Eater of food, facilitator of liquidity. All views are mine and do not reflect those of my employers - past or present.
Singapore
Joined April 2009
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Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.
To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts. Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen. If Ilhan had been 18 at the time, she would have had to apply for citizenship separately. But because she was 17, she became a naturalized citizen automatically.
Congresswoman Omar went on to graduate from college, work as a community organizer, become the first Somali-American legislator elected to public office in the U.S., and win a seat in Congress. There, she has been one of the Trump Administration’s fiercest critics, which has led the president to repeatedly single her out as someone who he believes does not belong in this country.
Now the Administration is actively trying to deport Congresswoman Omar, seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized, and therefore is not a citizen. Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case.
Think about that. The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president. And it’s not the first time this has happened. Under President Trump, the Justice Department has repeatedly gone after those he considers his political enemies — from the Attorney General of New York, to the former head of the FBI, to members of the Federal Reserve.
In those cases, the prosecutions either stalled or were dismissed for having no basis in law, and the same is likely to happen in this case. But not before Congresswoman Omar’s life has been turned upside down, her legal bills have piled up, and she’s been forced to spend time fighting unsubstantiated charges instead of serving the people of Minnesota.
The fact that any president, or any administration, is willing to engage in such transparent efforts to intimidate someone should outrage all Americans, regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views. Because if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her — or that future presidents, in either party, won’t do the same.
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
Since India is being fingered here, I will just say again what I said many times last year when Peter Navarro ridiculously (and perversely) called Ukraine "Modi's war."
The reality is, India doesn't think this war is a problem of its own creation. So this particular American narrative is viewed in New Delhi as blunt coercion, gross interference in Indian foreign policy, impractical given India’s economic needs (and it has been reducing oil purchases from Russia, in any case), and a cynical effort to “blame India” for the West’s (and Trump’s) collective failure to get Moscow to stop its war on Ukraine.
In strategic terms, if you value U.S.-India relations, this is not going to be a winning message for the United States. Nor is lumping India in with China.
Broadly speaking, the last year-and-a-half has tanked 25 years of bipartisan work to build the U.S.-India relationship, including in Trump's own first term. We have succeeded in repoliticizing what had been a depoliticized relationship in both New Delhi and Washington. And we had hitherto avoided allowing our respective objections to third-country relationships to bleed back into bilateral relations in this way. I experienced that firsthand when, for example, I worked on U.S.-India relations under President George W. Bush, including deep involvement with the civil nuclear deal.
At this point, this isn't even the biggest problem in U.S.-India relations but adds fuel to a lot of underlying problems. Putin was literally in New Delhi last week. And the week before that, Putin and Modi were smiling with one another at a prior summit in Bishkek. So I have a hard time believing the government of India will make any Russian oil-related commitment explicit. India has deep historical and sentimental ties to Russia that it will not simply ditch under American pressure.
Viewed through another lens, maintaining the symbolic hedge that it "can" purchase Russian oil if it so chooses speaks both to Indian foreign policy autonomy and to its ability to resist American coercion, both of which are important factors in India’s domestic politics. And having worked on the civil nuclear deal, it is quite clear to me that American coercion has been and remains a major factor in India's foreign policy psychology.
The fact is, India had already been reducing its imports of Russian crude. But threatening India by demanding that it publicly rebuke Russia—as so many in the administration and Congress are doing, now on an entirely bipartisan basis—was always a nonstarter for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, from my experience, just isn't going to humiliate one of India’s most important defense partners.
Here's a warning shot I wrote on the relationship from a year ago: carnegieendowment.org/emissa…
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
We’re sharing a solution to the Navier-Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, one of the deepest problems at the frontier of mathematics.
The proof was produced by a group of agents, using an OpenAI next-generation model significantly more capable than GPT-6 Astra.
The problem concerns whether the description of smooth three-dimensional fluid motion modeled by the Navier-Stokes equations can break down. It has remained unresolved for roughly 90 years.
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
No one listens to me
I have finally found the solution to HDFC Bank's margin issue:
Everytime analysts ask the management of HDFC Bank:
You had 4.3 pct NIM before the merger. You merged with HDFC ltd ( which had NIM of some 2.7 pct) and now your combined NIM is 3.6 pct. How will you improve yr margin.
I suggest HDFC Bank change their name to HDFC Ltd. Now the company can say to analysts:
We had margin of 2.7 pct previously. Due to merger with HDFC Bank we have been able to increase our NIM to 3.6 pct.
Analyst: Congratulations on this phenomenal improvement in performance where u have been able to significantly increase your NIM in such a short period.
Note: Interested, last 3 yrs tested and invested.
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
New post: eliminating branches in C++ validating loops. The obvious early return false is easy to read and often the wrong default when the input is valid. Wraparound, tables, SWAR, NEON, then UTF-16.
yagiz.co/eliminating-branche…
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
I don’t think it’s a general opinion of all generations that the generation that came before them had it good.
I never felt that way when I was 20 years old (I was once)
Yes, my previous generation got even more value in real estate.
Yes, examinations were easier, based on the question papers I saw.
But they had much, much harder life.
I saw how my grandmother used to work as a single mother as staff in ISI (she was near retirement age) after bringing up my mother and her brothers single-handedly at a time women were judged more, discriminated against more and had many more impediments in their path.
My father studied in a village school, of the type you see in Panther Panchali, and went from there to becoming a tenured professor in Cornell University (he came back).
My uncle, a high court lawyer, worked from early morning to late at night, and became a high court judge at the end of his career. No backing, no “pedigree”.
But yes, people that age could become typists, computerization had yet to destroy many career paths, and so the exact same logic that is applied to them could be applied to them.
I know the pushback coming to this.
My generation was “uniquely privileged”.
I will deal with that later
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
Panic over a 4.70% Treasury yield is pure comedy.
An entire generation of money managers got addicted to the 2008–2021 Fed liquidity drip. They think zero interest rates are normal. They aren't.
It was an artificial anomaly that subsidized lazy capital and lazy bankers.
Look at the actual data. From 1990 to 2008—the most stable era of modern growth—the average 10-Year yield was 5.68% (median at ~5.35%).
We aren't in a crisis; we are returning to historical sanity. Capital finally has a cost again. If your business model requires the central bank to manipulate liquidity just for you to survive, you don’t have a business—you have a charity case.
Easy mode is over. Welcome back to reality.
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
➡️Almost exactly 27 years ago, I flew three sorties on Mirage 2000s with the IAF out of Adampur Airbase. The 1999 Kargil war was winding down but tensions remained high.
➡️Back then - I had been sworn to secrecy - never show the Israeli Litening airborne targeting and surveillance pods slung off the fuselage of IAF Mirages. And never talk about them.
➡️Integrated under wartime conditions, these pods had been instrumental in guiding IAF laser guided bombs onto targets, including Tiger Hill.
➡️The video of the hit on Tiger Hill - which I broke on Star News - of an enemy position being taken out on in June 1999 is now legendary. Little did I know at the time that I would be flying on the same Mirages with the same pilots who had struck these targets within a month!
➡️Eventually, the laser guided hits from IAF jets went on to break the back of the Pakistan Army - their logistics chains were shattered.
➡️It's fantastic to now see interviews of two of the Israeli experts who were part of the effort to integrate the Litening with the French Mirage. Remember, at the time, it had been just 7 years since India had established full-fledged diplomatic relations with Israel.
➡️Eventually, a full decade later, and with permission, I wrote this story on how the integration of the Litening with the Mirages happened - there is a fair bit of detail here:
ndtv.com/india-news/how-isra…
➡️There are other incredible details of the IAF's Mirages - including this one on how IAF Mirages had locked onto Pakistan's precious F-16s. Back in the day, the PAF had no beyond visual range missiles and were completely outclassed by the IAF's R-530D missiles.
ndtv.com/india-news/i-locked…
➡️This programme - on the 25th anniversary of Kargil - featured many of the IAF pilots who helped win us the war - A lot of the footage here - had never been broadcast before - again footage from the Litening pods.
youtube.com/watch?v=j4LT-qgF…
➡️But this was hardly the only occasion that the Indian Air Force had integrated `unusual' weapons onto its built Mirages. We integrated Russian R-73 air to air missiles onto French Mirages with Israeli help as well:
ndtv.com/india-news/iafs-fre…
➡️Many of the pilots who flew the attack missions in Kargil ended up become some of the IAF's most distinguished officers - Air Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari (retired), who features extensively in my book The Sky Warriors: Op Sindoor Unveiled (Amazon link: amzn.in/d/0g1U5olo) and Air Marshal Raghunath Nambiar (retired) ended up becoming IAF Vice Chiefs. Air Marshal Dilip Patnaik (retired) was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Air Command.
➡️Let me end with this: There are other fantastic stories of IAF Mirage 2000s during the Kargil period which will probably remain unreported - Its been 27 years since the war. I may need to wait another 27 to report these! 🫡
NDTV EXCLUSIVE
27 years after Kargil, on the #KargilVijayDiwas, a story never told before.
For the first time on Indian television, two former Israeli Air Force officers reveal how Israel secretly armed IAF fighter jets during Operation Vijay & Safed Sagar in 1999.
From a Friday night phone call from NAK Browne (later IAF Chief), to Air Marshals Nambiar & Tiwari’s game-changing Tiger Hill sorties, the untold story of the India-Israel bond forged in war.
📍 Reporting from Drass, Kargil
🎥 Watch the full exclusive on NDTV
Link: youtu.be/U7aGKNs1B5s?si=Eui6…
@IsraelinIndia @israelinMumbai @IndIsraelCentre @adgpi @IAF_MCC @indemtel @netanyahu
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
I strongly disagree. India needed far more than privatization in 1991. Liberalization was necessary, but it was not sufficient. The deeper challenge was the absence of an effective, capable state that could guide structural transformation. Rather than simply withdrawing from the economy, India needed to build state capacity and adopt a more disciplined, performance-oriented approach to industrialization.
The experience of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and later China shows that successful industrialization was not achieved through laissez-faire economics alone. These countries relied on capable states that could coordinate investment, build infrastructure, develop human capital, support strategic industries, and enforce accountability on firms. The issue in India was never merely excessive state intervention; it was the weakness of state institutions—too much regulation in some areas, but insufficient capacity to deliver outcomes in others.
More than three decades after the 1991 reforms, this challenge remains unresolved. India has created a more market-oriented economy, but state capacity continues to lag severely. Weak implementation, limited bureaucratic capability, inadequate urban governance, slow judicial processes, and uneven regulatory institutions continue to constrain economic transformation. India’s next phase of development will depend not only on freeing markets but on building a stronger developmental state capable of delivering infrastructure, education, industrial policy, and effective governance at scale.
The lesson from East Asia is not that India needed less state; it needed a better state—one that was competent, strategic, and capable of partnering with the private sector to drive industrialization.
@EmergingRoy – at Gatineau, Québec
1/5: The reforms of 1991 are seen by many as having been India’s economic launch pad. Thirty-five years later, it is clear that the dismantling of industrial and trade controls served to accelerate India’s rate of economic growth as well as the rate of its poverty reduction.
2/5: But the country once again finds itself at a cusp, confronted by new challenges of economic security, technological adequacy and an inclusive pattern of growth that have no easy answers in a less than hospitable global climate.
3/5: Three-quarters of all countries rank above India on per capita income. India’s figure is less than a quarter of the world average.
4/5: Much more would have been achieved if the country had followed through with the core logic of the 1991 reforms: to leave to the private sector and markets what they can deliver, open up to the world, and focus government efforts on what governments alone can deliver.
5/5: Read #ThePrintOpinion by TN Ninan
‘From liberalisation to lost momentum—the promise of 1991 has been only partially redeemed’
theprint.in/opinion/liberali…
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
From the visuals, it appeared that many of those taking to the streets were unemployed louts with a propensity for thuggery or students wiling away time in frivolous courses. These types will discredit themselves soon.
But what should be worrying is that even serious aspirants within this year’s CBSE and NEET cohor( nearly 2.5 to 3 million students) who have neither the time nor the inclination for such street protests because they are focused on their academics and future, may also be disillusioned and increasingly anti-government due to series of fiascos that caused immense stress. Losing credibility with silent cohort is lasting damage.
Saying this as a well- wisher . It is entirely appropriate for the government to step into the spotlight and rightfully claim credit for its achievements, whether they are transformative national milestones or smaller day to day governance wins. But the contrast between celebrating successes and going incommunicado during administrative failures or public crises has become increasingly noticeable, and that contrast now risks overshadowing the achievements themselves. .
Retreating into silence creates a vacuum that others are quick to fill.
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
Two weeks before RBI announced the FCNR(B) hedging subsidy, I published a thread arguing they should not do it.
They did it anyway.
So now the honest question. As an NRI investor, should you take it?
My answer will sound like a contradiction. It is not. 🧵
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
IPS officers posted to West Bengal as observers for the election, are being systematically identified, doxxed and threatened by the TMC and its desperate leaders - which is an unpardonable sin.
These officers are simply doing their duty in trying to ensure a free and fair election in a State which is well-known for its rampant bloodshed and violence perpetrated by the TMC’s own homegrown goons.
I hope our constitutional courts and the election commission @ECISVEEP are alive to these deliberate acts of criminal intimidation.
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
I am vacationing in Monaco. Do not bother me. Please contact your Branch Manager
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
Three weeks ago I shared that Claude had shocked Prof. Donald Knuth by finding an odd-m construction for his open Hamiltonian decomposition problem in about an hour of guided exploration. Prof. Knuth titled the paper Claude’s Cycles.
The story didn't end there.
The updated paper shows the story got much bigger. For the base case m=3, there are exactly 11,502 Hamiltonian cycles. Of those, 996 generalize to all odd-m, and Prof. Knuth shows there are exactly 760 valid “Claude-like” decompositions in that family.
The even case, which Claude couldn’t finish, was then cracked by Dr. Ho Boon Suan using GPT-5.4 Pro to produce a 14-page proof for all even m≥8, with computational checks up to m=2000.
Soon after, Dr. Keston Aquino-Michaels used GPT + Claude together to find simpler constructions for both odd and even m, by using the multi-agent workflow.
Dr. Kim Morrison also formalized Knuth’s proof of Claude’s odd-case construction in Lean.
So yes: the problem now appears fully resolved in the updated paper’s ecosystem of human + AI + proof assistant work!
We went from one AI solving one problem to a full mathematical ecosystem (multiple AI systems, multiple humans, formal verification) running in parallel on a problem that stumped experts for weeks.
We are living in very interesting times indeed.
Paper (updated): www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/…
Prof. Donald Knuth opened his new paper with "Shock! Shock!"
Claude Opus 4.6 had just solved an open problem he'd been working on for weeks — a graph decomposition conjecture from The Art of Computer Programming.
He named the paper "Claude's Cycles."
31 explorations. ~1 hour. Knuth read the output, wrote the formal proof, and closed with: "It seems I'll have to revise my opinions about generative AI one of these days."
The man who wrote the bible of computer science just said that. In a paper named after an AI.
Paper: cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/paper…
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
In honor of Taylor Swift's 36th birthday today, here are 36 Taylor series
Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
A core problem in the Indian tech ecosystem is the lack of clarity on what VC actually is. Many assume VCs are just rando wealthies that show up, cut checks and make money based on a whim.
That's obv not true. Here's how it works:
LPs are the source of money eg pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, wealthy individuals.
They commit capital to a VC fund.
VCs are the managers of that money. They do the legwork - sourcing, due diligence, investment, board seats, exits and so on. In some cases VCs have very narrow mandates on which types of companies (eg Fintech) or which geographies (eg emerging markets or US) to invest in.
The structure is contractual. LPs put money into a fund, VCs (as general partners) manage it. Returns flow back: usually 80% to LPs, 20% to VCs as carry.
So in reality VCs seek investors too.
India has very few of such investors aka LPs.
Individuals are moody and reactionary (the classic lala mindset), and family offices are just one type of LP.
The real big checks come from institutions - college endowments, pension funds, insurance pools. None of that infra exists in India.
That’s why India has no deep VC ecosystem of its own.
Most (all) Indian VCs are actually American with mandates to deploy in emerging markets like India. Indian VCs can't exist without the institutions backing them and no Indian institution cares or has enough capital to invest.
Ideally Unis like IIT should have their own endowment. They should be able to take equity in ideas and invest like all American unis do...but that's been talked about for 20 years...afaik nobody really cares.
Risk appetite doesn't just show up randomly. It has to be back-stopped by institutions. VCs can't do all of that on their own.
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Rishabh Mukherjee retweeted
It's a fork of Judaism mixed with Buddhism
Jesus went missing from age 12 to 30 (the lost years)
A new theory is he literally became a hippie and went to India to study Buddhism
Then he forked Judaism and added Buddhist elements (compassion, share, forgive, no ego) and came back to Jerusalem to start his own cult and that became Christianity
Catholicism is just the hierarchical church version of his cult
TL;DR Jesus was a Jewish hippie that went backpacking in India
I think
