
I write and edit. Buy your copy of BHARAT BLUFF by @RoliBooks now! https://xitter.cf/t.co/3j7KbUuH1y
Mumbai, India
Joined July 2013
- Tweets68.3K
- Following1.5K
- Followers3.8K
- Likes68.7K
Pinned Tweet
✨Some exciting news✨
For two years, I have been working on an exciting project -- chronicling online scams in India and trying to understand how exactly we developed a 'scam economy'.
It's all come together finally in my book!
Bharat Bluff, by @RoliBooks is OUT NOW
Soumya retweeted
Dear World, Jamia Millia Islamia - a university in Delhi is now censoring Instagram and YouTube access on its campus Wifi to stop the transmission of videos and photos of the admin and police brutality during massive protests going on inside the campus.
@internetfreedom
(1/n)
Soumya retweeted
This kind of press report by @DainikBhaskar would not be possible under the current DPDP Act. Press organisations are placed in the incredible position of having to secure consent from the “Data Principal” before processing their personal data. The lack of an exception for journalistic reporting, news gathering is unconstitutional and an effort to denude press freedom. The Press does more than report on corruption incidentally, its past exposes have resulted in massive social change, uncovered social evils and other ills gripping society. The Law must either be amended to bring in press reporting and its ancillary tasks including investigation and fact gathering as an exception to the DPDP obligations.
भास्कर की रिपोर्ट है, जरा देखिए:
राजस्थान कैडर के सीनियर आईएएस शिखर अग्रवाल, उनकी आईपीएस पत्नी प्रशाखा माथुर, दोनों बेटे और सास-ससुर ने ढाई साल के भीतर एक ही कंपनी से 40 विला-कॉटेज खरीदे हैं. भास्कर की पड़ताल में सामने आया कि अलवर के अजबगढ़ में 20 विला की मार्च 2026 और उदयपुर के बुढ़ड़ा में 20 कॉटेज की रजिस्ट्री सितंबर 2023 में हुई. इन्हें बेचने वाली कंपनी का नाम गोयल फैशन प्राइवेट लिमिटेड है. इसके देशभर में अनंता नाम से 14 रिसॉर्ट व होटल हैं. आईएएस-आईपीएस दंपती के परिवार ने कंपनी से बुढ़ड़ा और अजबगढ़ के अनंता रिसॉर्ट में ही विला-कॉटेज खरीदे. इनकी रजिस्ट्रियों के दस्तावेज भास्कर के पास मौजूद हैं.
शिखर वर्तमान में राजस्थान सरकार में एसीएस हैं. उनके पास उद्योग, सूक्ष्म, लघु एवं मध्यम उद्योग, सरकारी उपक्रम, दिल्ली-मुंबई औद्योगिक कॉरिडोर और निवेश एवं प्रवासी राजस्थानियों मामलों के विभाग हैं. वे रीको अध्यक्ष और राजसिको के अध्यक्ष भी हैं. उनकी आईपीएस पत्नी प्रशाखा माथुर प्रदेश की एडीजी हैं. वे फिलहाल योजना, आधुनिकीकरण व कल्याण का काम देख रही हैं.
Soumya retweeted
Art installation by the Mumbai School of Monumental art and Applied Absurdities called The Geometry of Abstract Objects Blocking Pedestrian Movement. Govandi Station. #IndianRailRomeo
Soumya retweeted
Seven years ago New York banned floating digital billboards, from it’s rivers calling them public nuisance.
Soumya retweeted
Replying to @TheSincereDude
Meanwhile, his children are enjoying the freedoms and laws that human beings deserve in foreign countries.
Soumya retweeted
There's more security and police presence at the Jio listing at NSE than when the Prime Minister visits town.
It's a Jio carnival at the National Stock Exchange of India in Mumbai.
The country's largest telecom company will list today after a record-breaking IPO.
Fancy cars driving up with the city's business and financial leaders. Crowds on the street. A drum-playing band too. And plenty of security.
There's restricted access for media but an undeterred @business India team is reporting on location.
Replying to @mybmcwardKW
@mybmcwardKW
Water pipeline 💧 💦
burst opposite kokilaben hospital
Achutrao patwardhan marg Andheri west
Ward no 60
@mybmcInfra
@mybmc
@adityampaul
@savitha_rao
@seemaadhikari
@MoharBasu
@bytesofnews
@AAPJogeshwariE
@Pupulmimi
@TimminsPriyanka
@jkdfilm
Soumya retweeted
My own news report on Mumbai’s water contamination is being forwarded to me by people asking if it’s true. Instagram reels are adding to the panic.
A little perspective: BMC received 1,514 complaints about contaminated water in eight months. These are complaints, NOT 1,514 contaminated samples or proof that Mumbai’s entire water supply is unsafe.
Yes, contamination is a serious concern, especially when it occurs in the distribution network. Every complaint must be investigated and addressed. But telling everyone to heavily boil their water or not consume it, without evidence of a citywide problem, is irresponsible. & Influencers, there are better ways to inform people than frightening. My two bits 🙏
Soumya retweeted
The systematic dismantling of Mumbai's BEST bus network.
Mumbai's iconic BEST bus service is collapsing by design, not by accident. Stripped of its historical cross-subsidy funding, the BMC pushed this essential transit system into a dangerous wet-leasing privatization model. This shift forces extreme contractor cost-cutting on labor and maintenance, directly driving the recent surge in bus accidents and breakdowns. While the BMC easily allocates tens of thousands of crores for elite coastal road infrastructure, it actively refuses to merge budgets to protect the daily commute of millions. The decline of Mumbai's most vital public transport is a deliberate policy choice prioritizing profit over public utility. @hussaindorewala
youtu.be/vqCuTsZqww0?si=m7sA…
Soumya retweeted
The Indian government is proposing changes to how the unemployment data will be calculated. Including questions about unpaid household work. Already unpaid farm work is considered "employment"
as.ft.com/r/5dcacbcd-fc08-41…
Soumya retweeted
Instagram removes the reel posted on LiveLaw's official page about the ECI's affidavit in the #SupremeCourt.
The reel, which was only an explanation of the ECI's version, was removed by Instagram saying, "We received a legal request to restrict this content".
There is no explanation how the reel (instagram.com/reel/De_dnDnOW…) violated any law.
@instagram @Meta
The same video is available on YouTube - youtube.com/watch?v=OuEYr-bY…
Soumya retweeted
Mumbai isn't failing the working class; it’s actively pricing them out.
With an average monthly income of just 36,000 rupees, an affordable home should cost under 17 lakhs—a reality that simply does not exist in this city. A staggering 94% of families are completely priced out of the housing market. Instead of fixing this crisis, urban planning policies deliberately inflate land prices to benefit builders and wealthy investors, systematically forcing everyday citizens out of the city they keep running. @hussaindorewala
youtu.be/vqCuTsZqww0?si=m7sA…
Soumya retweeted
EXCLUSIVE: India’s biggest news publishers including Ambani's Network18, Adani's NDTV, Indian Express, Times Internet & others mount the most high-profile challenge yet to Modi’s privacy law, warning it would “render investigative journalism a benign and neutered recorder of events.”
DNPA (@publishers_news) has taken the law to the Supreme Court. They argue it would trample investigative work and let New Delhi identify journalists’ sources.
The provisions “constitute pre-censorship which is anathema to any democracy worth its name,” the group’s 698-page filing says.
The key concerns:
🔹 Consent: requiring a journalist to notify the subject of an investigation and seek consent “would allow that subject to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses”
🔹 Erasure: people can withdraw consent and demand their data be erased, which the group says could force publishers to unpublish or heavily redact news reports
🔹 Sources: a “nakedly unguided” power to demand information that “can extend to privileged communications in possession of a reporter or the informant”
In a letter to the government, the group said India “has chosen to grant broad exemptions to the state, while failing to extend any corresponding protection to the press.”
reuters.com/business/media-t…
Soumya retweeted
Celebrations have erupted in the streets of Serbia's capital Belgrade, after long-standing leader Aleksandar Vučić admitted defeat to a student-led protest movement in snap parliamentary elections. Read more: bbc.in/4BwV5ga
Soumya retweeted
In one of Delhi-NCR's top schools, parents are planning to pool-in funds to buy Dyson/Honeywell/Sharp Purifiers for their children's Nursery classrooms, for the upcoming bad-AQI season.
Some parents logically asked, "Why doesn't the school buy these air purifiers?" The school said that their AC systems have HEPA filters, to take care of dust to some extent. Unconvincing. Parents decided to go ahead with their own safety systems.
Next, they asked- "What happened to the Air Purifiers that the classroom had last year? The previous batch too had purifiers with AQI monitors."
School's response: "The air purifiers travel with the batch of children. As the students move up a year, the Air Purifiers do too. So the Purifiers that were in first grade last year, are in second grade now."
Welcome to the incredibly complex world of public-health moving into private hands.
Soumya retweeted
The comments on this tweet are so telling
Everyone now knows that a Fire in a Govt office means burning of sensitive files
Just like our Govt did
for the Aarey Forest files
Soumya retweeted
Mangroves capture and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, acting as a significant natural solution to climate change and all of it is released back into the atmosphere, primarily as carbon dioxide.
No wonder why Mumbai’s AQI is terrible, years of stored carbon dioxide is being released back into the atmosphere because of this destruction of our mangroves ecosystem.
If they don’t stop, everything including air we breathe is only gonna get worse.
#savemumbaimangroves







































