Pratik Sengupta

Co-Founder- 3Q Private Wealth. The logic guy, extremely passionate, focused on efficiency. Uncomplicated. My views may differ from my firm’s. CFA Charterholder.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

And I have been tirelessly blocking msgs from restaurants, retail outlets, loan agencies, share and crypto advisors, and even banks. No, I don’t want any WA msgs from any business. Stick to SMSs.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

Privacy in India is an absolute joke. Can’t agree with this more. We recently changed our llp to pvt ltd. Since the day the roc filing was done, all the partners/shareholders have been getting multiple calls and WA msgs from numerous agencies. Each partner gets the same calls.

[Jaidev Jamwal @JaidevJamwal]

Most Indian companies are just misusing cheap internet, illegally exploiting customer data and it should become more expensive for them.

I have a @HathwayBrdband internet connection as a backup and it's recharged every 3 months. Every time the due date was 12-15 days away, their people would start calling and messaging 15-25 times a day, from multiple numbers insisting that I pay asap. As if I was missing a loan payment. And all were rude dehatis who couldn't spell internet even if their lives depended on it.

After multiple requests to stop went without resolution, I wrote a LinkedIn post and tagged a bunch of top-level employees. I got a call within two hours from a mid-level employee who insisted that the system operated in such a way that the calls were inevitable, but she promised they would try to reduce the frequency. After I refused to budge, she promised that the calls would stop if I just deleted the post. A few of the tagged employees had already blocked me and I refused to delete it anyway.

Now I found out that the calls stopped only because they had deleted my phone number from all company records. Now I can't login to pay bills or get a request registered using my phone number. This is the quality of IT infrastructure of a major Indian ISP.😅

Another culprit is @airtelindia which forces customers to install its highly intrusive AirtelThanks phone app for even the basic account management by disabling all the major features on their website. Typical makkhi-choos exploitative lala company mentality. 

Then there are a bunch of orgs, big and small who just keep spamming customers on Whatsapp and email ignoring their own opt-out messages. ISKCON is perhaps the worst in this regard.
Only option with them is to report and block and in my case, lose a paying customer.

Why I bother? Because all this user data collected by private orgs as well as govt is routinely sold without consent (and very frequently hacked by criminals) which is causing multiple issues now and will only get worse.

Privacy in India is an absolute joke. Until these companies face harsh consequences for harassing people, stealing data and forcing crappy apps down our throats, nothing will change.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

And every caller cannot speak one straight meaningful sentence in any language- English or Hindi, but they want to “help” us build a brand, give “advice” to expand the business. Zero etiquettes. DND in India is even a bigger joke.

[Kerry Burgess @KerryBurgess]

It seems Americans do not understand what a tip is.
A tip is a small amount of extra money voluntarily given to someone, such as to a waiter, bartender, or taxi driver to show appreciation for a service well performed.
It is not meant to replace the salary that person is paid for doing their job.
How is that difficult to understand?

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

Like a lot of quality players in the last 10 years or so, he will struggle to find a place in the XI consistently. Then he will be dropped before a ICC tournament. Happened far too often.

[Cowboy Bepop @cowboy___bepop]

Vaibhav Suryavanshi’s biggest challenge throughout his career won’t be any bowler or any opponent for that matter… it’ll be the Mumbai lobby.
Same as what happened with Kohli.

[Shantanu Goel @shantanugoel]

Protein bars are one of the biggest scams that people get played with!

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

This is the kind of constructive feedback/ activism I would expect from the opposition, and not just the daily Modi bashing that most do everyday after waking up. Opposition has a role to play, and Dr. Tharoor has often upheld that well.

[Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor]

The recent statement by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) - - on #PassportSevaDivas, no less! - - clarifying that an Indian passport is primarily a "travel document and not conclusive proof of citizenship" has triggered a predictable wave of public bewilderment and political sparring. 

While the government defends this as a long-standing legal position rooted in Section 20 of the Passports Act of 1967 (which technically allows the state to issue passports to non-citizens under rare, public-interest circumstances) this is a distinction without a difference, meaningless to the average citizen.

For decades, the passport has been considered the gold standard of identity. We navigate the gruelling bureaucratic maze of police verifications and document checks required to obtain one, precisely because the state demands concrete proof of citizenship before granting it. To turn around and declare that the very document born from this rigorous vetting does not actually prove citizenship creates an absurd legal paradox. If a passport does not establish domestic citizenship, then what does?

The Supreme Court has already ruled that the Aadhaar card is merely a proof of identity and residence, not citizenship. This leaves millions of Indians in a bizarre administrative limbo where they possess world-class biometric and state-issued documents, yet none are legally deemed "conclusive" proof of their nationality within their own borders. 

To end this fatuous controversy once and for all, a common-sense legislative overhaul is urgently required. The government should formally amend the legal framework to make both the passport and the Aadhaar card valid, conclusive proofs of Indian citizenship unless they are explicitly cancelled or withdrawn by the state.

Implementing this requires solving a critical administrative hurdle: because Aadhaar is currently issued based on 182 days of local residence rather than nationality, it is held by citizens and non-citizen residents alike. The solution is straightforward. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) should introduce a visually distinct Aadhaar card (featuring, say, a visible diagonal red stripe across the front), specifically designated for non-citizens living in India.

By clearly demarcating the two categories, the state can safely mandate that carrying either a standard citizen's Aadhaar or a valid passport is compulsory and sufficient proof of citizenship for all Indian nationals at all times. This dual-document policy would immediately streamline domestic verification, eliminate arbitrary bureaucratic challenges during electoral revisions, and provide every Indian with absolute, unquestionable legal certainty regarding their identity. End of story!

[Muthukrishnan Dhandapani @dmuthuk]

Passport processing in India has become largely free of corruption at most stages.

However, during police verification, personnel visiting homes often still expect Rs. 500–1000.

The amount may not be big, but what matters is driving a deeper societal change - that everyone must live only within their legitimate income. Even asking for a single rupee should become unacceptable.

I’m confident that if the state and the public work together, we can eliminate corruption in the coming years.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

Very few have the discipline of logging in at the scheduled time and work for those requisite hours without unscheduled breaks. WFH is a privilege, but it has been used as a tool to do part time work. This gaming of the policy has forced employers to change their policies.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

Problem with the Indian mindset is that WFH means that you can treat it as a semi leave. Just attend to the phone calls, send a few emails and messages and attend primarily to personal/other commitments. Basically just do the necessary random work that needs responding.

[Sujit 🇮🇳 @skh27]

I have informed all my reportees that working from home is a privilege and not their entitlement. If they have more than one excuse per month for issues like power cuts or internet problems, i am happy to make them work from the office.

[Sujit 🇮🇳 @skh27]

I have informed all my reportees that working from home is a privilege and not their entitlement. If they have more than one excuse per month for issues like power cuts or internet problems, i am happy to make them work from the office.

[Nirupama Menon Rao 🇮🇳 @NMenonRao]

The discussion sparked by a recent statement on Passport Seva Divas has generated more heat than light.

The Ministry of External Affairs stated that a passport is a travel document, not a document of citizenship. Legally, that is correct. A passport is issued under the Passports Act, while citizenship is governed by the Citizenship Act, 1955. One law regulates the document; the other regulates the legal status.

But law and public understanding are not always the same.

For most Indians, the passport is the most authoritative document the Republic issues. It bears the name of the Republic of India, carries the holder’s identity, and is accepted around the world because foreign governments trust that India has verified the bearer’s nationality before issuing it. It is therefore entirely understandable that many people asked: if a passport is not proof of citizenship, then what is?

The answer requires some nuance.

A passport does not create citizenship. Nor is it the legal instrument that finally determines citizenship if that status is challenged before a court. Like many democracies, India distinguishes between citizenship law and passport law. In rare cases involving fraud, disputed parentage or illegal acquisition, citizenship may have to be established through the provisions of the Citizenship Act and supporting evidence. That is why a passport is not regarded in law as conclusive proof in every conceivable circumstance.

But that should not be confused with its practical significance.

A passport is issued only after the Government has satisfied itself that the applicant is entitled to one. In everyday life, and in international travel, it is the strongest evidence of Indian nationality that most citizens will ever possess. Nothing said by the MEA changes that. No immigration officer abroad will suddenly regard an Indian passport with suspicion because of a legal clarification made in New Delhi.

The episode does, however, remind us of a larger challenge.

India’s systems of civil registration developed unevenly over many decades. Millions of older Indians were born when birth registration was incomplete. Names were recorded differently across school certificates, land records and electoral rolls. The painful experience of the Assam NRC showed how documentary inconsistencies can create profound hardship when citizenship itself becomes the subject of legal scrutiny.

The lesson, therefore, is not that passports have somehow lost their value. It is that India needs stronger and more comprehensive civil registration, universal birth registration and reliable archival records so that citizenship can never become hostage to missing or inconsistent paperwork.

Sometimes a legally precise statement can create unnecessary public anxiety if it is not accompanied by explanation. A better way of putting it might have been this:

A passport is issued only after the Government has verified that the applicant is an Indian citizen. While citizenship itself is governed by the Citizenship Act, the passport remains the Republic’s most trusted document for international travel and, in ordinary life, the clearest evidence of Indian nationality.

That is both legally accurate and reassuring. The law need not be diluted, but neither should public confidence in one of the Republic’s most important documents.

To distil the argument:

A passport is issued because the Government has satisfied itself that you are an Indian citizen. It is therefore powerful evidence of citizenship in ordinary life and in international travel. But in a legal dispute over citizenship itself, the governing law remains the Citizenship Act, and a passport is not conclusive proof that overrides all other evidence

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

@maveinlux Or just the suburbs of Paris- say Saint Denis

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

@SushantBSinha And the document is issued with police verification of residence, birth certificate/school certificate/father’s/grandfather’s indigeneity. Even passport issued abroad undergoes verification in Indian address.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

@RMantri @ShivjidBoss @HDFC_Bank There’s no end to this cynicism. If they are so scared that they are unwilling and unable to service the credit, they should hive off the cards business. After terrible experience in a hospital on an emergency abroad, I cancelled HDFC Cards. (Txn declined even after verification)

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

@gharkekalesh In fact, the agent also tried to convince me that the information I provided was wrong. When I challenged her with proof, she simply disconnected the chat. Since then I have gone back to directly ordering from the restaurants by looking them up in maps. Been very pleasant.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

@gharkekalesh I used to be a zomato gold customer consistently. And had more than decent usage. Always left handsome tips too. On my last order for someone, the delivery was not done with the excuse that ph was not reachable (Kolkata). The address, and the location were spot on …

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

@gharkekalesh But the delivery guy refused to deliver since my phone was switched off. The same address was used for multiple deliveries before. The customer care chat refused to provide any resolution and from the beginning was aggressive in trying to prove that I was at fault.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

Someone had to say it! Even in 2000s when you had the CD and mp3 players, people were still hooked onto the radio. Slowly the cringe started with the stations trying to project their RJs as demi gods. Lots of ads and little music, cringe blabbering by the RJs. It’s their doing.

[THE SKIN DOCTOR @theskindoctor13]

Radio stations are shutting down. Radio Nasha, Radio One, and Fever FM are just the beginning, and more will follow soon.

If the FM industry wants to save itself, it should just play songs with just a few sober ads in between. Nobody is interested in weather, traffic, or score updates, cringe jokes, loud ads, useless lectures, love guru preaching, and lousy pranks.

And most importantly, fire RJs. They are insufferable because they replace actual talent with screaming and fake energy. They talk at you in bizarre, plastic accents, laughing hysterically at their own terrible jokes and scripted prank calls that just bully ordinary people. When they aren't blasting obnoxious sound effects, they are lecturing you with cringey, copy-pasted life advice. They barely even play music anymore; it's just endless talking, ad plugs, and noise.

In a world with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Spotify, etc, their loud, fake, and preachy style is nothing but an auditory assault that makes you want to smash your car radio.

[Pratik Sengupta @pratiksg]

@SamuraiJack_v1 @Rus_Khairullin While I thoroughly enjoy and appreciate UAE’s autocracy, I still respectfully disagree with you. Points are shallow. In a democracy you have a voice, and rights. You have a judiciary and a fair trial. Let’s not take examples of failed states to demean democratic systems.