China is legally required to pay fair market value and rehouse displaced peoples
Lol.
burningmatches
joined 1 year ago
Guess what? Being an authoritarian government means never having to ask permission to steal someone’s land, rip up a pristine habitat or demolish an entire village. Those types of considerations are what make infrastructure expensive in democratic countries.
It’s hard to read the Torah without understanding that Judaism emerged from a sea of competing religions.
Moses only went up a mountain for five minutes and the Israelites started worshipping a golden calf. And the first three commandments he came down the mountain with are basically a ban on polytheism.
Maybe this dude should rip up the Torah?
Part of the problem is that many government’s don’t fund infrastructure investment themselves. By privatising utilities and other vital infrastructure they can appear to “cut spending”. Of course, in reality the cost is much higher (and/or the investment is much lower) because privatised entities need to make a margin and (by definition) have higher borrowing costs than the government.
Reuters is a news wire — ie, newspapers pay to “copy” its stories. It’s not lazy. It’s why Reuters exists.
Aside from lunch ideas, sugar is a good cheap energy source on the bike. Just chuck some in your water bottle and give it a shake — costs a fraction of an energy gel and is pretty much the same (table sugar is 1:1 glucose/fructose vs 1:0.8 maltodextrin/fructose for SIS Beta Fuel).
Worst rush-hour traffic in Asia is a hotly contested title, but Manila wins fairly easily. One time I was there, it took an hour for my taxi to get out of the hotel grounds. Bangkok seems efficient in comparison.
Worst rush-hour traffic in Asia is a hotly contested title, but Manila wins fairly easily. One time I was there, it took an hour for my taxi to get out of the hotel grounds. Bangkok seems efficient in comparison.
The Economist ranks it on par with Poland, which is a member of the EU.
The downgrading of India's democracy is basically related to the rise of Hindu nationalism, especially under Modi, and the suppression of freedoms of speech and religion. These are serious and concerning issues, to be sure, but like I mentioned, India is a diverse country and the fact that these tensions have been kept in check for so long is the real surprise. Even Sweden is buckling under the pressure of a (relatively) tiny influx of racial/religious diversity.
India is the world’s biggest democracy. It’s the birthplace of four major religions, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism, and has one of the world’s largest populations of Muslims. It has 23 official languages.
The fact that it’s even still a country is a miracle of democracy (and cricket).
Even Thatcher’s Tory party was fractured — between so-called wets and dries. It’s inevitable that any broad political party (which you get in a two-party system) will contain extremes.
The minister in charge of HSR was sentenced to death for corruption.