Sundeep Dev Singh

Software Craftsman, Personal Finance Enthusiast, Focusing on FIRE. 🙂🙂

[Runtime @RuntimeBRT]

Indian students are DIYing a semiconductor fab at IIT Bombay.

In just 10 months they've built:

1. A DLP-based lithography machine.
2. A tube furnace to oxidise silicon.
3. A DC plasma sputter.

Total cost: ₹30 lakh.

Here's a rare behind-the-scenes look at HackerFab IITB.

[Sundeep Dev Singh @sundeepdev]

@suekhim Level 4

[Malay Krishna @Malay4Product]

This is an unbelievable piece of work by Sarthak and something that requires amplification.

Let me explain what he found, in simple terms.

Sarthak is a Class 12 student from the 2025-26 batch, one of the 17 lakh students whose answer sheets went through CBSE's new On-Screen Marking system.

He spent days reading through CBSE's evaluation tenders, scraped all 576 tenders CBSE has issued, and tracked how the rules changed across three versions of the same tender.

The core finding is that the company that won the contract to scan and grade 17 lakh students' answer sheets is Coempt Eduteck.

Coempt used to be called Globarena Technologies. Globarena was the company behind the 2019 Telangana intermediate exam disaster, where software failures led to 3.8 lakh students getting wrong or missing marks, and 23 students died by suicide.

A government committee found systemic failure and negligence. Six months later, Globarena rebranded to Coempt Eduteck.

So a company with that track record won a contract to handle 17 lakh CBSE students. Sarthak's investigation is about how the rules were rewritten to let that happen.

The tender was issued three times.

> First tender, February 2025. It existed, then disappeared from the public GeM portal. Sarthak scraped all 576 CBSE tenders and this one was missing from the archive entirely.

> Second tender, May 2025. Four companies applied including TCS and Coempt. All four failed the technical evaluation. Cancelled.

> Third tender, August 2025. Coempt won. Between the second and third tender, a series of rule changes happened, and every single one made it easier for Coempt to qualify.

Here is what changed, one by one.

01. The old rules disqualified any company with a history of abandoning work, failing to complete contracts, or financial weakness. The new rules deleted this clause entirely. Coempt's Telangana history stopped being a barrier.

02. The old rules disqualified any company that was "blacklisted earlier." The new rules changed this to "currently blacklisted." Because Globarena rebranded after Telangana, removing the word "earlier" effectively erased their past.

03. The rules required Rs 50 crore average turnover over three years. Coempt's exact average came to Rs 50.86 crore. They cleared the bar by less than 1%. Earlier, a smaller company had asked CBSE to lower the bar to Rs 30 crore for fairer competition. CBSE refused. So the bar was kept high enough to block small players, but sat exactly low enough for Coempt to scrape through.

04. Software maturity is measured on the CMMI scale, 1 to 5. The old rules required Level 5. The new rules dropped it to Level 3. Coempt is a Level 3 company.

05. The cooling-off period for engaging retired CBSE officials was cut from two years to one. This makes it easier to use recently retired insiders to influence the process.

06. The old rules required experience with large projects of at least 5 lakh students each. The new rules removed the student count and counted cumulative answer-book volume across small projects instead. Coempt has many small fragmented university contracts. This helped Coempt and hurt TCS.

07. The old rules required bidders to own their own data centre and disaster recovery centre on Indian soil. The new rules allowed third-party MeitY-empanelled cloud hosting. Coempt runs on AWS and Azure. This helped Coempt and hurt TCS, which owns its own data centres. It also means student data is no longer on sovereign, Indian infrastructure.

08. The old rules required the bidder to own or control the complete source code of its software. The new rules deleted this. Coempt's platform runs on Microsoft's proprietary IIS, which they don't own.

09. A last-minute corrigendum, issued right before bid submission, removed CBSE's own power to blacklist the firm if its software failed catastrophically. So even a Telangana-scale failure couldn't get Coempt banned from future government tenders.

10. The penalty structure shifted from punishing mistakes to punishing delays. The old rules fined the vendor for wrong scanning, merged pages, and unscanned books. The new rules dropped those and instead levied Rs 50,000 per day for delays. This incentivises rushed scanning over accurate scanning.

11. The old rules had a hard accuracy threshold, error rate not to exceed 0.5%. The new rules removed this number entirely.

12. The old rules specified proper book and robotics scanners. The new rules just say "sufficient scanners." The definition was vague enough that, as Sarthak notes, the scanning could be done with a phone on a stand.

13. On the security side, the contract required a VAPT (vulnerability and penetration test) certified by CERT-In before go-live, and a restricted beta phase before launch. The system clearly wasn't restricted, because the other researcher, Nisarga, was able to access it and find vulnerabilities four days before go-live. So the mandatory security audit appears to have been bypassed.

These are more than a dozen rule changes, all between the failed tender and the winning tender, all pushing in the same direction, all benefiting the one company with the worst track record in the field.

The security holes Nisarga found last week now have an explanation. The system was built by a vendor that was specifically allowed to skip the security certification, the source code ownership, the data sovereignty, and the quality thresholds the original rules demanded.

Following things need to happen immediately;

1. An immediate CAG audit of the tender process.
2. A parliamentary debate on the topic.
3. An independent investigation into
> Why the first tender vanished?
> Why the disqualification clauses were deleted?
> Why the turnover bar was held exactly where it was?
> Why the security level was dropped?
> Why the blacklisting power was removed at the last moment?

Sarthak, this is genuinely exceptional investigative work. Far better than most journalists with full resources ever manage. Take a bow. :)

[Arnav Gupta @championswimmer]

A short demo of how I use these extensions that I created for myself in Pi

- pi-context-prune
- pi-context-usage
- pi-cache-graph

(they are all on npm if you want to install for yourself)

[Ridark @ridark_eth]

A 30-year-old solo developer decided to stop chasing trends and made $77,000 in a single month

He built 35 different micro-SaaS startups while working completely on his own

He didn't build complex AI agent teams
He just paired a basic code editor with a single AI chat window

Every single day, he follows a military-like routine: wakes up at 6 AM, hits the gym, and locks in

For 4 to 6 hours straight, his phone is completely off. Zero social media, zero emails. Just pure deep work

He doesn't even check bug reports or customer support in the morning to keep his focus clean

Out of 35 startups he launched, 30 completely failed and made $0
But one single project (Trustm) now generates over $35,000/month alone

His main secret? He ships features immediately instead of polishing them for months

I recommend reading the article below

[Cockroach is Back @Cockroachisback]

Launching our first ground campaign- #LifeOfACockroach

Cockroaches, it’s time to get to work.

See a pothole that could swallow a scooter? A broken streetlight? Garbage piling up? A government office that has forgotten what “public service” means?

Record it. Shoot it. Document it.

Then send us a collaboration request or tag us.

We’ll amplify it, create pressure, and make sure the authorities know that the cockroaches are watching.

#कॉकरोचज़िंदगी

[dharmesh @dharmesh]

If you work in the software industry and have time to read only one long-form post today, read this one.

If you have time to read two, read this one twice.

Highly #recommend

tl;dr: Stay off the yellow brick road that the frontier model companies are racing down. There is plenty of opportunity to solve hard problems elsewhere. Focus on areas where you can build the system of work (workflows), capture compounding, non-public data and deliver deterministic outcomes that customers need.

[Amit Behal @amitbehalll]

Biggest car delivery scam 2026;

[Donovan 🇺🇸🍀 @mcjunkind]

@HansMahncke

[Narendra Modi @narendramodi]

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.

[The Better India @thebetterindia]

This IITian hasn’t bought an LPG cylinder in 7 years—and the reason is unbelievable.

By turning his neighbour’s kitchen waste into cooking gas, Priyadarshan built a biodigester that powers his stove for free.

From waste to fuel, he’s saved thousands of cylinders and inspired hundreds of homes.

We throw waste and pay for gas. He flipped the script.

Would you try this sustainable switch or stick to LPG?

#SustainableLiving #CleanEnergy #LPG #EcoInnovation #GreenIndia

[LPG India, Food Waste Recycling, Biogas Technology India, Sustainable Cooking Solutions, Renewable Energy Innovation, Eco Friendly Living India]

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

“Winning with humility leaves a legacy stronger than any trophy."

[Sash Zats @zats]

In case you are need to open multiple Codex apps simultaneously, run

/𝙰𝚙𝚙𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜/𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚡.𝚊𝚙𝚙/𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜/𝙼𝚊𝚌𝙾𝚂/𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚡 &

from your terminal as many times as you want

[JJohnnymeitei @JohnnyMeetei]

Indian footballer #BrandMeitei from Manipur Sweety Devi Ngangom appealing people of Indian origin in Australia to watch their World Cup qualifier.
Such a pity state of football.

[प्रणव @PranavaBhardwaj]

5th day. While my brother making steady progress, still in ICU.

Still waiting for even an acknowledgement by @noida_authority or @MedhaRoopam

This bull was on the road. Why was he on the road.? What was my brother’s mistake.?

Existing.?

[War & Gore @Goreunit]

Do not forget that you're living between such elements.
This toll plaza employee hardly earns 10 to 15 thousands rupees per month, he was just performing his duty, beaten mercilessly.

[Zoya Khan @Zoyakhan7025]

⚠️ कस्टमर अवेयरनेस पोस्ट (जागरूकता के लिए)

वीडियो में दिख रहे व्यक्ति (नाम: आयुष गुप्ता) का कहना है कि उन्होंने लगभग ₹20 लाख की Mahindra कार खरीदी जो करीब 20 महीनों में सिर्फ़ 13,000 KM चली।
उनके अनुसार
• दोनों सर्विस समय पर कराई गई (₹875 और ₹10,000)
• 13,000 KM पर इंजन में गंभीर समस्या आ गई
• वारंटी क्लेम को कंपनी द्वारा अस्वीकार बताया गया
• बाद में ₹46,000 का बिल भी दिया गया

👉 इस घटना के आधार पर वे लोगों से गाड़ी खरीदने से पहले पूरी जानकारी लेने और वारंटी/सर्विस शर्तें अच्छे से समझने की अपील कर रहे हैं।

⚠️ नोट: यह जानकारी संबंधित व्यक्ति के दावों पर आधारित है किसी भी ब्रांड या कंपनी के बारे में अंतिम निष्कर्ष निकालने से पहले सभी पक्षों की जानकारी और आधिकारिक पुष्टि ज़रूर करें।

❓ क्या आप गाड़ी खरीदते समय वारंटी और सर्विस की शर्तें ध्यान से पढ़ते हैं?

[amit kilhor @amitkilhor]

Apathy is thy name of Indian administration.
Another day. Another dead. Wait for tommorow.

#amitkilhor #kilhor #apathy #kamal