Aditya

🚢 Azure professional with a focus on the automotive domain and IoT.

[Krishna Rao, K 🇮🇳 @krishnaraobsf]

India's Biggest Economic Challenge Is not Inflation, Oil, or War - It is an Unskilled Population Addicted to Distraction.

Every time oil prices rise, economists panic. Every time a war breaks out in the Middle East or Europe, television studios declare that India's economy is under threat. And yes, both matter. But neither represents India's greatest economic challenge. The real crisis is unfolding much closer to home.

It is a generation that spends more time consuming content than creating value. A workforce that debates geopolitics without mastering spreadsheets, artificial intelligence, coding, welding, precision manufacturing, sales, finance, communication, or even basic problem-solving. An economy where attention has become the most wasted national resource.

India is one of the youngest countries in the world. That should have been our greatest competitive advantage. Instead, we risk turning our demographic dividend into a demographic liability.

The Age of Endless Consumption

Never before has information been so accessible. Yet never before have so many people spent so much time learning so little. Hours disappear into political debates, celebrity gossip, cricket controversies, influencer reels, conspiracy theories, and outrage cycles that have absolutely no impact on an individual's earning potential. Ask someone how many hours they spent on social media last week. Then ask them how many hours they invested in acquiring a new professional skill. For many, the answer is uncomfortable. We have become experts at commenting on the economy while contributing very little to it.

Degrees Are Not Skills

India has no shortage of graduates. It has a shortage of employable graduates. Companies repeatedly report the same problem: vacancies exist, but suitable candidates are difficult to find. Not because people lack certificates. Because many lack practical skills. The world is rewarding competence, not credentials.
- Can you solve problems?
= Can you communicate effectively?
- Can you sell?
= Can you lead a team?
- Can you analyze data?
- Can you use AI to improve productivity instead of merely asking it amusing questions?
- Can you create something that another person is willing to pay for?
Those are the questions that determine economic success. Not the number of degrees hanging on a wall.

Attention Is the New Currency

The biggest theft today is not of money. It is of attention. Every notification fragments concentration. Every endless scroll delays mastery. Every hour spent consuming outrage is an hour not spent building expertise.

Modern economies reward deep work, specialized knowledge, creativity, and disciplined execution. Algorithms reward emotional reactions. Unfortunately, millions choose the algorithm.

The Coming Divide

Artificial intelligence is not replacing everyone. It is replacing people who refuse to learn. The future will belong to workers who continuously upgrade themselves. Those who combine human judgment with technological tools will become dramatically more productive. Those who stop learning will find themselves competing for fewer opportunities at lower wages. The divide will not be between rich and poor. It will increasingly be between skilled and unskilled.

National Growth Begins With Individual Discipline

Governments can build highways. Businesses can build factories. Universities can build campuses. But none of them can force an individual to develop skills. Economic transformation begins with personal responsibility. Spend one less hour arguing online. Spend one more hour learning. Read instead of scrolling. Build instead of complaining. Acquire one valuable skill every year. Become indispensable.

If millions of Indians made that simple choice, the country's economic trajectory would change more profoundly than any fiscal stimulus, any election promise, or any temporary fall in oil prices.

Wars will end. Oil prices will rise and fall. Markets will recover. But a nation that neglects skill development while surrendering its attention to endless distraction will struggle long after those headlines have disappeared.

The strongest economy is not built by the loudest voices. It is built by the most capable people.

#JaiHind

[Aditya @audipen]

@narendramodi What utter bulshit.

[Iran News 24 @IRanMediaco]

The US military attacked Indian oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, killing three Indians.

The Indian Prime Minister did not even issue a single condemnation..

[Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor]

Deeply shocking to read this official US statement, which contains absolutely no expression of regret or condolence for the loss of innocent Indian lives. How can a “friend” and strategic partner be so deeply insensitive?

Why couldn’t a non-compliant commercial vessel have been stopped using other, non-lethal means? Is it not possible to disable a ship's propulsion or steering without firing missiles targeted to kill civilian crew members?

Practically every merchant ship navigating these crucial waters has Indian crew on board. Are they all considered fair game for US missiles now?

This approach is unacceptable and I hope @DrSJaishankar had said so to @marcorubio.

[Aditya @audipen]

@mayukh_panja Your post doesnt make sense. You have to prove yourself anyways...no matter what passport you hold. In your day to day life in Germany your passport hardly matters. Hasnt mattered for me for the last 17 years.

[Ankur Bisen @AnkurBisen1]

This is my daily commute to work. when people talk to me about greatness of imagined past, how India is going great, how india is destined for bla bla and why I am always complaining, I stamp this.

I have travelled extensively across Asia, Africa and first world and nowhere I have come across this apathy, normalisation of mediocrity and ugliness.

We are a motley of lints that hide inferiority by being loud and uncouth.

[Darab Farooqui @darab_farooqui]

India is going through its dark ages.

Utterly unlettered and incompetent people have captured power.

They have dumbed down the masses through propaganda, lies and fear. And the masses have embraced them as saviours.

It is the oldest story in the world. The pied piper plays his tune, and the rats follow him straight into the river. Smiling all the way.

But this time it is not the rats. It is not the children. It is the masses themselves following the tune, walking toward the river, smiling.

And that is where the analogy breaks every previous version of this story. When the children were taken, the parents could fight to bring them back. There was someone left in the city.

This time, the city is empty.

Severe pain is coming. Severe misery is coming. It is not a prediction. It is arithmetic.

We were never a perfect nation. But we knew that. We had the courage to admit it, to look at ourselves honestly and say, a lot of work is left, we have to work harder.

That courage is gone.

Everyone knows something has gone deeply wrong. You can see it in their eyes. But the majority cannot bring themselves to say it out loud. Not on television. Not at the dinner table. Not even to themselves when they face the mirror.

That is the real rot. Not the incompetence at the top. Not the propaganda. Not even the fear.

It is the cowardice at the bottom.

It is like a man who breaks every mirror in his house because he cannot stand what he sees. The reflection doesn't change. He just stops looking.

We have become a nation that cannot look truth in the face, even when it is standing right in front of us, staring us down.

And a nation that cannot recognise symptoms and face the truth, cannot fight the disease.

[Manoj Ahirwar @manoj_ahi]

I live in a country where:

- There is no garbage collection happening in my area.

- Because of that, people are dumping garbage everywhere.

- I complained to the municipal department about this. Nothing happened.

- Complained on the CM helpline. After a couple of days, a garbage collection truck came.

- It came for just one day, then stopped.
Complained again. Same thing happened. Came for 1-2 days, then stopped.

- The reason: the road connectivity in my area is too bad for the truck, and there's a risk of the truck getting damaged. Fair enough.

- Complained to the CM helpline about the bad road. Nothing happened.

- Complained again. Got a response saying it's in the plan, will require around ₹22 lakhs, but they don't have the budget right now. Was told to be patient.

That was a year ago.

I believe people can change. But this kind of incompetence from the people who run the system is exactly why India is, and will remain, a developing nation while other countries race past us.

The only way I can fix this now is to hire a garbage truck for my area myself. And fix the road myself.

Because yeah, greatest country in the world.

My suggestion to people: if you ever get the chance, go settle in a country that actually values its people.

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

If you have 3 minutes to watch Pete Hegseth get schooled by @RoKhanna, you need to watch this! Listen through the end. It’s EPIC!

Congressman Ro Khanna: “How much did it cost American taxpayers in terms of the strike on the school?”

Pete Hegseth: “I wouldn’t tie a cost to it.”

He then refuses to say what the costs are to American families, before Ro Khanna gives him the astounding numbers.

The end is the best part.

Hegseth and Trump are so far from reality when it comes to everyday Americans.

[Omar Baddar عمر بدّار @OmarBaddar]

Never has a dumber group of people been put in charge of the world than this one. The Trump administration is so moronic, you simply can't parody it. This is the closest we've come to the movie 'Idiocracy' becoming a documentary.

[Rep. Jim McGovern @RepMcGovern]

23 years ago tonight, in an Oval Office address, George W. Bush announced the start of the Iraq War.

4,492 American service members were killed in the years that followed. 32,292 were wounded.

At least 200,000 Iraqi civilians died. The humanitarian impact was immense.

America wasted 9 years and 3 trillion dollars on a war that never should have happened—a war predicated on a lie, pushed by warmongering neocon politicians, and paid for by everyday people.

Imagine what that $3 trillion could have bought here at home. Imagine the decade we could have spent focusing on America, our people, our place in the world. Imagine the lives our service members, stolen from us, would have lived. But instead, the president took us to war. Yet another costly quagmire in the Middle East.

I voted against the Iraq War. I knew the White House would lie to Members of Congress and voters alike to manufacture the pretext for a conflict—and they did.

Now, Iran is shaping up to be Iraq 2.0—new lies, new bloodthirsty politicians, still paid for by American families. Yesterday, we learned that Trump wants another $200 billion for his war. That's after Congress already gave the Pentagon more money than it even asked for in the budget.

Enough is enough. It is not too late to learn from the past. Stop this madness. Bring our troops home. End this war.

[Joe Kent @joekent16jan19]

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, effective today.

I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.

It has been an honor serving under @POTUS and @DNIGabbard and leading the professionals at NCTC.

May God bless America.

[Aditya @audipen]

@mukund Its used for years during marathons to sell participants their photos taken during the run

[Josiah Lippincott @jlippincott]

The Iran War is a simple judgment for me:

-War is for the sake of peace and security.

-Iran is not a meaningful threat to the United States. Its military cannot invade our territory.

-Nuclear weapons do not have offensive utility in a world of Mutually Assured Destruction as doctrine. Iranian possession of a nuclear weapon doesn't matter.

-Our current relations with Iran are bad because of the government's insane Cold War policy of overthrowing the legitimate Iranian government in 1953.

-Our bases in the Middle East are liabilities. It is not the job of the American taxpayer to keep sea lanes open and ME oil flowing. That is for corporations and the regional governments to figure out. We have oil here.

-We would be wealthier, safer, and happier if the American government were to completely disengage from the Middle East.

For all these reasons (and more) I oppose the war.

[Aditya @audipen]

@narendramodi What fucked up priorities

[Aditya @audipen]

@inna_makan @ndtv @News18India @NavbharatTimes @ABPNews @aajtak @ians_india @PMOIndia @BBCHindi @JagranNews @CMODelhi Everyone of you that is outraged by this...plz stop paying any bribe ,if you do. Every single Rupee paid as bribe is poisoning the system and will come back to bite you one way or the other.

[Aditya @audipen]

@DrNimoYadav India has become a shit hole...you survive if you are lucky

[Snehil Saluja @mrsnhl]

A 1 crore earning techie's life has no value in Bengaluru.

And if you're not earning that much? Your life has even less.

My sister and her friend were driving home in my car. They stopped at a red light - the logical thing anyone does. A drunk driver in a mini-truck didn't feel the need to stop. He slammed into them instead.

I know he was drunk. She knows it. The highway police knows it. The truck owner knows it.

No arrest was made.

The truck driver never showed up at the station. The owner never showed up. Nobody cared. My sister and her friend - both injured, both terrified - kept going back to the station, back to the accident site, explaining what happened over and over, just trying to get a report filed.

I was in the US. All I could do was talk to them on calls, helpless.

Here's what the police told them:
"If nobody died, an FIR doesn't make sense."
"Just claim first party insurance."
"Third party insurance doesn't pay much anyway."

And then, quietly, one officer pulled them aside and told the truth: "These truck mafia bribe us. Nothing will happen."

Nothing happened.

The truck was KA04 AE6550. The police themselves said if they'd been on a two-wheeler, both would be dead.

We had 100% insurance from Reliance. Claim rejected. Reason? "Misrepresentation of facts." These two, even while injured, kept showing up to represent the facts. Reliance still found a way to deny them.

The law says if someone hits you from behind, the person behind is at fault. It was a red light. How does a truck driver not see that?

Trust me, this isn't about money. I'll manage the repairs and the medical bills. I have savings. And I have a decent credit score; I'll take a personal loan if I have to. That's not the point.

The point is this: my sister is afraid now. Afraid that anything can happen to her at any moment and there's no one - no system, no law, no institution - that will protect her.

But how do I tell her the world is supposed to be fair? How do I tell her to trust the system? How do I explain that the drunk driver walks free, the truck owner was never questioned, and the police pocketed their bribe and closed the file?

I can't say to any official, "What if this was your daughter? Your sister?" Because their daughters travel in cars with security escorts. They will never know what it feels like to be ordinary and unprotected.

So I'm saying it to you, an ordinary reader.

You're on the road. You stop at a red light. A drunk driver in a truck rear-ends your car. Your loved one is inside, terrified.

And then you learn: there is no recourse. None.

The truck owner pays off the cops. The insurance company rejects your claim. The system shrugs.

This is Bengaluru in 2025. This is India in 2025. This is what your life is worth here.

One more thing. The friend in the car? He's one of the smartest people I know. close to top 100 rank in IIT-JEE. AI engineer and one of the biggest data companies. At 23, he is valuable to be paid more annually than the cost of five such trucks, that too, in India. He's patriotic. He pays his taxes. He stays in India even though he constantly gets offers to move to the US.

This is the confidence our system gives to someone who is clearly an asset to this country. All this unfairness - for a drunk truck driver.

@blrcitytraffic @BlrCityPolice - tell me. I've always avoided raising fingers publicly. But what else can I do?

[Hindutva Knight @HPhobiaWatch]

Usman Khawaja - Pakistani born immigrant who was accepted by Australian cricket, got tons of chances in the beginning despite averaging 30 in first 25+ test matches. Got the opportunity to play ODI and T20 as well but flopped. Kept playing one format and stat padded 6000 in 88 matches runs with 42 average. Married a white australian woman and she converted to Islam for him. When Australia won Ashes Pat Cummins stopped players from flaring whisky so that Khawaja could join the victory celebration. On the farewell speech he didn't take a minute to call Australians Racist

AR Rahman - Born as a Hindu who converted to Islam. His name to him Allah Rakha was suggested by a Hindu Sheer who he met just before conversion. He rose to fame through Musical Art. He Worked in South Indian, Bollywood and Hollywood. He won 7 national awards, 5 BAFTA, 2 Oscars and other 200 awards for his work throughout the world. He married a Muslim woman from Gujarat which is considered a Hindutva bastion. His daughter studied from Swiss college. Yet on BBC URDU he said he is not getting films because he is Muslim

Divided by borders, United by Victim card

[Roshan Rai @RoshanKrRaii]

Untimely passing of a rich person’s son is so tragic that the Prime Minister immediately tweets about it.

15 people including toddlers died in Indore water contamination not so long ago, there was no tweet or statement of even a mere condolence put out by this man.

Now judge your value.