The word is quite common in India. Here's a summary: Hawala transfers are mostly done by the underworld people (read gangsters, mafia, mob etc.) The most common application of hawala is in betting. In India, betting on sports is illegal but there is a huge underground network that takes bets on sporting fixtures(cricket being the fav.). To place a bet you have to know someone who knows a bookie, you speak to the bookie, ask him what the going rates are and place your bets without paying any initial money. If you lose you will be told where to deliver the money, usually it'll be to an agent in your city. After this agent has collected money from all losing parties, he is informed of all the people who won their bets in that city, he then transfers the same money to them, the difference between the two is the profit. This is just one application. Here hawala is mostly organized money laundering, reading the above comments I am surprised to see legal systems of practicing hawala.
I'd rather go be a Somalian pirate or something like that.
I read somewhere that the conditions in Somalia are so bad that becoming a pirate is the most sought after career option for young men. They believe that even European jails would be better than living in Somalia. OTOH if you don't get caught/killed, you live like a king. bunglows, booze women!
That's exactly what happens. The "travel agencies" that give this false information are like scouts, they constantly hunt for poor people who will fall for this. It is common sight at the New Delhi international airport to see workers going abroad in batches. Most of these people have never been out of their villages before. They sit on the floor in groups and are moved through the security procedure by a "manager" like a herd of sheep. They all seem happy and filled with hope.
It's a global scam where the idea is to make money out of slavery and ensuring profit to every person in the chain, from the sheikh to the so called "travel agencies" and take away the right to complain from the only people who may complain.
Peoples minds work on such a strong relative level.. You can be upper-middle-class in California and kill yourself from depression. You can live in a slum and work all day and be happy (Theoretically that is, if they weren't constantly reminded by a skyline, TV, commercials and rich tourists of their relative position. In fact, commercials are designed to lower your happiness, as they essentially try to show that life can be better.)
Yes you can live a depressed life in California and you can also live and work in a slum and be happy. But I don't quite agree with the point that constant reminders of a skyline, TV etc in anyways dampen their spirit or make them less happy, on the contrary I think it motivates them. The relative differences show these people what they can be or want to be. I know of slums in other Indian cities as well, not many of them can boast about "running an industry" or the number of television sets as compared to dharavi(the one in Mumbai). What is evident is that in the more developed and prosperous cities, the happiness quotient of people in slums is generally higher as compared to slums in other less-developed cities.
That being said, I am not suggesting that prosperous cities lead to better slums. In fact there isn't a larger difference between the rich and poor anywhere in the world than there is in Mumbai. Poverty needs to be tackled and there are a lot of NGO's working towards this. All I'm trying to say is that the relative difference these people see around them does not make them feel less happier, it's a reality they live with and aspire to reach.
Even I have not seen this yet but I have heard about the reduction of bandwidth even on the so called "unlimited" offers. I thought Airtel was the only decent ISP left in India, but they also seem to be messing things up.
And btw these ads are not gonna help them sell their insanely expensive DTH services. Also the lack of understanding of the technology among their customer care executives is shocking!
I am well aware of the situation in India, while it is true that there are competent engineers at ISRO, it is also saddening that the govt. is not allocating sufficent money for research. Most of the brightest talent is absorbed by private companies as it is a much better choice compared on monetary basis.
What you are not getting is that while outsourcing does mean cheap labour for Europe and US, it is not necessarily cheap for India(you mentioned keeping in-house). What you think is cheap are standard wages in India. It is cost cutting for US companies but not for Indian companies.
While India is booming in many ways, it still cannot be called developed. There is still a huge divide between the rich and poor and poverty is still a major roadblock.
I don't know if its worked for anybody else.. but i recently got the stumbleupon bar and if you choose your interest, it gives quite interesting results.