Twitter Wisdom, History, Science, Sports, Geopolitics
Pune, India
Joined November 2007
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Ravi Upadhye retweeted
Timeless definition of dehat by @VarshneyVardhan ...
If by Dehat we mean rural in a location-sense, a group of people who live in villages then obviously I am not anti-Dehat nor are the @JungIndien @sirfaditya folks I am sure.
@svembu has shown wonderfully, for example, you can run the world’s biggest companies, in large parts at least, from villages. Rurban becomes a continuum - a game of infra and sustainable living.
I am anti-Dehat, though, in the Ambedkarite sense. The idea that there could be a community veto of who you love, where you study, what your occupation is and so on. That mindset could be in cities too. Little girls being covered head to toe is unfortunately a not uncommon sight in Indian cities.
I don’t think there is any need to clarify this, just like post-religious or anti-socialism need not be or modernity itself. But nonetheless it is useful. The point is not to sneer at hillybillies, the way the newly converted Romans sneered at “pagans” - very much a play on the rural polytheists being apparently boorish simpletons.
For me Dehat simply means the Khap and its related apparatus. It is a reminder that our civilisation failed to have our own state in large parts for centuries and hence defensively reflexively went into this shell.
Being anti-Dehat is breaking that shell, unapologetically.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
Ather is actually a very interesting story, and I think this tweet misses a big part of it.
Look at who funded Ather.
Sachin Bansal invested ~$53M, starting as an angel and then leading its Series C and Series D. Imagine an Indian founder personally putting that much money behind a hardware startup leading growth rounds.
Then there's Hero MotoCorp. A traditional Indian two-wheeler company backed a startup that could eventually compete with its own business. Hero started investing in 2016 and kept doubling down. Today, its stake is worth billions of dollars.
Between Sachin and Hero, nearly 50% (~$250Mn) of Ather's capital came from two backers you would hardly expect to make such investment. Think about how unusual that is. Neither was a traditional VC fund, yet both played a huge role in getting Ather to where it is today.
And it's not just Ather. Mukesh Bansal invested ~$1.5M in Skyroot Aerospace very early. That bet is now reportedly worth ~$80M, including partial exits. Nearly 60x.
I think we should spend more time celebrating people who are actually making these contrarian investments rather than criticizing those who aren't. The former encourages more people to take risks. The latter doesn't really help anyone.
Why are Indian VCs so afraid to take risk and make money?
Someone should go to India and take risk and make money.
Our story - corememory.com/p/a-new-india…
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
The Indian Army gave Modi govt a severe-dressing down!! 🔥
The "Agniveer Recruitments" weakened the Indian Army to such an extent we can't even imagine.
> No one is ready to marry his daughter to Agniveers because of the elimination of pension scheme and short service span.
> The Indian govt is compromising India's security.
> Well trained Agniveers are being released when they are fully prepared to defend India.
> And the most significant concern is that, currently almost all of India's neighboring countries are hostile towards it. Yet we are being forced to discharge well-trained Agniveer soldiers who are highly skilled in combat operations within regions like Kashmir and the North East's valley areas. Then how are we to deal with these hostile nations?
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
🇮🇳 :-
Group of Politicians buy 2000 Acres land through proxies for ₹35,000 per Acre for a total of ₹ 7 Crore
They then propose to build a highway through that area and convert the land
Cost of land shoots up to ₹ 18 Lakh per Acre
Govt acquires the land for ₹360 Crore with Taxpayer money
₹353 Crores goes into the pockets of select politicians and their cronies
We could have easily acquired the land for ₹1 Lakh per acre and saved the taxpayer ₹340 Crore that could have been used for Education, Healthcare, Public Development
The Farmers would have made some money too
Instead ₹353 Crore of OUR MONEY went into corruption
A CM of a State was buried neck deep in such transactionsI
It is estimated that almost ₹65 Lakh Crore of taxpayer money over the last 20 years has enriched maybe 150,000 select people which could have improved so many lives
What a country 😤😤😤
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
xitter.gq/log4j/status/211376224…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
The greatest mystery in Indian economics:
You spend 15 years studying, land a job and watch 30% TDS disappear before your salary even hits your bank account.
Meanwhile, the local ward corporator, who has no traceable business on paper:
Cruises in a convoy of 2 white fortuners, builds a multi crore mansion in your locality, and spends your entire annual CTC just putting up birthday hoardings across the junction.
In India, an honest corporate career buys you a 20 year EMI.
Local politics buys you generational real estate.
We aren't paying taxes for public infrastructure.
We’re crowdfunding VIP lifestyles.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
While Piyush Goyal intended to play smart by bad-mouthing China’s business environment, he inadvertently exposed a deeply uncomfortable reality: in India, the ultra-rich are indeed very secure, precisely because they routinely stand above both the law and the people.
What many in India may not realize is that industries monopolized by large conglomerates in India—such as power generation, ports, and telecommunications—are state-managed in China.
The reason is straightforward: these sectors are closely tied to people’s livelihoods and have natural monopoly characteristics, so they are judged by their capacity to serve society rather than by their profit-making ability.
This is why China has long been able to keep electricity prices and freight rates low—they are backed by the power of the state.
By contrast, for most consumer goods, competition among Chinese companies is brutally fierce. The US has only Apple, but China has more than a dozen globally recognized smartphone brands; the US has only Tesla, but China has more than two dozen of EV brands.
Market champions are always the product of intense competition, because the government only sides with the final winners, and no Chinese company can sway government decisions the way Adani or Ambani do in India.
Having said all the above, it is not hard to see that Piyush Goyal’s remarks have unintentionally highlighted a major Chinese advantage: no matter how powerful capital becomes, it cannot override political authority.
It is precisely this degree of political autonomy that allows Chinese decision-makers to remain free from capture by either commercial interests or populist pressures, and to make strategic choices that prioritize long-term outcomes and the interests of the greatest number of people.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
I had a teacher (Harvard educated Archaeologist) who said his pet conspiracy theory is that self-aggrandizing archeologists who see a 10 inch female figure will always say, "I found an important goddess!" But it's probably just a bronze age Barbie doll.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
Till date I was thinking that the arrogant and sarcastic reply that Finance Minister used to pass on taxpayers was her own idea to escape genuine concerns about economy and high taxation.
But then I heard PM himself mocking Income taxpayers "Jo mila woh hazam, aisa nahi chalta"
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
What makes Ashoke Sen such a rockstar is not just his brilliant mind - but also the fact that he does not take the easy way out.
🚨 Could have stayed in America and taken US citizenship - chose to do cutting edge research in India
🚨 Could have lived an easy life with earlier $3 million prize - chose to give away a large part of it
🚨 Could have stayed quiet & blind on sensitive issues - chose to speak up on beef related lynchings.
/
🚨 Here's to Ashoke Sen for becoming the first Indian to win the prestigious Oskar Klein medal, one of the highest honours in theoretical physics. We need more national heros like him.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
so when everyone thought Facebook was spying through your phone it turns out tv makers were the ones doing it all along, this is a nightmare
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
Since the entire internet cares about critical certificates today, a reminder @UPI_NPCI has been running on an expired cert since Sep 2025.
Issued by IDRBT, which is now managing all of *.bank.in.
ALT │ File in APK │ Subject │ Issuer │ Valid from │ Expires │ │ signer-erupee.crt │ CN=psosigner.npci.org.in (National Payments Corporation of India, Chennai) │ DigiCert EV RSA CA G2 │ 2023-09-01 │ 2024-10-01 23:59:59 GMT │ │ signer-upi.crt │ CN=upinpci │ IDRBT Sub CA 2022 │ 2023-09-20 │ 2025-09-19 18:29:59 GMT │
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
One more delay 🤣🤣🤣😭
Shame on everyone that is involved.
1 million years from now, the Somalian tectonic plate is going to collide with the Indian tectonic plate.
That collision will create an equally high mountain range like the Himalaya on the western coast.
Imagine being the first Somalian to trek up till Pune, only to see Hinjawadi metro still not inaugurated.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
I suspect the real reason eMudhra is exiting the SSL business is Google indicated it is most likely going to drop eMudhra from being trusted by Chrome AT ALL, after observing inexplicable incompetence in how they mis-generated their private key for the CA certificate.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
Last week in Pune, sugar was Rs. 53.
In the last 10 days it has gone up to Rs. 62.
Similarly, jowar was Rs. 76 and is now Rs. 110.
Oil price reached to Rs. 200 per liter
While traveling on the highway, one notices that nearly half the hotels are closed.
Tough days are coming in 2027.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
Good news, India. Our trade deal is almost done.
How do we know? Not from Parliament. Not from our own govt. We heard it from a visiting American Secretary of State at a press conference in Mumbai.
He also had updates on which crude we are ready to refine, how pleased Washington is with where we buy our oil, and which American defence systems we should be buying next.
Very thorough briefing. Our govt could take notes.
At this rate the next Budget may be announced at a US press briefing, with our Finance Minister invited as a special guest.
A trade deal decides the price farmers get for their crops, the margin of a small manufacturer and the cost of fuel for every family. These are not details a nation should learn from a foreign minister's travel diary.
Will the Prime Minister tell Parliament what India is giving and what it is getting before he signs?
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
Oh my goodness this has to be right.
Instead of generating a random 256-bit number they generated a random number between 0 and 256.
That’s how they got 4, 66, 155, 156, 230 and 237.
Ravi Upadhye retweeted
India's demographic dividend has not only been wasted but turned into a huge social liability in the last 20 years.
Here we see:
- A stunted 13-year-old, deprived of protein,
- out in school (NITI Aayog says 94k schools shut down even as population increased since 2014),
- unable to recite basic multiplication tables,
- taking part in an aggressive religio-nationalistic event.
And we put high performing state education ministers in jail on unproven charges.
telegraphindia.com/india/nit…
