Samina Motlekar 🇮🇳

Writer, producer

[Ritika Chopra @RitikaChopra__]

🚨SCOOP🚨

Remember the 'Dancing Girl' from your history textbooks? Arms akimbo, bangles & necklace, she is the defining face of Indus Valley Civilisation.

But kids opening textbooks today will see a diff image.

NCERT's new Class 9 Arts textbook shades over her nude torso, which had appeared uncovered in book for at least 25 yrs, including under previous NDA govts.

Just over a year ago, NCERT tried to drop her from a Class 6 Social Science book over nudity concerns. An expert pushed back. Now, it appears to have found another way.
https://t.co/08AhSv5kAH

[Pulkit Kochar @kocharpulkit]

in a world of fast cuts, cold opens and videos with no space for silence, my friend @akshatgram has started an interview series where he sits with some of the best hindi poets and simply talks to them, while they dish out gems, in their natural habitat

link in next tweet

[Pulkit Kochar @kocharpulkit]

https://t.co/xkcqsBi446

[Sabeer Bhatia @sabeer]

The Indian mind is not truly free. A child growing up in India is exposed to constant negativity: cultism sold as religion, unequal opportunities, vulgar displays of ill-gotten wealth, a deeply transactional society, normalized corruption, unhealthy competition that often breeds schadenfreude, and the repeated triumph of compromised institutions and businesses.

The saddest part? The moment you point out these behaviors and ask for reform, the protectors of the system rush to label you “anti-national” rather than engage with the criticism.

A nation grows when it can confront its flaws honestly, not when it silences those who dare to point them out.

[Tovi @wardinpal]

Weird as it may sound, THIS might be one of the best articles you can read in order to digestibly understand Israeli society. It touches on everything: The post-90s hippie aesthetic, the made up "PTSD" bullshit, the Israeli delusion that the world thinks they're (cont)

[Mary @maryturfah]

I wrote about yoga, genocide, and moral injury for @thebafflermag
https://t.co/uwpErPSs9y

[D Prasanth Nair @DPrasanthNair]

The famous incident from the 2003 Carlsberg Cup, where Danish midfielder Morten Wieghorst intentionally missed a penalty against Iran.

The referee had awarded the penalty because an Iranian defender caught the ball with his hands inside the box, mistakenly thinking he had heard the half-time whistle.Since the penalty was awarded due to a misunderstanding, Wieghorst consulted his coach and deliberately fired his shot wide as a display of sportsmanship, an act for which he later won an Olympic Committee Fair Play Award.
Football is great

[Oxygen 💨 @WhateverVishal]

America hai isliye Chor diya

Pakistan hota to Cricket khelte time hand shake nai karte

[Kavish aziz @azizkavish]

सोचिये....आप सुबह सो कर उठते हैं, दरवाज़े पर दस्तक होती है , इससे पहले की आप कुछ समझ पाते आपके परिवार के सामने NIA आपको टेरर फंडिंग के आरोप में गिरफ्तार कर ले जाती है।

मोहल्ला तमाशा देखता है और फिर अगले दिन आप नेशनल हैडलाइन बन जाते हैं

कश्मीर के ह्यूमन राईट एक्टिविस्ट खुर्रम परवेज़ को नवंबर 2021 में NIA टेरर फंडिंग के आरोप में गिरफ्तार कर ले जाती है।

और फिर 3 साल 1 महीने के बाद जब कोई कॉल रिकॉर्ड या डिजिटल सबूत नहीं मिला तो खुर्रम को बाइज्जत बरी कर दिया गया

[somen mishra @somenmishra0]

If you are reading just one thing today, read this. In a different world, this would have been such a moving, heartbreaking and heartwarming film or a short or something.

[Manish Singh @RebornManish]

बाबूमोशाय, जिंदगी लम्बी नही..
जिंदगी बड़ी होनी चाहिए।

मुगलिया नूर, चश्मोचराग बादशाह मोहम्मद शाह उर्फ रंगीला की 27 बरस की बादशाहत की सबसे बड़ी उपलब्धि यही थी, कि 27 बरस राज कर गए।

यह बाबर, हुमायूं, जहांगीर जैसे पुरखों से ज्यादा था। उनके पहले के 4 बादशाह, तो कुछ हफ्ते या महीने बाद ही कत्ल कर दिये गए। दरअसल यह वक्त, मुगल दरबार मे हावी सय्यद ब्रदर्स का था। वे अपनी मर्जी से बादशाह बनाते, फिर हटाते। फिर किसी और को बना देते।
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हुआ ये कि औरँगजेब की मौत के बाद, दरबार अस्थिर हो गया। औरंगजेब का पुत्र, 65 बरस का बहादुर शाह (प्रथम) गद्दी पर आया। वह 1712 तक ही शासन कर सका।

उसके दौर में सय्यद भाइयो की पैठ दरबार मे हो गई थी। वे बादशाह बनाने-हटाने-मरवाने का खेल, खेलने लगे। अगले 9 साल में 4 बादशाह आये और गए।

फिर राजपरिवार के 19 बरस के लड़के को जेल से निकाला। गद्दी पर बिठाया। उसका नाम था- रोशन!!
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रोशन, बहादुरशाह का पोता था। उत्तराधिकार के षडयंत्रो में बाप कत्ल हो गया था, और चचा जहांदार शाह ने उसे जेल में डाल दिया था।

तो जेल से निकलकर गद्दी पर बैठा। मोहम्मद शाह का विरुद धरा, और जनता ने दिया "रंगीला" का तखल्लुस...
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क्योकि रंगीले को शायरी का शौक था।
अच्छा बोलता था।

कला, नृत्य, संगीत, पेंटिंग, शराब और नशे का शौकीन था। अच्छे फैशन के कपड़े खूब पसन्द करता। असल मे तब एलीट वर्ग, घाघरे जैसी ड्रेस पहनता था। उसकी जगह अचकन (जो नेहरू पहनते थे) का चलन, मोहम्मद शाह ने ही शुरू किया।

उसके ही दौर में उर्दू परवान चढ़ी।
ख्याल गायकी बढ़ी, कव्वाली ऊंची चढ़ी,
दिल्ली में बाग बगीचे बने,

और नाइट लाइफ का कहना ही क्या। रोज नए इवेंट होते। कोठा संस्कृति, मुशायरे और नृत्य संगीत के जोरदार प्रोग्राम से दिल्ली के कूचे गुंजायमान रहते।

जो कलाकार, नचनिये, गवैये भांड, जो औरँगजेब के वक्त दिल्ली छोड़कर भाग गए थे। उनके अच्छे दिन आ गए थे।

सारे लौटकर दिल्ली आ बसे।
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मगर जिल्ले इलाही खुद भी कम कलाकार नही थे। सत्ता में आने के दो बरस बाद एक सैयद भाई का मर्डर हो गया। दूसरे ने जहर खा लिया। मगर इसमे बादशाह का कोई हाथ नही था।

यही तो कलाकारी थी।
अब दरबार सुरक्षित था।

रंगीला ने खुलकर खेलना शुरू किया। दरबार को खेती बना ली। कोई गवइया, कोई बाबा, कोई मित्र, कोई चमचा, कोई रखैल वजीर बन जाते। जल्द ही हटा भी दिए जाते, दूसरे आ जाते।
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दरबार खुद में कल्चरल इवेंट था। कभी बादशाह दरबार मे आते हुए कपड़े पहनना भूल जाते। याने नंगे ही..

हिहिहिखिखि।

कभी दरबारियों को जनाने कपड़े पहन कर आने का आदेश देते। किसी वजीर को कहते कि कल घुंघरू बांधकर आना, वरना जेल जाना।

युद्ध वुद्ध का शौक नही था, इसलिए किसी ने नपुंसक कह दिया, तो मुगलिया गद्दी पर यौनकर्म करते हुए तस्वीर बनवाई।

वो गूगल पर उपलब्ध है।
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राजकाज अस्तव्यस्त था। कभी मराठे चढ़ आते।कभी बंगाल, कभी गुजरात, कभी अवध स्वतन्त्र हो जाता। साम्राज्य सिकुड़ रहा था, टूट रहा था, बादशाह इवेंट में मस्त थे। सेना, सरदार और दरबार मे झगड़े थे।

20 साल यही चला। जब नाकाबिल राजा हो, अफसर निरंकुश हों, मजे में मस्त रियाया हो, घर मे फूट हो, तो लुटेरों को मौका मिल जाता है।

तो नादिरशाह ने मौका भांप लिया।
चढ़ आया।
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1739 में बादशाह करनाल के पास उसे रोकने पहुंच गये। पर याद आया कि तोपखाना तो दिल्ली भूल आये।

नेगोशिएशन हुआ, पांच लाख देकर नादिर पिंड छुड़ाना तय हुआ। मगर सदाअत खान ने गद्दारी की। उसकी सलाह पर नादिर पलट गया। ज्यादा पैसे की मांग के साथ दिल्ली में बैठ गया।

उसके लोगो ने शहर में औरतो से छेड़खानी की। एक सैनिक की हत्या हो गई। इससे गुस्साए नादिर ने दिल्ली में जो कत्लेआम और आगजनी की,

कि तीस हजार लोग मरे।
सदाअत खान ने ग्लानि से आत्महत्या कर ली।
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बादशाह ने नही की। उसने नादिर की खातिरदारी की, जमुना के तीर उसे बिठाकर झूले झुलाए। कोहिनूर, तख्ते ताउस, बेशुमार दौलत और सिंधु के उस पार के इलाके देकर, टाटा बाय बाय किया।

फिर डूब गया अय्याशी में। 7 और साल जिया 1748 में मौत हुई। तब तक रंगीले बादशाह ने कुल 27 साल राज किया था।सत्ता में रहने का बाबर, हुमायूं, जहांगीर और शाहजहां का रिकार्ड तोड़ दिया।
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दिल्ली के लाल किले पर चढ़कर सलामी लेने वालों सूची बेहद लम्बी है। लेकिन आम इंसान को उनमें से कुछ ही याद रहते हैं।

कुछ को इतिहास गर्व और इज्जत से नाम लेता है, तो कुछ को जमाना वक्र मुस्कान के साथ, मोहम्मद शाह रंगीला कहकर याद रखता हैं।
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आज कोई नेहरू का रिकार्ड तोड़ना चाहता है, कोई हिटलर का। मगर किसने कितने बरस राज किया, यह इतिहास का महत्वपूर्ण सवाल नही होता। इसलिए कि राजा का वक्त लम्बा नही,

राजा का किरदार बड़ा होना चाहिए।

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

The World Cup begins tomorrow, and many will watch the matches. Soccer reminds us of something we must not forget: life is not a race to show off on our own, but a path we learn to walk together. Anyone who does not know how to pass the ball, even if they have talent, has not yet understood the game. Anyone who does not know how to live with and for others has not yet understood life. #ApostolicJourney

[Samina Motlekar 🇮🇳 @m_samina]

Spot on analysis … but the words are generated by AI

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

You have noticed it. ChatGPT feels dumber than it used to. Your prompts that worked six months ago produce worse results now. The writing sounds flatter. The ideas sound safer. The internet itself feels like it is shrinking. Every article reads the same. Every email sounds the same. Every answer sounds like it was written by the same voice.

You thought it was you. It is not you.

Researchers at Oxford and Cambridge published a paper in Nature proving what is happening. They call it Model Collapse.

Here is the mechanism in one sentence. AI trained on AI-generated data gets dumber every generation until it forgets what real human data looked like.

The internet is filling with AI-generated content. Blog posts. Articles. Reviews. Comments. Social media. AI companies scrape the internet to train the next generation of models. Which means the next generation of AI is being trained on the output of the current generation.

Each cycle loses information. Not randomly. It loses the rarest, most unusual, most creative parts first. The researchers call these the "tails of the distribution." The weird ideas. The unexpected perspectives. The things that made the internet feel human. Those disappear first.

What remains is the average. The safe. The expected. The bland.

Then the next generation trains on that. And loses more. And the next generation trains on that. And loses more. The researchers proved this is not a slow decline. Major degradation happens within just a few iterations. Even when some of the original human data is preserved.

They tested it on large language models. On image generators. On statistical models. The pattern was the same every time. The output converges toward a narrow, flattened version of reality that looks nothing like the original data.

The lead researcher put it plainly. "Large language models are like fire. A useful tool. But one that pollutes the environment."

The pollution is invisible. You cannot see which sentence on the internet was written by a human and which was written by AI. Neither can the AI that is about to train on it. And once the tails are gone, they do not come back. The damage is irreversible.

This is not a prediction anymore. It is a diagnosis.

The internet you grew up on was built by humans writing things no algorithm would have written. Strange, personal, imperfect, alive. That internet is being diluted. One generation of AI at a time. And the models trained on what remains are learning a smaller and smaller version of the world.

Model Collapse is not a technical problem. It is a cultural one. The thing that made the internet worth reading is the thing that disappears first.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

You have noticed it. ChatGPT feels dumber than it used to. Your prompts that worked six months ago produce worse results now. The writing sounds flatter. The ideas sound safer. The internet itself feels like it is shrinking. Every article reads the same. Every email sounds the same. Every answer sounds like it was written by the same voice.

You thought it was you. It is not you.

Researchers at Oxford and Cambridge published a paper in Nature proving what is happening. They call it Model Collapse.

Here is the mechanism in one sentence. AI trained on AI-generated data gets dumber every generation until it forgets what real human data looked like.

The internet is filling with AI-generated content. Blog posts. Articles. Reviews. Comments. Social media. AI companies scrape the internet to train the next generation of models. Which means the next generation of AI is being trained on the output of the current generation.

Each cycle loses information. Not randomly. It loses the rarest, most unusual, most creative parts first. The researchers call these the "tails of the distribution." The weird ideas. The unexpected perspectives. The things that made the internet feel human. Those disappear first.

What remains is the average. The safe. The expected. The bland.

Then the next generation trains on that. And loses more. And the next generation trains on that. And loses more. The researchers proved this is not a slow decline. Major degradation happens within just a few iterations. Even when some of the original human data is preserved.

They tested it on large language models. On image generators. On statistical models. The pattern was the same every time. The output converges toward a narrow, flattened version of reality that looks nothing like the original data.

The lead researcher put it plainly. "Large language models are like fire. A useful tool. But one that pollutes the environment."

The pollution is invisible. You cannot see which sentence on the internet was written by a human and which was written by AI. Neither can the AI that is about to train on it. And once the tails are gone, they do not come back. The damage is irreversible.

This is not a prediction anymore. It is a diagnosis.

The internet you grew up on was built by humans writing things no algorithm would have written. Strange, personal, imperfect, alive. That internet is being diluted. One generation of AI at a time. And the models trained on what remains are learning a smaller and smaller version of the world.

Model Collapse is not a technical problem. It is a cultural one. The thing that made the internet worth reading is the thing that disappears first.

[Tanushree Pandey @TanushreePande]

Being able to wear absolutely anything .. I repeat, anything ... and not be discussed, judged, or policed for our clothes is a form of empowerment.

[Samina Motlekar 🇮🇳 @m_samina]

@MTPHereToHelp Parulekar Road , Juhu . Utpal Sanghvi school . Near Pratiksha Bungalow

[Samina Motlekar 🇮🇳 @m_samina]

@MTPHereToHelp construction vehicle blocking Parulekar road outside Utpal Sanghvi school . Other bridge has been shut for many months and this is only road out .

[Gurdeep Singh Sappal @gurdeepsappal]

Guha argues that Rahul Gandhi lacks the ‘curriculum vitae’ needed for national leadership. The implication being that executive experience, administrative tenure, or international credibility of a conventional kind are the necessary prerequisites. But this standard, applied consistently, would have disqualified Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison rather than in government; would have dismissed Vaclav Havel as merely a playwright; and would have found wanting every liberation leader who built legitimacy from outside the state rather than within it. Infact, it would have disqualified Jawahar Nehru, who eventually built the foundations of new India and built it successfully so!

The CV argument is fundamentally a conservative argument: it privileges the insider, the establishment-approved, the credentialled. In a democracy being systematically hollowed out from within its institutions, the most relevant credential may be precisely the one Rahul Gandhi possesses, that is, the demonstrated willingness to resist, at personal cost, the consolidation of authoritarian power.

[Adi el Grande @icardo8]

Una tenista polaca de 24 años llegó a París la semana pasada clasificada en el puesto 114 del mundo, sin patrocinadores, sin ingresos garantizados y sin certeza siquiera de poder pagar su habitación de hotel.

Tuvo que ganar tres partidos de clasificación solo para entrar al cuadro principal del Abierto de Francia. El dinero de los premios solo se paga al final del torneo, así que una marca polaca de bebidas deportivas intervino discretamente y cubrió su factura de hotel.

Su nombre es Maja Chwalinska. Y hoy, juega la final del Abierto de Francia.

Antes de este torneo, había ganado exactamente un partido de cuadro principal de Grand Slam en toda su carrera. Luchó contra una depresión tan severa que en 2021 no podía levantarse de la cama. Se sometió a una cirugía de rodilla en 2022. Pasó años luchando en torneos menores por toda Europa solo para mantenerse a flote.

Luego llegó a París, ganó tres clasificatorios y siguió ganando. Zheng Qinwen. Elise Mertens. Maria Sakkari. Diana Shnaider. Nueve partidos seguidos. Un solo set perdido.

Ahora es la primera clasificatoria en la historia del Abierto de Francia en llegar a la final. La última vez que una clasificatoria alcanzó una final de Grand Slam fue Emma Raducanu en el Abierto de EE.UU. de 2021. Raducanu ganó.

Simplemente por llegar a la final, Chwalinska ha ganado más dinero en premios que en toda su carrera junta. El cheque por ser subcampeona es de $1.6 millones. Si gana hoy, se lleva $3.25 millones a casa.
Hace una semana no podía pagar su habitación de hotel.

[Manish RJ @mrjethwani1]

The doctor’s name is Dr. P.K. Chaturvedi. He originally demanded ₹25,000 for the surgery. Although the mother had secured orders from the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for free treatment due to extreme poverty… Still the hospital staff forced her to pay ₹8000. Even though The 14-year-old victim, who is reportedly mentally unwell and speech-impaired during a follow-up check-up, the doctor forcibly bent and fractured the already-joined bone again.