> 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.
I had the experience in india of, I believe, asking for directions, and the person didn't want to lose face by saying "I don't know and can't help you", so they just sent me in a random direction
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.
As an Australian who moved to India a couple of years ago: I’ve found India’s Do Not Call Register significantly less effective than Australia’s, because telco, ISP, TRAI and other government offices keep on sending spam, a lot of it stuff that will train people to be phished, and if you report them as DND violations, they declare them service-related. And for telco/ISP, they commingle with actual service-related and important transactional messages, so you can’t just block the shortcodes.
In Australia, I don’t remember ever really getting spam SMSes. Emails from the bank, yes, but that’s easier to filter if desired. When you get the same old spam messages time after time, you can filter them in email, but text message apps are often not up to that sort of thing.
The really stupid thing is that more than half of the spam is about blocking spam. At least once a month, AD-TRAIND-G sends:
> స్పామర్లపై చర్య కోసం స్పామ్ను రిపోర్ట్ చెయ్యండి. అయితే, ఫోన్ కాలింగ్ యాప్లో స్పామర్ను బ్లాక్ చేయడం వల్ల స్పామర్పై చర్య తీసుకోబడదు. స్పామ్ను TRAI DND యాప్ లేదా సర్వీస్ ప్రొవైడర్ యాప్ లేదా 1909 లో రిపోర్ట్ చెయ్యండి. TRAI DND యాప్లో రిపోర్ట్ చేయడం సులభం మరియు వేగవంతం, ఈరోజే ఇన్స్టాల్ చేసుకోండి.
And AD-AIRDOT-S just sends a random message from a pool of half a dozen or so, mostly English but one or two Telugu, sometimes every few days, sometimes every few weeks. Such as:
> Alert: On receiving unwanted SMS , please complain by calling 1909 or send SMS to 1909 in format 'SMS Content, Sender No, dd/mm/yy' or visit bit.ly/2qBK0vp to report through Airtel Thanks App.
(Huh, that link is now broken. Used to work. Makes it even more dumb.)
I should automate reporting all of this stuff, deliberately to waste their time, and maybe, just maybe, make someone think, “maybe we should stop sending this stuff”.
There was also RCS… I turned that off after a bit, because it was being used purely for spam and undesirable stuff, and you couldn’t complain in the same channels. RCS is dead like this.
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.
If whatsapp is restricted in India people will be on the streets. But as you said, this might be first of many bans on Telegram. In the end they will make it a hassle to use it reliably.
I for one am happy that they were only able to ban Telegram (and by the looks of it, they weren't really successful because there are reports that the app continues to work). Nothing of much consequence happens due to this, and the government ends up looking like clowns, which they are.
As the internet becomes more critical for work and education, they're finding out that they cannot impose shutdowns for too long without hampering everyday life and commerce, which would make people angry.
The more the people in power get repeatedly shown up like this, the faster things will improve.
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.
> 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.
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.