What happens to the concept of service? Public service is not meant to be completely and perfectly safe. Hell, life doesn't come with any guarantees.
How does being in a constant state of stress and fear about life help you in preserving your life?
You're telling me that it's ok for a police officer in civilian life in the U.S to pull out a gun and intimidate a person like this article's author who did foot patrols deep in enemy territory, patrolling those very people who would initially have gladly watched him being gorily dismembered by IEDs or worse.
The concept of service is what you're forgetting. There are some jobs, some careers which can never be adequately compensated for in material benefits or guarantees of life.
You do it because of the intangibles- your values, your society's welfare, you country's welfare.
And service never ever comes with a sense of entitlement on the part of the person serving. Entitlement to life even.
The only thing that matters is getting the job done right. If this is expected of your military, why shouldn't it be expected out of police officers or any other emergency worker or any other public servant?
It's the mark of a better society that realizes what public service means, values it, respects people who've served their society and still expects and holds up the highest standards of service from service members and not just the military.
Yup, and this led to an imbalance in the officer corps too, with sikhs being disproportionate to their population. Though it's generally not talked about, that imbalance in the officer corp has been corrected. Started during the 1980's.
Another interesting aspect of Indian Army regiments is that they are based on a region or caste for the enlisted members, but the officers can be from any part of the country. So if you're a south Indian officer then you must know hindi and if your parent regiment is say the Gorkhas, they'll teach you Nepali.
Also, there has been a greater emphasis on recruiting from all parts of the country for the enlisted members.
Military recruiting has certainly improved and has become much more diverse over the years. The Army doesn't release this data because of political considerations. Politicians are sure to demand quotas if those numbers come out. And letting politicians meddle with the internal systems of a really good institution like the Indian Army is a sure way to gut it.
To clarify recruiting means recruiting of enlisted members. Selection may be the right term for officers.
It's always a good thing to question. Unless of course you belong to the camp who choose to be wilfully ignorant and closed in light of overwhelming evidence.
Had a few moments of such afterglow. And then the anguish. And then the thought that, is that not ok too? That the point is not to live in an eternal state of bliss, but to be more forgiving and compassionate when we do slip. And not let it cause any anguish.
Though we might be talking about different things here haha.
No, these 250 H1Bs are not direct petitions filed on behalf of Disney. That would've been great for Florida and the Federal govt.
What these companies do is insidious. Say, you're working for HCL in India, HCL files a H1B for you and sends you over for 6 months to the US and then you come back to India and hand over your H1B to them. Not very clear on the specifics, as I've only heard about it.
So during the time you're in the US, you don't get paid US wages for a H1B s/w engineer, which are pretty good. What you get is a stipend for those 6 months and your regular Indian salary which at the very max for the very best won't be more than $40,000 in conversion.
So these are significant savings for Disney and significant profits for HCL.
- H1B visas require that you list prevailing wage and that it's higher than the average pay for U.S. citizens in the same region. It can be manipulated to a degree, but not at scale (1000s) for a single employer.
- H1B visas are for a minimum of 3 years, not six months, during which the immigrant is forced to live and work in the U.S. (not India), thus spending and paying taxes in U.S.
This is exactly my point that I was getting at about the article - it's creating FUD about H1B immigrants and using Disney's terrible corporate policy to contribute to rumors like the ones you just said. If anything, the H1B program needs more funding for enforcement with employers, but stories like this make it seem like the program itself is the culprit.
H1B visas are for three years. it is profitable for HCL to keep the person in US on the visa, rather than have him work from India. You are wrong in saying that the person has to work in US. The salary is at least above 60K. Normally companies pay 50$/hr. The people they are replacing are normally cost to the company at least double that. The rate in India is normally above 20$/hr and employees get paid less than 6$/hr. All companies move towards lower cost areas, and that is the same thing happening here. Walmart, Apple would rather produce goods in Asia than US. Same way Disney would rather hire h1b and give the work to India.
So why can't lawmakers agree on preventing these consulting companies from applying for H1bs?
Corruption all the way through:
US Congress/Senate: "oh wait India is going to buy defence h/w worth $47B, we got to get in on the action"
Indian consulting companies: "dear Indian politician, we get a lot of money through Forex/labor arbitrage, let us help you get rich. In return protecting us from the fallout of these pesky articles is a national interest and oh hey how about getting us another 2000 acres of land out there."
Indian politicians and babus to US counterparts: "yep you can sell us your mil. h/w, but first let your contractors bribe us and then let our IT companies bribe you"
Pretty simplistic and only focuses on the corruption angle, while there are definitely other issues as well, but does bring up why the US can't just say "hey no visas for you".
This kind of a system is more damaging to India than the US at the macro level. Since it makes Indian companies and people who work for them incapable of doing something original and working on really hard problems in our backyard.
The attitude which it engenders is "oh hey, we can always stay in business by selling ourselves cheap and replacing Americans." This party will sooner or later come to an end.
At which point hopefully a lot of such Indian companies will go extinct and only the best will survive.
At the personal level, the Americans who got fired are going to be more resilient and will come out on top of the situation, however great their pain may be in the moment.
Oh, one more thing, this is not the only threat faced by employment in the US, there's automation too.
So, hatred of something, say Indian consulting companies, or people employed by them, immigrants in general, against robots or automated systems is no solution. I say this since this is the most knee-jerk reaction.
The only way anyone hope to cope with this is by not expecting it to get any easy. Not expecting ease or having a sense of entitlement. But by being open to learning, growth, reinvention and hope.
You're telling me that it's ok for a police officer in civilian life in the U.S to pull out a gun and intimidate a person like this article's author who did foot patrols deep in enemy territory, patrolling those very people who would initially have gladly watched him being gorily dismembered by IEDs or worse.
The concept of service is what you're forgetting. There are some jobs, some careers which can never be adequately compensated for in material benefits or guarantees of life.
You do it because of the intangibles- your values, your society's welfare, you country's welfare.
And service never ever comes with a sense of entitlement on the part of the person serving. Entitlement to life even. The only thing that matters is getting the job done right. If this is expected of your military, why shouldn't it be expected out of police officers or any other emergency worker or any other public servant?
It's the mark of a better society that realizes what public service means, values it, respects people who've served their society and still expects and holds up the highest standards of service from service members and not just the military.