shubham mishra

SDE . Views are personal.

[Supriya Sahu IAS @supriyasahuias]

How many of us realise that above our heads exists an ancient living superhighway older than human memory ?

Let that sink in

Every year, the Bar-headed Goose flies from Central Asia to Tamil Nadu across the Himalayas at altitudes above 7,000 metres through air too thin for most living beings to survive.

Often called the “Ballerina of the Skies”, the rare sighting of the Demoiselle Crane arriving from the Eurasian steppes at the Nemmeli Salt Pans in Tamil Nadu marked an important migratory record this year.

Along the same Central Asian Flyway, Osprey return from Europe and coastal Asia, while Montagu’s Harrier travel from Russia and Kazakhstan to South India.

The transcontinental, nonstop journey of three satellite-tagged Amur Falcon, Apapang, Alang and Ahu has filled us with wonder and awe.

No borders. No maps. Yet they return to the same water bodies, grasslands and coasts with astonishing precision every season

On this World Migratory Bird Day, these journeys remind us why protecting migratory habitats matters

#WorldMigratoryBirdDay #CentralAsianFlyway #TamilNadu #MigratoryBirds courtesy @sureshwii Raveendran Natrajan, Karthick Ayappan, Baranidharan S

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

A newborn sperm whale can’t swim. It starts sinking the second it’s born. If nobody pushes it to the surface, it drowns in mile-deep water.

On July 8, 2023, a sperm whale named Rounder went into labor off the coast of Dominica. Researchers from Project CETI, a $33 million AI initiative out of MIT, Harvard, and Northeastern that’s trying to decode whale language, happened to be there doing routine fieldwork. They had drones in the air and underwater microphones running. What they captured over the next six hours just got published in two papers, one in Science and one in Scientific Reports.

Eleven whales gathered at the surface before Rounder even started delivering. Her mother, Lady Oracle, was there. So was her daughter Accra. Three generations in the water. But the wild part: half those whales belonged to a completely separate bloodline that normally keeps its distance from Rounder’s family. On a typical day, these two family lines split off to hunt in different areas and rarely cluster together. For the birth, they all converged before labor started. The unrelated family somehow knew it was coming.

The delivery took 34 minutes. Sperm whale calves come out tail-first with their flukes still folded from the womb. They haven’t developed the oil-filled organ in their heads that helps adult whales float, so the moment they’re born, they’re dead weight in the ocean. Every adult whale in the group, related and unrelated, started taking turns pushing the calf up to breathe. They kept this rotation going for three hours. When a pod of pilot whales (known to be aggressive toward sperm whales) and a large group of Fraser’s dolphins showed up during delivery, the adults formed a wall around the newborn until the threat passed.

The underwater audio is where it gets interesting. CETI’s microphones picked up the whales changing their vocal patterns during the birth. The click-based sounds they use to talk to each other shifted at specific moments, and vowel-like structures appeared in the recordings. This builds on what CETI found in 2024 when they ran machine learning on over 8,700 recorded whale calls and discovered sperm whale communication isn’t a basic 21-sound code. It’s a system of about 300 distinct sound combinations, with the whales adjusting rhythm and timing in real time, speeding up and slowing down the way a musician does mid-performance. A 2025 follow-up from UC Berkeley found these clicks also contain vowel patterns, something scientists had assumed only humans could produce.

Sperm whales carry the largest brain of any animal on the planet. About 9 kg. Roughly six times heavier than yours. The evolutionary analysis in the new Science paper suggests this kind of cooperative birthing goes back over 36 million years, to the common ancestor of all toothed whales. The calf was spotted a year later, swimming with its family.

[shubham mishra @shrck_13]

@abhisheknaironx @que_tourist

[Paras Chopra @paraschopra]

Don't compete.

🧵

[Cubbon Reads @cubbonreads]

Sorry for taking long. A lot of our curators were recovering from the trauma they faced the day before, and we wanted to give them space.

If you were present at the venue, you can help attest to the experience. Thank you.

[Aviral Bhatnagar @aviralbhat]

Bollywood's deep decline is visible in offering Singham and BB3 on a massive Diwali weekend

Consumers who want to go out have to choose between two awful movies, competing for who is worse

No wonder Dharma had to fire sell itself despite a huge brand

Industry needs a reset

[M_Vidyasagar @stellensatz]

"Infosys made a lot of employees rich. These startups will only make 2-3 promoters rich."

"Around $10.5 billion worth of ESOPs were given to 18,000 employees. ($600k per employee on average)."

If you join a start-up with ESOPs, ensure that the contract is worded properly. 1/n

[shubham mishra @shrck_13]

@rohitdevx @championswimmer You actually raised a very valid point . Why compare any Internet company to the revenue scale of Google , if the product experience is genuinely good ? @championswimmer How do we explain this to someone who is not going to be an engineer or is not one , bmkj or not ?

[Deedy @deedydas]

In India's capital, Delhi, on one hand you have Camellias, the fanciest 5 bedroom apartments that start at Rs 50 Cr, $6M+, with a 160,000 sqft clubhouse.

The pinnacle of opulence.

But... you can't even drive most older cars to the city and the AQI is ~400, hazardous!

[shubham mishra @shrck_13]

@manasjsaloi 4,5,6

[Anwesh Sinha @sinhanwesh]

My HSRP Booking Order ID is BMKAE1DB3D96-B19F-4A, Vehicle No.KA03NQ6967. The delivery date was 1st December 2023. But haven't received it yet after complaint. @tdkarnataka #bookonline #bookmyhsrp #IndianGovt #highsecurityregistrationnumberplates @RLR_BTM #HSRP @tdkarnataka #RTO

[Aviral Bhatnagar @aviralbhat]

My parents started their careers at Tata Steel as graduate trainees

Jamshedpur was far from big city life. They were surrounded only by Tata Steel employees. Stuck in a small town, and the only people you can meet at any time are colleagues. To the modern professional, this sounds like a recipe for disaster.

But all the Tata Steel people I have met have only fond memories and lifelong friends

Some of my parents’ friends have only worked at Tata Steel for their entire lives. Insanely, 30+ years, 1 company. Today, 30+ months, 1 company is rare. There’s no bigger proof of it being an incredible employer than this.

Why Tata Steel was so used to be a mystery to me

Bright young kids joined Tata Steel as trainees for their first few years. They truly were trainees, not employees to be thrown into the grind. As young 22/23-year-olds, they were treated with care and guidance. Most young professionals today complain of burnout and work stress.

Tata Steel members were structurally shielded from this

Training is expensive. Team members are only costing the company, not generating revenue. But Tata Steel chose to afford this. An exceptionally long-term investment, they invested both time and resources. By putting their team first, Tata Steel earned something precious.

Loyalty and long-term commitment

Observe how Tata Steel earned it, rather than demanding it. It wasn’t an accident. The whole organisation operated in the same way. The care didn’t stop after training. A few years into my Dad’s fast-growing career, he made an honest multi-crore error that cost the company years of my Dad’s salary. Instead of making a huge deal out of it, they let it go with an observation

Valuable people were allowed to make mistakes

Surprisingly, the most magical piece was the town. Beyond work, home, travel, stay, everything was taken care of. Employees rarely had to spend on basics. My parents fondly remember the days of their early homes, next to other young couples. Many of these young couples have been friends for decades. These now uncommon friendships are so deep that they can arrive anywhere if anyone else needs them

Tata Steel truly created a family for its teams

Such organisations are exceedingly rare today. Perhaps the world is too fast for such organizations to be attractive to the modern professional. Or perhaps, the commitment-phobic modern professional is chasing mirages when the true way to work is this. But one thing is clear, this is how you create an enduring organization not for years or even decades, but centuries. What makes Tata Steel tick is no longer a mystery to me

It is the Tata Way

[shubham mishra @shrck_13]

@newvinay BASF?

[shubham mishra @shrck_13]

What is it @VW a life-size promotion ?

[Anubha @artbyahbuna]

At this moment, more than RCB’s loss, Bengaluru should be mourning at this haunting picture.

The young woman didn’t deserve this city’s shit infrastructure. Nobody deserves this.

[Nithin Kamath @Nithin0dha]

No Business Background
No Pedigree education across the team
No VC/PE
No Advertising spending
No Spamming customer

@zerodha is an example that a successful business can be built by not following the norm, by average folks with common sense wanting to solve a problem.

[Karthik 🇮🇳 @beastoftraal]

Wait for the totally unexpected twist, even as your mouth involuntarily exclaims, 'WHAAAAAAT??!' 😆

This is typical Thai advertising ingenuity/style!

Agency: Wolf BKK

[Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @Noahpinion]

This is just an incredible graph. India is making absolutely amazing strides against poverty.

(ht @scienceisstrat1)

[Abhilasha Purwar @AbhilashaPurwar]

And the answer - "its New York" is because so many movies & TV shows are based out of NYC, shoved not just to Indians but also to people in Kansas, Idaho, Utah invalidating full life experience in every other part of the world in the name of constant validation to NYC.

[shubham mishra @shrck_13]

@whoisved People seeking attention by telling everyone how introverted they are 🥲