Govind Paliath

[Gulu Ezekiel @gulu1959]

During stupendous 254 for World XI v Australia, MCG against rampaging Lillee, late Bishan Bedi roared with laughter as told me his job was 2 serve great man a gin & tonic at every drinks break. I saw them together in Delhi in 2000. Kindred spirits

[Puyangan Adiyan @Puyangan5]

$4T economy can't spend an extra ₹5 to feed it's kids and deliver it in a safe manner?

This is how Nirmala achieves her fiscal deficit target. By skimping on critical programs like POSHAN. No one asks why the budget allocation per kid per meal is only ₹10 when we have a raging malnutrition epidemic while you spend ₹5T+ on road and railways.

[Govind Paliath @GovndPaliath]

@chondhe Ah I didn’t know this. Btw Pantnagar has had an airport with daily IndiGo flights to Delhi for a while (I thought that was the closest airport to Kumaon).

[Malay Krishna @Malay4Product]

You probably have no idea who Salim Kumar is, but every Indian should read all about him today.

Salim Kumar was a Malayalam actor who passed away on Saturday night in Kochi at the age of 56. If you don't watch Malayalam cinema, strap in because his story is one of the most remarkable careers Indian cinema has produced, and it deserves to travel beyond Kerala.

He came from nothing. Born in North Paravur, a small town in Ernakulam, into a family that struggled with money. Government school. Graduated from Maharajas College.

So, no film connections, no family wealth, no shortcuts.

He started as a mimicry artist with Kalabhavan, a performance troupe in Kochi that has been the launchpad for dozens of Malayalam actors. Stage shows, comedy routines, television spots.

He was funny in a way that was impossible to ignore, the kind of performer who could make a room laugh in an instant.

His first film was Ishtamanu Nooru Vattam in 1997, a small role nobody remembers. For years he played supporting parts & background comedy.

Then the 2000s happened. His role as Mattancherry Mammathu in Satyameva Jayathe gave him his first real recognition, and after that the comedy roles started coming fast.

Pulival Kalyanam. Thuruppugulan. Kunjikkoonan. Marykkundoru Kunjaadu. If you grew up in Kerala in the 2000s, his face was in half the films you watched. He became the comedian audiences showed up for, the one whose scenes people replayed and quoted at family gatherings.

What separated him from most comedians was precision. He did not rely on volume or slapstick. He used his face, his body, his pauses.

He could get a laugh from the way he blinked. Directors started writing characters specifically for him, because they knew he would take whatever was on the page and make it three times funnier than they imagined.

For over a decade, he was the biggest comic face in Malayalam cinema.

Then came 2010 and a film called Adaminte Makan Abu.

A quiet, small-budget film directed by Salim Ahamed. The story follows an aging Muslim couple in a Kerala village whose only dream in life is to go on Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

They save every rupee. Things keep falling apart. The film is about their dignity, their patience, and their faith through one disappointment after another.

Salim Kumar played Abu. The man who owns nothing except his wife and his belief, and holds onto both with everything he has.

There is no comedy in the role. No punchlines, no funny faces, no playing to the gallery. It is the complete opposite of everything audiences had ever seen him do.

The entire performance is built on stillness, restraint, and pain carried quietly behind the eyes.

He won the National Film Award for Best Actor for it. That is the highest acting honour in Indian cinema. The film was also selected as India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards (Oscars) that year.

In one role, Salim Kumar went from "the funny guy from Malayalam films" to one of the most respected actors in Indian cinema.

He simply disappeared so completely into a character that you forgot you were watching a comedian at all.

He followed it with more serious work. Achanurangatha Veedu, which won him the Kerala State Award. Traffic, still considered one of the finest ensemble films in Malayalam cinema. Perumazhakkalam.

Each time, he proved the National Award was not a fluke. The man had range that most actors who only do drama cannot match.

Unfortunately, Salim Kumar suffered from liver cirrhosis, a condition he said was hereditary in his family and not related to alcohol. His brother had the same illness. He underwent a liver transplant a few years ago. He tried naturopathy. He talked about all of it openly, without shame, without self-pity.

He kept working between treatments. He kept being funny. He kept showing up, even when his body was failing him.

He was also fearlessly outspoken about politics and social issues, which in any film industry can cost you work. He did not care. He said what he believed and lived with the consequences.

He passed away Saturday night at a hospital in Kochi. He was 56. The Kerala government bore the funeral expenses and gave him police honours.

The Chief Minister paid homage personally. Mammootty, one of the biggest names in Indian cinema, mourned him publicly. Thousands of people lined up at the North Paravur Town Hall on Sunday to say goodbye.

350 films in three decades. A National Award for Best Actor. An Oscar entry. A career that started from mimicry stages and ended at the very top of Indian cinema.

The reason most of India does not know his name is because Malayalam cinema, despite being one of the best film industries in the country, still does not get the national attention it deserves.

Actors like Salim Kumar live and work in a language bubble, and their stories rarely cross over the way a Bollywood career would.

This is a loss for everyone who never got to watch him. A man who came from poverty, made millions laugh, then proved he could make them cry just as hard, and fought his own hardest battle with utmost dignity.

If you watch one film after reading this, make it Adaminte Makan Abu. It is a masterpiece.

[Kunal Manchanda @Kunal_POV]

From $5 billion to $70 million.

Vanguard has marked down the value of its Ola stake from $51.7 million to $728,000 in its latest filing.

The markdown implies Ola's valuation has fallen from $5 billion in 2021 to roughly $70 million, a decline of over 98%.

The company has nevertheless initiated IPO preparations despite fall in revenue.

story via @entrackr 👇
https://t.co/ZM5svU5KIK

[Forging India @indiaemerges]

https://t.co/84VgIcZoiK

[Bharath Joshi @bharathjoshi]

In an ode to his former boss, @lkatheeq narrates the untold story of @siddaramaiah's agonizing visit to Antwerp, Belgium, capturing his resilience in the face of personal grief.

[R. Balakrishnan @BalakrishnanR]

The hero comes home

[Edgar Allan Poeha @bhanilaessence]

I once almost dropped khichuri on Bappi Lahiri on Ashtami. MoonMoon Sen was my co-shopper when I was buying potol at my local grocery store. Alyssa Milano had to awkwardly smile at me so I would move as I was standing in front of what turned out to be her car. Teach someone else.

[The Transcript @TheTranscript_]

$UBER COO: AI ROI remains difficult to quantify

"I mean, the headline stats make your head explode, right? When you hear companies talking about, hey, 25% of code commits over the last quarter were AI-driven, or our token usage went from X to Y, or percentage of employees, all these sort of numbers. It's amazing, and I think it's this massive transformation of society. But then you sometimes go and talk to your senior engineering leaders, and you're saying, okay, how many projects that were on the cutting room floor got moved above the line because of the productivity gains, because 25% of our code commits were via cloud code last quarter? That link is not there yet, right? That link is not there yet, right? Like, I mean, I think maybe implicitly there's more that is getting shipped, but it's very hard to draw a line between one of those stats and, okay, now we're actually producing like 25% more useful consumer features, right? And that line is hard to draw. I think over the coming quarters and years, maybe that will become clearer, but I think today it's hard, even if some of the underlying metrics are trending in a really astronomical direction"

https://t.co/9ptcEJYjMa

[Govind Paliath @GovndPaliath]

RT @bytesofnews: ✨Big day for me: @BBCWorld has written about BHARAT BLUFF in this superb piece by @cherylmollan on the rise of cybercrimes…

[Trevor Scott @TidefallCapital]

Constellation Software 2026 AGM Supercut
Condensed original video from over 4 hours to 36 minutes. $CSU.to
https://t.co/cEPWOCtTlc

[Deedy @deedydas]

The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen.

Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people - employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders - have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope AI estimation).

Everyone outside that group feels like they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there.

Worse yet, layoffs are in full swing. Many software engineers feel like their life's skill is no longer useful. The day to day role of most jobs has changed overnight with AI.

As a result,
1. The corporate ladder looks like the wrong building to climb.
Everyone's trying to align with a new set of career "paths": should I be a founder? Is it too late to join Anthropic / OpenAI? should I get into AI? what company stock will 10x next? People are demanding higher salaries and switching jobs more and more.

2. There’s a deep malaise about work (and its future).
Why even work at all for “peanuts”? Will my job even exist in a few years? Many feel helpless. You hear the “permanent underclass” conversation a lot, esp from young people. It's hard to focus on doing good work when you think "man, if I joined Anthropic 2yrs ago, I could retire"

3. The mid to late middle managers feel paralyzed.
Many have families and don't feel like they have the energy or network to just "start a company". They don't particularly have any AI skills. They see the writing on the wall: middle management is being hollowed out in many companies.

4. The rich aren’t particularly happy either.
No one is shedding tears for them (and rightfully so). But those who have "made it" experience a profound lack of purpose too. Some have gone from <$150k to >$50M in a few years with no ramp. It flips your life plans upside down. For some, comparison is the thief of joy. For some, they escape to NYC to "live life". For others still, they start companies "just cuz", often to win status points. They never imagined that by age 30, they'd be set. I once asked a post-economic founder friend why they didn't just sell the co and they said "and do what? right now, everyone wants to talk to me. if i sell, I will only have money."

I understand that many reading this scoff at the champagne problems of the valley. Society is warped in this tech bubble. What is often well-off anywhere else in the world is bang average here.

Unlike many other places, tenure, intelligence and hard work can be loosely correlated with outcomes in the Bay. Living through a societally transformative gold rush in that environment can be paralyzing. "Am I in the right place? Should I move? Is there time still left? Am I gonna make it?" It psychologically torments many who have moved here in search of "success".

Ironically, a frequent side effect of this torment is to spin up the very products making everyone rich in hopes that you too can vibecode your path to economic enlightenment.

[Harsh @huntheharsh]

In peak India moment today, I got scolded by an uncle on bike for walking on the footpath during traffic hours. He said and I quote, “pagal hai kya be, footpath koi chalne ki jagah hai?”

[Luke Burgis @lukeburgis]

Augustine had a word for the vice of the internet age: curiositas. It doesn't mean "curiosity", but rather a disordered desire for knowing stuff regardless of its real value. It is the intellectual twin of bodily lust—the following of ephemeral passions without regard for consequences or what they're leading to. It's the act of knowing stuff as a form of possession; as if knowing everything that the latest Dwarkesh podcast guest had to say has any real value in itself.

[Soumya @bytesofnews]

✨Some exciting news✨

For two years, I have been working on an exciting project -- chronicling online scams in India and trying to understand how exactly we developed a 'scam economy'.

It's all come together finally in my book!

Bharat Bluff, by @RoliBooks is OUT NOW

[Govind Paliath @GovndPaliath]

@bytesofnews Looks amazing, congratulations Soumya! :)

[Pooja | she/her @pooja_blabbers]

ethan hawke said something i haven’t stopped thinking about — we usually move past art like we have no need for it, until loss enters our life and suddenly nothing ordinary can hold what we’re feeling

[Zak Kukoff @zck]

In 1953, George and Barbara Bush lost their daughter Robin to leukemia. She was three years old. Barbara's hair turned white that year — she was 28. By anyone's expectation, mine included, their grief should have defined the rest of their lives.

Instead they made a decision: they would wake up every morning and be happy. It's an almost astounding level of mental discipline. The ability not to ignore your horrible loss but to say life is not over. I can choose how I feel.

It's not a coincidence that he became president and she raised one. More importantly, they stayed married 73 years. "You have two choices," she said decades later. "You can be happy or you can be unhappy. Just choose to be happy." This is what's key: that mindset wasn't influencing the outcome. The mindset was the outcome.

We tend to think of resilience as a trait people have, but it looks more like a series of small decisions, made unglamorously, that become habitual. Eventually, you'll even forget you're making them. The Bushes figured this out 70 years before the placebo sleep researchers did. Worth taking seriously.

[Malay Krishna @Malay4Product]

Let me explain what just happened today because it deserves so much recognition.

GalaxEye is a Bengaluru startup founded in 2021 by IIT Madras engineers. Today they launched Mission Drishti on a SpaceX Falcon 9. It is India's largest privately built satellite at 190 kg. And it carries a technology that no commercial satellite has ever carried before.

Normal satellites take photos of the Earth using optical cameras. Like your phone camera, but from 500 km up. The problem is obvious. Clouds. Night. Fog. Smoke. If any of these are in the way, the photo is useless. India has monsoon cover for 4 months a year. That is 4 months where optical satellites are partially or fully blind over large parts of the country.

The alternative is SAR. Synthetic Aperture Radar. Instead of taking photos with light, it sends radar waves down and reads what bounces back. Radar goes through clouds, through darkness, through smoke. A SAR satellite can image a flooded village at 2 AM during a cyclone when no optical satellite can see anything.

The problem with SAR is that the images look nothing like photos. They look like grainy black-and-white radar maps. A military analyst or a trained geospatial engineer can read them. A farmer, a disaster response team, or a city planner cannot.

Until today, if you wanted both optical and SAR data for the same location, you needed two different satellites, passing over at different times, at different angles. Then someone had to manually align and fuse the two datasets. Expensive, slow, and the data never perfectly matched because the satellites saw the same spot minutes or hours apart.

GalaxEye put both sensors on one satellite. Optical and SAR, fused into what they call OptoSAR. Three times more information than a single sensor. Processed onboard by an NVIDIA AI chip at 1.8 metre resolution.

Now in practice, during the next cyclone hitting Odisha, one satellite pass gives you a clear image of which villages are flooded, which roads are cut, and which buildings are standing. Day or night. Cloud or clear. In near real-time.

For defence, it means you can monitor a border area 24/7 regardless of weather. For agriculture, it means tracking crop health across an entire monsoon season without a single cloud gap. For infrastructure, it means monitoring construction progress on highways and bridges without waiting for a clear day.

GalaxEye tested their SAR tech on ISRO's POEM orbital platform. The satellite was tested at ISRO facilities. IN-SPACe provided regulatory clearance. NSIL, ISRO's commercial arm, will distribute the imagery globally. And it launched on SpaceX because ISRO's PSLV doesn't have the right orbit slot for this mission.

Yes, four IIT Madras graduates built a world-first satellite in 4 years in Bengaluru.

Take a bow!