reallymental

Edited: Added the last line.

I won't add to the toxicity of the comments found in the article.

Has anybody who has worked on the Aadhar system have a presence on HN? The cynic in me wants to believe that the 'system' was nothing more than a simple crud app with the front end locked away under a username and password. Minimal effort, minimum spent.

Even large Non-Tech corporations are known for really insecure systems, insufficient password protection, easily guessed usernames etc. all in the name of saving some $ on development. And to think this DB was not even meant for profit in the first place!

Did they (the org that built Aadhar) commit the same mistakes or does this look like an inside job (purely for profit, with no malicious intent)?

I want to be wrong. I want this to be an 'attack' rather than just an 'pay for access' method.

My point was about the perceived superiority that some people have over the others, due to their geographical/cultural/religious biases.

I mentioned I was South Indian to emphasise my bias towards such a tone.

But as I have acknowledged in my above comments, I may have looked at the article through biased eyes, but I still think I'm right in my assumption about this author's tone.

That may very well be the case.

I did try to go through the paragraphs again to see if I could get a better read on it, unfortunately I came out with the same conclusion.

Edited: Added link

Fining them is a way, I agree with you on that. But it's far from the best way.

The paper you provided[0] also goes on to talk about the future actions of an offender who has been caught in the act previously.

> It should be noted that being caught cheating in the past does not necessarily provide an accurate measure of high perception of being caught cheating in the future.

I'll concede to cherry picking for my arguments, but even anecdotally, cheaters will cheat, cost is an afterthought. People negatively affected (caught cheating and fined) will only remember the part about being fined. From their perspective, the organisation has just exploited them more, and you have just bred more resentment for your organisation within this community.

[0] https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/46025357/bf0...

Yes, I did mention that they should remove the telephone interviews ideally.

I should have added the fact that skype would solve the issue as well.

But to this day, I don't understand why companies do a telephone interview. Its certainly not cheaper than a skype interview.

Maybe you could argue against a video call by saying that the person might grow a beard/shave their beard, put on weight/ lose weight, change their appearance drastically by the time they come to the first day on the job. Or the interviewee might be at their current job when they are interviewing for the next, so that might throw some people off the process. Thirdly I think some research somewhere might have said that a skype interview is more daunting, and hence less people will apply for the job/qualify to the next round as a result of the stress it causes and the telephone interview is just less stressful on the candidate.

All possible, all equally rubbish reasons imho.

hah yes the infamous curry was most of my diet throughout my life in uni. That and pot noodles might be the leading cause of my future diabetic pancreas.

They pay a non-decent amounts to these test takers, because they are desperate, and most likely not very well off. So they're already in the red when they appear for the job they are not qualified for.

Some do this because they think that the job market is skewed against them, and might also have the sentiments that these 'seats' within the companies are reserved for 'rich people' or the 'upper castes', when that's hardly the case. Bear in mind some companies/universities/schools only hire from a certain caste, that is a thing. One's caste is clearly mentioned in the Ration Cards, not sure if it's the case on the Aadhar Card.

Fining them for an opportunity they thought they were going to get by 'gaming the system they were gamed out of' is just kicking them repeatedly, and does no one any good.

Oh the old bait and switch works very well for telephone interviews. Remove them ideally.

Perhaps a solution to this could be to give the interviewee something that only he can give the interviewer back when they meet. Something that the interviewee cannot pass onto the 'real' candidate who will appear on the first day. On the other hand, fining the real candidate is the worst way possible, it has to be better than that.

It can help prevent this attempt of 'baiting and switching' to a lesser competent candidate in the first place.

The attitude should change from 'Oh I can give this test, I'll pass it for sure and you can pay me $X for it', to 'Screw that, they'll find out immediately that it wasn't me.'

> With not much left in terms of job prospects lot of people turn to shady stuff.

Plenty of opportunity out there in the farms, most of my friends have moved back to India to start (new-ish) farming practices.

It's this pervasive attitude that cities will provide you with growth, a big salary package and all for a degree that you've not been trained well in. Only a few universities in India are actually universities. The others are just as abhorrent money making scams as these call centers, comparable to Trump's University.

I propose we train them in maintaining our agrarian economy well, we're still reliant on the monsoon for many crops, which is not acceptable for this day and age. And most of all, this will get you votes, this will get you the MOST votes.

Yes, but what happens when everyone is on the short run? People die in the hundreds in India everyday (52 Accidental, and 32 Un-Natural every hour [0])

These ARE due to the sheer population numbers, but you cannot ignore the fact that everyone is on a very quick race, you can run it and die in the process, or you can scam some guy with a bicycle/scooter/car/heli/jet and get there quicker + safer.

[0] http://ncrb.nic.in/StatPublications/ADSI/ADSI2014/adsi-2014%...

edited: Some grammatical errors.

Great read, and full of issues that are discussed on HN everyday. Also, not a new topic, the call centers have been on the decline for long, and for good reasons.

> -today, young people from agricultural castes want to work in offices and not farms. I wondered what other options were open to them.

> Poojary read it out to me in his best American accent, which he had perfected by the end of his first week. He insisted that I play along as the unwitting American.

I'm South Indian, I didn't grow up there, but I can vouch for the condescending tone of Snigdha (the author of this piece). It's very much like how a condescending North Indian talks about a South Indian. And she's the 'educated' North Indian here talking to an 'un-educated' one. The condescension is palpable, and present throughout the piece. I have not read her other 2 pieces, but they're on similar topics, and I expect a similar tone. I'm not sure if it is a reflection of her distaste for the people in these highly questionable occupations, or just sprinkles of editorial hate.

> “America is full of old people who live alone. They have no one to turn to if anything goes wrong.”

I've heard many arguments about how its a cultural thing, old people in the west (more weighted towards N-America) are treated as a burden. A burden on the economy, a social burden (damn those annoying grandpa's and grandma's). Isn't that why the 401k and MediCare/MedicAid exist? (excluding the set of population that doesn't qualify for them) to pay them(selves) back for their 40+ years of service? I'd like to hear some fresh arguments/data on why they are treated as such. I'd be grateful to anyone who points me to more reading material on this topic.

> “It’s very easy to scam Americans. They are very gullible.”

It just becomes easier to exploit the opposite side if you just demean them a little. Americans are fat and stupid, the British choose to chew their crap food with their crap teeth, and don't get me started with those vodkaholic Russians. Why don't we go a bit further, dehumanise them, then you're off to war aren't you. I'm just pointing out the micro scale from which these sentiments can snowball, nothing more.

Besides being slow, the local telcos don't even allow VoiP protocols, how will this pass through

Almost like the concept in 'Animorphs'. Even as a child I found that creepy. This just amplifies that feeling.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animorphs

tried pyCharm?

I'm facing the exact same situation, except I cannot care less about food, which frees up some cooking time.

How do you manage your social life along with these activities? I find that it gets in the way of things I do, but on the other hand, not keeping in touch with friends (who don't do the same activities as you) just drives them away.

Leverage, banks hold the ability to lend a certain sum of money to multiple parties, thereby 'creating' more money.

The amount of money lent vs the amount of parties is the leverage ratio. It's usually managed well, but can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Edit: Forgot to mention reserve amounts. They are crucial.

I was about to colour the company all sorts of sceptical until I read about these two founders. A lot of work + very young.

Very well done indeed.

Apologies for the late reply, I was driving.

> "Is a language only a language if it is spoken?" --Certainly not, like you point out.

> "Sanskrit has a lot of cultural significance to Indians and it forms the basis of the vocabulary of the modern Indian languages (even the Dravidian ones.)"

Why do you measure the significance of a language by the effect it has as the basis of current languages, or even by the effect it has on the culture of those people? I find it quite the opposite.

I would argue the significance of the language has been lost due to its evolution into different, better versions of itself.

"Thy truth, then, be thy dower" -- nobody speaks like that anymore, because it's more tedious to do so, and I have no time to express my thoughts in such a vague manner. It's evolved, its significance has been lost to its more friendlier, quicker and (controversially) easier version.

I would argue that the culture shapes language, rather than the other way round. Texting on my phone doesn't look like full sentences, for instance. I speak better here than I do on Reddit, where my chats can be reduced to "lol" and bad puns.

If I followed your [language -->(leads to)-->culture] statement,

I would have to ask the question, who's culture?I know, it's quite well woven into the culture of the practising Hindu's (I cannot find any numbers on practising vs non-practising to argue further into it), I know that the most Muslims in India have literate knowledge Arabic/Urdu that extends as a tangent to their culture(none into Sanskrit for sure)... I don't know enough about the roots of Christianity in India to speak about it publicly (I suspect the British certainly had some hand in it).

But again the population ratios are heavily skewed towards Hindu's so you can argue that their momentum drives the culture. But I think my first point stands, the language has been dragged through the mud to appease convoluted political interests, and this language serves no more modern purpose.

> "perhaps a better analogy for what the Indian nationalists want from it is Hebrew. That was also a language no one except specialists spoke. Until they did."

Ah the Hindu Nationalists, how many remember how they ran through the streets cutting the Muslims up[0]. It instantly normalised all religious thoughts in my head. We're all just disguising our issues into a "My Dad is much stronger than Your Dad" fight. Nobody is better.

It took a world war for the Israeli's to get their own land, and they guard their's almost too fiercely. These Nationalists have their land (Hindustan), and yet they incite violence and stir the pot, under the pretence of being the white blood cells of the country.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay_riots

PS: Thank you for bringing up such good points btw, It's been a while since a thread made me stay up late to reply to. It's not often I think about these subjects, it was a good change of thought.

I understand that, but language that doesn't really exisit within the population anymore? Sigh.

Perhaps it's analogous to Latin I that case.

Not very surprising, it had to come from somewhere. The Indus Valley Civilization is quite well known amongst[0] Indians, and it does predate these Mittani's mentioned in this article.

All that aside, its very interesting. Also incredibly sad to see an entire nation wearing a language as a golden cloak, with a dagger hidden beneath it for the people it deems unworthy of it.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilisation

Just because you mentioned the UAE, how can I get in touch with you to ask you some trivial questions, regarding this desk?

wrong link dude

Recommended install via pip -- 'pip install kli' as kli's dependencies are installed along with it as well.

I've been using it for the past few weeks now without any issues, so please let me know if you do find any.

There are no tests as the project is quite small.

Why I made it:

Whilst completing the tasks in the fast.ai course & found the 'kg' cli quite cumbersome to use, and I didn't want everyone to see my password.

It also became possible for me to migrate my user settings ('.ini' file) to another system if I wanted to.

As a (relatively young) software engineer who freelances as well, I personally like what you have to offer.

Needless to say YMMV but keeping that aside, if the wage you're offering is liveable for London (around £28,000-32,000 before taxes) and your work hours are reasonable enough for the person to freelance (outside work hours for any surplus £'s)... he/she who shares your passion would leap at your opportunity.

The most weighted variable in that case, would be the level of expertise you're seeking.

Good Luck!

(I also noticed that --Osmium-- has a point with PhD's being good candidates, but again, most of them leave academia in search of greater pay. But please dont let that deter you, as almost equally they are attracted to making an impact with their work.)