I travel across Europe by trains. People mind their business, read books, or the ones listening to music have their headphones on. Once in a while all you can hear is an infant crying.
I'm right now in a Vande Bharat train. Literally 30% passengers are watching YouTube or insta reels on their speaker phones. Ringtones so loud that even the next coach can hear it. People screaming and not actually talking.
Why can't we a little bit more civic, a bit more civilized. Why can't we understand that somebody's entertainment can be a nuisance for others. Same behaviour we carry abroad and then get called out.
When will we learn????
#Helmet#AEC FLYOVER
હેલ્મેટ ફ્લાયઓવરના વાળીનાથ ચોકના અપ રેમ્પ અને વાળીનાથ તરફ એઈસી ફલાયઓવર ડાઉન રેમ્પના રોડ લેવલમાં ક્ષતિ છે. ઘણી વખત કમ્પલેન કરી પણ સાવરણો મારી છૂટી જાય છે. વરસાદ બંધ થાય પછી બે દિવસ ટુ વ્હીલર ચાલકો હેરાન થાય છે.
#મુનસીટાપલી
@BLRAirport : Great Hospitality and service by Chandana. She has taken care a lot of us since we are with infant... Bengaluru airport is the best in the world...
It takes months to grow plants and seconds for an entitled fool to destroy them.
We humans are the cruelest species on earth. Shame on whosoever has parked this way destroying life simply because he/she can.
#Ahmedabad : City with 0 Civic Sense
From the time I started playing cricket, Kane Williamson has been one of the most technically compact and magnificent batters I have seen. Balance, timing, and that trademark calm at the crease came together to make his batting one of the most consistently pleasing sights in world cricket. A thorough gentleman and a true role model for youngsters.
His retirement will probably be received with unexpected relief in more than a few bowling camps. Wishing him luck and success in his next chapter.
25,000 saplings we planted in June last year in this patch. Of 30 different native species. After one years 98-100% survival, average 6 feet height.
A small video from one side of the patch. Few pics from different places.
Here's what #Annamalai is thinking: "If Vijay, aged 51, with no experience in politics can single-handedly become chief minister in under two years of his launch, why can't I aged 41 not aspire big time when I have hard work, considerable administrative experience and comparable histrionic skills?"
#TVKVijay #TamilNadu
Google which is cash surplus, just announced an additional capital raise of $80 bn.
Google annual profit is $160 bn, last quarter $62 bn, and market cap $4.5 trillion. That is close to total profits and market cap of all Indian listed companies put together.
It’s a wake up call to all companies to invest into the future, whatever the present maybe.
Now that IPL is done and dusted, time for India to focus on business of business.
Shri Harshbhai, Lakhs of daily commuters travelling between Gandhinagar – SG Highway – Sarkhej – Changodar deserve a strong, reliable & integrated public transport system.
This corridor is Gujarat’s fastest-growing economic spine with IT parks, GIFT City connectivity, universities, industries, offices, hospitals & residential hubs generating massive daily movement. Yet thousands still depend on private vehicles due to limited seamless public transport options.
A coordinated mobility network by GSRTC & AMTS can transform daily commuting through:
🚌 Frequent AC & express buses during peak hours
🚏 Dedicated limited-stop services on SG Highway
🔄 Better integration with #AhmedabadMetro & BRTS
📱 Real-time bus tracking & common digital ticketing
🅿️ Park & Ride facilities at key junctions
🌱 Reduced traffic congestion, fuel consumption & pollution
A strong Gandhinagar–Changodar transit corridor will not only save time for commuters but also improve productivity, road safety & urban sustainability for the entire Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar region.
Efficient public transport is not a luxury anymore — it is an economic necessity for a rapidly growing #Gujarat.
#GSRTC #AMTS #SGHighway #PublicTransport #UrbanMobility #AmdavadMetro
The results of the recent state elections have been dramatic by any measure.
But for me, this image will remain the most unforgettable outcome of the elections.
More than 166,000 votes were cast between the two leading candidates in this constituency in Tamil Nadu.
And history was changed by just one vote.
This image should be shown in every school in the country & perhaps around the world.
So that every child understands that when they grow up, the greatest power they may possess is the Power of One.
The power of their one vote.
@adhirasy Wrong side driving and Signal breaking has become a normal thing in Ahmedabad... Amdavadi Public has got such level confidence that photos are not getting captured while breaking signal or there are hardly any office at signal
@PoliceAhmedabad@GujaratPolice@AhmedabadPolice
Her name is Malavika Hegde.
In July 2019, her husband VG Siddhartha walked onto a bridge near Mangalore and told his driver he would be back shortly.
He never came back.
Siddhartha had built Cafe Coffee Day into India’s largest coffee chain. 1700 cafes. 25000 employees. He had also buried the company under Rs 7214 crore of debt.
The board panicked. Analysts wrote CCD off.
Nobody had accounted for Malavika.
She was an engineer. A mother of two. She had never run a company in her life. Her father SM Krishna was a former Chief Minister of Karnataka. She could have lived in that shadow comfortably.
She chose the debt instead.
In December 2020, she took over as CEO. In the middle of a pandemic. Her first act was a personal letter to all 25000 employees. She wrote the CCD story is worth preserving. I will fight for this brand.
Then she got to work.
She called every lender personally and renegotiated terms. She sold Global Village Tech Park to Blackstone. She closed every loss making outlet. She exported premium Arabica beans from her own 20000 acre farm to international markets to generate fresh revenue.
She never raised the price of a single cup of coffee.
By 2021, the debt was down to Rs 1731 crore. By 2023, it was Rs 465 crore.
A 93 percent reduction in four years.
Today, CCD runs 423 cafes and 55733 vending machines across India. Netflix is developing a web series on her life. Business schools are teaching her turnaround as a case study.
She had no playbook. She had no mentor. She had grief and 25000 people depending on her.
That was enough.
Follow for real stories India never makes headlines about.
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.