Pushkina Nautiyal

tuned into Indian startup scene

[Nithin Kamath @Nithin0dha]

Yesterday was World Obesity Day. I hate to be the guy who complains, but the numbers are scary.

Here are some stats from the recent Economic Survey:

23-24% of Indians are already overweight or obese (in 2019); this number was ~10% twenty years back. I am guessing it must have gotten a lot worse in the last 6 years.

3.3 crore children were obese in 2020 → projected 8.3 crore by 2035. Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are one of the leading causes. Their sales went from $0.9 billion (₹7,500 crore) to $38 billion (₹316,000 crore) between 2006 and 2019. Obesity nearly doubled in the same period.

UPF sales grew over 150% just between 2009 and 2023. The acceleration is getting faster, not slower.

Even children under 5 aren't spared. Excess weight prevalence jumped from 2.1% to 3.4% in just 5 years (2015-2021).

I don't know what else to say apart from restating the obvious:

Try to eat homemade food and get quality ingredients. The more meals you eat outside, the more garbage that goes into your body.

Question the source of food, be it your milk, pulses, or anything else. The quality matters.

If nothing else, at least walk 30 minutes every day. Build a fitness habit first, then start with strength training and so on.

Sleep 7-8 hours. Bad sleep makes you hungrier and lazier the next day.

Keep your kids away from packaged snacks as much as possible. Habits formed at 8 will follow them at 40.

Less screen time, more movement. Touch some grass, stare at the sky, and move!

On a different note, I just read that major Indian pharma companies are preparing to launch GLP-1 drugs in India after the patent expires this month. These are the same drugs behind the Ozempic craze globally. I'm wondering about what the first and second-order effects will be.

[Arpita Das @Arpitaaa01]

Someone said we need a Civic Sense Summit more than an AI Summit , and I couldn’t agree more

[TheLiverDoc™ @theliverdoc]

Ministry of AYUSH will receive ₹44,000,000,000 (Forty-four thousand million / Forty-four billion Indian Rupees) this year for promoting pseudoscience, creating more stethoscope-wearing Instagram quacks, building more unscientific institutions, and endangering peoples liver and kidneys.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

If Jeff Bezos could afford to spend $75 million on the Melania movie & $500 million for a yacht to sail off to his $55 million wedding to give his wife a $5 million ring, please don't tell me he needed to fire one-third of the Washington Post staff.

Democracy dies in oligarchy.

[TheLiverDoc™ @theliverdoc]

Spanish scientists cured pancreatic cancer in mice.

Korean scientists reprogrammed stomach cancer cells back to normal cells in mice.

Indian pseudoscientists received 44 billion Indian rupees to plan resort holidays in the name of researching alternative medicine.

[Mark Manson @Markmanson]

Being willing to disappoint people is the only way to be truly free.

[Ajay Kamath @ajay43]

After seeing what was done to those Japanese tourists in Varanasi just for wearing Santa caps, I really wonder why anybody would bather visiting India

[Roshan Rai @RoshanKrRaii]

Aravali : Online Outrage, People on the streets

Result : DECISION REVERSED

Kuldeep Sengar : Online outrage, people on the streets

Result : DECISION REVERSED

This is what happens when people realise the value of their voice 🔥

Keep speaking up, Keep outraging.

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

Let this be the year in which you rebuild your attention span. Big Tech wants you unable to focus on anything for longer than a few seconds. Resist the infinite scroll. Avoid short-form videos. Watch movies without being on your phone. Read voraciously and often.

[Pushkina Nautiyal @PushkinaN]

Unpopular opinion - Building slow and steady is highly under rated. In a world where things are changing with a blink of an eye, there's a tendency to read noise as a signal and that's where most founders go wrong. Solving genuine problems requires prolonged exposure to data.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Good cofounder > no cofounder > bad cofounder.

This may seem obvious but a lot of people don't seem to grasp it.

[TheLiverDoc™ @theliverdoc]

Study after study has shown that antioxidant supplements do not confer same health benefits as antioxidants consumed in their natural, whole-food form. So stop wasting money on buying antioxidant dietary supplements and start increasing consumption of whole fruit and veggies.

[Abhinandan Sekhri @AbhinandanSekhr]

You have to be a real expert in hate & division to turn the most wonderful, peaceful and serene place like Ladakh into a violent tinderbox.

[Mohit Chauhan @mohitlaws]

Sonam Wangchuk could have been a billionaire in any other serious country.

But he chose to stay in India to serve its people with his innovations.

Today, he's jailed under National Security Act.

And then we wonder why talented people leave India.

[The Bad Engineer @Satirical_Dhruv]

Sonam wangchuk gave india:

- Solar heated houses in freezing deserts
- Ice stupas that stored water for dry summers
- Schools that shaped the future of children in ladakh

He stood for the land, the culture, and the people when no one else did.

And what did he get in return?:
- Police arrest, cancelled licenses, internet shutdowns, and blame.

A scientist who built solutions for the nation is today treated like a criminal.

#SonamWangchukArrested

[Paras Chopra @paraschopra]

The most valuable career skill is being unattached to outcomes.

Care deeply about the quality of your work, but hold the results lightly. This frees you to take bigger risks.

[Lulu Cheng Meservey @lulumeservey]

Unpopular communication advice:

The best way for women in tech to be taken seriously is to talk more about tech, talk less about being women

You don’t see Gwynne Shotwell navel-gazing about being in a male dominated field. When she talks, it’s about space

Emilie Choi is one of the most admired and respected executives in tech. I’ve heard multiple CEOs say “I need an Emilie.” Don’t ever remember hearing Emilie dwell on being a female minority. When she talks, it’s about crypto (or the Philadelphia Eagles)

[Sabeer Bhatia @sabeer]

Pythagorean Theorem? Gone. Theory of Evolution? Gone. Periodic Table? Also gone. At this rate, NCERT might soon replace textbooks with WhatsApp forwards. What are we even teaching our kids?

[Dave Kline @dklineii]

Your culture is defined by the worst behavior you're willing to tolerate. Not your values on the wall. Not your mission statement. Not your good intentions. It's the small compromises. The little rationalizations. The "just this one time" that becomes every time.

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

And then we complain about air pollution. Ha.