Sharadwat Majumdar

Avid cyclist and foodie! try to play the guitar!

[Akshat Shrivastava @Akshat_World]

In the last 2 years, an Upper Middle Class Indian has lost at least 30% of his/her wealth.

Reason: due to currency depreciation & poor investment returns.

The claim might look exaggerated. But, trust me it is not. Ask your friends, relatives, who are NRIs. Compare their wealth growth vs yours'.

You will get the real facts.

The upper middle class is a very neglected community.
They pay Sweden level taxes for Sudan level services.

And, are now quietly seeing their wealth erode.

[Maj Manik M Jolly,SM @Manik_M_Jolly]

Dear @DGCAIndia @NIA_India @airindia
Wanted to draw your attention to a very serious matter.

I was on AI 2469 Pune to Delhi. At three different times, when the flight was close to Delhi, three successive high power green colored lasers were beamed at the flight.

I was able to capture only one. The flight path and log will be able to give you exact locations of the one I wasn’t able to capture.

1. Around 2120 - by the time I could get my phone and camera out, the plane had moved on and the beam stopped. Area unknown to me.

2. Around 2124 - I was able to record. The area was Churu- Tatanagar as informed by photo location feature. Recording attached.

3. Around 2128 - again, it flashed only for few seconds and by the time I started recording, it stopped. Area was Noida - Chapraula. I’ve highlighted the general area in the image attached.

Threes successive beams, at regular intervals - you might want to check. There was a recent case in US just couple of weeks back where this laser pointing was taken very seriously by the agencies.

And one odd guy fooling around is one thing. But same green colored laser, on path of a flight, beamed successively, requires an investigation for sure.

First - Around

[Rishi Bagree @rishibagree]

The BJP’s victory has emboldened the people of West Bengal, who are now opposing any form of extortion in the state.

This is the kind of confidence Prime Minister Modi gives to the people.

[Commentary Syed Abbas Araghchi @Araghchhi]

Anyone who thinks Iran will hand Donald Trump a deal he can brag about is living in fantasy. Deceased Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei, General Qassem Soleimani and a long list of Iran’s senior leaders. Tehran is not going to decorate him with a diplomatic victory after that.

Iran may negotiate when it serves its interests. But it will not reward Trump. It will not give him a trophy. And it will not sign anything he can sell it as a win.

If Trump is furious about Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, then Tehran has even less reason to give it up. That card is one of Iran’s strongest, and it will not hand it to him just to calm his anger. On the contrary, Trump can stay angry until the end of his term. Iran is not in the business of rescuing his ego.

[Paritsh Sharrma @Paritolkks]

Anant Ambani has launched Vantara Creamery, a new ice cream brand from A2 Gir cow milk, including Malai Kulfi, Guava Chilli, Filter Coffee, Kesar Peda, and Butter Caramel.

Indian billionaires has massive wealth and capital, yet most big business families still can’t move beyond campa cola, chai, masala, namkeen-type businesses.

Meanwhile, Western billionaires are building companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, and Meta that are shaping the future.

For a country with this much talent and money, we still think too small.

[IndiaGuns.com @indiaguns]

In case you didn't know. West Bengal sees hundreds of Arms Act cases annually. 2023 data from @NCRBHQ shows 1,349 cases under the Arms Act, with 1,337 illegal/unlicensed firearms seized. This places West Bengal as a hotspot for illegal arms activity.

Will all of this change under the new government?

[Shesh Paul Vaid @spvaid]

Today's election results are not victory for the BJP, but a victory for those who prioritize India's national security. You cannot expect people to vote you to power while insulting Hindus and engaging in anti-Sanatan politics in India anymore. Even I was threatened by Mamata's government: delete my tweets or face an FIR. That’s the level of intimidation we have been dealing with.

[IndiaGuns.com @indiaguns]

Why is it surprising that a Glock was used to kill Chandranath in West Bengal. Glocks are increasingly common in seizures in India. Yes, cheap country-made pistols still dominate the illegal gun market in Bengal, but smuggled Glock-pattern pistols absolutely exist and are increasingly being seized across India. Hundreds in Punjab alone in recent years.

Also, several reports are calling it a "Glock 47X" chambered in 9x19mm which is not an official factory Glock model. That points more toward a Darra Adam Khel-style clone marking. "X" suffix in Glock terminology could mean a lot of things, the gun could be MOS + threaded barrel for supporting suppressors.

[Ramanand @Ramanandx]

“Bhai, I drive honestly all day… why are you treating me like a criminal?”

That’s what Nitesh Dwivedi kept saying with tears in his eyes.

Nitesh works as a driver in Delhi. Like every normal day, he had taken a passenger and parked his vehicle near a metro station.

Suddenly, a few police officers arrived.

“Show your first-aid kit.”

Nitesh immediately showed it.

Then they asked for his driving licence.
Nitesh opened DigiLocker and showed the digital licence issued under government rules.

But the officer refused.

“We don’t accept all this. Show the original document in hand.”

Nitesh tried explaining calmly that DigiLocker documents are legally valid in India.

The officer didn’t listen.

Instead, the situation became more aggressive.

According to Nitesh, the officer started threatening him — saying the vehicle would be seized and he would be sent to court.

Then things turned humiliating.

The officer allegedly grabbed Nitesh by the ear and pushed him.
A hardworking driver who had spent the entire day earning barely ₹3000 eventually broke down and cried.

And the worst part?

Nitesh claims the money he earned that day was also taken away.

Sadly, many online drivers in Delhi are now sharing similar experiences.
They say they are often harassed despite carrying valid DigiLocker documents, and are pressured simply because they don’t have physical originals with them.

A system meant to protect citizens should never become a reason for fear.

[The West Bengal Index @TheBengalIndex]

𝗧𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗿𝗵 𝘁𝗼 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗹.

Titagarh Rail Systems has committed ₹600 crore to a new shipbuilding venture and is preparing to enter the high-speed rail space, leveraging existing facilities and land banks in Bengal. Plans include expanding metro and commuter rail capacities, with several thousand crores in potential investments over the coming years.

The company has confirmed that if policy alignment in West Bengal translates into faster project clearances and industrial incentives, Titagarh could accelerate capital deployment and capture early-mover advantage in shipbuilding and bullet train manufacturing. Speaking about its long-term manufacturing ambitions, Titagarh Rail Systems said, “We are well-placed to develop high-speed, bullet train capabilities.”

[Venkatesh Alla @venkat_fin9]

India collected ₹54,000 crore in road tolls in FY2024
also collected ₹3.6 lakh crore in fuel taxes
also collected ₹1.7 lakh crore in GST on vehicles

Total road-related taxes : ~₹5 lakh crore/year
Total NHAI road budget : ₹1.7 lakh crore

You paid for the road 3 times over.
Then paid again at the toll booth.

where did the other ₹3.3 lakh crore go?

[Nithin Kamath @Nithin0dha]

A bunch of us travelled to Kolkata with our families and visited the Victoria Memorial and the Indian Museum. My first proper museum trip in Kolkata, and it’s easily the best museum city in India.

The Victoria Memorial, conceived by Lord Curzon after the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and opened in 1921, is stunning as architecture. But seeing it in India feels a bit off. Built with Indian money and marble from Rajasthan, it’s also a reminder of the scale of extraction during British rule.

The Indian Museum is something else altogether. The range of archaeology, fossils, art, and anthropology is incredible. You can spend hours and still not be done.

Sharing this because we don’t really have a strong museum-going culture in India. Maybe the long stretch of British rule has something to do with it. But if there are two museums to start with, these are a must-visit.

[Nithin Kamath @Nithin0dha]

The heat has been brutal this past week. Temperatures hit 45° in Nagpur, 44° in Ahmedabad, 43° in Prayagraj, 42° in Delhi. Even Bengaluru hit 37°. And we're still in April 😬

A big contributing factor behind rising temperatures is the loss of forest cover, and India has lost a lot of it. Back in 2020, we met the team behind Farmers for Forests (F4F). Their idea was to do agroforestry at scale. The challenge is that farmers can't afford to wait years for trees to pay off, and most tree-planting projects don't survive the first monsoon. The idea was ambitious, and we at @RainmatterOrg backed them early.

Most tree-planting in India is monoculture, just rows of one species. But a plantation isn't a forest. F4F plants multi-layer agroforests with fruit, timber, shrubs, intercrops, and native species, trying to mimic what an actual forest does.

Six years later, they've gone from 50 acres to 5,000 acres and have just secured funding to reach 40,000 over the next three years. Compared to traditional crop farming, per acre, they're seeing ~4x carbon sequestration, ~3x farmer income, and meaningful improvement in biodiversity and soil health. Still early days, but promising.

Those numbers needed to be verifiable. So F4F built TreeLens, an open-source tree-tracking system that uses drone imagery to measure carbon sequestration, tree height, and biodiversity across thousands of small farms. 15 other organisations now use it.

The hardest problem in agroforestry is time. Fruit trees take 5 to 7 years to pay off, and most small farmers simply can't wait that long. So F4F is now working with the government and the larger ecosystem to design financial instruments like carbon bonds and first-loss guarantees that protect farmers while the trees grow.

Really glad we backed Arti, Aditya, and Krutika early.

[RT @RT_com]

⚡️ Iran F-5 jet BOMBED US base in Kuwait EARLY in war — NBC

BREACHED all AIR DEFENSES

‘1st time enemy fixed-wing aircraft struck an American military base in YEARS’

[desi mojito @desimojito]

Bulldozer action continues in Gurgaon. Good to see authorities working 🔥

[The DeshBhakt 🇮🇳 @TheDeshBhakt]

When @MEAIndia was asked for a reaction to Trump humiliating India, they refused to say a word. Not even 'kadi ninda'
Took @IRANinMumbai to show what a classy response looks like. Maybe in the next shipment out of Iran - Modi Govt can order a set of balls along with the oil.

[Nithin Kamath @Nithin0dha]

I'll admit this might sound odd coming from me, maybe even clichéd. But it's something I've been sitting with for a while, so here goes.

When I started out, like most people, I had a simple wealth goal. I'd actually written it down: hit ₹5 crore, retire in Goa, beach shack, done. That was the dream.

After the Zerodha journey, I find myself on a very different side of that equation, and the dark inequalities of wealth and opportunity are harder to ignore than ever. We all know the numbers on inequality. The concentration of wealth among the top 1% is severe and getting worse, and it's even starker among the top 0.1%. The post-2008 era of rising asset prices has likely made this worse, because the people who hold financial assets are, by definition, people who already have money.

This isn't unique to India. Barring a few exceptions, it's a global phenomenon.

I'm cautious about attributing every socio-political problem we face today to inequality, but it's hard to deny the role it's played in the political upheavals we're seeing across the world. History rarely shows that sustained, extreme inequality ends well. To me, it increasingly feels like sitting in a car with the brakes cut, watching a cliff approach. Btw, all of this even before AI, which has a non-trivial probability of making things worse.

I'll stop short of prescribing solutions. It's too easy to reach for simple answers to complicated problems, and that's a separate conversation entirely. But I think we need to collectively acknowledge this: wealth that just sits in financial assets whose value keeps compounding upward doesn't do much good for anyone beyond those who already have it. And if that wealth isn't in motion, if it isn't doing some social good, the fabric that holds us together will only continue to fray and lead to cynicism, resentment, and worse yet, nihilism. We're already seeing all of it.

What I am saying is that even if a portion of that wealth were channelled into things that could materially improve lives, that seems worth doing. Hoarding wealth, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't really help anyone.

[Sharadwat Majumdar @Sharadwat]

@IraninHyderabad Please come and have food in Kolkata and kolkata biryani. 😁 Kolkata is known as the food capital of India being very diverse and distinct in taste and huge variety.

[Akshat Shrivastava @Akshat_World]

Indian Economy is now a race to the bottom.

1) To win election you need to give freebies
2) To give freebies you need to divert capital from long-term plans. And, tax people more.
3) No long-term planning= poor growth.

Poor growth = increases the need for freebies.

We are basically in a death loop.

[Iran in Mumbai @IRANinMumbai]

Maybe someone should book a one-way cultural detox for Mr. #Trump, it might just reduce the random bakwaas 😏

Kabhi #India aa ke dekho, phir bolna.