India Report

As most of you know, I was just back from a short but sweet vacation in India. Surely, India has developed in giant leaps and bounds in the past few years. But there are a few things which I noticed, in this visit, to be in the same place ever since the times I can remember. Let me list some of them:
1. I was directly asked for a bribe at the Hyderabad airport as I was carrying excess cigarettes than those permitted. I was carrying 600 and the permissible limit is only 200, which I don’t know. I was told to either pay Rs 500/- as bribe or Rs 1000/- as tax. What I paid is an entirely different thing, anyway.
2. I went for a drive with my family on the main road when a police vehicle came in front of us from a sideway without any signal. What’s more annoying is that the driver was abusing my father for not slowing down and giving way for them, even though they came from the wrong side.
3. Another day, we were on the high way in our car, waiting at a signal. The signal flashed green and we started to cross it normally. We were in the middle of the road when a RTC (public transport) bus came towards us at high speed from the other side. The driver didn’t even slow down his vehicle when he saw people crossing the road. It was sheer luck that no one is injured in this incident. Maybe the people are used to incidents like this in such a way that they are able to get away just in time.
4. On the final day of my vacation, I was passing-by a flyover which’s under construction in the heart of the Hyderabad city. There were a number of child labourers working there. If it is like this in the capital of the state, imagine what might be going on at other places.

I noticed some more incidents like the above ones during my stay. India can never be called a developed country unless the government takes care of issues like this.


Note: I don't mean to degrade India by keeping "xx" in place of marks in the above picture. Inconvenience is regretted.