india has a rising middle class with a hunger for the american standard of living. but this clashes with indian tradition.

Oh yeah! I've also heard a LOT about how terribly misogynistic India is! Stuff like how slavery is tolerated so that people who are well off can live in peace.

Thats what comes to mind when I think about India:

Spicy food
Full Trains
Ghandi
Bollywood
Callcenter
Programmer

Know Indians never talked about their country.

So you think multi-culturalism sucks and that a caste system is good?

No offense but I think I understand part of the reason India is the way it is.

India: Ghandi, curry, turbans... maybe because of the president or prime minister. The people I talk to whenever I want to complain about something or simply find out about something on the phone.

The west likes to talk up India as an upcoming economical, military power but I agree that it's nowhere near that. Indians I know also said the country is mega corrupted.

In terms of global trade and status I think it's doing the right thing. Stay close to China and russia (it's cold war ally). Be western friendly. The world is changing fast and and new alliances are being drawn up in the background.

Eventually I think India will become a full member of the east's  "answer to NATO",  SCO with Russia, China and a few others.

EDit: Just read that India has asked for full membership to SCO.

Multiculturalism works great. Just ask Bulgaria.

I'll throw out some of my perceptions:


1. A lot of Indians that I've met with have a horrible mindset when it comes to IT. I complain about it all the time to co-workers. Just like Pakistanis, Indians are not very creative. They will not bother to iterate on anything by themselves. Its almost slave-like. Very aggravating to deal with.

2. When speaking English, the accent and way your people (generally) speak it is horrible. Its very hard to understand, easily the hardest to understand when an Indian writes anything in English. Makes for very difficult conversation.

3. I do appreciate your culture and political evolution in the past 50 years. India has gone from independence, to playing a passive role in politics, to becoming a counterbalance to Chinese aggression in a very short period of time. For an American, it provides a reasonable (but heavily flawed) archetype for progression from colonial rule.

4. I wish your country would stop murdering Christians in some areas. Not saying all Hindus do it, but when I read about people being murdered for their religious beliefs, I am very saddened to hear it. Especially when many of the missionaries are trying to bring education and help to the people.

5. Heavy-handed socialism doesn't work for an emerging nation. I'm glad that India has developed into a quasi-capitalist nation, despite its major obstacles, especially the poverty of the country. India has some wonderfully bright people, and despite some of my negative statements, many are hard workers and simply want a better life, and I'll take that attitude over a lot of Americans I know.

My view is that it's packed with hindus (not sure if that's the correct word for it) and has about 30% cities while the rest is pretty much old towns with stone buildings and fields.


Of course I'm horribly wrong, but I'm also very honest =)

Wow, I had to log in after months just to post, after i waded through this pile of poo.
India is not a dictatorship.We have politically powerful families, not much unlike the Kennedys, but the people have every right not to vote for them.
Human slavery is , in no way, legal, or widely accepted in india(kind of limited to the rural areas, like sheep shagging in some of the more advanced nations of our world)
India's state of poverty is , in no small way, a by-product of some 200 years of British rule. Its there, but given time, and the money(which the evil corporations make and then pay taxes to the government), should be alleviated. Maybe will take decades, but it will happen.
India has an enormous educated, as well as hungry workforce. telemarketing jobs are just a part of it. I can bet most of the big game studios have a fair amount of indian devs hired.

As for the OP,
I honestly wish you could find a better forum than VGChartz, if you actually wanted a general and well informed opinion about your country.

My impression of India is that it is poverty-stricken, though improving. I believe that much of the poverty is at fault of poor policy ever since independence.