Stopped at a dhaba on the Jaipur highway yesterday. Hotel Jammu Himachal Dhaba,
Cheerwa, Udaipur. Bill came: ₹641.90 food + ₹32.10 GST. CGST 2.5%, SGST 2.5%.
Before I paid, I did what I always do. Opened https://t.co/o1skUj6JJH. Typed in the GSTIN from the bill. Hit Search.
Status: Regular Taxpayer.
I paid without a second thought.
But here is what most people don't know and what I have seen go wrong at dozens of small restaurants, dhabas, and shops across India:
A Composition taxpayer CANNOT collect GST from you. Ever.
Under the GST Composition Scheme, a dealer pays a flat tax to the government from their own pocket - 1% for traders, 6% for service providers. They cannot add GST to your invoice.
They cannot charge you CGST or SGST. The moment they do, that amount is being collected from you with zero legal basis.
It does not go to the government. It stays with the owner.
That is not a tax. That is a collection.
How to check in 30 seconds:
→ Open https://t.co/o1skUj6JJH
→ Search Taxpayer → Enter GSTIN from your bill
→ See: Regular / Composition / Suspended / Invalid
If it says Composition and they charged you GST you have the right to refuse payment of that amount and raise a complaint on the GST portal.
This dhaba was clean. Not every one is.
Check before you pay. 🧾
BAPS has messed up in France. They have given ammo to anti-India forces operating across Europe spreading hate against Hindus & India. French media is full of this issue (read the issue in comments below).
They have hurt their own reputation and now they are being linked to India, Hindus, and Modi (as he inaugurated them) to destroy their reputations as being anti-women & patriarchal.
There are many Christian institutions in Europe that are exclusively male. But they do not go to a public place and ask women not be present to create a controversy. Even though if they did that there would be little controversy like this.
When you know you are being targeted by some forces, you need to be a lot more careful and sensitive. How difficult is this? The fault lies with the tower operator too but BAPS is the one that made the request.
It is important the BAPS leaders in France and Worldwide give proper public statements, appear in media widely, dispel the myths and propaganda being generated.
@MEAIndia@IndiaembFrance must issue statements and reach out to French media widely to say BAPS request and the tower operator's decision had nothing to do with India. And "India always stands for inclusivity and women participation as a country and civilization."
But, unfortunately, it is likely we won't see such media outreach and counter correcting the issue as everyone will imagine the problem will go away with time. I hope I'm wrong.
In the Mahābhārata (Karṇa Parva, 8.49), Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna a story about an unlearned ascetic named Kauśika who was obsessed with a single, rigid rule: never tell a lie.
Kauśika was not a scholar (na bahuśrutaḥ).
He lived at a river confluence and had taken a public vow of absolute verbal truthfulness.
One day, people fleeing from violent robbers ran into the forest near his dwelling. When the robbers arrived and asked where the fugitives went, Kauśika faced a test.
Instead of understanding the deeper purpose of ethics, he blindly kept his literal vow and told them exactly where the fugitives were hiding.
The robbers hunted them down and killed them.
For causing that massacre through his mindless adherence to a surface level rule, Kṛṣṇa states plainly that Kauśika earned hell (dāruṇaṃ nirayaṃ gataḥ).
K��ṣṇa explains why Kauśika failed so catastrophically:
सत्यस्य वचनं साध�� न सत्याद्विद्यते परम् I
तत्त्वेनैतत्सुदुर्ज्ञेयं यस्य सत्यमनुष्ठितम् II
Satyasya vacanaṃ sādhu na satyādvidyate param I
tattvenaitat sudurjñeyaṃ yasya satyamanuṣṭhitam II
"Speaking the truth is good; nothing is higher than truth. But the true, subtle nature of truth is exceptionally difficult to grasp, even for those who practice it."
Kṛṣṇa’s point is sharp: A rigid verbal script detached from consequence and context is destructive ignorance.
True wisdom is understanding context, consequences, and the living reality on the ground. 🙏🙏
Pakistan Air Force has released a video as a retaliation for the Discovery documentary about Op Sindoor.
In additions to losing - Airbases, runways, terror bases, pilots, AWACS, radars they also lost a lot of AI tokens. Fresh casualty 😭
Why India has to do manufacturing?
Why make in India will be a failure?
Why should India build large factories to manufacture small chips?
Why not smuggle semiconductors?
Why become a superpower?
Why Indian economy is going to fail soon? (since 2015)
Why India has "Hindu rate of growth"?
Why aspiring to be a developed nation by 2047 is "nonsense"?
Even if you have two neurons in the brain firing without biases and ideologies, you will reject such a pessimistic person on India as a sore loser and a lunatic.
In 2024, many were arguing that AGI and Singularity are impossible. But now we have Astra which some claim is "almost AGI".
Hence my old prediction that we will see something like AGI by 2028 (@grok 5 will be one as well) still stands.
And I think true AGI exceeding specialist human capability along with Tech Singularity is possible by the 40s.
But here's the concerning part for me: All this is radically going to change the way humans live and human civilization progresses.
There is going to be a lot of upheaval in the systems we are used to. Finance, economics, trade, tech, justice, politics, policing - all can become radically different by 2050s if this sort of "exceeding specialist humans" true AGI arrives.
We are definitely not prepared. Our governments, public services, authorities, and society are largely organized around slow changing, organized, age-old systems. They are not ready for rapid changes and upheaval.
Hence I predict that political power will react to stop the progress into such AGI.
So by 2030s, I think we will have authoritarian control of tech companies before they can raise their own robot armies powered by AGI to take on the governments.
IMO, this is the more likely scenario: Authorities (may be a worldwide govt/org) will take control of all hardware for AI and freeze AI development and progress. But authorities will do this using public and AI support.
The authorities may time it with a market crash, blamed on AI calling it an "AI bubble burst", where public lose enormous amounts of money.
The public will then be angered and fear-mongered about losing money, losing jobs, and AI destroying their environment and lives. To make them support authoritarian control of tech.
So humans will sabotage progress to true AGI (exceeding specialist human capabilities) themselves.
But not before forming factions and having a fight about it. I think we are entering an age of extreme geopolitical, political, and civil turbulence because of AI.
How do you prepare?
There's one time tested idea for those who can (I can't yet do it): Get rid of all material wealth, get rid of all tech, go to India, live in the mountains in an Ashram or start one yourself. Learn and preach spirituality.
I urge the Indian govt to ease visas for such activities for select friendly nations. Elon Musk must be given a special pre-approved visa.
For, I am sure, when the authoritarians take control in the US, SpaceX will be the first to be destroyed as it makes AI and robotics both.
@merettm I don't think we have choices. Authoritarians are going to take control of tech progress by 2030s and sabotage the evolution to true AGI. https://t.co/BkKwZBGBxN
'I can't get to the gym'
I've trained in hotel rooms, living rooms, and airport terminals during a decade of professional sport.
Here are the 5 bodyweight exercises I keep coming back to — and how to actually do them:
= Thread =
Fifty years later, this remains the most legendary scene in documentary history.
During the filming of Pumping Iron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his training partner Franco Columbu walked directly into California’s low-security Terminal Island Federal Prison. Instead of a standard celebrity guest appearance, they put on an unfiltered, live posing exhibition right in front of a stunned crowd of male and female inmates. The scene completely shattered the era's traditional pop-culture boundaries. Arnold didn’t look down on his audience. He actively counted reps for the prisoners, joked with the crowd, and used the physical discipline of weight training to discuss building universal self-respect and life direction. This iconic documentary in now 50 years old, this scene stands as a masterclass in raw, undeniable human connection that pushed bodybuilding into the global mainstream. Fucking Legend.