Arindam Goswami

@latha_venkatesh @sardesairajdeep The British House of Commons has 650 members. If we want MPs to be gainfully representative, there's no choice but to expand the house. The other main question is how to make the parliament independent of the executive. In the current form, it is useless; numbers are irrelevant.

@menakadoshi @sardesairajdeep Separately, meaningful discussion and contribution in and by an assembly of 850 people is almost impossible.

That would cut into the number of seats men hold currently @sardesairajdeep It's likely the men didn't agree with that and that's why the women quota was linked to seat expansion.

Every time you accepted a salary, chose a price, or walked into a negotiation, the other person was running GAME THEORY in their head. You were guessing. This 1-hour Yale lecture by Professor Ben Polak will permanently change how you read people and make decisions. Most MBAs pay $150k to learn this. Yale posted it for free:

Tragedy of Commons is widely misunderstood & misused in India, especially by libertarians & privatization junkies. They use it to mean that public property is bound to be dirty or in bad shape cos people keep their homes clean but not commonly owned spaces. That's wrong! /1

Most of you want to know what all transpired in between the ‘account withheld in India’ and the final restoration of my account. So here’s a quick summary. Please share so that others can take the same recourse, if need be, coz the govt seems in no mood to spare any content critical of it. On 19th March at 12:23 AM my account was withheld in India. Very next day, I had a conversation with @SupriyaShrinate and she told me that 12 other accounts met the same fate. She did a live session and addressed media the very same day. That highlighted the issue. The wire, Quint and alt news reported the news. I swiftly responded to MeitY on 19th March at 4:16 AM enquiring the cause that led to this removal under section 69A. ( Haven’t received any response yet ) Next I consulted with @NakulGandhi511 upon the recommendation of @iArpitSpeaks as he had earlier met with similar fate and got his account back. Nakul sir guided me for a week and introduced me with @apar1984 who runs @internetfreedom . He took over my case pro bono ( for free ) and guided me accordingly. On 1st of April I finally filed my writ petition. The notary, wakalatnama was all new to me coz I had never been in court till this date but barring that I had to do nothing. Every response, every draft was given to me by @namanbasoyaa who works with Apar sir. I got my listing on 6th of April with the honr Judge Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav. He didn’t even waste 10 mins and ordered a restore provided that the posts that warranted an action against me shall stay unblocked until the committee level hearing of MeitY ( It’s not scheduled yet ) In fact I still don’t have the blocking order that necessitated such an action against me that is ultra vires of the constitution. Section 69A doesn’t permit govt to remove pre-emotive post based on speculation and that’s exactly what govt effectively did by withholding my entire account not some posts. Also big thanks to my followers who stood with me. Some used VPN just to stay connected. I’m indebted to all of you and IFF and Apar sir in particular. Taking this opportunity to urge the govt to remove ban from other accounts as well folllwing the same precedence used in mine and @DrNimoYadav ’s case. FoS needs to be supreme. Taking down post is wrong in itself but an entire account that took years of cultivating is just brutal and uncalled for. May better sense prevails. Peace ✌🏽

Navigation satellites are invisible infrastructure - until they aren't. In an era where GPS signals are being jammed over conflict zones, spoofed to sink ships, and denied to adversaries in wartime, controlling your own navigation system has become a marker of true strategic sovereignty. India built NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) for exactly this reason. But today, the system is barely functional - crippled by atomic clock failures, delayed launches, and years of institutional neglect. In this episode, we examine what NavIC's crisis reveals about India's space priorities, what it costs the military, and what it would actually take to fix it. Join Ashwin Prasad (@ashwinpras), Hitesh Gala and Arindam Goswami (@AriGos) in this episode of All Things Policy where we discuss all this and more. YouTube: shorturl.at/5TmOf Spotify: shorturl.at/hcN08 Apple Podcasts: shorturl.at/ToclH

“Using a cannon to kill a fly” India’s announcement that its first Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) has reached criticality is being celebrated in some quarters, with sweeping claims such as “thorium is the new oil.” However, such narratives oversimplify a far more complex technical and strategic reality. The three-stage nuclear program was originally envisioned by Homi Jehangir Bhabha in the 1950s, when uranium scarcity was a genuine global concern. India, possessing limited uranium but significant thorium reserves, designed a long-term pathway: PHWRs and imported PWRs would produce plutonium; this plutonium would be converted into MOX fuel and used in Fast Breeder Reactors; and finally, thorium would be utilized in the third stage to achieve long-term energy independence. However, the global context has changed. Large uranium deposits were subsequently discovered, making uranium relatively abundant and economically viable. This shift led many countries—including the United States and Germany—to abandon breeder programs. Even nations that persisted, such as Japan and France, encountered serious setbacks, including sodium-related accidents and high operating costs, leading to eventual shutdowns of their flagship breeder reactors. A key technical point often overlooked in popular discussions is that thorium itself is not a fissile material. It cannot directly sustain a nuclear chain reaction. Instead, thorium must be placed as a blanket material around the core of a breeder reactor, where it absorbs neutrons and is converted into uranium-233 (U-233), which is fissile and can be used as fuel in advanced reactors in the third stage. This process, however, is not straightforward. Along with U-233, significant quantities of uranium-232 (U-232) are also produced. U-232 is highly radioactive due to its decay chain, which emits strong gamma radiation. This makes the handling, reprocessing, and fuel fabrication involving U-233 extremely challenging, requiring advanced remote handling and shielding technologies. While this adds a layer of proliferation resistance, it also significantly increases complexity and cost. (That’s why there is no Thorium Bombs across globe) Fast Breeder Reactors themselves are highly complicated systems. They typically use liquid sodium as a coolant, which, although thermally efficient, is chemically reactive and poses safety and maintenance challenges. These reactors require advanced materials, precise engineering, and high capital investment, with mixed success globally. In this light, deploying breeder reactors for power generation today can appear analogous to “using a cannon to kill a fly”—an expensive and complex solution when simpler and more economical alternatives are available for current energy needs. There is also a perception that India is leading a race where no one else is running. While countries like Russia and China continue to pursue fast reactor technologies, it is true that many nations have stepped away from this path, making it a relatively “No-GO” domain. In conclusion, the celebration of FBR criticality risks overstating its significance. In a world where simpler, safer, and more economical energy solutions exist, this milestone may ultimately be recorded not as a triumph of practical energy innovation, but as an example of technological ambition outpacing real-world relevance. @CaVivekkhatri @Jairam_Ramesh

West Bengal's 2026 electoral rolls are 'public' for the record. But they are published as scanned image PDFs, behind CAPTCHAs, with watermarks obscuring voter names. You can't search them. You can't analyse them. And that's not an accident. @Holytripper altnews.in/bengal-sir-the…

Apocalyptic economic fallout. NHK confirms Trump's disastrous war has completely paralyzed India's massive textile industry. With 90% of their LPG imports choked off at the Strait of Hormuz, HALF A MILLION workers just lost their jobs. The global supply chain is collapsing.

4. @AriGos is looking at the economic impact of the war.

To follow the developments in the West Asian War from an Indian perspective, check out the @TakshashilaInst Live Dossier. There is a daily bulletin you can subscribe to, plus four live dashboards for situational awareness.

Apartheid.

I’m a disbeliever in accidental discoveries (at least, in biology). Whenever I’ve looked into one, the story turns out to be false. The most famous is penicillin – supposedly, the fungi wafted in through a window, fell into a petri dish of cultured staphylococci, and suppressed the bacteria’s growth. But in a recent article (asimov.press/p/penicillin-m…), @kevinsblake explains that doesn’t really work (grown staphylococci aren’t affected by penicillin; it only works if introduced before the bacteria begin growing); plus, Fleming’s notes on the discovery provide very little detail and the specific results he described couldn’t be replicated by other scientists (even though penicillin does work against staphylococci when introduced correctly.) There are more: Pasteur’s supposedly accidental discovery of a chicken cholera vaccine was more likely the result of systematic work by his then-assistant, Émile Roux. (jstor.org/stable/2332836…) And, as @NikoMcCarty writes, the discovery of GFP, nanopore sequencing, and optogenetics are also often described as accidents, but none of them happened that way either. nikomc.com/2026/04/01/opt… People love serendipity, so why am I bursting their bubble? I don’t think this is limited to accidental discoveries; I think many historical science anecdotes are highly embellished: - Edward Jenner didn’t deliberately expose a young boy with full-blown smallpox to test his vaccine (he used variolation); and he wasn’t the first to try using cowpox bsky.app/profile/scient… - Cobra catching bounties in British India didn’t lead to a rise in the number of snakebites, and there was only hearsay evidence that cobras were bred in response at all twitter-thread.com/t/169650089580… - Barry Marshall didn’t develop stomach ulcers from drinking a concoction of H. pylori (he did develop gastritis though…) cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/upl… - No one knows who actually found the highly-productive strain of penicillin on a cantaloupe, but it probably wasn’t 'Moldy Mary' scientificdiscoveries.ars.usda.gov/tellus/stories… But in this case it irks me for an additional reason – it gives the impression that innovation happens sporadically, by chance, when there are actually ways that we can systematically speed it up – such as better funding, institutions and incentives. So: are there any true accidental discoveries that hold up to scrutiny?

The manner in which Chief Justice Surya Kant’s bench is handling the #BengalSIR matter does not augur well for the institution at all. The apex court is increasingly being perceived as an active player in West Bengal’s politics, especially after today’s order directing an NIA investigation. Instead of deciding the constitutionality of the SIR process and laying down clear limits on the powers of a clearly partisan Election Commission, Chief Justice Kant’s bench appears to have taken a keen interest in ADMINISTERING the process itself, effectively ensuring that the SIR proceeds without any hindrance. The companion judges on the bench, Justices Joymala Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi, have taken no objection to this approach, which is all the more disquieting. Certain observations from the bench, for instance, one not able to vote in this election can vote in the next, reflects a totally cavalier approach to serious allegations of mass disenfranchisement. These have only deepened concerns and invited further criticism of the court. At a time when the capture of a constitutional institution like the Election Commission is complete, the manner in which the Supreme Court has proceeded in this politically fraught matter raises dangerous questions about the role it is choosing to play. The Court’s INACTION and delay in the AAP-Delhi constitutional crisis created conditions that enabled a political outcome favourable to the BJP. In the Bengal matter, however, the Court is not inactive, but ACTIVELY engaged in a manner that may have significant political consequences for yet another opposition-led government. The Supreme Court’s role is to create a just, fair, and equal level playing field to the greatest extent possible. In the Bengal SIR case, the Court is being seen as creating something totally opposite. Chief Justice Kant’s bench ought to have confined itself to deciding the legality of the SIR process, particularly given that it was initiated just months before an election with great hurry, leading to mass disenfranchisement of citizens, rather than allowing the judiciary, including the state judiciary, to become entangled in the administration of a politically sensitive process. The use of judicial officers for the SIR process, the appointment of High Court judges as appellate authorities, etc. is the greatest sign of how the Supreme Court is being run like a Khap Panchayat. These do nothing but risk doing grave disservice to the institution of the judiciary, whose credibility ultimately rests on public trust and a perception of unimpeachable integrity. Once that image erodes, only chaos reigns supreme. Chief Justice Kant’s bench have totally ignored and disregarded these dangerous concerns. Might I add that equally troubling is the silence of the Bar, which is meant to act as a check on the Bench. Whichever way the Bengal elections unfold, the role of the Supreme Court judges in this episode will not be forgotten.

Today on the blog: 100 papers that inspired wonder in me. nicholasdecker.substack.com/p/100-papers-t…

Here's the complete list of ISRO Technology that has been given to private firms... It is based on this list that the Parliamentary committee raised objections of tech transfer at cheap rates.. Thread: (data as shared in Parl document)

There are many reasons to support this perfectly rational post. But one of the more prominent ones for me is to counter the barrage of condescending, sexist and hawkish responses from two-bit youtubers, trolls & OSINT dudebros who larp as “defence experts” & “geopolitical analysts” on this app for blue tick payouts but have never opened a single book on geopolitics or questioned the foreign policy failures of this government. Also hoping to see folks from Delhi’s think tank circle to publicly support her.

In 1905, Einstein published special relativity. In 1915, he published general relativity. Einstein was just trying to understand the universe. But without Einstein's math, Google Maps would be wrong by 11 kms every single day. Let me tell you why - this is very interesting :)) Your phone doesn't "talk" to GPS satellites. It only listens. Each satellite is broadcasting one thing, constantly: "I am satellite 'A', and it is currently 14:23:00.000000." Your phone receives signals from 4 satellites simultaneously. Because light travels at a known speed, tiny differences in arrival time tell it exactly how far it is from each satellite. 'A' satellite tells you: you're somewhere on a sphere of radius 20,000 km. 'B' satellite: that sphere intersects another sphere - now you're on a circle. 'C' satellite: that circle intersects a third sphere - now you're at 2 points. 'D' satellite: eliminates the last ambiguity and only one point remains. That's you! Except there's a problem nobody thought about until Einstein. The satellites are orbiting at 20,200 km altitude, moving at 14,000 km/h. Two things happen to their clocks simultaneously: - Special relativity: Moving clocks tick slower. At orbital velocity, the satellite clock loses 7.2 microseconds per day - General relativity: Clocks in weaker gravity tick faster. At that altitude, gravity is weaker. The clock gains 45.9 microseconds per day. Net effect: 45.9 - 7.2 = +38.7 microseconds per day. In 38.7 microseconds, light travels 11.6 kilometers. So without correction, the system would accumulate 11.6 km of error. Every single day. In a week, your navigation is useless. The fix is one of the most elegant things in all of engineering. Before each satellite launches, its atomic clock is physically tuned to tick slightly slower than it would on Earth - by exactly 38.7 microseconds per day. Once in orbit, relativistic effects speed it back up. And it arrives at exactly the right rate. Einstein's 1915 paper is baked into the hardware of your phone's navigation system. The next time Google Maps routes you correctly, you're experiencing general relativity. You just didn't know it.

like the indian whose instinct is to pull out phone and record lynching molestation and vigilantism we are onlookers in these great global events having accepted we have no agency other than to preserve ourselves in the moment and then convince ourselves this is pragmatism

AgriStack represents India’s ambition to build a digital public infrastructure for agriculture, linking farmer, land, and crop data to improve credit, insurance, and market access. But how ready is the state to build and govern such a system at scale? In this episode, Astha Rastogi and Arindam Goswami (@AriGos) explore what it takes to operationalise AgriStack, the role of AI and data, and what this means for the future of India’s agricultural ecosystem. YouTube: tinyurl.com/y2damcyp Spotify: tinyurl.com/y66eckae Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/4rbssaay

Think about the last time you were in a crowded metro station. Did you consciously decide what to do, or did you simply follow what everyone else was doing? Public policy often assumes people are rational actors. But behaviour is shaped by something far more human: norms that tell us what others expect, habits that run on autopilot, and incentives that reward or punish us. In this episode, Arindam Goswami (@AriGos) and Shreya Ramakrishnan unpack how these three forces interact to shape everyday behaviour, from queueing and traffic to littering and public transport. Drawing on behavioural science and real-world examples, they explore why rules alone often fail, especially in low-trust environments like India, and what it takes to design policies that actually work. YouTube: tinyurl.com/45nrrr7a Spotify: tinyurl.com/3ctkdkn9 Apple Podcasts: tinyurl.com/4b9mvepb