India has paved the way for charging merchants a fee on UPI transactions
bbc.com158 points by monkey_monkey 16 hours ago
158 points by monkey_monkey 16 hours ago
Pennywise, pound foolish decision.
India is forced to subsidize farmers to the tune of $37B JUST for urea. Governments routinely offer free bus services to women, free cash handouts to women, free electricity to farmers (who then use the power to pump out groundwater and grow paddy in areas otherwise not suitable for it). The list goes on.
A $1B subsidy to eliminate friction on the payment front is peanuts.
One of the reasons why the fee is being considered is under the pressure of other payment providers who are loosing to UPI in Indian market. Its been believed to be one of the negotiation points by the US-India trade deals
I won't be surprised. In Australia, no public transport system accepts the national payment system (EFTPOS) and instead it is either a public transport specific card or one of the 3 American rails. In NSW, there was promise of a second phase to support EFTPOS but that is hasn't happened yet.
The American Empire is alive and well.
Cards are so backward in 2026. To carry them should by itself make one shudder.
In NSW you can tap your Opal reader with your card.
A card that is using Mastercard, Visa, or American Express; no EFTPOS support.
What a fall from grace for the progenitor of Non-Aligned Movement to be bowing down to USA and hurting its own people. The Nation has been betrayed by the State.
I agree with the sentiment - however, even after independence, India has been ruled by the same Anglophone/phile elite with nearly the same set of laws/policies/ interests. Even the Indian constitution comes in large part from the 1935 GoI Act passed in the British Parliament.
(Anglo-)India is of the Anglophones, by the Anglophones and for the Anglophones for all practical purposes.
That's why laws etc. are mandated to be written in this foreign language that's incomprehensible to the majority, and why there's a strict near-apartheid like barrier preventing higher education (and with it, higher employment) to non-Anglophones.
The only reason I imagine we don't hear about this systematic discrimination that prevent downstream material development like industrialization (as opposed to the ethereal one like caste) is perhaps because Western institutions have vested geopolitical interest in having such a large vassal, intellectually if not politically.
> mandated to be written in this foreign language that'
I am sure people from the Northern belt would be happy if the laws were written in Tamil (my mother tongue).
EU laws get written in 24 languages - and the CJEU (the equivalent of SC) doesn't give precedence to any one "master" language. These arguments for a "master-language" (let alone a foreign one), by both Hindi/Tamil nationalists, are cliched and threadbare.
In my opinion, these are just excuses for continued colonial-era English-imposition - because it's often only the aforementioned section that makes such brain-dead arguments.
For all the politically-ostentatious love of their own mother-languages there's not a single technical-university of any great reputation in either of these (it's worse in other Indic languages). The economic-value of these languages is close to zero if not negative.
Sheldon Pollock notes that, even in classical studies and literature, the institutions have turned utterly incompetent and filled with political retainers who can barely hold a mantle to people from previous generations who were experts in linguistics and manuscriptology.
So much for "Hindi/Tamil..." pride...
Comments like these do injustice with Indian constitution which grants:
1. Protection of Language and Script (Article 29)
Article 29(1): "Any section of the citizens... having a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same.
Article 29(2): "No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them."
Article 30(1): "All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice."
Article 350: "Every person shall be entitled to submit a representation for the redress of any grievance to any officer or authority... in any of the languages used in the Union or in the State..."
Article 350. Language to be used in representations for redress of grievances- Every person shall be entitled to submit a representation for the redress of any grievance to any officer or authority of the Union or a State in any of the languages used in the Union or in the State, as the case may be.
Article 350A. Facilities for instruction in mother-tongue at the primary stage - It shall be the endeavor of every State and of every local authority within the State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups; and the President may issue such directions to any State as he considers necessary or proper for securing the provision of such facilities.
Article 350B. Special Officer for linguistic minorities-
There shall be a Special Officer for linguistic minorities to be appointed by the President.
It shall be the duty of the Special officer to investigate all matters relating to the safeguards provided for linguistic minorities under this Constitution and report to the President upon those matters at such intervals as the President may direct, and the president shall cause all such reports to be laid before each House of Parliament and sent to the Government of the States concerned.
Article 351. Directive for development of the Hindi language- It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India and to secure its enrichment by assimilating without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule, and by drawing, wherever necessary or desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other languages.
Amendment Act Year Languages Added Resulting Total
Original Constitution 1950 14 Original Languages 14 languages
21st Amendment Act 1967 Sindhi 15 languages
71st Amendment Act 1992 Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali 18 languages
92nd Amendment Act 2003 Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Santhali 22 languages
96th Amendment Act 2011 "Oriya" to "Odia" 22 languages
These laws mean zilch - the state of Karnataka, which hosts Bengaluru, where demagogues routinely raise Xenophobia based on language, has exactly 1-school that teaches Science/Mathematics at the high-school level (PUC, 11/12th) in Kannada.
Try using these "laws" and "rights" when you're trying to apply for a university, or asking a IIT to teach you in Hindi/Tamil LOL. These provisions are mostly used to skirt around the (generally onerous) laws by so-called "minority institutions" (eg. Manipal).
It's very disingenous to make such arguments by anyone with their eyes open in India. It's almost like the classic quip (almost a criticism of proto-liberalism) about the British empire: everyone is free in it as long as he's British!
Indians will go to Germany and learn German; go to Japan and learn Japanese; but will resist building anything of value with the culture/language of their own states of residence. The Anglophone-Indians will religiously preach a particularly seductive form of nationalist-liberalism internally for India that continues all the colonial structures of the British empire, because it helps them optimize for their own economic outcomes (ofc. they do this internationally too).
Absurd state of affairs tbh - and it has (eg. Blume Ventures' report) and will keep India poor with the wealth limited to ~5-10% of the population.
> Doubt in Germany a user can submit documents in French and can get have special protection by Germany for promoting French language.
I did submit a non-German language document to get my German citizenship.
At the end, whatever you say - India is f*ked up by regional politics. With English a poor person from region A can go to B and find some job/livelihood.
Are you against it? I understand you want homogeneity - it is not there.
But people like you creating divisions by telling
>>>> It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to
will promote more chaos. Good for rest of the rich world especially west and China.
Like my physics teacher used to say in Chennai... We don't need foreigners to mess us - We Indians do it for us.
All you want is India to fight like Arab states - internally. Divide and conquer. Thank you from the West and China.
> colonial-era English-imposition
Making it 45 languages etc will not solve issues. The point is not master or slave. Stop that victim mindset.
If people follow law and order all will be fine. Telling reputation etc is all good. Foreign people study and celebrate Indic languages better. Foreign institutes spend more grants in that.
> there's not a single technical-university of any great reputation in either of these (it's wor
It was tried in S.India - Anna University. Very few people joined to do B E in Computer Science Engg.
The real question is every ruler wants to keep population stupid.
You still celebrate people like NarayanaMoorthy or L& T chairman. biju or ola CEOs lying in public.
At the end, there is endemic corruption. Blaming UK or West will not solve anything.
It’s written in English because it’s the language spoken by the educated.
My wife is from south India, and I’m a frequent visitor to India.
It’s evident that Hindi nationalism is to the benefit of the north, while southern culture is slowly being replaced.
Hong Kong also uses English.
I assume it does have advantages. The common law of the ex British colonies are all broadly compatible, so there's the possibility of having judges from other countries decide cases. Trade and maritime law is/ was basically British law. I would guess it also helps foreign investment if the law is in a language those investors understand.
Yes, these were probably better reasons in the past though.
Respect to China who foresaw this and built a massive economy without using anything of US.
Brazil faces similar pressures from credit card companies via Trump. We're cutting them out of their precious profits and they don't like that.
Any such issues on health care side? Here in India, at least in my state (Kerala), American Private Equity giants such as BlackStone and KKR are acquiring major hospital chains. I am worried they will ruin our healthcare just like what happened in USA. Healthcare was one thing India had better than USA (at least in availability and cost, availability as in being able to see a doctor same day or getting an MRI in a few hours). Now, that will disappear.
https://indhospitalsolution.com/blogs/keralas-hospital-gold-...
> The research from the United States — which is a decade further down this road — is sobering. Studies of PE-acquired hospitals document consistent patterns: non-revenue-generating services reduced, staff-to-patient ratios cut, ancillary charges inflated, and a systematic shift toward high-margin procedures.
https://jeswinjos.medium.com/someone-is-quietly-buying-keral...
Same reason the US is going after Pix in Brazil. The world is decoupling from the US and the US is going to try to flex against it as it continues. Dollar dominance and the “exorbitant privilege” continue to erode (with the acceleration self inflicted). Also shrinks the TAM of these private US firms to only the US versus the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege
Something like Pix is a great blueprint for the future imo.
I don’t want international private companies controlling payments, better have my own elected government manage it.
I don't want corporations controlling payments, but I don't want my government controlling payments either.
What I actually wanted was for the cryptocurrency dream to become reality, but it turned into stocks instead.
It goes both ways: What if the ONLY payment method was the one approved by your "elected" government. A balance where they can all exist is the best, and most difficult decision.
The alternatives still exist, there is just less and less reason to use them because they charge extra fees.
Currency is already managed by the elected government, and every democracy in the world traces electronic transactions. Some (like Italy) forbid cash payments in large sums altogether. So what's the boogieman here?
Currency is a barriers bond that affords a degree of decentralisation-in-operation and use that isn't afforded by digital payments, even crypto for practical purposes.
The boogyman is just what you described, and every democracy in the world absolutely does not trace electronic transactions.
Some have a more hands off approach, including size of transactions and flagged behaviour as indicators of when payment processors must report to the government.
The Goverment should absolutely have no idea who spends what, where. Warrants and court orders, check values should be required before anyone can know. The potential to suppress political opponents, to squelch legitimate protest, to interfere with elections, is too dangerous.
Simply because some countries, like the US after 9/11, decided to give up this aspect of a free people, does not make it right.
AFAIK, in India, payments more than Rs. 50k is tracked.
In anycase, the governments have the capability, what remains is just the intend. And we see how intends could change at the whim of a leader.
The Italian government has no power over foreign cards, and will be careful to not hinder those transactions lest they want to lose their tourism income.
Yes, and this is a bad thing, and free societies are impossible without the possibility of payments that the government doesn’t want you to be able to make.
Cryptocurrency solves that problem well, which is why governments have moved hard to effectively nerf it everywhere.
> the possibility of payments that the government doesn’t want you to be able to make
The idea that visa and mastercard provide these ...
Visa and Mastercard don't, but right now cash more or less does. If the state has a monopoly on digital payments, and can thus mass surveil all digital payments without any scrutiny, the state has a huge incentive to disincentivize or bar the use of cash. Then all it takes is a bad actor to come into power and abuse the system.