Shamshera was the litmus test to see if ranbir could pull off this genre and he failed terribly. Ramayana will only reinforce that. The masses will finally see the limitations in his acting and the narrative this industry has spent years building around him will be exposed.
Was the Cockroach protest truly spontaneous? Or was something much bigger already being set in motion weeks before the first slogan was raised?
Here is the chronology.
May 5: Ratna Singh unexpectedly reached out to me on WhatsApp after nearly three-and-a-half years of complete silence.
Without any prior conversation, she thanked me for guiding her at the beginning of her career and informed me that she was leaving legal journalism. The message was abrupt, random and difficult to make sense of.
What made it even stranger was that barely a week earlier, she had reportedly uploaded a video on her personal account attacking my work. A colleague had forwarded it to me, but the video was subsequently taken down and I did not preserve a copy. I do, however, have contemporaneous messages with my colleague discussing the episode.
Given my previous experience with her, I chose not to respond. But the sudden change in tone was striking. Within days, she appeared to have gone from publicly criticising me to privately thanking me. In hindsight, it raises a question, was she merely changing careers, or was she attempting to soften old equations and secure goodwill before stepping into a public role? For context, she had worked with me only until mid-2022, and that too in a part-time capacity.
May 22: A Delhi court grants Umar Khalid three days of interim bail on medical grounds, effective June 1. The application had been moved in advance.
May 29: Dipke appears on a Turkish media platform TRT and speaks about an atmosphere of fear and chaos in India. Why choose an overseas platform at that particular moment? Reports have alleged that the outlet has received support from actors described as anti-India and pro-Pakistan.
June 1: Umar Khalid walks out on interim bail. On the very same day, AISA-led protests over the NEET paper leak begin gathering momentum.
June 4: Dipke’s interview, alleging that Indian democracy was being throttled, is published by TRT on YouTube and begins circulating more widely. This is the same media house which supported Pakistan during India’s Operation Sindoor.
Around June 6: Dipke arrives in Delhi as the protests continue to intensify.
By this stage, CJP’s alleged links with AAP had already become a matter of public discussion. Social media was flooded with photographs of Dipke alongside AAP leaders and associates, including Saurav Das and Ratna Singh. Their public expressions of support and sympathy for Umar Khalid had also plainly visible across their social-media accounts.
Viewed individually, each event may appear explainable.
But placed side by side, the chronology begins to look far less incidental.
A sudden career switch. An unexplained message after years of silence. An interview with an overseas media platform. Umar Khalid’s temporary release. Protests beginning on the same day. The arrival of key figures in Delhi. And a recurring network of political activists, sympathisers and organisations appearing at every stage.
Now that serious questions are being raised about the alleged foreign-funding angle behind the protests, one feature is impossible to overlook, the sequence bears an unsettling resemblance to the mobilisation pattern witnessed before the 2020 Delhi riots.
The same ecosystem.
The same language of fear.
The same attempt to internationalise an Indian controversy.
The same convergence of activists, political actors and foreign platforms. Perhaps each event is merely a coincidence. But how many coincidences must align before the possibility of coordination deserves investigation? Was this protest organic? Or was the groundwork already being laid long before the crowds appeared?
When will relief thief Rana Ayyub, Zulm zahm gang Arfa & Anupama Chopra bred in the bone dishonest retire from victimhood. They are worse than Modi’s Instagram reel
Your problem Anupama, is that your a a bred in the bone dishonest (Karan Johar, Advani or whatever gives you the advance money) couldn’t be honest to your craft film criticism. Dhurandhar one was an amazing movie. You had no clue. @THR this shill needs to retire
The best well-wishers of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous India have been reasoning, recommending, and requesting for some reforms. Yet, sadly, their requests are never acknowledged.
When this NEET issue happened, supporters of the govt suggested certain actions and clear communication. They were ignored.
Now, the govt submits to anarchists. Messaging directly from the top so many times, meeting them and listening to them, and fulfilling all their demands.
If the govt is forced to listen to the senseless who take to the street and not sensible supporters at the earnest, things will only get worse.
Having tasted success, there may be more protests, more unreasonable demands, and more anarchy to extract and weaken the govt as well as India.
Even after all this, though I am always optimistic, I do not keep high hopes on GoI tackling social media psyops, programming, and infowar the right way.
In fact, it is now seen they are only going after the patriots who point out issues and problems questioning the apathy and inaction.
If this continues, I have already posted what the end result will be. He was already walking like a winner today for what CJP did. That's what India will get.
The students are at top priority, educationally n security-wise, so they need not worry and have their parents worried for them. The Honorable Prime Minister has tweeted, and I am sure that he will take strict action against all those people who are responsible for this leak. So students, plz go back to your parents n homes.
Sonam, it's done, bro. Don't extend this. Keep the spirit for another day if there be a need, which I doubt, n eat something. If u want, will send u food from home.
While it’s important to support our students and ask for educational reforms that positively impact the future of our youth, it’s also very important that peaceful protests by students are Not hijacked by anti national elements to create chaos & change the nature of the protest.
Seeing so much hate & divide online makes me wonder if bad elements in & outside our country have already started to work overtime to weaponise the anger & frustration felt by our students.
I have always believed in hard work, equality and excellence & that should never be compromised. I also believe in our democracy, law and order & our government, therefore I sincerely hope that both sides enter into meaningful & constructive dialogue & weed out any nefarious elements & agendas out of this protest & conversation , so the future is bright for our youth and for our democracy ! 🇮🇳 Jai Hind !
I still remember that boy.
Thirteen years ago, I had just cleared NEET-UG with an All India Rank of 1305 and a West Bengal State Rank of 64. Everything felt new. I had just entered Medical College Kolkata, carrying nothing more than a head full of questions and a heart full of dreams.
Around that time, I appeared for the JBNSTS Scholarship examination. It had three stages, and one of them was a creative writing exercise.
We were asked to imagine the future.
I had never studied medicine. I didn't know what a receptor was, had never heard of monoclonal antibodies, and certainly knew nothing about molecular oncology.
But a few days earlier, I had visited the Birla Industrial & Technological Museum. Somewhere there, I had heard about nanotechnology.
That single word stayed with me.
So, with the confidence that only a child can have, I wrote about tiny molecular robots travelling through the bloodstream, finding cancer cells, entering them, and destroying them without harming the rest of the body. I even drew rough diagrams showing how I imagined they would work.
Looking back today, I smile.
Not because I predicted the future.
But because I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
It was pure imagination.
Fast forward thirteen years.
Today, I stand on the other side of that dream as a Medical Oncologist in training. Every week, I prescribe immunotherapy, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and targeted therapies. I watch patients achieve complete responses and durable remissions—treatments that selectively attack cancer while sparing much of the normal body.
Every time I witness those moments, my mind quietly goes back to that examination hall.
To that little sketch.
To that innocent boy who believed tiny machines could one day fight cancer.
Life has changed me since then.
Years of medical school, residency, endless entrance examinations, sleepless nights, responsibilities, and the realities of being a doctor have taught me discipline. But somewhere along the journey, they also took away a little of that fearless imagination.
Perhaps that happens to many of us.
We become so busy learning what is possible that we slowly stop imagining what could be possible.
Today, whenever I watch interviews of NEET-UG toppers, I don't just see ranks or marks.
I see those same bright eyes.
The same innocent confidence.
The same belief that they can change the world.
And I sincerely hope no one laughs at those dreams.
Please don't tell them their ideas are impossible.
Please don't ask them to "be realistic" too early.
Let them dream.
Let them ask impossible questions.
Let them imagine things that don't exist yet.
Reality will eventually teach them its lessons. But imagination is precious, and once it fades, it is difficult to recover.
After all, every great medical breakthrough was once someone's impossible idea.
Maybe the next child drawing something that looks impossible today will be the one who changes medicine tomorrow.
#NEETUG #NEETUG2026 #NEETResults #NEETTopper #MedicalEducation #FutureDoctors #MBBS #MedicalStudent #CancerResearch #DreamBig
Amaira, a 9-year old fell to her death in one of India's premiere schools; Now New CCTV captures her final moments, revealing Bullying, Criminal Neglect & a Powerful System thats covering it all up. I speak to Amaira's brave parents. Watch in full here https://t.co/JNAVwlgINC
These are Ketan Agarwal and Siya Goel. They were engaged and supposed to get married this year. Look how happy, in love, and comfortable they are with each other.
They must have dreamed of a great future together, but cruel fate had other ideas. On June 18, Siya's birthday, Ketan fell to his death when he slipped while taking a picture of Siya at Lohagad Fort in Maharashtra.
Siya's world turned upside down. She was broken; her dreams, her love, and her future were all gone in a flash, right in front of her eyes. An emotionally grieving Siya wrote a heartbreaking Instagram story for Ketan:
"You left me on my birthday. You left when we were so close to getting married. I still can't understand why you did this to me. I had dreams, questions I'll never get answers to. Why did you leave me when I loved you so much? Mere dil ko pata hai ki tu yahi hai. Wapas aaja."
Feeling sad for her? Well, don't.
The police found the story suspicious and dug deep. They now say that Siya was in a relationship with another guy named Chetan Chaudhary, 22. She did not want to marry Ketan, a man her family had chosen for her, so she devised a plan to eliminate him from her life before their arranged marriage could take place.
Police claim that Siya lured Ketan to Lohagad Fort under the pretext of a casual outing for her birthday, where Chetan was also waiting. Together, Siya and Chetan threw him off the cliff. The police have since arrested them both.
What is even more outrageous is that Siya had tried to throw Ketan off the cliff four days earlier, on June 14. However, a tree broke his fall, preventing a fatal outcome. When a bewildered Ketan asked why she did it, Siya claimed she had seen a snake near the edge of the fort and had pushed him in an attempt to save him, accidentally sending him over the edge. Ketan thanked her and hugged her.
Since she was unsuccessful doing it alone, she persuaded Ketan to accompany her to the fort again four days later, telling him she wanted to celebrate her birthday with friends. Chetan was waiting there, and this time, they didn't fail.
So the so-called Cockroach Protest flopped exactly as expected. Not even a hundred organic supporters turned up, and frankly, that outcome was predictable from day one.
Online activism is easy. All you have to do is hit follow, repost a few hashtags, and convince yourself you're part of some grand revolution. Real-world mobilisation is a completely different game. Who is going to leave their studies, job, business, or daily routine, travel to Delhi in 42°C heat, and stand on the streets for a cause they don't genuinely care about?
Historically, only two kinds of people show up for protests. First, professional agitators, the NGO activists, comrades, student-politics regulars, self-styled farmer leaders, political aspirants, and others whose entire relevance depends on remaining permanently aggrieved. Second, people who truly believe in a cause and are willing to bear personal costs for it, whether it is religion, reservation, language, or some issue that directly affects their lives.
The Cockroach Janta online ecosystem fits into neither category. Its followers are largely urban youth, students, and working professionals who join such trends because they are fashionable at the moment. It gives them the feeling of participating in something meaningful without requiring any actual sacrifice. The reason they never show up on the streets is simple: they are not suffering in real life to the extent they claim online.
Today's turnout exposed the gap between social media noise and ground reality. Viral posts, trending hashtags, and inflated follower counts create the illusion of a mass movement. The moment people are asked to step away from their screens and show up physically, the illusion collapses.
Hopefully, the Cockroach Party leadership received a much-needed reality check. Online gimmicks do not automatically translate into real-world support. In fact, Delhi has seen larger organic gatherings for street dogs opposing a Supreme Court ruling than the combined strength that assembled at Jantar Mantar today.
Dear friends, as promised, the citizens funded generics vs. branded drugs project is now published after 4 months in peer review. It was hardwork, but worth the effort because all of you helped us realize this important work.
You can read the full detaild paper here: https://t.co/jZhm8ZcPCq
Here is a simplified summary:
Do cheaper generic medicines work as well as expensive branded ones? It's a question that worries patients and even many doctors, who often quietly assume that a low price must mean lower quality. This doubt has real consequences in India, where medicines make up nearly two-thirds of what families spend out of their own pockets on healthcare — a burden that pushes millions into poverty and forces people to split doses or stop treatment altogether.
To put the question to a fair, independent test, our team at the Mission for Ethics and Science in Healthcare (MESH) carried out a fully citizen-funded study, paid for entirely by donations from ordinary members of the public, with no money or influence from any drug company.
We bought 131 samples of 22 commonly used medicines — covering heart disease, diabetes, infections, pain, acidity, and more — from seven different kinds of outlets across Kerala, including government stores like Jan Aushadhi, private generic chains, and premium branded pharmacies. Every sample was then coded, blinded, and sent to a top accredited laboratory for rigorous testing against the Indian Pharmacopoeia 2022 standards. What makes this study unusual is that very few before it have tested branded and generic versions from the same market side by side, included government-supplied medicines, and combined strict quality testing with a hard look at price — all at the same time.
The result was striking in its simplicity: every single one of the 131 medicines passed every quality test. 100%. It made no difference whether a pill was generic or branded, cheap or expensive — they were all equally good in their active ingredient content, their purity, and how they dissolve in the body.
Yet the prices told a completely different story. Generic medicines were, on average, 48.6% cheaper than their branded twins, and the most expensive brand cost up to 13.9 times more than the cheapest generic of the very same drug. Government Jan Aushadhi stores were the cheapest source for 18 of the 22 medicines tested, with potential savings running into thousands of rupees a year per medicine — for instance, over ₹16,000 a year on a single liver drug.
For doctors, this is reassuring, hard evidence that prescribing a quality-assured generic is not a compromise on care; it is the same medicine at a fraction of the cost. For patients, it means you can stay on your treatment without it draining your savings, which is exactly what keeps people healthier over the long run.
And this is precisely why independent, publicly funded projects like this matter so much for the future of healthcare in India: they answer the questions ordinary people actually have, free from commercial pressure, and they build the trust that programmes like Jan Aushadhi need to truly succeed. Affordable and high-quality are not opposites — in a well-regulated market, they go hand in hand.
More here: https://t.co/jZhm8ZcPCq
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this video since I watched it a few hours ago. The innocent face of that little boy is haunting me. He looked so pure, so helpless. I simply cannot understand how anyone could be so cruel as to torture a child.
I am heartbroken, angry, and lost for words. This is beyond inhuman—it is unimaginable. The government and justice system must act swiftly and ensure the harshest possible punishment for those responsible. Such heinous crimes deserve zero mercy.
May this case become a strong warning to anyone who would ever think of committing such atrocities in the future. My prayers are with the innocent child. His face will stay with me for a very long time. 💔
#JusticeForTheChild #StopChildAbuse #Humanity
I am a CBSE Class 12 student.
After receiving unexpectedly low marks in Physics, we applied for photocopies of my answer sheets through the CBSE reevaluation process.
Today we received the copies.
And I am shattered because the Physics answer sheet uploaded by CBSE is not mine
The Indian salaried class has been methodically stripped of every single inflation hedge available to it, one budget at a time.
You tried crypto. They slapped a 30% flat tax on gains, allowed no set-off of losses, and added 1% TDS on transfers.
You tried equities. Budget 2024 raised STCG from 15% to 20%, raised LTCG from 10% to 12.5%, increased STT on F&O, and also killed indexation for most other long-term capital gains.
You thought fine, I’ll diversify some savings abroad through LRS. They put 20% TCS on remittances above 10 lakhs for investments abroad.
You tried Sovereign Gold Bonds, because surely a government-issued, government-backed gold hedge would be the one clean instrument they would not mess with. Then Budget 2026 came along and removed the capital gains exemption for secondary market buyers.
And now the final insult.
The Prime Minister has publicly asked you to avoid buying physical gold for a year in the “national interest,” because gold imports use foreign exchange.
So let me get this straight. A middle class wagie earning in depreciating rupees, watching FD rates hover around 6.5% while real life inflation keeps eating his purchasing power, has now been told:
Crypto is taxed like a vice.
Equities are more expensive to hold and exit.
Foreign diversification gets hit with TCS.
SGBs are being wound down and tax-narrowed.
Buying physical gold is now unpatriotic.
Basically, every single exit from rupee depreciation has been systematically curtailed. You are expected to hold your savings in instruments the government controls, at returns the government sets, for a currency the government is rapidly inflating away.
Does this sound like Amrit Kaal to you?