Watched the Dinosaurs documentary on Netflix this weekend. Highly recommend, especially with kids.
Dinosaurs ruled this planet for 165 million years. Then an asteroid they never saw coming ended it all in a geological blink.
Put that in perspective.
Humans with abstract thinking, art, and complex language, what we'd call truly modern humans, have existed for maybe 50,000 to 100,000 years.
Civilisation as we know it? Writing, cities, organised society? Maybe 5,000 years.
The version with industrial-scale technology, global trade, and the ability to reshape the planet? Barely 200 years.
And the version with nuclear weapons, AI, and the ability to end all of it? Less than 100 years.
We solved the asteroid problem, by the way. NASA can now track and deflect them. The thing that wiped out 165 million years of dinosaurs, we've figured that one out.
And yet billions are being spent daily on war and destruction, making an already bad climate situation even worse.
The threats coming from the universe are becoming manageable. The ones we're creating ourselves, not so much.
The dinosaurs had no choice. The asteroid just came.
We do. That's what makes what's happening right now so much harder to watch.
So was he or was he not - “He was a humble, decent, well educated & well meaning man.”? Also, like your initial regret - “I regret having participated in a movement that vilified him” - are you now regretting your initial tweet as well?
Since some people are misinterpreting my statement about Manmohan Singh, I wish to clarify that there was enormous corruption during the UPA govt, including in 2G & Coalgate; but the corruption & fascism that we are seeing today dwarfs the UPA corruption.
By forming AAP, we hoped to usher in a new kind of politics of honesty, transparency, true democracy & policies framed in public interest. Unfortunately these principles were betrayed by Kejriwal who converted AAP to a normal party. Even more unfortunately, our movement helped the Modi/Shah BJP to come to power, which is not only thoroughly corrupt, but also communal, fascist, obscurantist & lumpen. It has done enormous & irreparable damage to India & our democracy, constitution & society
#Punjab Unparalleled martyrdom of Sahibzada Zorawar Singh (8 yrs) and Sahibzada Fateh Singh (6 yrs) who were bricked alive, transcends space and time. Today is anniversary of their martyrdom.
🙏 Words fall short to express their courage and selfless sacrifice, especially at their age. Their courage and sacrifice will always be remembered, and we are indebted to them. It’s unimaginable that anyone could be so cruel and inhumane as to order such an act. 🙏
13 Poh (27 December) | Shaheedi of Mata Gujri Ji & Chotey Sahibzadey
After the martyrdom of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s elder sons at Chamkaur Sahib, Mata Gujri Ji and the Chhote Sahibzadey were betrayed by Gangu and handed over to the Mughal authorities at Sirhind. Despite being imprisoned in the cold Thanda Burj, Baba Zorawar Singh Ji (9) and Baba Fateh Singh Ji (7) fearlessly refused all offers of wealth and power to convert their faith.
On 27 December, under orders of Wazir Khan, the Sahibzadey were bricked alive, attaining martyrdom. Unable to bear the cruelty and shock, Mata Gujri Ji also attained martyrdom the same day.
Their sacrifice remains one of the strongest examples of faith, courage, and moral strength in world history.
History will be kinder to him! Dr. Manmohan Singh’s dignity and legacy stand far above your late regret, those who vilified him should own their words, not seek absolution now.
He was a humble, decent, well educated & well meaning man. His humility & decency was seen as a weakness.
I regret having participated in a movement that vilified him & helped a rogue regime come to power
Dear respected people:
I have been receiving messages reg upi has reached its limit. So am providing bank details. Please contribute your part to these accounts 🙏
RADHIKA GOVIND PATIL
ACCOUNT NO : 110233959128
IFSC code: CNRB0001628
VIDYA NAGAR
HUBBALLI
On the night of May 20, 2025, a little girl in a faded pink frock fell asleep on her mother’s lap at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. Her parents, simple people from Solapur, had come to Mumbai for her father’s treatment. They were exhausted. Just for a moment, the mother closed her eyes.
When she opened them, her daughter was gone.
Six months.
Six months of walking from police station to police station.
Six months of showing the same crumpled photograph to strangers on trains, in slums, in orphanages.
Six months of the father not sleeping, the mother not eating, both of them growing hollow-eyed, whispering the same name into the dark: “Aarohi… Aarohi…”
In Varanasi, a thousand kilometres away, a tiny girl with no memory of her real name was learning to call herself “Kashi.” She had been found crying near the railway tracks in June, barefoot and terrified. The orphanage gave her food, a bed, and a new name. She smiled easily, because children always do, but sometimes at night she clutched the edge of her blanket and asked for “Aai” — Marathi for mother — and no one understood.
Back in Mumbai, the police refused to close the file. They printed posters with Aarohi’s face, stuck them on every platform from Lokmanya Tilak Terminus to Bhusawal to Varanasi Cantt. They ran newspaper ads, knocked on doors, begged journalists for help. Six months is a long time for hope to stay alive, but some officers carried her photograph in their shirt pockets like it was their own child.
Then, on November 13, a local reporter in Varanasi saw the poster. Something clicked. He had seen a girl who spoke Marathi words in her sleep. He made a phone call.
The next morning, a Mumbai Police inspector sat in front of a laptop in Varanasi and opened a video call. On the screen appeared a little girl in a pink frock — the same colour she was wearing the day she vanished. The mother, standing behind the officer in Mumbai, saw her daughter and collapsed without a sound. The father just kept repeating, “That’s my Aarohi… that’s my baby…”
They flew her back on Children’s Day — November 14.
When the plane landed, the entire Mumbai Crime Branch was waiting. They had bought her balloons and a new frock, sky blue this time. But the moment the little girl stepped out and saw the sea of khaki uniforms, she did something no one expected.
She ran.
Not away — toward them.
Tiny legs pumping, arms outstretched, she threw herself at the nearest officer and laughed — the purest, clearest laugh that had been missing from the world for half a year. The officer, a tough man who had seen everything, felt his eyes burn. He lifted her high, and she wrapped her arms around his neck like he was family.
Her parents were crying too hard to walk. So the policemen carried their daughter to them.
The mother touched her face again and again, as if checking she was real. The father fell to his knees and pressed his forehead to his child’s tiny feet, sobbing words no one could understand except God.
And the little girl? She just kept smiling, looking from her parents to the officers and back again, completely unaware that she had turned an entire police station into a sobbing, laughing, praying family.
Six months of darkness ended in one hug.
Aarohi is home now.
The kidnapper is still out there, but that is tomorrow’s fight.
Today, a mother is singing lullabies again.
Today, a father is smiling in his sleep.
And somewhere in Mumbai, there are policemen who will never forget the weight of a four-year-old girl in their arms — the weight of an entire life returned.
Sometimes the uniform doesn’t just catch thieves.
Sometimes it carries lost children all the way back to their mothers’ hearts.
India is a sensible nation aspiring to be a major global power. Being sucked into a long drawn conflict with no endgame and no guarantee that it solves the problem and creating major nuclear risks and spoiling our economy never made any sense. Hence the correct decisions at the top. The hotheads should reflect on what was their endgame anyway.
@VikramMisri I don’t understand why people have written so much filth. @VikramMisri has done nothing wrong, he’s been a complete professional throughout.