This article is intellectually dishonest. It tries to subtly weave this narrative as causal to the declining participation of women in the workforce.
This is data fudging of massive proportions. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the participation of women is decreasing because of worsening social conditions for women. The social conditions for women have definitely become better over the last decades. The declining percentage of women in the workforce could be a result of a hundred other factors even if we assume that data is correct which I would be rather skeptical of.
Maybe it's just that the life has been so terrible in India a while ago that women were just forced to work regardless of the cultural norms, and now when it got better, these norms kicked in?
Life is still terrible for a lot of people - it is terrible for all poor people - it is terrible for all poor men and women - and it is terrible for all kinds of poor people.
But that still doesn't take away the fact that India is changing dramatically for the better for everyone including men and women and lower castes and what not, and the pace of change is accelerating. But no matter how much it changes, some of these stories will be there even decades from now.
The only reason reporting such a story makes sense is when it is indicative of a larger trend and when the writer chose to link it to the dubious statistic, she gave her intent away.
What the author needs to do is to dig deeper into the statistic, how is that collected, what is the segmentation and then align that research with broader economic and social trends to get a true picture. Only after all of this is done that she can take pick an anecdotal case and use that to better articulate her findings.
That research which changes everything wasn't done.
Your comment is just full of wild generalizations and prejudice. It has absolutely no basis at all - there is no emperical evidence that India is any more corrupt than any country with a similar per-capita - on the contrary there is evidence to believe that India is a lot less corrupt than a lot of other countries with a much higher per-capita (China).
The examples that you mentioned are picked out to just confirm your bias, lack of understanding and maybe a personal inferiority complex - the narrative can be constructed for any country on the planet by picking out facts.
The Indian grandfather who was paralyzed recently in the US - the police officer has been acquited - does that mean that the US police force is incompetent or the jury racist. Going by your arguments its both - and most conscientious Americans havent dont anything to fix it.
Indians (in India) will happily screw over their neighbours - but Indians in America won't ? Is it because they administer a special serum when you take the long flight which makes them conscientious or is it just a convenient argument.
The squalor in India's cities has nothing to do with being conscientious - it is simply because most Indian cities have one of the lowest per-capita civic spends in the world (because of extreme poverty) and lack of autonomous municipal govts.
I doubt China is as (or more) corrupt than India. There is ton of corruption in China, yes, but the people at the top do seem to care about China doing well economically, and about improving the living standards of the people in their country. Could you say that's true for India?
I'm speaking from experience, and based on what I've seen. In statistics, you don't survey the entire population, but rather you take a small sample. I think I've a statistically significant sampling of experiences.
The police-related issues in the US is a serious threat to personal liberty, and there are a lot of people fighting for it to be corrected. You are entirely wrong when you say "and most conscientious Americans havent dont anything to fix it" -- the people have responded overwhelmingly, and there is huge push and fight underway to correct the moral/social injustice. Just read the news.
I said "Indians (in India)" because, yes, there is a difference. If you surround yourself Americans, and spend time with them on a regular basis, you will naturally, over the course of time become more like them. If you always stick around other Indians, then you will not change. I've had bad experiences with non-family Indian people. Various Indian friends I've had at various points in my life have screwed me over / been a bad friend to me at a much higher frequency than my American friends. These days, I keep people who are too Indian (culturally / identity-wise) at an arm's distance, and avoid getting too close to them.
I've just had really lopsided experiences. The majority of my American friends have been genuinely been friends. In times of trouble, they've sincerely empathized and actually tried to help. A bunch of Indian "friends" I had in the past, would laugh when I got into unfortunate circumstances, and they certainly would not try to help. There are good and bad people on both sides, but the majority of Americans I've come in contact with, have been a much better people, character-wise.
Regarding the squalor, your "poverty" argument is cop-out. Cities like Bangalore, which are filled with tech companies, still look like steaming garbage dumps. Why? Because the people don't care. The cost to clean up the city, and keep it clean on a regular basis, would be tiny. Simply collecting 50 rupees per month from the residents of Bangalore who make above a certain wage, would be, by far, sufficient to make the city speck and clean. What makes me irate is total apathy of the majority of these people about the cleanliness of the public spaces of the cities they live in. I've seen people in nice cars, open their window, and toss garbage onto the sidewalks/streets. It's pathetic and disgusting. It tells something about their character/culture.
I understand where all this is coming from, and I can share very detailed counter points to each of your claims but maybe you are getting there yourself.
Looks great, but I can't comment more as I haven't used it.
It looks to be solving the same problems as DNAnexus, Seven Bridges, BaseSpace etc as a way to wrap open source tools in more user-friendly ways.
But it's orchestrating the production of smaller set of data that still needs the next step of human interpretation, report writing, family-aware algorithms and most complex annotations (the problem space Golden Helix is in).
In other words, the automatable bits that is not the hard part that I mentioned in my blog post.
This is data fudging of massive proportions. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the participation of women is decreasing because of worsening social conditions for women. The social conditions for women have definitely become better over the last decades. The declining percentage of women in the workforce could be a result of a hundred other factors even if we assume that data is correct which I would be rather skeptical of.