[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by OneToughHerring

The world community should value dead Indians as much as it values dead westerners.

Or dead Africans. I agree. But sometimes there is just nothing you can do about the problem. Trillions have been spent in foreign aid to countries that have improved little, or not at all, or even moved backwards. You can't buy prosperity*, you have to earn it, and in order to do that you need a framework that promotes free trade.

Simple enough? Yes, India is not very wealthy so it has to accept bad deals from big corporations and risks such as industrial accidents are much bigger then in the west where much more emphasis can be placed on worker safety etc. In India there is a kind of restriction - free capitalism in action that has very little rules that govern it and the few rules that exist aren't enforced.

Actually, India is quite socialist. It takes years and years to even start a business there, as every proposal has to be put to a government committee and evaluated for merit. Then business has to navigate legal minefield just to operate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_labour_laws
I believe you were saying something about labor law? Feel free to look up other parts of Indian law, they're all pretty much that bad.

I think India's problem, if it has one regarding law, is that there are so many laws that they tend to be ignored and or selectively enforced. That's just plain bad for business.

And as far as India being a big country with lots of resources, what resources exactly?

As krashkart mentioned, there is the vast amount of human resources, and India is one of the world's largest producers of coal. They have some oil, a host of semiprecious minerals and a fairly large supply of ore. Most of the land is arable, IIRC.

I'm not sure about the rest, but let me ask you this: What resources does Hong Kong have? Or Singapore?

The answer is none, they're just small rocks, but the free market has enabled people to generate standards of living far above those in India, and they even have greater population density.

Also of note is that Singapore is an almost totalitarian state, while Hong Kong remains mostly free in terms of individual rights, but both are prosperous because of the shared lassiez-faire approach to the market, suggesting that this is the key reason for their success.


*With the exception of nations that are drowning in oil or some other precious resource - Norway, UAE, Kuwait, etc...