Former MLA (Madurai Central ('16-'26); TN Minister (Finance & HR '21-'23; IT & Digital Service '23-'26). Lovedale, Vikaasa, NITT, UB, MIT Sloan; Lehman, SCB
Madurai, India
Joined March 2016
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𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿: The entire Kumbabishegam ceremony today, has been directed by the current TVK Government through its Officers without considering any inputs from the Trustees. This has been done in direct contravention of both the relevant Tamil Nadu Acts & Statutes and of multiple rulings of the Madras High Court. I have been forwarded multiple social media posts this morning from devotees complaining of the lack of access to the event. While some of this may have happened under any government, the incumbent government must take full responsibility for today’s shortcomings, given their complete exclusion of the Trustees (who had experience with prior events)from the planning process, and decision to conduct the proceedings with Officers that had no prior experience of similar events.
I am also duty-bound to note that over 95% of the massive efforts undertaken over the past three years to perform this unique renovation – which included the restoration of the fire-damaged Veera Vasantha Rayar Mandapam – were undertaken during the previous DMK Government’s tenure of 2021 to 2026.
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
Doordarshan pays Sudhir Chaudhary ₹15 crore per year (plus GST) for a 1 hour news show aired 5 days a week
Army Chief gets paid ₹59 lakh per year
Delhi AIIMS chief gets ₹52 lakh per year
Senior most Scientist at ISRO gets paid ₹43 Lakh per year
In my experience & analysis, elections are won (or lost) - above all else - by which voters are motivated enough to come to the booth
Apathy is more likely the cause of a loss than vote-switching
Mobilizing turnout is more often the reason for victory than vote-switching
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
The EDF (Export Declaration Form) rules are now in effect, and it seems like RBI and banks have conspired to create a new hell. Or actually 5 hells.
I consult for an American company. Raised October invoice. Received the Inward remittance. And bang! Mail from @HDFC_Bank detailing everything needed before the payment can be processed.
Let me tell you what the 5 hells are:
1. The hell of confusion – RBI clarified last month that the EDF rules do not apply to individuals. But looks like they haven’t told the banks. And CAs also don’t seem to know. There’s no official communication on who is exempt. Last I checked, I was an individual. No company, no LLP. But HDFC still wants me to file the EDF to credit my payment.
2. The hell of complexity – See the attached pic of the form the bank has sent in excel. It has 5 sheets. To be filled and submitted. Some abstruse acronyms like “AD” - no clue what it means. Some fields are mandatory. Some fields are to be filled by the bank. No idea which is what. And it needs a physical signature. Which leads to...
3. The hell of paperwork - They also sent a pdf with a bunch of request letters. I’m supposed to choose the right letter, print, sign, scan and submit. Creating more paper today is incredibly silly. And, I suppose, someone in the bank will have to upload all this somewhere. Reminds me of those hand-filled immigration forms. Pointless.
4. The hell of repetition – At least for me, most of the details are constant. One client, one payment. If it’s a one-time exercise, fine. I’ll grit my teeth and get it done. But no. These details have to be given month after month. Else… no payment will be credited.
5. The hell of unpreparedness – It would have been simple enough for RBI or HDFC to create an online portal for this. With dropdowns, saved formats, contextual help, etc. to at least make this easy. But that would be too convenient, no? So, they’ve chosen to dump the entire burden on the taxpayer.
I have no opinion or understanding of why this is needed. Maybe it is critical information. Okay! But why make the process so confusing and painful?
And poor communication has meant that the banks have just passed on the pain to the exporter, and even CAs can’t help.
Basically RBI & HDFC feel I should consult less, and comply more. Maybe my client will also agree :)
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
BREAKING: "Speculative data center debt is being repackaged and sold to pension and retirement funds, university endowments, and other institutional investors in a manner eerily reminiscent of the subprime bubble," per AFR
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
How many protestors can this government detain? How many young voices can the BJP silence?
The more young people they jail, the more ordinary citizens, with no political affiliation, will take to the streets and show them the true power of the people!
Solidarity with @AshutoshRanka and @SauravDassss! The DMK stands ready to provide them with all necessary legal representation and support. ✊🏾
#CJP #GyaneshKumarMustGo
Ashu and Saurav have been sent to 5 days judicial custody.
Their fault? Unfurling tricolour at Jantar Mantar.
Show some guts, @narendramodi. If you’re so determined to crush dissent, have the courage to officially declare an Emergency instead of hiding behind these cowardly tactics.
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
The US stock market has never been this fragmented:
The 52-week correlation between the equal-weighted S&P 500 and the S&P 500 index is down to 0.67, its lowest level on record.
This measures how closely the performance of the equal-weighted S&P 500 tracks the cap-weighted index, with a lower reading indicating a growing gap between the broader market and mega-cap stocks.
The correlation has declined -0.25 points since August 2025.
By comparison, before the 2020 pandemic, this figure remained between 0.95 and 0.99 for nearly 15 years.
To put this into perspective, during the 2000 Dot-Com Bubble, this metric never declined below 0.85.
The S&P 500 is more concentrated than ever.
Procuring at 35/unit after cancelling previous agreements at much lower rates earlier is either staggering incompetence in administration/planning, or massive corruption. Or both...
🚨Breaking
Tamil Nadu reportedly floated a tender to procure 4,500 MW of electricity from the open market to meet power demand and manage power cuts.
If the reported procurement schedule is fully utilised at ₹35 per unit, the estimated cost would be:
⚡ 3,000 MW for 6 hours: ₹63 crore
⚡ 1,500 MW for 2 hours: ₹10.5 crore
📊 Total: ₹73.5 crore per day
• 7 days: ₹514.5 crore
• 20 days: ₹1,470 crore
That is a massive potential cost for emergency power procurement.
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
The Link Between TCS, SIR’s Digital Stack, and the Noel Tata-N. Chandrasekaran Tussle
S Raghotham reports
thewire.in/business/the-link…
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
"A Supreme Court that cannot secure the reopening of its own metro station will struggle to persuade citizens that it can secure their liberty, their speech or their protest." @sanjayuvacha hath a point
thewire.in/rights/a-supreme-…
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
Don’t miss this editorial page lead article by Srinivasan Ramani & Pon Vasanth B.A. in The Hindu (October 9, 2026). The article explains in clear, precise, and accessible terms what a massive scandal — an exercise fatally flawed in conception and design, and deliberately exclusionary in impact — the Gyanesh Kumar-directed Special Intensive Revision (SIR) was. It also draws attention to the Supreme Court of India’s failure in the big test and expresses the hope that it will now act decisively to undo the damage.
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
Your dog spends about 20% of the night awake and its sleep quality doesn't drop at all. In the bed-sharing arrangement, you were always the fragile one.
Dogs are polyphasic sleepers. Their sleep comes in short bouts stacked across the whole day, and their brains are built to surface, check the room, and sink back under in seconds. Humans run on 90 minute cycles where a single bad 3am wake-up can cost an hour. Same mattress, two completely different operating systems.
A Mayo Clinic study put activity trackers on 40 owner-dog pairs for a week. The dogs hit 85% sleep efficiency whether they slept on the bed or the floor. The humans managed 81%, and their number moved depending on where the dog was. Dog sleep was bulletproof. Human sleep bent around the dog.
Then wearables blew up the sample sizes. A 2026 analysis of 11,733 WHOOP users across 1.6 million nights found that on dog-in-the-room nights, people slept about 10 minutes longer, resting heart rate dropped about 1 beat per minute, and heart rate variability rose. There were a few extra micro-wakeups, around 0.4 per night. The nervous system downshifted anyway. It read the dog as safety.
A 2025 study ran sleep EEG on family dogs and found the inversion. Dogs sleep measurably worse when their owners aren't in the room. You are your dog's sleep aid, and apparently its main sleep disruption too.
The evolutionary read is that this deal is tens of thousands of years old. Humans who slept near dogs could afford deeper, more vulnerable sleep because something with better hearing was handling the night watch. Co-sleeping researchers think dogs literally expanded how much uninterrupted sleep early humans could get.
The dog takes the broken sleep so you don't have to. The trade predates agriculture, and your heart rate still drops a beat the moment one curls up at your feet.
A surprising new study finds that people who sleep near their dogs don’t experience disrupted sleep. If anything, the University of Toronto researchers discovered, we humans are the ones disturbing our dogs’ sleep. nbcnews.com/health/health-ne…
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
Gems of @ECISVEEP @ceo_karnataka!
Two voters reported each other dead just one day apart.
11th June: Mallikarjun reports Viramma dead.
12th June: Viramma reports Mallikarjun dead.
Wait! How does someone declared dead file an objection the very next day? This raises serious questions. Was a false death claim made, or was a form filed in someone else's name?
And this isn’t an isolated case. There are 334 such pairs (668 voters) with both voters in each pair registered at the same booth and each reporting the other dead.
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
May be courts should consider putting up as their motto 'What's The Urgency?'; 'Heavens Won't Fall'; and 'You Can Seek Justice Next Time'.
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
Breaking: Michael Burry says the AI boom is running on one giant loop and time is running out
Here's his breakdown:
1. Burry shared a report from Wall Street lender Ares tracking $573B of AI financing from the last 12 months
2. All of it runs through just 8 companies: Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic, Broadcom and Nvidia
3. They lend to each other, guarantee each other's debt and buy from each other, so one company's loan is backed by another company's promise to keep spending
4. Every deal depends on one thing: AI spending never slowing down
5. If AI revenue disappoints for even one season, the guarantees could all get called at once, right when the companies backing them are at their weakest
6. Burry says it's the same circular financing that turned the 2000 telecom fiber boom into a bust
Burry claims the stock market in the first stage of grief and the crash is soon
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
05 - 10 - 2026. It was a pleasure meeting fellow MPs Thambi Thiru @ArunNehru_DMK Thirumigu @MenakaGuruswamy and Former Minister of Information and Technology of Tamil Nadu @ptrmadurai at the residence of the @AusHCIndia. These interactions are always special; exchanging thoughts and sharing conversations beyond the formalities of the day.
@arivalayam
Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) retweeted
SIR Investigation: The mysterious 16.4 lakh voters added to Uttar Pradesh Roll
Flouting the law, ECI has hidden names and details of 16.4 lakh voters added to Uttar Pradesh's voter roll.
That's 18.5% of the total voters added to the final voter roll in the state which soon goes to polls.
And some irreconcilable numbers emerge from SIR in UP...
@ayushikar1998 and @TweetSumedha investigated for The Reporters' Collective @reporters_co
reporters-collective.in/trc/…
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