Susmita Pal

Humanist, Cinephile, Bookworm

[Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor]

Irony just died again. The cleanest man in Indian politics did not need an SC certificate of his integrity. Instead it is those who sought to implicate him in these charges who ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

[PV Sindhu @Pvsindhu1]

Shivani, I have to say this first… you’re such an incredible writer. ❤️ I genuinely love reading everything you write.

Also… getting Datta to talk this much genuinely feels like an achievement. 😂 He’s usually the one asking all the questions, never answering them.

The recovery experiments at home are all true too. 😭 @deepigoyal got him sold on an inversion table after reading and testing a thesis while building Temple. Another dear friend convinced him that red-light therapy was the answer. Then, one fine morning, a temperature-controlled mattress magically appeared. Tart cherry juice became compulsory before bed. Recovery boots. Breathing drills. Cryotherapy. At this point I don’t even ask questions anymore… I just say, “Okay… what’s today’s experiment?” 😂 His latest obsession is somehow finding a hyperbaric chamber. I made the mistake of looking it up… and it’s literally a giant metal tube. 😭 Strangely enough, a lot of these bizarre things are actually starting to make sense.

As romantic as it sounds that I spend hours watching films with my husband… I should clarify they’re badminton films. 😭 His team cuts footage from the last five years into endless clips, and we sit there watching them over and over again. So no… not exactly The Notebook. 😂

One thing I’ll always be grateful for, though, is Virat bhai. I reached out to him at one of the lowest points of my career. Injuries were piling up, the results weren’t coming, and I just needed someone who understood. He replied within minutes, and we met the very next day.

What we spoke about will always stay between us. But I’ll always be grateful that when I needed someone, he was there. He didn’t say much, but every word stayed with Datta and me. Some conversations change the way you see things. That was one of them. ❤️

The biggest thing I took away was the importance of finding your joy again.

Today, I know exactly why I wake up for those 5:30 a.m. sessions.

And I can honestly say… it isn’t the trophies.

It isn’t the wins. It’s something much deeper.

And this time, I’ll protect it with everything I have. ❤️

[Rajdeep Sardesai @sardesairajdeep]

Good news this morning: PV Sindhu @Pvsindhu1 wins the Japan Open beating world champ Yamaguchi in the final on her home turf. Great to see Sindhu fit and playing so well: she is undoubtedly India’s greatest woman sportsperson! Inspirational!💪🏻👍👍🌟 https://t.co/xxmfvMz38k

[Sann @san_x_m]

Her name is Mugdha Sinha.

She was four years old when her father, an air force pilot, died in a crash while serving the country. Decades later she took his place in her own way, and in fifteen years of service she was transferred thirteen times, because she would not let the mining mafia work in peace.

Her father, Squadron Leader Gur Swaroop Sinha, had flown in the wars of 1962 and 1971. He died on duty in a crash in Ladakh in 1978.

Her mother raised her and her two sisters alone in Agra, and raised them to aim high. In class five, when a teacher asked her to write down her life goal, her mother told her what to write. That she would become an officer of the Indian Administrative Service.

She did. She cleared the civil services examination with the eighth rank in the country and joined in 1999.

In 2010 she was sent to Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan. In the sixty three years since independence, no woman had ever been district collector there. She assumed it would be a quiet posting after the large districts she had already run.

It was not. The district was being eaten alive by illegal mining. She saw what that meant the day an explosion in an illegal mine killed three labourers, and the bodies were found in a state she has never been able to describe without difficulty.

When the investigation began, not one person would admit to owning the mine. Nobody was willing to pay the families a single rupee. Three men had died and, officially, nobody had employed them.

She refused to let that stand. She went after the mines. She seized truckloads of explosives on their way to illegal digs in the Aravalli hills.

She struck at the sand mafia and the liquor mafia. She stopped illegal road construction and shut down the black marketing of cooking gas cylinders.

The threats came at night, in anonymous phone calls. The pressure came from people with political weight. And soon enough she was transferred out.

Thirteen transfers in fifteen years is not misfortune. It is the price list for doing the job honestly.

She says the public support she received was worth all of it. Her father gave his life in uniform. She has spent her career refusing to make his kind of service look cheap.

[Juez Central @Juezcentral]

Nico Williams es campeón del mundo. Y tras la premiación, va directo a la tribuna a entregarle la medalla a su madre. Ella, que en 1994 salió de Ghana y cruzó parte del Sahara para poder llegar a España en busca de nuevas oportunidades.

Una campeona más.

[anand mahindra @anandmahindra]

PV Sindhu clinches the Japan Open!

Winning this major title at the age of 31.

Never, ever, give up on a true Champion.

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽🇮🇳

[Hoichoi @hoichoitv]

বাংলা সিনেমার জন্য আরও এক গর্বের মুহূর্ত।
অঞ্জন দত্ত পরিচালিত "চালচিত্র এখন" জিতে নিলো ৭২তম National Film Awards-এর Best Bengali Film পুরস্কার।

#ChaalchitraEkhon directed by @anjandutt is streaming now, only on #hoichoi.

#SawonChakraborty #BidiptaChakraborty #SuprobhatDas #SubhasishMukhopadhyay @neelinc @SVFsocial #NewOnhoichoi #72NationalFilmAward #NationalAward

[James Clear @JamesClear]

The recipe for frustration is taking on something that requires a whole person, but only giving it half your time.

Look at what you're trying to do. What is required? Some things can only be done well when they are pursued with full effort.

[Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor]

An Open Letter to the Jantar Mantar protestors:

My dear young friends,

I address you today not as a politician or an MP, but as someone deeply troubled by what is happening to your generation of young Indians.

This is personal for me. I was born to a middle-class family: my father was a salaried newspaper employee, my mother a homemaker, with three children to educate on one income. For a family like ours, merit was not a slogan. Scholarships, fair examinations, honest results — these were the only way one salary could carry three children's dreams.

I went to school in Mumbai and Kolkata, to college here in Delhi, topped the University and earned admission into IIM — and chose instead to follow my passion for international affairs, in America, on a scholarship. Nothing was inherited; everything was earned by hard work and yes, Exams.

So I know that a fair, merit-based system is the only ladder for young people from lower and middle-income families to climb up. When that ladder is broken — papers leaked, examinations cancelled, trust destroyed — the children of the rich and powerful do not suffer. They have other ladders. It is your dreams, and your families' sacrifices (and tragically, in some homes, young lives themselves) that are betrayed.

To the young people gathered at Jantar Mantar, and those raising your voices peacefully across India: this country hears you. Your anger is not indiscipline — it is the anguish of a generation that did everything right and was still betrayed . You are not alone.

And to the millions of young Indians watching quietly: your generation is not a problem to be managed. You are the answer to India's future. Do not lose hope. This ladder will be rebuilt — by you, and by every Indian who stands with you.

To Shri Sonam Wangchuk-ji, my heartfelt appeal: please end your fast. You have awakened the conscience of the nation; that is what a fast is meant to do. India needs your voice for the long road ahead.

With Parliament in session again from Monday, we will have an opportunity to raise the students’ issues in the highest forum of our democracy. That’s where the problem should be addressed, not by fasting unto death. Please heed my plea.

And finally, to the Government: I respectfully urge you to reach out and engage in the dialogue our democracy owes its young citizens. That is not weakness; that is statesmanship.

[Wimbledon @Wimbledon]

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same.

[Joy Bhattacharjya @joybhattacharj]

Before you start imagining a possible Messi Yamal encounter in the World Cup finals, time to revisit the first time Messi faced Yamal.
In 2007, in a UNICEF calendar, where Yamal's family was chosen after a raffle in their neighbourhood in Mataro.
Oh, and Yamal's dad Mounir is 5 years younger than Messi!
Picture Credit. Joan Monfort, AP

[Demis Hassabis @demishassabis]

https://t.co/PTeDiv1b6L

[Sundar Pichai @sundarpichai]

Well said Demis! Worth reading

[Jannik Sinner @janniksin]

We did it again 🏆 Thank you all for the love and support ❤️❤️❤️

[Wimbledon @Wimbledon]

Back in Jannik's hands.

2025: 🏆
2026: 🏆

#Wimbledon

[Susmita Pal @palsusmita]

@svembu Dear Sir, There's a shrine at Kyoto dedicated to an Indian judge - Dr Radhabinod Pal. He happens to be my husband's @avijpal grandfather.

Yet most Indians are not even aware of this.

[James Clear @JamesClear]

Learn to love the interruptions. Find the fun in the delay, the humor in the challenge, the pleasure in the daily commute.

A great deal of life is spent dealing with interruptions and waiting for the conditions to turn. We think, "If I can just get past this, then things will open up." But the interruption is not standing between you and your life. It is your life.

Yes, I prefer hassle-free days too. But you'll rarely find a situation that is all bad. There are little pockets of joy folded inside the annoyances we face. There is always fun to be had, if you go looking for it.

This is one of the arts of living. It's the art of enjoying the imperfect days. It's the art of making all the moments count.

[James Clear @JamesClear]

In my early 20s, I wrote a list of ambitious things I wanted to do in life. Go bungee jumping. Create a movie. Start a business. That sort of thing. I did a few of them, but not most.

Looking back, however, that list was incredibly valuable because it taught me the usefulness of chasing bold ideas—even if they never materialize. The dreams that didn't happen changed shape and led me down other interesting paths.

The important thing isn't to achieve all your dreams, but to keep dreaming. Your desires change as you learn and grow. Old dreams will spawn new dreams. And eventually, one of these newer, more refined visions will find its moment and become reality.

[Mojo Story @themojostory]

He just did what generations of footballers have failed to do—knock Brazil out of the FIFA World Cup. Erling Haaland's stunning brace against the five-time world champions didn't just send Norway into the quarterfinals for the first time ever—it announced, once again, why he is considered one of the deadliest strikers in world football.

At just 25, Haaland is already rewriting football history. With seven goals in this World Cup, he leads the Golden Boot race, and with 62 international goals, he is Norway's all-time leading scorer. But who is the man who stunned Brazil and has the football world at his feet?

Born in Leeds, England, to former Olympic heptathlete Gry Marita Braut and ex-Norway international Alfie Haaland, football was in his blood from the very beginning. His father represented Norway at the 1994 World Cup—the last time the tournament was hosted in the United States. Three decades later, it is Erling who has become the face of Norway's greatest-ever World Cup run.

With blistering pace, extraordinary strength, and an instinct for goals that few can match, Haaland has evolved into one of the most feared forwards of his generation. And now, after ending Brazil's World Cup dream, the Norwegian superstar has taken another giant step toward football immortality.

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

“The lion moves in silence and strikes with purpose.”