[Foxbat]

The home ministry is planning to ask all state governments and administration of nine Union territories, where Uber runs its cab services, to put a ban on it.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/45417508.cms

[pratyush6]

I kind of have just one question here people going after Uber - do you feel safer of your family travels in Uber/reputed taxis or Autos?
If banning Uber solves our problem than so be it.
Meanwhile we still have not seen any action by the government by private buses ferrying local passengers, oh guess what most of them are actually owned by Politicians.
We absolutely love passing the buck to someone else.

[Urban_Nomad]

Series of events:

- A sick animal ravaged a human being, as a cab diver
- Gets off after nothing of a punishment, gains confidence
- Gets back to working in the EXACT SAME field of service within a couple or so years
- Repeat point 1
- His response per news reports : I made a mistake. What do you want me to do? What remorse

Its great that Uber is banned. At least the other companies will do everything in their power to ensure that someone with even a whiff of anti social element is not inducted into the system

These discussions around civil dialogue and "action planning with the companies" (much like the vague statement issued by the CEO) are useless in today;s scenario. He says "We will do everything and work on making Delhi safe BLAH de BLAH". The question he should be answering is "Why was this not done earlier? Someone has to be brutalized for you to wake up and do something?"

What more must the women in this dreadful city endure before somone says ENOUGH. Anyone, even remotely involved gets max punishment. Period!

And the reference to this order being in the same vein as the "ban tinted glass" (and even "cancel concerts", shut down pubs") order is absolutely incorrect. The company that failed to take the necessary precautions and conduct important checks, owner of the asset (car) in which the crime was conducted; is being penalized. They have not banned every single cab service out there.

My biggest grouse is that I have not yet heard anything on what action is being taken against the police. Who is losing their job? This must happen for the action against uber to really mean something

Its time for ZERO tolerance, else continue to endure and continue to discuss

[mayankk]

The best of the best will come to India, and soon enough, when the lords have set up operations and left, everyone adopts the jugaads, shortcuts, Chai-pani, and bare minimum adherence to the law because the keepers allow it. If some of the MNCs ,which i can vouch for personally, operated in their home countries that way they do in India, they would not be in business, or their signing authorities would be serving consecutive terms.
Not mentioning our own here, but we don't need to question their proficiency in these matters. It's renowned.
And the worst bit is, some elected /selected moron will be in TV and blame the one party who actually is the victim, that as a girl what was she doing there and why.
Not uber, not the police, but her.
Shame.

[gsurya]

Originally Posted by Foxbat

The home ministry is planning to ask all state governments and administration of nine Union territories, where Uber runs its cab services, to put a ban on it.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/i...w/45417508.cms

Haha isnt this the Govt that is letting Vodafone get away with 1000s of crores of tax dues on the pretext of attracting investors?

Guess they will be very impressed with this knee-jerk ban on Uber without even an FIR, let alone a judgment.

[i10]

Originally Posted by SilentEngine

Also it's rather amusing to see TaxiForSure ads surrounding this news article.

Originally Posted by Foxbat

Even I noticed that and found it amusing.

Is that the save your friendship ad or something else?

[ashwin.terminat]

Once, when I got talking to a Uber driver, he told me that the driver pays for the car, the insurance, the fuel, the maintenance. Basically, everything.

Uber is merely a service that connects the passenger to the cab closest to him/her.

Honestly, I find (personal opinion) banning Uber by itself a little absurd. If they had contravened rules earlier, why not ban them earlier? Why wait for such a drastic incident to ban them?

And even then, if the ban is because of the rape, which the report suggest, then I believe there are a lot of things in our country which need to be banned as well. And I remember an incident in Bangalore ages ago where a BPO employee was raped by her cab driver, I remember reading the search was on for the cab driver, but the BPO carried on its services.
In the 1000s of cabs Uber runs throughout the country, one, just one was a bad apple and you ban the whole thing in Delhi. Our country believes in a blanket ban being the best way to get a crime to stop.

Also, if a person has committed a crime and has served the prison sentence for the same, does this make him ineligible for any job henceforth? So a background for him would result in him not getting a job anywhere. If he really was the same rapist, he should not have been let out of prison in the first place. That would mean our legal system needs to be revamped.

It's as simple as, if he has served the necessary prison sentence, our legal system believes this to have changed him to not commit the crime again. And if he hasn't completed the sentence, he shouldn't be roaming free on the streets and should never have been issued a character certificate.

And every person who rapes for the first time hasn't raped before that time. So it is odd to suggest that a background check would've avoided this altogether. Who is to say that he won't become a first time offender?

Uber could've done a better job perhaps, but it didn't have to, if, our legal system was more effective.

I am almost certain I will face brickbats, but this is my opinion.

Here's the so called "character certificate":

[Rajeevraj]

Was looking at the positives listed by GTO in the opening post. There is this one point

"+ Internationally, Uber recruits individual drivers as well. In India, they've only tied up with professional rental agencies. This is definitely a smart move, considering the dynamics of our market and the law & order situation."

In this case I did not see any mention of an in-between agency. So did Uber recently change this approach and start recruiting individual drivers (or individual owners)? If that is the case, looks like the law and order concerns mentioned in the point above has come back to hit Uber.

Even before this incident, there have been several posts on this thread on the fall in quality of drivers and cars and also the type of cars that turn up. Wonder if Uber attempted to bite of more than it could chew with the rapid expansion and pressure from competition.

[sinharishi]

Originally Posted by poloman

Looks like the character certificate submitted by the driver now turns out to be fake. Now whom to blame now? Delhi Police, Delhi Govt, Haryana Govt, Haryana Police.

Delhi Police is likely to file a case of forgery against the accused, they also said that someone "within" the system, either in the transport department or in the Delhi Police accepted bribe and forged signatures/stamps on the certificate.

Delhi Police should not be let off in this case! No one knew UBER till this incident took place, this itself says how strict they themselves are in imposing the rules. If UBER had to be banned, it should have been banned on the next day it started in services in Delhi.

Quoting Mr. Mathur (Special Commissioner of Delhi Transport Department)

Right now, we have banned Uber as we came to know only after this incident about its services in Delhi. We too had to log on to the internet to know how the company works.

The Delhi Govt and Delhi Police are equally to be blamed here.

[zenren]

Originally Posted by akshaymahajan

I do agree with you. But the entire system is so slow. Call me crazy but I have a feeling if rapists were punished in a couple of days and the punishments were harsh and publicly announced by the media in bold letters, some of the future incidents could be deterred.

The criminal is going to suffer a lot more if he would have to wait for a few years in jail to hear the verdict of a death penalty rather than getting a death penalty executed in a few days.

[bblost]

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/ub...e/20141208.htm

"He has been driving taxi in the national capital for the last several years. He was with Uber during the last six months. We would thoroughly check whether he was involved in any other crime," he said.

The police have found that he has two driving licences, the commercial one was issued in Delhi while the other one in Uttar Pradesh. He, however, did not have a PSV badge. He was living in Deoli area of Southeast Delhi since 2011.

The ‘character certificate’ purportedly issued in the name of an additional deputy commissioner of police of the Delhi force in August this year to the driver has also given a new twist to the case on Monday as Delhi police commissioner termed it as a fake and ordered an inquiry into it.

The alleged certificate, which was doing the rounds on the Internet and widely quoted on TV reports gave a clean chit to the accused Shiv Kumar Yadav, who was also accused in a similar rape case in 2011 and had even spent seven months in Tihar jail. He was later acquitted in the case.

[sydras]

Along the same lines, if a minister is caught taking a bribe, shouldn't the ruling government be banned? If Uber is to be blamed, the government should equally share the blame for not ensuring that Uber and other cab services conducted background checks on their cab drivers.

This decision appears to be either influenced by rival cab companies wherein one of the the proprietors may be close to the powers that be or to gain some kind of political favour with the people if you ask me.

I'm not saying that Uber is not at fault. In fact, I strongly believe that it should be punished for it's disclaimer itself. But I for one second do not believe that the government works for the interest of the people (If they did, we would not have motorists riding on the footpath, crossings and jumping signals with impunity for so long). It is rare to see a government take any decision so rapidly for the so called "people's safety" and one has to question what is to be gained or who would gain from such a move.

In this particular case, the decision may not cost the affected cab drivers their livelihood as they would switch to some other cab service but what if it'd been some other kind of business where the workers can't simply switch jobs? Should the workers be penalized for the actions of company management? This also leads me to believe that the ban may fall in a legal gray area though I'm not sure whether contracted cab drivers are protected by labour laws.

Also, has the ban on Uber made the slightest difference to women's safety in Delhi? Do women in Delhi feel more safe?

P.S. - I have no inclination towards Uber's services. I have never used their services and I don't use cab services in general except Meru Taxi via my company for the very occasional late night travel.

[drmohitg]

Originally Posted by zenren

He would get the required attention in the only place that really matters - in the court. Current laws are very harsh on rapists and he is not going to get away with it for sure.

He has already walked free from one Rape accusation sometime back. Incidents like these are what makes these scums courageous enough to repeat such crimes with total disregard of the law.

[IndianGuardian]

Uber had it coming and they deserved it. The company has been reeking of arrogance and flouting laws not just in India but worldwide as well. The CEO things he can do and get anything and get away with his devil-may-care attitude.

- Delhi Incident: According to sources in Delhi Police, there are several lapses on Uber's part which probably led to this heinous crime being committed. Every commercial driver needs to have a commercial badge. However, sources say that Yadav did not have the badge. Uber had not even conducted a background check and verification of the accused driver before recruiting him. It is the responsibility of the cab service provider to get the identity verified through police. The address given by Yadav was not where he used to stay. Even the phone number that he was using was not registered on his name. There were three drivers who drove the Swift Dzire in which the crime took place. At any given point, Uber didn't know which of the three was driving as there was only one phone with the Uber app.

Plus no GPS fitted in the car? It's the law!

- Response by Uber to the Delhi incident: This is the CEO's statement: "We will work with the government to establish clear background checks currently absent in their commercial transportation licensing programs."

Oh really? Their program? So Uber is not to blame at all despite flouting so many norms? Where is the apology? Not anywhere in his statement has an apology been tendered or responsibility being taken.

This FirstPost article sums it up: Uber teaches us how to make an excuse and ruin an apology: http://www.firstpost.com/living/delh...y-1839977.html

- Starting operations in Portland, regardless of the fact that city officials have deemed the service illegal.

- Sabotaging Lyft by booking rides and then canceling them

- Several serious incidents where Uber has refused to apologise, admit responsibility and initiate corrective action

And the list goes on...

They have a great product but the way they run it and the way the CEO behaves time and again is sickening. A great product or idea does not give you the right to violate legal, ethical and moral standards.

[benbsb29]

Originally Posted by sudeepg

It's a good move in my opinion. This will ensure that the service providers do a thorough background check before hiring people (as they do in many companies today). Our nation suffered from lack of harsh punishments which has driven up crime rate and actions like these will help curb the problem.

You really believe this will curb the problem?!! So, if this was an auto driver in question, we ban autos across India altogether?!
When a child was raped by a PE teacher at a Bangalore school, should they have banned the school or PE altogether? Similarly, i can draw parallels with other incidents as well, but i believe i have made my point.

What is required is to ensure harsh punishments which deter people from performing such acts, and not dilly-dally with knee-jerk reactions such as these.

Originally Posted by sudeepg

It's quite an unfortunate incident. :(

Agree.