but that's the thing. Its not novel. As in, I am inventing something. I see a gap and opportunity and began to execute.
I am worried about AI because it has reduced the entry barriers. Much easier now to write code or atleast build MVP and get traction.
and that makes me question whether all this effort is futile if the only things giving me an edge os the early start.
I am not from Kerala but I have spent the last 25 years there. I have family in Kerala.
Kerala got rich because of emigration. Sometime during the 80s, Keralites began migrating to gulf in very large numbers. The foreign remittance is the biggest reason why the state is rich. It can be said the proximity to sea and a history of trade with gulf countries enabled Keralites to migrate. And of course, the will and courage of the early emigrants to migrate to a different country.
If we look beyond the foreign remittance, there are quite a few issues in the state.
Unemployment is much higher than national average[1]
Kerala youth are struggling with the drugs problem, in high numbers.[2]
Very little industrial investment because its a state with communist government and not industry friendly.
There are towns where every household has someone abroad. Only the elderly are living in those big houses.
> The valuables have been accumulated in the temple over several thousand years, having been donated to the Deity, and subsequently stored in the Temple, by various Dynasties, such as the Cheras, the Pandyas, the Travancore royal family, the Kolathiris, the Pallavas, the Cholas, and many other Kings of both South India and beyond.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] Most scholars believe that this was accumulated over thousands of years
Remember that most Roman gold ended up in India. India was the main far East recipient and trading partner of Rome, not China (trade with China was mediated by Indian kingdoms). And that was one empire with which South India traded. It's unfortunate that a lot of narratives about India are driven by the North. The South is way more interesting, in my opinion (I'm biased).
> It's unfortunate that a lot of narratives about India are driven by the North. The South is way more interesting, in my opinion (I'm biased).
It's not from North India though. North India is not on the land-based trade routes between the Middle East and the Far East due to mountains along Myannmar.
It's from Central Asia and the Middle East, who's views are often followed by Indian Muslims for political scoring against Non-Muslims. A lot of the people in Central Asia and the Middle East absolutely hate Indians and South Indians, so they often tend to write narratives that avoid India. So something like discussing direct contact between the Middle East and the Far East but avoiding India. If you want to read about the genuine geopolitics of ancient India then read some historic texts from the Far East.
The idea of there being a strong conflict between the north and the south is something driven by corrupt left wing separatist and regionalist politicians in South India, but most North Indians don't think like that.
I am ethnically Indian but not an Indian citizen. I honestly don't really care about Indian politics or religious factionalism. For me, I find the history of my own family interesting, and don't like how 'india' is presented in history books as primarily the gangetic plain when there are hundreds of millions of Indians in other parts who have a related, but different history.
I mean even customs that are 'Indian' in the diaspora are often north indian customs. It's fine, but it'd be like asking a new Yorker to make southern bbq
It wasn't donated money entirely - at least not in the sense of offerings from regular devotees. They were donations/remittances by the monarchy. The history is that the southern half of Kerala was a kingdom named 'Travancore'. During the establishment of the kingdom, the first king declared himself and his successors to be 'Padmanabhadasa' or 'servants of lord Padmanabha'. Lord Padmanabha is the deity worshiped at this particular temple. The temple was considered as the seat of Travancore's power and therefore a big part of the kingdom's tax revenue ended up there.
There are a lot of royal families still present in India. But they're all in ceremonial roles and have no constitutional roles or powers like the one in Britain enjoys. They mostly live off their estates (similar to the British royals) or business enterprises.
And then there are many companies where there are still silos, almost no automation, systems engineers are more focused on machines than the product and the company advertises SRE role- simply because its the trend.
Read 'The tin drum' about 10 years ago. Didn't get a lot of it but I remember getting very fascinated with it. Kind of like Murakami but I found Murakami easier to read.
Time to read 'The tin drum' again.
He didn't work for the STASI, he volunteered for the Waffen SS.
> Grass was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland). In May 1945, after service as a soldier in the Waffen SS, he was taken prisoner by U.S. forces and released in April 1946. Trained as a stonemason and sculptor, he began writing in the 1950s. In his fiction he frequently returned to the Danzig of his childhood.
> He didn't work for the STASI, he volunteered for the Waffen SS.
He volounteered for the Kriegsmarine, but that was in 1944 when Reich was in full retreat in the east, and so he was pulled into Waffen SS ranks instead.
I think you're mixing some things up here. He never worked for the Stasi, on the contrary, he was under their observation since 1961.[1]
He was, however, a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS in his youth, though he claims to never have fired a shot. The fact that he chose to make this public only very late in his life (and many years after he had receiced the Nobel prize) is what is really problematic, in my opinion.
i never understood this part: how could he hide his Waffen-SS membership for so long? He would have had a highly visible tatoo on his left arm; well, maybe he got rid of the tatoo somehow after the war or something like that.
He worked for the Stasi? I think you have this completely wrong: the Stasi observed him.
Maybe you mean that he was briefly a member of the Waffen-SS at the end of the war?
I thought I read something about him having worked for Stasi but I am clearly mistaken or at least can't find anything about it now.
Still the point I was trying to make is that the man and the writer are different and if Mr. Grass worked for the SS instead of Stasi that doesn't make him any better as a man, does it?
Toward the end of the war, the SS meant something very different from before the war. Mr. Grass didn't "work for" the SS; He was conscripted into an SS combat unit after volunteering for service with the regular war department.
I don't have much of an opinion either way of Mr. Grass, but I don't think volunteering to fight in the Army as a teenager reflects negatively on his character.
> I don't think volunteering to fight in the Army as a teenager reflects negatively on his character.
I believe criticisms were leveled at him mostly for not disclosing that he served in the SS until 60 years after the fact (despite Nazi criticism being a common theme in his writing).
Well you are certainly free to think that but I disagree with you.
When you join the army you are also joining what that army stands for. If you were a communist, certainly joining the US Marines would not be high on your priority list, would it?
Unfortunately having an opinion seems to be met with downvotes here at HN which is unfortunate for such a otherwise pleasant group of people.
5) They implemented cash on delivery. A very brave and novel approach. This basically instilled confidence in the indian online buyer
6) Fast delivery. I will go ahead and say probably as good as Amazon or even better in big cities. They built warehouses in the big cities and stocked fast moving items in a lot of places
7) almost guaranteed savings on all things. I have rarely seen anything that is more expensive on FP compared to a store.
8) Good online experience. Little things like checking delivery using your pincode. Responsive site. Product suggestions.
How is cash on delivery novel? Where credit cards are not ubiquitous this is the only way to sell stuff online. Pretty much every single online store in my country did this for years.
I am worried about AI because it has reduced the entry barriers. Much easier now to write code or atleast build MVP and get traction. and that makes me question whether all this effort is futile if the only things giving me an edge os the early start.