Anuj Sahai

Product / Tech guy

[Sagar Awatade @SagarAwatade]

I don't know who else to tell this to, so I am going to tell my story here.

Every day is a struggle for a young business, but the last few months have been harder than usual.

We are a small Indian company. For more than ten years we have been building a homegrown brand in a product category dominated by big foreign players.

There are almost no Indian names in this space. We set out to be one.

We started in 2014. Over the years we began making parts in India instead of just importing, and we started selling in the US, Dubai, Nepal, Malaysia and South Africa.

We showed up at global trade fairs to represent an Indian brand on the world stage.

In 2023 we changed the import code we use for our product. We did not do this quietly. Every shipment was declared. Nothing was hidden. We didn't invent our approach.

We followed written professional advice and the way this product is treated in markets around the world.

And now we are facing a government demand running into tens of crores in duty recovery and penalties, plus personal penalties on the founders and even on an employee.

For a company our size, this is not a fine we can pay and move on from. This ends us.

We have not run from any of this. I am not built like that. It is not how I was raised. We have written to the authorities, met officials in person, and we have now filed a writ in the High Court.

All we are asking for is a fair treatment.

I set out to build in India and sell to the world. I am asking only that the system back honest founders trying to compete globally, instead of breaking them.

The process is the process, and it exists for a reason. But process should not feel like punishment.

From where I am standing today, it does.
I am not giving up. I have worked too hard for this. If you have read this far, please share it. If you know someone who can help, point them my way. Help me get the word out.

[Anuj Sahai @asterix08]

Thanks to the cops at Passport office who intervened and stopped this cab driver. This driver came and hit my car and then kept banging on my bonnet to threaten me and then picked up a brick to break my windscreen when I was not bow to hsi threats. Thank you @CPBlr team.

[Options.India @Options_IndiaAB]

I recently spent 2 weeks in China.

6 cities: Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’an, Zhangjiajie, Chongqing and Chengdu.

I went there with curiosity.

Like many Indians, I had heard a lot about China through media, social media and conversations. I expected to see progress, maybe discover some business ideas, and understand what the country is actually building.

I came back with a very uncomfortable feeling.

Not because I found a business idea for myself.

But because I saw 100 things that governments can do when infrastructure, tourism, transport, urban planning and civic systems are treated seriously.

I travelled within China by flights, trains, cars and local transport. The infrastructure was honestly stunning.

Clean cities. Smooth roads. High-speed trains. Well-managed traffic. Public spaces that actually feel designed for people. Tourist destinations that are built, maintained and promoted like national assets.

And then I kept thinking about India.

We keep comparing ourselves to China. Our media keeps telling us how India is catching up, how China is restrictive, how we are better in so many ways.

After spending time there and speaking to people, I realised how much of that narrative is just comfort food.

China is not perfect. No country is.

But on infrastructure, execution, tourism, civic discipline and quality of urban life, they are not 5 years ahead of us.

They are decades ahead.

The saddest part for me was the currency.

Everything felt expensive. Not because China was insanely expensive, but because the rupee has weakened so much that even normal spending starts feeling heavy. As an Indian taxpayer, that genuinely hurt.

We pay taxes. We work hard. We talk about becoming a global power.

But where is the quality of life?

Where is the civic sense?

Where is the infrastructure that makes daily life easier?

Where is the tourism vision beyond religious tourism?

I met travellers from other countries who were excited to visit China because they wanted to see its progress. When I asked about India, many had no real desire to visit. Not out of hate. India simply was not on their aspirational travel list.

That should bother us.

Even the so-called “closed internet” surprised me. We are told people there are missing out because they don’t use Google, Instagram, WhatsApp or Facebook.

But China has built its own digital ecosystem. Payments, maps, transport, messaging, shopping, everything works inside their own infrastructure. People did not seem to feel deprived. They seemed adapted.

Again, this is not a hate post.

I love India. That is exactly why this trip bothered me.

Patriotism cannot only be about saying we are great.

Real patriotism is having the courage to admit where we are falling behind.

China made me realise one thing very clearly:

India’s potential is not the problem.

Execution is.

And unless we stop comforting ourselves with comparisons and start demanding better infrastructure, better governance, better tourism, cleaner cities and a higher quality of life, we will keep celebrating the idea of progress instead of actually living it.

[Anuj Sahai @asterix08]

Great job @ni5arga. Thanks for hilighting in such an ethical way

[nisarga @ni5arga]

I had hacked CBSE's OSM (On-Screen Marking Portal) in February and had reported the vulnerabilities to CERT-In, but they were unable to patch most of them.

I've written a detailed blog post about it here: https://t.co/qyT23GkTEJ

[nisarga @ni5arga]

I had hacked CBSE's OSM (On-Screen Marking Portal) in February and had reported the vulnerabilities to CERT-In, but they were unable to patch most of them.

I've written a detailed blog post about it here: https://t.co/qyT23GkTEJ

[Siddharth Dhamija @DhamijaSid]

This needs to be stopped @CMofKarnataka @DKShivakumar @bbmpcommr @tv9kannada @ndtv @republic @asianetindia

[Chandra Prabhu @chandraposts]

Here is how both Dev Meena and Kuldeep Kumar travelled to their hotels with their equipment, hours after becoming joint National record holders (5.45m). #athletics
@Xpress_Sports @indraneel0

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Toothpaste needs 30 minutes to do its job. You rinse it off after 2.

Your enamel is made of a mineral called hydroxyapatite. It dissolves whenever the pH in your mouth drops below 5.5, which happens every time you eat or drink anything acidic. Coffee, citrus, soda, bread, even the bacterial fermentation from last night's dinner. Calcium and phosphate ions leach out into your saliva. Your mouth is in active demineralization right now if you ate breakfast.

Saliva pulls those minerals back over the next 30-60 minutes. That's normal repair. It rebuilds the same hydroxyapatite that just dissolved at pH 5.5.

Fluoride changes the chemistry. When fluoride ions sit on the enamel surface during the rebuild window, they swap into the crystal lattice in place of a hydroxyl group. The new mineral is called fluorapatite. Critical pH drops from 5.5 to 4.5. Solubility is roughly 10x lower. The tooth that grows back is harder than the one that was there.

Adult toothpaste sits at 1,450 ppm fluoride. The instant you rinse with water, salivary fluoride drops by roughly 2.5x. The 30-minute substitution window collapses to a few minutes. The active ingredient goes down the drain.

The UK's official dental guidance is "spit, don't rinse." Pediatric dentistry researchers attribute up to 25% less decay to the habit change.

Spit. Walk away. The chemistry runs without you.

[Ananthan Ayyasamy @AnanthAyyasamy]

Four years ago, I sat down with my 12-year-old daughter in the US and told her I was walking away from a successful tech career and real estate business to return to India for public service and politics.

At that age, she didn’t realize “public life” would slowly take her Appa away from her for months… and years.

But I came with conviction.

So for the last 4 years, we gave everything we had — for example -In villages like Subramaniapuram and Vellanaikottai, we built bus shelters, restored a 100-acre pond, removed seemai karuvelam, strengthened bunds, planted thousands of palm saplings, supported students’ education, organized medical camps and career workshops, built community sheds, encouraged youth and sports activities, and contributed to annadanams.

It cost several ten lakhs of hard-earned money - just for this village alone. But more than money, it cost time… family moments… and precious years watching my daughter grow up from far away.

Then elections came.

And the same village chose a candidate who had barely visited them in five years.

In the end, one week of election-time money defeated four years of sincere service.

Yesterday, my daughter quietly asked me over video call:

“Appa… can you now tell me what exactly politics is?”

For the first time in my life, I did not have an answer for my chellaponnu.

@svembu

[Anuj Sahai @asterix08]

@SteelcaseAP Pathetic design. No number for customer care. On the underside of the table, wires keep dangling like some local shop cheap product. Trying to get this resolved for months. Pics attached

[Easy Rider @Koushik_laribee]

This is how the green cover in Bangalore reduced over the years.

The city is baking .

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

There's a physicist at Stanford named Safi Bahcall who modeled this exact principle and the math is wild.

He calls it "phase transitions in human networks." When you're stationary, your probability of a lucky event is limited to your existing surface area: the people you already know, the places you already go, the ideas you've already been exposed to. Your opportunity window is fixed.

When you move, your collision rate with new nodes in a network increases nonlinearly. Double your movement (new conversations, new cities, new projects) and your probability of a serendipitous encounter doesn't double. It roughly quadruples. Because each new node connects you to their entire network, not just to them.

Richard Wiseman ran a 10-year study at the University of Hertfordshire tracking self-described "lucky" and "unlucky" people. The single biggest differentiator wasn't IQ, education, or family money. Lucky people scored significantly higher on one trait: openness to experience. They talked to strangers more, varied their routines more, and said yes to invitations at nearly twice the rate.

The "unlucky" group followed the same routes, ate at the same restaurants, and talked to the same 5 people. Their networks were closed loops. No new inputs, no new collisions.

Luck isn't random. Luck is surface area. And surface area is a function of movement.

The lobster emoji is doing more work than most people realize. Lobsters grow by shedding their shell when it gets too tight. The growth requires a period of total vulnerability. No protection, no armor, soft body exposed to the ocean.

That's the cost of movement nobody posts about. You have to be uncomfortable first. The new shell only hardens after you've already moved.

[Anuj Sahai @asterix08]

On call with Airtel call center for 45+ mins now and the guy refuses to transfer the call to his supervisor and just keeps asking me to call back. Issue with international roaming and @airtelindia @Airtel_Presence does not care. Pathetic experience last 24 hours.

[Anuj Sahai @asterix08]

https://t.co/ztuMQvCPyM

[sushant sareen @sushantsareen]

Last few days, some leaders of opposition played a very responsible and truly nationalist role. Honorable mentions include @ManishTewari @ShashiTharoor @OmarAbdullah @asadowaisi and so many others. Many might differ with their politics, criticise them, might not agree with what they represent, but that is part and parcel of democracy. They played a stellar role when it mattered the most and for that we must appreciate them.

[ANI @ANI]

J&K CM Omar Abdullah tweets, "What the hell just happened to the ceasefire? Explosions heard across Srinagar"

[Omar Abdullah @OmarAbdullah]

This is no ceasefire. The air defence units in the middle of Srinagar just opened up.

[Omar Abdullah @OmarAbdullah]

What the hell just happened to the ceasefire? Explosions heard across Srinagar!!!

[Naomi Canton @naomi2009]

The UK government today called on Pakistan to crack down on terror within its borders.
https://t.co/HbP9Vqd5rZ

[Anuj Sahai @asterix08]

@east_bengaluru @DKShivakumar This needs to be made a model zone to showcase brand Bangalore
Not just roads but parks, trees, develop the lake etc. pretty much like the CBD.