ashish thakur

Pretend writer at night...Marketeer by Day

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@ARanganathan72 Oh but are we civilised? The one security threat to this country is not external. It is our lack of civic duty and national pride. We were subjugated in the past not because we were weak. But because we hated each other. And the next time, it won’t be because we are weak, either.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@theskindoctor13 “Boya pedh babul ka to Aam kahan se hote?”. Just ask Gemini or ChatGPT about Mhatre’s past (criminal and civil) infractions and this is hardly a surprise.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

A few weeks back on a typical Trumpian evening I was thinking to myself, how similar him and Mamata Banerjee seem. Lo and behold - here’s Mamata Banerjee pulling off another Trumpesque move. Too peas in a pod these two.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@ShashiTharoor I’ve wondered if adding a senate equivalent with a longer term is a valuable addition to Indian makeup. The issue is governments would probably start needing quadruple / quintuple engine govts to function! And that’s an indictment of all parties. Not just the current rulers.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@thevirdas Oh this is universal, in varied degrees. Boston Legal did an episode, in it’s inimitable irreverent way, addressing this - Oral Contracts I think it was, towards the end of it’s run. What joy that series was!

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@manas_muduli Oh Indonesia is a classical example of how common sense can solve several of our problems. Comparable to IN in every way including pop density.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@3rdEyeDude Several issues here. Barricade. Truck in the right lane. The bus overtaking from the left. Highways in IN are a shit-show. And the citizens carry as much blame as the government. I once had an accident because local cops doing vasuli, stopped a car in the overtaking lane on NH8.

[Shashank Mattoo @MattooShashank]

"We're causing some things that may not be good for America in the long run. Canada's PM Carney was in China and now he's going to India," says JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon on Canada PM's WEF speech

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@DriveSmart_IN @motordave2 Seriously. So many comments- without one realising: Solid white divider means no crossing the lines - Right turns or U turns as in this case are illegal. But hey. Who cares :)

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

If only more in the opposition and indeed the governing party (abolish “ruling” parties), spoke with such balance. But now politicians are Pappu and media are Prestitudes. We live amongst Heros and Villains. Behoove us to remember all men are flawed. Nehru was flawed. As is Modi.

[Shashi Tharoor @ShashiTharoor]

Attended PM @narendramodi’s #RamnathGoenkaLecture at the invitation of @IndianExpress last night. He spoke of India's "constructive impatience" for development and strongly pushed for a post-colonial mindset.

The PM emphasized that India is no longer just an 'emerging market' but an 'emerging model' for the world, noting its economic resilience. PM Modi said he’d been accused of being in “election mode” all the time, but he was really in “emotional mode” to redress the problems of the people.

A significant part of the speech was dedicated to overturning Macaulay's 200-year legacy of "slave mentality." PM Modi appealed for a 10-year national mission to restore pride in India’s heritage, languages, and knowledge systems. I wish he had also acknowledged how Ramnath Goenka had used English to raise a voice for Indian nationalism!

On the whole, the PM’s address served as both an economic outlook and a cultural call to action, urging the nation to be restless for progress. Glad to have been in the audience despite battling a bad cold and cough!

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

The cynicism before and mostly after Prashant Kishor’s electoral defeat is both disheartening and a reason why nothing changes. We don’t expect it to. The guy fought. Armchair experts just sat on our butts while he fought. Remember. Respect. Chapeaux, Prashant. #BiharElection2025

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

Oh hallelujah. Somebody said it. Oh and not just the government- the people. The entitled behaviour, the chalta hai attitude, the utter disdain for anyone other than yourself. Change comes from mass social realisation. Not by a police state. Stop being so sickeningly selfish.

[sushant sareen @sushantsareen]

Without reforms nothing will happen. Without breaking the stifling hold of the bureaucracy that specialises in killing everything initiative unless some babu can exercise a vice like grip over everything, nothing will happen. Without creating an environment in which innovation, invention, industry is rewarded and trading is not, nothing will happen; without creating conditions in universities that attract the best and brightest who are given salaries according to their accomplishments and not salaries linked to what some IAS officer gets, nothing will happen; without delinking salaries of tech qualified people from that what the cab sec gets, nothing will happen; without ending the inspector raj, the tyranny of petty bureaucracy and obstructiveness of superior bureaucracy and rapaciousness of politicians and babus, nothing will happen; without creating decent living conditions - traffic, roads, basic civic amenities, law and order, rule of law, transparent governance and not petty potentates who lord over people because they passed a shitty exam and who cower before bully politicians, nothing will happen; without genuine reforms and not tinkering (this requires a change in mindset of povertarianism and socialism - GST on a car measured by length and on a mobike by engine capacity) nothing will happen; if we can’t run cities like Bangalore and Gurgaon, we can’t manage traffic, we allow anarchy on roads, how will you attract people back? Unless you can create an INDIAN DREAM to replace the AMERICAN DREAM, how will you get people back? We have been hearing so much but on ground nothing has changed except on the margins. And now let the troll brigade outrage over this tweet rather than pressuring the political and babu class to do the necessary reforms to MAKE INDIA GREAT AGAIN. And in the spirit of these time THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@ScionofGaruda Two ways people learn. By listening. Or by dying. Too many people like playing with death. Often they take others along. Mumbai has people walking in the middle of busy roads. Bikers and overloaded ricks going wrong side (and cars). 132K bikers and pedestrians died in 24 in IN.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@AmolMD @PuneCityPolice @CPPuneCity The whole of Maharashtra. Road safety in cities is just dead. And the continuous normalisation of this by the authorities- by sheer inaction- means it just gets worse by the day.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@bhaumikgowande Oh that’s an easy one. Overloaded trucks. It’s a known secret- just look the number of leaf-springs added to suspension of every truck in the after-market. Bad roads break in a fee days. Good ones survive a few months.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@nachiket1982 @CSNCityPolice @MahaPolice @DriveSmart_IN @TopDriverIndia @motordave2 Target pura karo baaki public khud dekh legi. I called helpline once after an accident, no one arrived for 2 hrs, & when I approached the police station they asked me to “settle it” and refused to register the complaint. This was in the middle of Mumbai. Law abiding = stupid.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@marxist_huduga Bhai read some. Indonesia has had pseudo-dictatorships right from the days of Suharto-Sukarno. Is the only country much more divided by subcultures than India. Comparing our political institutions with Indonesia is irresponsible. We need change, sure. But we’re no Indonesia.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@USAndIndia @CChristineFair Navarro just abused an entire country! “Brahmins are profiteering”. Foreign policy is informed by the power of the day but run institutionally. This will cause an institutional trust deficit. Tough to recover from that.

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@USAndIndia That’s just desperate. Things are the lowest point since Blood sent desperate memos, while Kissinger was busy bedding Yahya. Proves no political structure is immune to stupid. US in bed with Pakistan? Tweeting to molify a disaster! That’s Trump admin alright. @CChristineFair

[ashish thakur @ttherate]

@thevirdas V.V.S at Eden Gardens. Kapil’s 175 in '83. Rohit Sharma’s 120 at Vidharbha where Aus Team score was 177, 97 - and Todd Murphy spun 30-degree shooters to claim 7 wickets! V.V.S.’ Sydney heroics of 167 - in the 2nd innings too, the rest of the team scored 73 combined, with the bat!