Ajit Karnik

Liberal, democrat, secular, economist, film buff, book-lover, father, husband, brother...

[Ajit Karnik @karnikajit]

Very good judgement but quite a commentary that it needed the highest court in India to pronounce on a basic livability issue in Indian cities.

[Ajit Karnik @karnikajit]

My latest Substack on Niti Aayog's Fiscal Health Index. @NITIAayog

https://t.co/DaAhISuxQ4

[Ajit Karnik @karnikajit]

And then there are Mithi and Mutha rivers in Mumbai and Pune: you may not even want to walk along the banks of these rivers.

[Wolf of X @WolfofX]

In Switzerland, some people don't just drive or cycle home after work. They jump into a river.

During summer in cities like Bern and Basel, locals pack their clothes and belongings into waterproof dry bags, slip into the crystal-clear water, and let the current carry them downstream to spots near home, public baths, or changing areas.

What sounds like a vacation activity is simply part of everyday life for many Swiss residents, made possible by some of the cleanest urban rivers in the world.

[Ajit Karnik @karnikajit]

There's a reason why @thecaravanindia is such a terrific publication. A great, deeply investigative, must-read article by @rachelchitra.

[Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 @priyankac19]

Smriti Irani ji of the BJP can contest with three different educational qualifications in her LS affidavits, EC ignores all complaints but Meenakshi Natarajan of the Congress has her RS nomination cancelled because her affidavit doesn’t mention some obscure complaint with no FIR & zero chance to explain to EC.

[Ajit Karnik @karnikajit]

@shuklasach Greg Chappel does make some pretty good points in the article. I like the idea that "The number of wickets a batting team is permitted to lose in a T20 innings should be reduced to six". This is an easier reform than getting ground staff to prepare sporting wickets

[Ajit Karnik @karnikajit]

Econ101 mistake by Hindu Business Line headline. FDI is not part of the current account. Fortunately, the table gets it right.
@Business_Line_

[Seema Chishti @seemay]

Demanding Wages Is Not a Crime: How Four Bail Orders By a Gurugram Judge Busted the Police's Attempts at Pushing a Manesar 'Conspiracy' Theory. https://t.co/72VnmZRMsN

[Narendra Nath Mishra @iamnarendranath]

दुःख और गुस्सा कुछ और था-

दरअसल स्टार एंकर इस बात को लेकर गुस्से में हैं की कैसे उनके बिना ही नीट,सीबीएसई जैसे मुद्दा लोगों के बीच में आ गया! इन्हे इस बात पर नाराजगी है की जब वे बकरीद पर हिन्दू मुस्लिम की दुकान चला रहे थे तो कौन वे दो कौड़ी के लोग हैं जो शिक्षा जैसी चीजों को मुद्दा बना गए जिसपर उन्हें भी बात करनी पर रही है जिसकी आदत उन्हें नहीं रही है! कौन हैं वे सारे दो कौड़ी के लोग जो एजुकेशन सिस्टम पर बात कर देश का माहौल ख़राब करने लगे हैं! कौन हैं दो कौड़ी के लोग जिन्हे देश की नयी पीढ़ी सुनने लगी है!
गुस्सा स्वाभाविक है! लेकिन इस गुस्से को संभाल कर रखिये! अभी बहुत गुस्से की जरुरत होगी!

और इस गुस्से का कोलैटेरल डैमेज कोई और भी होगा! पहले कॉकरोच और अब दो कौड़ी! यह बेवजह का पंगा लेना और बैठे बैठे नया मोर्चा खोलना है! खैर, जब कोई कोई "अहम् ब्रहस्मि" वाले अहं मोड में आ जाता है तब वह ख़ाक होने तक अपनी गलती का अहसास नहीं करता है! पावर की ताकत बहुत ख़राब नशा है!

[Gabbar @Gabbar0099]

Show me a single video of Dr Manmohan Singh wasting tax payers money like this.

[Congress @INCIndia]

BJP vs BHARAT

[Roshan Rai @RoshanKrRaii]

This 17 year old from Jharkhand did more journalism sitting at his home than the entire Indian Media combined did in 12+ years.

This is inspiring stuff, Sarthak may have fixed CBSE forever.

Legendary stuff, Must Watch 👏

[Sportstar @sportstarweb]

Before she left the competition mat for the final time for the day, Vinesh Phogat turned around and looked straight at where the WFI officials were seated.

As she caught their eye, she pointed her index finger down at the mat.

“Wapas aungi isi mat pe (I’m going to come back on this very same mat)” she said.

@jon_selvaraj✍️on the day Vinesh faced and overcame multiple obstacles but ultimately fell short in her comeback at the Asian Games selection trials in New Delhi.

Read 👉https://t.co/ZyntkPSaT6

[Palestina En Español 🎒 @PalestinaVence]

🇬🇧🇵🇸🇮🇱 Un cirujano británico que trabajó en Gaza relató.

“Después de los bombardeos aéreos israelíes, llegaban los drones de las FDI… Apuntaban y disparaban deliberadamente a los heridos que yacían en el suelo. Incluso a niños. Los remataban en el sitio.”

No contentos con masacrar desde el aire, los soldados israelíes usan drones para cazar y ejecutar a los sobrevivientes heridos.

Una política sistemática de rematar civiles.Esto no es guerra.

Esto es caza de seres humanos, asesinato a sangre fría de heridos y niños.

El mundo entero debe escuchar este testimonio. No hay justificación posible.

Testimonio estremecedor ante el Parlamento Británico

[Cenk Uygur @cenkuygur]

I’ve been banned from the UK. I tried to get on a flight to London to attend SXSW London and give a speech at Oxford. I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel. Are we free anymore? This is oppression of Western citizens by our own governments on behalf of a different country!

[Rathee @iamhrathee]

I still can't get over it ki C-section delivery ke 10 mahine baad bhi aisi fitness! Generally doctors 3 mahine ka to bed rest bolte hain .🤯🔥

[Malay Krishna @Malay4Product]

The CBSE story has gotten much bigger since the first expose.

Let me explain everything that’s happened so far.

First reveal.

A researcher named Nisarga found he could log into CBSE’s answer-sheet checking system as any teacher without a password, and even change marks. He reported it to the government in February 2025. Almost nothing was fixed for 15 months.

Then it kept getting worse.

He found that storage was left wide open. CBSE keeps all scanned answer sheets in an online locker. They forgot to lock it. Anyone on the internet, no password, no skill needed, could download any student’s actual handwritten answer sheet.

It wasn’t just CBSE. The same open locker is shared by several other institutions. One careless setup exposed many organisations at once.

Then, he got the keys to the whole grading system. Nisarga got the highest level of access to OnMark, the platform that grades exams for multiple universities.

With it, a person could change anyone’s marks, reset passwords, create fake teacher accounts, and message every student and teacher.

He also got full control of CBSE’s main servers. He showed complete control over the live machines running everything, and proved it by putting a “PWNED” page on CBSE’s own official website.

So this grew from small bugs, to answer sheets open to anyone, to master keys for the grading platform, to full control of CBSE’s servers.

In plain terms, your child’s answer sheet was sitting where anyone could open it. Your child’s marks were in a system an outsider could change.

CBSE’s response was a poster saying the system is “secure and robust” and “no problem reported.” That’s very hard to believe when the proof shows the opposite.

This also connects to the other story. A Class 12 student, Sarthak, showed how CBSE rewrote its tender rules to let this exact company win, by dropping security and data safety requirements. Nisarga is now showing the real-world result of dropping those rules.

My questions to the CBSE;

1. How long was the locker open?
2. Did anyone change any marks?
3. Can CBSE even prove they didn’t?
4. Why did the mandatory pre-launch security check get skipped?

This needs a proper investigation and a forensic check of whether any 2026 marks were tampered with.

[Mohit Chauhan @mohitlaws]

Sarthak Sidhant (18): Bro exposed the CBSE & COEMPT tender scam.

Nisarga Adhikary (19): Bro hacked CBSE website and exposed vulnerabilities in it.

Vedant Shrivastav (17): Bro brought CBSE to its knees & shook the entire ecosystem of BJP-RSS.

Gen Z has arrived.🔥

[Shilpa Godbole @godbole_shilpa]

PM Modi's #MannKiBaat came & went without a mention of the NEET, CBSE & CUET mess.
Let's not pretend this is beneath the Prime Minister's attention. We have seen the full communication apparatus mobilised over far smaller matters. Photo ops, speeches, tweets & inaugurations for projects of purely local significance.
When millions of students are affected, however, the country is expected to accept silence.
Strange priorities for a nation that calls its youth its greatest asset.

[Dr. Deepessh Divaakaran (Dr. DD) @md_deepesh]

India wants to become a $10 trillion economy.
But CBSE could not protect a password.

And no.
This is not a joke.

18.5 lakh Class 12 students appeared for CBSE Board Exams in 2026.
Their answer sheets were handed to a company with 51 employees.
A teenager reportedly broke into the system within minutes.

This was not innovation.
It was institutional comedy.

CBSE launched On-Screen Marking.
OSM.

The promise?
Transparency.
Accuracy.
Speed.

The result?
Swapped answer sheets.
Blurred scans.
Missing pages.
Portal crashes.
Embarrassment.

Some students opened photocopies of their answer books.
They found someone else's handwriting under their roll number.

Now look at the scale.

18.5 lakh students.
26 countries.
7,574 exam centres.
120 subjects.
98 lakh answer booklets.
40 crore pages.
77,000 teachers logging in.

All processed in 10 days.

And managed by a company smaller than many CBSE schools.

Then came the tender.
Two companies qualified.

TCS.
600,000 employees.
57 years of credibility.
$29 billion revenue.

And Coempt Edu Teck.
51 employees.

Guess who won.

Not the company trusted by banks.
Airlines.
Governments.
Stock exchanges.

The other one.

But there is a twist.

Coempt was once called Globarena Technologies.
The same company linked to Telangana's 2019 Intermediate Exam fiasco.

3.8 lakh students received wrong marks.
Toppers became failures.
3 lakh sought reverification.
20 students died by suicide in eight days.

Months later.
Globarena changed its name.
The memories remained.

Then came the cybersecurity masterpiece.

OTP verification on the browser.
Not the server.

Password resets without old passwords.
Examiner IDs editable from browser storage.

And a master password sitting inside public source code.
No encryption.
No hashing.
Just there.

A School project is much secured and Scalable than this.

Like keeping jewellery outside a jewellery shop with a sign saying:
"Please don't touch."

CERT-In was reportedly informed in February 2026.
The platform went live anyway.

77,000 teacher logins.
40 crore pages.
No fix.

70,000 answer books required rescanning.
15,000 shifted back to physical evaluation.

The digital revolution quietly asked for revaluation.

Then officials defended the system.
And later called IITs to help fix it.

Which is a bit like crashing a bus and then inviting ISRO to explain gravity.

Now comes the uncomfortable question.

TCS was on the shortlist.
TCS lost.

A company carrying the baggage of a past exam controversy won.
How?

Who approved it?
Who reviewed the risks?
Who signed the file?

Nobody seems eager to answer.

NEET chaos.
Now CBSE chaos.

Every year we hear the same slogans.
Student-centric.
Technology-driven.
Future-ready.

Wonderful words.
Terrible execution.

India does not have a shortage of talent.
India has a shortage of accountability.

Mr. Education Minister, will you answer?