note” of the reported security incident involving eMudhra’s Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and has formed a special team to investigate the matter.

> The ministry also warned against what it called “fear mongering” on social media over the possible impact of the incident.

The company’s stock is down to the lower circuit on the stock exchanges for the last two days. This exit may be a decision to stem the beating that the stock has taken. I personally believe the stock will sink further, as it deserves to.

Trust once lost, especially in a shameful meme worthy way such as this, isn’t going to be gained back easily.

[1]: https://www.businesstoday.in/technology/story/impact-has-bee...

I did a whois lookup now, and it seems like your domain still has privacy protection (or it was applied by Namecheap again) and is violating the registry rules.

> Why would you call an auto or e-rickshaw when you could call and pay for via Uber (which also does autorickshaw pairing)

I don't know when the last time was when you were in India, but using Uber to hail auto rickshaws requires direct payment to the driver at the end of the ride. Uber does not handle payments. Your credit cards are of no use for this. The driver will either take cash (without having change) or probably UPI.

In India, using Google Maps is far better, but it does have a few instances of failures (some that have been disastrous). When lost, asking people for directions has its own failure modes, due to people sometimes describing directions verbally in one way but pointing in another (opposite) direction with their hands (this is an amusing observation in India). The people who use Apple Maps (maybe a handful of them in the country) are cursed to get lost. That service is so hopeless in finding places that it may list something in another country or state.

OP, please add India as a shock target option if possible. It imports close to 80+% of its crude oil and gas requirements and is highly vulnerable to oil flow shocks.

This may not be much, but if you’re outside India, please write to your local representatives and also to the Indian government that you are going to avoid products made in India as much as possible, will avoid visiting the country for tourism or work, and will not invest in the Indian markets or in foreign currency bank deposits. Clearly state the reasons why, and ask how the “largest democracy in the world” could be so short sighted and dictatorial.

Note that India is heavily dependent on money from elsewhere (hence a lot of recent policy changes to bring in more foreign money). It is a net importer and isn’t strong enough on exports.

There are some recent policy changes to attract more foreign currency deposits with lots of expectations.

If there is a hint that these subversive actions are also going to hurt the economy, there is a tiny, tiny sliver of a chance that the powers that be will be a bit more afraid of losing the next round of elections in the state governments and in a few years at the union level. That could possibly limit the ignorant knee jerk reactions and bans.

Jains in India are heavy consumers of dairy products. They consume honey too. Most of them would avoid vegetables that grow underground and avoid the use of leather. They’re generally a bit closer to orthodox Hindus in practice.

In India this has been the regulation for several years, and has helped along with the Do Not Disturb (DND) registration by the end user and rules for senders/callers. Anyone sending bulk SMSes, even if the sending is done through a third party provider like AWS from another country/region, will have to register. [1]

The entity, the header, content template (which allows two or three variables/placeholders) need to be registered. A Distributed Ledger (DLT) is used to store these. Ad hoc messages without a registered template are expected to be rejected by the telco.

[1]: https://trai.gov.in/advice-to-senders

Seems like WhatsApp, which is much, much larger in India, couldn’t be restricted like this because everybody depends on it. Government work, police work, judicial work, everything happens on WhatsApp. Telegram is a good poster child to be beaten up because it has (built) a reputation for scams and frauds.

The way internet and internet platforms work in India is by the heavy hand of the government, which used bans regularly. Internet shutdowns are extremely common in India, where tens of millions of people may be affected.

This action won’t really solve the problem. But the government can claim that it’s doing something…that something being distraction from real accountability and responsibility.

Is consular processing prioritizing adjustment of status applications? Here in India, as of now, a consular appointment for a B1/B2 non-immigrant visa application is about eight months away. The COVID pandemic was mostly over about three years ago and there’s still not enough processing capacity.

Apple’s focus under Tim Cook to extract every penny possible from services while making them worse has been antithetical to its past promises of innovation or extraordinary experiences. If I wanted an ad infested experience everywhere, why would I choose Apple? This is the exact manifestation of enshittification.

It’s only US and Canada that are getting the maps ads, as of now. This means Apple is confident that Apple Maps is good enough and is used widely in those places. Apple is once again trying to squeeze more money out of services as the days pass. The App Store ads and experience are on the same lines. [1]

In India, Apple Maps just shows whatever TomTom or MapmyIndia or another provider has, and data availability and quality are extremely poor. The maps app cannot even find addresses or show transit directions in major metropolitan cities.

Tim Cook famously said in May 2016, when inaugurating a new office in India, that Apple is investing in accelerating Maps development. [2] These ads seem to a result of this investment.

Tangentially, it’s now a decade and Apple has almost nothing to show in maps improvements in India. It’s the same bad experience as it was then.

[1]: https://blog.thinktapwork.com/post/812803664980967425/ios-ap...

[2]: https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2016/05/19Apple-Opens-Deve...

> The correct analogy would be a foreign country requiring U.S. banks to send them data on their own citizens abroad. Which, I think, e.g. India could probably do.

India does get information from the US and other countries about Indian residents having accounts (bank, brokerage, etc.) in other countries.

There are agreements across several countries that use CRS (Common Reporting Standard) to report such information to other countries for tax purposes. This is not India or US specific.

> The problem with that plan is that no one wants to trade hard commodities for a currency that can’t be spent. One part of the dollars appeal is that it spends the world over.

> So no one is going to take up a lot of yuan trade unless that changes or they are forced to.

Related on the “forced to”point, this is where Russia is stuck with its crude oil sales to India where the payments have been made to it in Indian Rupees. There’s almost nothing that Russia can do with the Indian Rupee. This is a huge and growing problem because India’s imports from Russia eclipse its exports to Russia by more than 10 times. [1]

[1]: https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/india-russia-sum...

Meanwhile in India, people are queuing up to get LPG cylinders (cooking gas) and the government is making similar statements as quoted in this article that there are no shortages.

Pump prices of petrol and diesel in India are being kept the same by reducing taxes since there are some key state elections next month and the ruling party of the union government doesn’t want to hurt its chances.

Expect fuel prices in India to go up in May and the following months, even though procurement from Russia is increasing.

With a fertilizer shortage, the consequences of this war are making things tougher and tougher for common people everywhere.

I’ve known the difference in corruption at different levels between a country like India and a country like the US.

India hasn’t had a very long authoritarian regime since its independence. Yet, corruption has existed at every touch point with the government and shows no signs of reduction. In India, getting a driver’s license or getting a passport (for which there’s a “police verification” step) or buying/selling real estate or filing a police complaint or getting some work done in a court of law or even getting the final rites of a deceased person (burial or cremation) done require bribes in most places.

Also, paying a bribe means standing in line with the rest of the people who paid bribes. Things don’t move fast just because money exchanged hands.

All this is to say that I don’t know what to make of your statement on authoritarian vs. democratic regimes (though you mentioned “western”). The main factor seems to be the culture and what others here have described as low trust vs high trust.

The key word here is “typically”.

Transferring eSIM from one iPhone to another can be restricted by the carrier. Here in India, the second largest carrier (Airtel), does not support the native iOS eSIM transfer process. It’s a separate set of steps (the ones published on Airtel’s website won’t work, despite customer care claiming that it does). What works is almost like applying for a new or replacement eSIM.

There’s an interesting Malayalam (one of the official languages in India) movie titled “Virus” [1] from 2019, which is set during the time of the 2018 Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala (a state in South India). The disease is deadly and can have longer incubation periods (as stated in other comments here). Wikipedia says the mortality rate is 40-75%.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(2019_film)

> In India, every tax imposed on a business goes straight to consumer. The consumer receipt even mentions all those taxes item-wise.

As someone in India, this statement is incorrect. There are no consumer receipts in India that show the import duties (which is what tariffs are) as an amount or as a percentage. There are plenty of goods sold in India that are imported, duty paid, and the costs are passed on to the consumers (with no explicit mention of that in the invoice or receipt).

You may be confusing these US tariffs with local taxes in India like GST. In the US, sales tax is shown in the consumer receipts (if or as applicable in the state, county, city, etc.).

In India and in the US, import duties are not shown in consumer receipts, except in the case where an individual is importing something and is liable to pay the duties and levies directly. Indians would probably revolt if they actually knew how much customs duty they’re paying for all the goods they buy individually.

Sorry to hear this. From where I am (India), there’s hardly anything that you can do because it’s likely that the ones with power won’t do anything. As an individual, you can only focus on yourself and those you know and try to educate them as much as is possible.

These kind of scams have become a huge problem in India (look up “digital arrest” scams). People of all backgrounds and age groups have lost a lot of money (to put it in US dollar equivalent amounts, imagine a person losing few hundred thousand dollars to a couple of million dollars). There is nothing like “digital arrest” in Indian laws. The government has tried to warn people about this.

The larger problem seems to be a combination of factors across disinterested entities:

1. The police aren’t interested in solving these (there’s a separate division for cybercrime). Filing a formal report is usually thwarted and avoided by the police. Even if they show some interest, it always involves paying them fat sums of money. There’s no guarantee that they can recover the money.

2. The banks aren’t interested in solving this. It seems like specific bank branch managers are involved and just stand by allowing large transactions (like cash withdrawals) to just be approved without raising any questions or concerns. All the talk by banks about “risk management” (alongside compliance matters) goes out the window just for the victims of these scams.

3. With SMS OTPs being common and the scammers recruiting some locals to run SIM farms/phone farms, the telecom companies aren’t interested in solving issues within themselves either. Though there is a limit of nine phone numbers (total) per person in India, and though there is on paper a KYC process (including a live video) to get a phone number, the telecom companies have systems and employees who can provide numerous numbers based on stolen or fake IDs.

4. The government is a bystander and appears helpless. Instead of creating laws and enforcing existing laws, it focuses on some awareness that these scams are not genuine.

5. The Supreme Court finally ordered CBI (the Indian equivalent of FBI) to investigate these scams.

So there you have it: none of the entities involved has any interest or will to do something about the problem. There will always be excuses that the scammers are in another country.

> In response, the Wi-Fi Alliance and the DSA are trying to stoke fears that such a move would severely dent Europe's digital development, claiming Wi-Fi is the primary way consumers access the internet and constraining it would impact progress.

Just today, there’s a news report in India where the major telecom companies have lobbied that the entire 6 GHz band be reserved for mobile services and that even part of it shouldn’t be left for unlicensed WiFi. [1]

The problem in India is that the penetration of wired broadband is very low, and the telcos don’t seem to be interested in expanding it as much as they are in grabbing more of wireless spectrum.

I don’t believe it’s a good move to reserve these exclusively for mobile services. We (in general) need more unlicensed spectrum for innovation. Let the companies figure out another way out.

I also know that these bands are already allowed for unlicensed WiFi use in the US.

[1]: https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/j...

> QR Code base system is slow, have security risk and will not work without smartphone. Proliferation of hundred of QR Code based payments system is not a good thing, you need one that works across all countries.

Agree on some security risks. But the cost of creating, printing or sharing a QR code is very low compared to NFC hardware cost and availability. I don’t know what you mean by slow, because it takes about 10 seconds to complete a transaction. QR codes are quite common in cities and towns in India because of this reason (and the other is that Apple, though a tiny player in the market, hasn’t opened up NFC completely for others to use). You can pay another person or a merchant by scanning a QR code on a cheap Android phone. You can pay for a metro or bus ticket by scanning a QR code. You’d likely see restaurants having a QR code for menus instead of paper menus, and many more.

Even in India, a large country where Apple has a growing manufacturing presence, Apple Maps is totally neglected. It cannot find many places in major cities. It just does not have any transit directions in major cities. It’s at least 10 years behind Google Maps (which updates very quickly to changes, even though it’s not perfect). Apple just does not care much about countries other than the US and a few others when it comes to maps.

I don’t like this direction that Apple has taken over the last several years that it needs to provide more services and that all its services need to be monetized with an aim of a 70% plus profit margin. This greed to capture every penny is creating poorer and worse experiences for users of its platforms.

As for ads on Apple Maps itself, it may generate some revenue in the US and a few other countries. Elsewhere (like in India and many other countries), Apple has practically neglected Apple Maps and it sucks terribly even in large cities. Google, with all its tracking and other issues (including map accuracy issues), keeps moving at breakneck speed on Google Maps.

Apple’s single minded focus on the US with severe lethargy in other countries is why in most countries where (some/many) people use Apple devices, they use Google’s services. Both Eddy Cue and Tim Cook are squarely to be blamed for this greed, laziness and lack of vision or strategy.

I was looking through the comments here for something like this. Additional context for others here: Amazon in India is legally allowed only to operate a marketplace. It is not allowed to stock and sell products by itself (it does FBA, i.e., Fulfilled by Amazon for warehousing and delivering products by third party sellers).

Amazon in India has been close to perfect on customer service. I have had issues, but it’s still easier to contact customer service on chat or have them call me (both modes have become a little more difficult to access with the stupid chat bot responding and not helping). Anytime there’s a defective item that needs to be returned for refund or replaced, it’s been very quick.

Lately though, I’ve made it a habit of shooting unboxing videos and photos of the delivered package so that I have clear evidence on any wrongdoing by anyone in Amazon. For larger appliances and such, I’d still prefer a local brick and mortar store.

On the other hand, Flipkart, which is Amazon’s primary competitor, has worse prices on many items of interest to me, does not really offer fast shipping like Amazon does, has only a phone number to contact customer service (and that’s pretty useless), doesn’t have a simple way to get returns or replacements done, has a really stupid and useless “SuperCoins” rewards scheme, and more. It’s a wonder that Walmart is still an investor and owner in Flipkart and hasn’t sold it off and salvaged itself.

I do believe that Amazon’s service in India has deteriorated over the last couple of years or so. Don’t know if management doesn’t care as much or what’s happening within.

> Why would a justice in India serve the interests of a few rich foreign companies, while ignoring the needs of Indian students and researchers?

Because they’re used to serving the interests of large companies (domestic and international) as well as bowing to any executive comments or opinions. Indian judges rule first with their own opinions and moral views, then maybe look at the law, and then maybe consider the constitution (in that order).

As the article notes, people will just use a VPN or Tor to access the sites. The courts in India do not understand technology (like in many other countries). They just acquiesce to the demands from large companies.

With the indirect pressure through US tariffs, I wouldn’t rule out the executive finding ways to not annoy the US even more through some means.

I have a longstanding pet peeve with it (the judiciary): the entire validity and legality of the Aadhaar biometric identity program has been in limbo, pending hearing by a constitutional bench (the conclusion of “Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank”). This bench hasn’t been constituted for several years. Chief Justice after Chief Justice in the Supreme Court has ignored it and let the executive bulldoze everyone to submit, get this “voluntary” (that’s the official definition) number and link it in more and more databases.

Long story short, depending on the Indian judiciary for justice on large enough matters that affect the entire country and its future is futile. If it’s a simpler matter affecting one or two companies or a political party, the justice will be swift.

> The hardest part of learning to drive on the left is not turning on your windshield wipers every time you turn a corner.

This is something to learn the very first time when getting into a (new/unfamiliar) car before getting the vehicle moving.

Come to India and drive a few cars from different brands. [1] The rule is to drive on the left side of the road (so the driver is on the right side of the vehicle). But the sticks/levers to turn on the windshield wiper may be on the right side of the steering wheel or on the left side (and vice versa for the turn indicator sticks/levers), depending on the manufacturer. If you don’t check it in advance, you may end up wiping the windshield when you want to signal a turn or end up signaling a turn when you want to get water off the windshield.

[1]: Actually, it’s not recommended for foreigners to attempt to drive in India. The traffic is chaotic and one needs a different way of thinking to drive.

It’s similar in India. Even many businesses only use WhatsApp for orders and communications with customers. Heck, even the police use it to communicate between their people and with complainants/victims. Politicians use it between their party people and to send messages to the public. The average person on the street no longer knows what an SMS is or how to use it.

But I manage without WhatsApp (it’s also a privileged position to do so). Not having WhatsApp also helps avoid seeing all the junk and misinformation that people forward on it without any thought. There’s actually a name for this in India: “WhatsApp University”, which is a derogatory term for how people believe anything they read on WhatsApp and share it around without any analysis or thought or skepticism whatsoever.

The official response is that they won’t because 95% of their costs are in the search itself. I’m unable to figure out how to link to the forum thread, but you can visit https://kagifeedback.org/ and search for “regional pricing” to go through the “Implement regional pricing” thread.

Not GP, and I’m in a totally different country than the GP, but I’d be willing to pay USD 2 a month for a duo plan. I’d be willing to pay on an annual basis too, since small monthly payments usually incur higher processing fees (percentage wise) for the seller. Just for comparison, this amount would be equivalent to a Spotify Premium Duo subscription (with its regional pricing).

I’ve never even tried the free tier of Kagi because it’s limited and because the paid tiers are expensive (just like in your situation). I’m not looking for a free solution and I do pay for email (though not like tens of dollars a month, which is expensive).

Kagi’s official position is not to support regional pricing (visit https://kagifeedback.org/ and search for “regional pricing” to go through the “Implement regional pricing” thread). The service is probably out of reach even for many people in the first world. Even its family tier is expensive.

Hopefully, when it reaches a much higher number of users, it’s able to reduce prices. Or it can just remain a niche service and potentially be disrupted by a competitor.