Preeja Aravind

Dreamer. Doer. Mother. Woman. Human.

[Anurag @anuragteewari]

Here is the first episode of my new IP series, PRAKASH BHARATI.

Our first bulletin crossed 300K views on Instagram in under 12 hours.

A fictional 80s-style Indian news network reporting on things that feel a little too familiar.

#PrakashBharati #Satire #aifilm #IndianTelevision #80sAesthetic #80sTrend

[Preeja Aravind @MsPreAM]

We need help and miracle in equal measures. #nepal #TibetRescue #nepalfloods

[subirjha @jhasubir]

@MEAIndia The entire Richa Tours group is in dark. We hardly have direct access with the govt. Would request you to appoint one senior official in the MEA to liaison with this group. @DrSJaishankar @PMOIndia #nepalfloods #richatours

[Darab Farooqui @darab_farooqui]

One of the more entertaining privileges of living in India is watching our unlettered rich and powerful perform socio-political analysis.

These are men who built empires through connections, contracts, and the occasional government favour and have somehow confused that with wisdom.

So when a prominent industrialist puts out a piece explaining why the BJP juggernaut will keep rolling, it's worth spending five minutes dismantling it.

Because it falls apart in about that long.

The framing is clean, I'll give him that. Clean in the way a card trick is clean. It looks elegant until you see where the cards went.

His argument rests on a 50-50 split: BJP owns Hindu nationalist identity, which is roughly half the country, and everyone else is scrambling for the other half. Therefore BJP wins. Forever. Ameen. Summa-Ameen.

Except the 50-50 is made up.

BJP's actual ideological base, the RSS-mobilised, Hindutva-committed voter who is there regardless of candidate, regardless of price of onions, regardless of anything, is closer to 20-25%.

The rest of their coalition is caste arithmetic, welfare delivery, regional anti-incumbency, and Modi's blind cult following.

A significant chunk of their voters are OBC and Dalit voters with concrete material grievances who backed BJP for concrete material reasons.

They are not ideological soldiers. They can be peeled away. They have been peeled away.

So the first constant in his equation, the one he treats like holy scripture, is false.

But even that isn't the biggest problem.

The bigger problem is that he treats opposition fragmentation as a law of nature rather than a political failure. He looks at fifteen parties jostling for the same space and concludes: this is permanent, this is structural, BJP wins by design.

Read that again slowly: BJP wins because the opposition hasn't solved a coordination problem.

That's it. That's the whole secret. There is no juggernaut. There's a fragmented opposition handing over seats they should be winning.

UP 2024 made this embarrassingly clear. When SP and Congress actually ran together, with some semblance of coordination and clarity, they won 43 seats in a state BJP had treated as a fortress.

The juggernaut didn't wobble. It fell on its face in the one place where the opposition briefly got its act together.

And here's what our industrialist friend also conveniently skips: BJP isn't dominant because it owns an ideological half of India. It's dominant because it has a machine.

The RSS is the fuel, the cadre, the penetration, the ground structure that no opposition party can match. That's the real asymmetry. Not some metaphysical ownership of Hindu identity.

Now, our industrialist friend could have asked the genuinely interesting question hiding inside his own argument: why hasn't the opposition solved this coordination problem in a decade?

That would have been worth reading. The answer is partly structural, partly the ego of regional satraps who'd rather rule their fiefdoms than challenge nationally, and partly a failure of political imagination.

Had he asked that question, he might have earned his seat at the table of serious political commentary.

Instead, he built a tidy little argument with a predetermined destination, one that just happens to conclude that the party he has never found reason to criticise is invincible by the laws of mathematics.

That's not analysis. That's propaganda written with CAPITAL letters. (No pun intended)

[Sucheta Dalal @suchetadalal]

A whole army of influencers has been deployed to say the bank is not at fault! Well, @MoneylifeF is 17 years old, and we know how banks treat even educated people, how accounts are blocked (ours too - both personal and work) for KYC updates without EVER informing us it was due. So if you think this man was not given the run-around, you are either extraordinarily lucky (perhaps you don't have a bank account), or extremely naive, or have other 'motivation' to jump to the bank's defence!

[Elias @iam_elias1]

Two economists just published a mathematical proof that AI will destroy the economy.

Not might. Not could. Will — if nothing changes.

The paper is called "The AI Layoff Trap." Published March 2, 2026. Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Boston University. Peer reviewed. Mathematically modeled.
The conclusion is one sentence.
"At the limit, firms automate their way to boundless productivity and zero demand."

An economy that produces everything. And sells it to nobody.
Here is how you get there.
A company fires 500 workers and replaces them with AI. A competitor fires 700 to keep up. Another fires 1,000. Every company is behaving rationally. Every company is following the incentives correctly. And every company is building a trap for itself.

Because the workers who were fired were also customers.
When they lose their jobs faster than the economy can absorb them, they stop spending. Consumer demand falls. Companies respond by cutting costs — which means automating more workers — which means less spending — which means more falling demand — which means more automation.

The loop has no natural exit.
The researchers tested every proposed solution. Universal basic income. Capital income taxes. Worker equity participation. Upskilling programs. Corporate coordination agreements.
Every single one failed in the model.
The only intervention that worked: a Pigouvian automation tax — a per-task levy charged every time a company replaces a human with AI, forcing them to price in the demand they are destroying before they pull the trigger.

No government has implemented this. No major economy is seriously discussing it.
Meanwhile the numbers are already tracking the curve. 100,000 tech workers laid off in 2025. 92,000 more in the first months of 2026. Jack Dorsey fired half of Block's workforce and said publicly: "Within the next year, the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion."
Nobody is doing anything wrong. Companies are following their incentives perfectly. That is exactly the problem.

Rational behavior. At scale. Simultaneously. With no mechanism to stop it.
Two economists built the math. The math leads to one place.

Source: Falk & Tsoukalas · Wharton School + Boston University ·
https://t.co/4m8E9jQNYm

[Bangalore Metro Updates @WF_Watcher]

Situation at Silk Board metro station at 6:00 pm today - just after one rain! #BangaloreRains

It’s the same spot that was heavily water logged in May 2025. Looks like nothing has been done to avoid such situation again. vc: Twitter follower.

[TOI Bengaluru @TOIBengaluru]

#Bengaluru #Rain #Damage

5000 books, worth over Rs 14 lakh, were destroyed after rain water gushed into The Bookworm (a book shop) on Church Street in central part of the city.

@timesofindia

[Vasundhara Sirnate @vsirnate]

I’ve just had a read of this excellent white paper on extreme heat in India. It very correctly argues that it is time to stop treating extreme heat as a series of incidents or temporary seasonal events and to begin treating this as an enduring pattern that is going to have severe consequences on people and the economy. Solutions to combat this crisis will have to be tailored keeping this in mind.

Extreme heat is the deadliest and least-resourced climate hazard in India (and globally). It is “invisible” compared to floods or cyclones—its costs are diffuse, cumulative, and spread across health, labor, agriculture, housing, and the economy—yet it already affects hundreds of millions daily. With ~380 million workers (three-quarters of the workforce) in heat-exposed jobs contributing roughly half of GDP, and projections that up to 200 million people could face lethal heat conditions by 2030, adaptation must be interdisciplinary, locally grounded, accountable, and responsive to the most exposed populations. The paper calls for a “cool economy” that integrates heat resilience into India’s growth and green industrial strategy, rather than treating it as a marginal seasonal issue.

Everyone should have a proper read of this, especially Indian policy makers. This is going to get worse in the coming years unless we can figure out a way to stay green while pursuing growth.

I will add however that in India we must restart the discussion on what “growth” means, who it’s for and whether protecting the environment is even compatible with any big industrial or neoliberal economic strategy.

[Article 14 @Article14live]

Over the weekend, 95 of the world’s 100 #hottest cities were in India. At the same time, tens of thousands of trees are being cleared—for highways, metros, ports & “beautification” projects. @iyerkavi on the govt’s war on India’s trees

Link below 👇

[Free Press Journal @fpjindia]

#FPJEditPage | Women’s Reservation Bill Failure Was Political Theatre, Not Real Reform

✍️ Ajay Jha

Read: https://t.co/N4KSKyvypy #WomensReservationBill #Analysis #India

[Sandeep Manudhane @sandeep_PT]

A giant govt. University, built with Rs.300 crores
Empty, no students, nothing at all!
- - -
Modi govt. inaugurated the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute of Archaeology in Greater Noida in 2019, and today, the giant modern 25 acre campus is almost 100% vacant, with student intake at 15 (yes, fifteen), and no one having a clue what's going on. I am frankly surprised why the govt. allowed it to go into hibernation.
Read the report a journalist made with great effort (and risk) before it is deleted.
- - -
https://t.co/v2cuXZUNX7

[sarah @sahouraxo]

BREAKING

Israel is blowing up entire civilian homes in Aadshit al-Qusayr, South Lebanon right now — during a ceasefire.

Civilian homes.

No justification.

Just deliberate terror and destruction to ensure civilians have nothing left to return to.

A war crime in broad daylight.

[Joe ن 🗽🌴🚡 @americakaran]

Malayali comrade goes all the way to Uttarakhand to hunt down a Malayali business they nearly killed in the crib.

When VGuard launched trade unions shut down its factory, so
founder relied on small women’s self help group cottages to make his product.

This is commitment 🫡

[Joy Bhattacharjya @joybhattacharj]

Folks, she is an Olympic medallist. To ask her what she thinks of Vaibhav Sooryavanshi is unfair on her achievements and her sports. Cricket anyway is the ruling passion of the country, your sports editors do not need another celebrity quote to spin a headline on Sooryavanshi.
Optionally, the next time ask Vaibhav Sooryavanshi about Manu Bhaker and see the looks you get.

[Namita @namitathapar]

I left for bombay at 6.30 am like the hard working professional that I am & stopped the car at 7 am to make this reel as I’ve long realised that silence is not a virtue & one must speak up when they are disrespected. Yes if wrong things happen at any workplace that are against basic human rights, me & all of us should speak up. I don’t care about the personal trolling, I’m used to it last 5 years since shark tank but the purpose of this reel is to request all the proud Indians in this country to start speaking up when they see something wrong, out of humanity, out of patriotism. Jai hind. Now off to another joyful & complex day at work !

[Revathi @revathitweets]

This is Soumya!

Voice behind the Noida video where she questioned a man for harassing a muslim couple.

She fought fiercely and very bravely for our country’s integrity and peace.

She may not be wearing a uniform or standing at the border, but she fought for India like how the soldiers do..!!

Soumya released her version of the incidents on her Instagram. Today she is now facing rape and death threats!!

People who stand up like Soumya are the reason India is not fully destroyed.

Kudos to Soumya ❤️🤗

[Yogendra Yadav @_YogendraYadav]

This take down of pop-realism must be read out to all those who give gyan on TV on international affairs.

[Preeja Aravind @MsPreAM]

Hmm. News. Did not know this could happen. 🧐

[@rakeshfilm (Rakesh Sharma) @rakeshfilm]

OMG! That is so rare!!
Absolutely amazing!!!
Totally unusual!!!!

Kudos to your research team, Times Entertainment.

Bravo, #TimesOfIndia - your ‘journalism’ is unique and special.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
👇🏼👇🏼

[Preeja Aravind @MsPreAM]

Oh McSteamy! No McSteamy! RIP #EricDane. You made #GreysAnatomy fun in the beginning. You will always be part of my nostalgia bromance.

[Preeja Aravind @MsPreAM]

@mssakshinarula I agree. Despite the ‘uncool’ pronunciations, I sat through the whole reel and was amazed by this woman’s take on films that as she rightly calls out, is mistaken for ‘elites’. I haven’t even seen or heard or some of the films she spoke of. Hats off to her!