Having formed multiple companies in India - my experience was that I did not pay any bribes and it was relatively easy (not as easy as USA - where too I have formed multiple companies)
As somebody who hires quite a few people I can say with certainty that looking for passionate people does not mean what the author is interpreting it to be. Companies generally want people who take pride in their work, believe in aggressively working towards their goal, know how to overcome hurdles, do what it takes and so on. It does not mean that they have to put insane number of hours to do this. It just means that they know how to strike a balance i.e. when the situation demands they go above and beyond.
There is already an A/B experiment of sort being run on ability of the "chemical detectors". There are lots of airports outside of US that do not have these capabilities. If there is no statistical difference between the terrorist attack incidence directly from the said chemicals then it would be an interesting data point to add to the study of security theatre.