The results of the recent state elections have been dramatic by any measure.
But for me, this image will remain the most unforgettable outcome of the elections.
More than 166,000 votes were cast between the two leading candidates in this constituency in Tamil Nadu.
And history was changed by just one vote.
This image should be shown in every school in the country & perhaps around the world.
So that every child understands that when they grow up, the greatest power they may possess is the Power of One.
The power of their one vote.
Open letter to Indians in America.
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Dear brothers and sisters from Bharat:
Like I did 37 years ago, you arrived in America with no money but with a good education and cultural heritage from Bharat. You achieved outstanding success. America was good to us. For that we must remain grateful - gratitude is our Bharatiya way.
Yet today, a significant number of Americans, may be not the majority but not too far from it either, believe that Indians "take away" American jobs and our success in America was unfairly earned.
You may think the next election will fix this, but your choice would be between people who hate our Bharatiya civilisation and people who hate civilisation itself. That is the "hard right" vs "woke left" battle. You are mere bystanders to that conflict.
Meanwhile there is one thing that is true now and will be true in the future: the respect Indians command world-wide will substantially depend on the fortunes of India herself. If India remains poor, the woke left will give us moral lectures with pity and the hard right, different moral lectures with scorn ("hellhole") and we must not confuse either with respect.
Respect in today's world, along with prosperity and security, comes from one source: a nation's technological prowess. India produces sufficient brain power to achieve that prowess but alas we exported so much of that talent, particularly to America. As we develop that prowess in India, our civilisational strength will assert itself.
As difficult as it is for many of you to contemplate this, please come back home. Bharat Mata needs your talent. Our vast youthful population needs the technology leadership you gained over the years to guide them towards prosperity. Let's do it with a missionary zeal.
Respectfully
Sridhar Vembu
BAF’s sustained efforts deliver results :
- Uniform SWM user fee across independent houses and all apartment sizes. #SWM
- Same segregation, same processing, now same price. Fairness and parity achieved in the GBA property tax 2026-27.
From highlighting the issue of unequal pricing to advocating for fairness and parity, this outcome is not just a correction in pricing, it is a recognition of the responsible waste management practices followed by apartment communities.
BAF expresses its sincere Thanks to Shri. Maheshwara Rao IAS, Chief Commissioner , GBA
Shri. Munish Moudgil IAS, Special Commissioner - Revenue & IT , GBA
and Shri. Karee Gowda IAS , CEO , BSWML
@GBA_office@GBAChiefComm@munishmody@KareeGowda_IAS@BNCCofficial@comm_blr_south@BECCUPDATES@BWCCofficial@BCCCofficial@swaccha_bbmp@BSWML_GBA
BAF team met the Chief Commissioner, GBA Shri Maheshwara Rao, IAS, on concerns around the defective SWM framework and the user fee via property tax.
Raised key issues:
- Apartments cannot be treated differently from individual homes
-Unnecessary and unwarranted burden of GST on SWM only for Apartments must be removed
- Individual waste-weighing at every collection point is impractical.
Also flagged threatening notices under SWM Rules 2026 despite systems not being in place and lack of stakeholder consultation.
Concerns were noted and taken up for consideration. We thank the Chief Commissioner for giving his time.
@GBAChiefComm@GBA_office@munishmody@comm_blr_south@BECCUPDATES@BNCCofficial@BWCCofficial@BCCCofficial@KareeGowda_IAS@BSWML_GBA
@sapnasarda_ hey thanks for sharing! I always wondered if I was over extending by having a USA entity and business could simply be conducted from the india one.
BSWML has managed to complicate not just Solid Waste Management, but now even the GBA/BBMP property tax portal. #EaseOfLiving
A simple property tax payment is turning into a confusing exercise due to poorly designed SWM user fee questions and unclear data requirements.
There is no per-house waste weighment system, so all entries are merely estimates. And the framework imposes discriminatory charges on apartment communities that already segregate and compost their waste.
Fix the SWM framework first—don’t make compliance harder for citizens.
We seek urgent intervention from the Chief Commissioner, GBA.
#BSWML
@GBA_office@BSWML_GBA@KareeGowda_IAS@munishmody
Iranians are forming human chains on bridges — standing together against threats of destruction.
This is today on the White Bridge in Ahvaz, Iran.
Trump and Israel’s criminal war has united all of Iranian society — every faith, every class — in defense of their homeland.
Today a court in Madurai sentenced all 9 police officers to death.
Their crime was murder.
Their victims were Jayaraj and Bennix.
A father and son who kept their mobile shop open 45 minutes past curfew in June 2020.
They were beaten for 7 hours through the night.
Forced to wipe their own blood off the floor with their clothes.
Jayaraj had 17 injuries. Bennix had 13.
Both died within 3 days.
The judge called it rarest of rare.
Today India told every police officer in this country.
Nobody is above the law.
Not even the law itself.
Selvarani waited 2192 days for this moment so as we.
Today, India takes a defining step in its civil nuclear journey, advancing the second stage of its nuclear programme.
The indigenously designed and built Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor at Kalpakkam has attained criticality.
This advanced reactor, capable of producing more fuel than it consumes, reflects the depth of our scientific capability and the strength of our engineering enterprise. It is a decisive step towards harnessing our vast thorium reserves in the third stage of the programme.
A proud moment for India. Congratulations to our scientists and engineers.
Your fluency and impact on twitter or truth social 🙅🏼♀️🟰 Your fluency and impact at public speaking.
Note to self. Learning from the war of Hormuz. (I think that’s what this war should be called)
Poverty of Purpose.
Once roti kapda makaan is taken care, this is the real poverty.
This is the poverty Gen Z of India is born in. And has to earn for itself - their purpose.
Will this lead to stronger intent and funding for solar wind water energy?
Will this lead to less plastic, less pollution, less chemical farming?
Planet 🌎 would like that!
This war could be a conspiracy of the Planet Earth.
What all the COP agreements, UNEP couldn’t achieve Trumpji unknowingly achieved-
Woke up the world about the helpless dependence on fossil fuel and its stranglehold on economies.
Let me decode 3 things here:
1. Common people think the NIC was good enough, then why this? The truth is that the legacy NIC system was suffering from technical debt so massive it became a national security risk. Before this migration, 1000s of govt officials were secretly using personal Gmail/ProtonMail accounts for official work because the NIC interface was too clunky for modern mobile devices. By spending ₹180 crore, the govt is not just buying Zoho Mail; they are buying a Behavioral Correction. They are finally giving bureaucrats a slick enough interface (Zoho Workplace) so they stop leaking state data into foreign private clouds out of pure frustration.
2. 1 of the most hardly known technical details of this deal is that this is not the public Zoho you & I use. This is a Govt-Specific Cloud Instance. While the data sits on Zoho’s servers, the Sovereignty Layer is unique. The Indian govt reportedly mandated that the data be hosted in Tier-4 Data Centers with Geo-fencing controls. If a Zoho employee in California/Chennai tries to peek at a PMO email, the system is designed to trigger a Digital Self-Destruct of that access path. The govt has essentially rented Zoho's brain but kept the skull (data ownership) entirely for itself.
3. Finally, let us look at the math: ₹180 crore for 16.68 lakh accounts over the contract period. This works out to ~₹1080/account for the current project duration. This is a predatory pricing masterstroke by Zoho to evict Microsoft 365 & Google Workspace from the Indian public sector forever. Microsoft would have cost 5-10x more. Zoho did not win this on patriotism alone; they won it by making the cost of sovereignty cheaper than the cost of dependency.