Aleen Mukherjee

#reflections sometime we need to stop and reflect! #photo #streetphotography

@Almukh great initiative , very focused platform created to explore possibilities of leveraging AI in agriculture.

Thank @RSMAgri for being part of this initiative...hope the discussions results into some action points for all of us

6 YEARS: FROM COVID TO IRAN TIME FOR SOME PAINFUL TRUTHS 🚨 Six turbulent years from Covid to the Ladakh standoff to Ukraine war to Trump’s tariff offensive to the current Iran war have exposed a hard truth. India remains dangerously dependent on the world for things a serious power should control at home. Energy first, since that’s on everyone’s mind right now. India imports about 85% of its crude oil and roughly 50% of its natural gas. We depend heavily on overseas supply chains for critical minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel that will power the next generation of batteries and energy systems. Any disruption anywhere from the Strait of Hormuz to sanctions on major producers immediately ripples through LPG prices, electricity costs and inflation. The current LPG anxiety during the Iran war is just the latest reminder of how exposed we are. Defence is worse. Despite decades of rhetoric about indigenisation, India still imports roughly 45 to 50% of its major weapons systems, making it one of the world’s largest arms importers, if not the largest. During the Ladakh standoff with China (which is still on) the country had to rush through emergency purchases of munitions, drones, artillery shells and winter gear because either we don’t make those items or domestic capacity could not surge quickly enough. A country facing two nuclear adversaries should never have to scramble for weapons in the middle of a military standoff. Pharmaceuticals reveal another uncomfortable truth. India is known as the pharmacy of the world, yet around 70% of our active pharmaceutical ingredients come from outside, including China. During Covid this vulnerability became obvious as India scrambled for oxygen, PPE kits, ventilators and key medical inputs. Technology dependence is the most alarming of all. More than 90% of advanced semiconductors are imported, most high end AI chips and servers are foreign made, and critical digital hardware depends almost entirely on global supply chains. In an era where AI will define both economic power and military capability, this is a profound strategic vulnerability. Add fertiliser precursors, rare earths, electronics components, solar modules and specialised machine tools and the list becomes even longer. Each time the world experiences a shock (Ukraine, Iran, Azerbaijan, Covid) whether it is a pandemic, sanctions on Russia, a war in West Asia or rising great power tensions India is forced into code red emergency management mode. The uncomfortable reality is that true strategic autonomy requires historically painful decisions. Building domestic capacity in energy, weapons, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and AI will demand huge investment, long term industrial policy, and years of political risk. It may mean accepting higher costs and slower returns in the short term in order to build resilience for the long term. But India’s election to election political cycle rewards short term thinking. No government wants to take decisions that may, beyond a point, take a decade to pay off. The decisions these crises compel from a country like India will mean a total dismantlement of our politics as we know it today. It will mean a generation of turning the country on its head. Yet the alternative is worse. As things stand India remains structurally vulnerable. A country that has to scramble every time the world shakes cannot claim true strategic autonomy. From COVID to Iran, the last six years have made that painfully clear.

Richard Feynman’s savage takedown of pseudo-science still burns in 2026: “Social science is an example of a science which is not a science. They follow the forms… but they don’t get any laws. They haven’t found out anything.” He goes harder: Experts who “sit at a typewriter and make up” claims — “organic food is better,” “this diet cures everything” — as if it’s settled science, when no rigorous experiments or checks have been done. Feynman: “I know what it means to really know something. How careful you have to be. How easy it is to fool yourself. I see how they get their information… and I can’t believe that they know.” The Nobel physicist calls it straight: most of what passes for “expert” opinion is noise dressed up as knowledge. In an age drowning in TikTok “science,” influencers, and clickbait studies — Feynman’s 1:52 rant feels more relevant than ever. Who’s the biggest pseudo-expert that grinds your gears right now? Clip is timeless fire — watch it and feel the clarity.

🚨Disappearing lands, stolen maps, physical threats, land brokers, no security for data, outsourced algorithms, years lost in correction: Jharkhand's land digitisation story is rewriting tenure systems and excluding tribals @PARInetwork @pulitzercenter ruralindiaonline.org/article/in-the…

@Ajayvirjakhar What's your take on DBT helping reduce diversion?

Lots of economists and Government are now stating that Urea continues to be diverted to Plywood industry. My take; 1. Years back when neem coated urea was introduced, the same lot said that it would stop diversion of urea to Industry. 2. If a country cannot stop diversion subsidized urea to 2 or 3 kinds of large industries - then what chance do we have to stop sale of methamphetamine and fentanyl etc. & drug addiction. 3. Irrespective of the chatter - they want to save subsidy amount & not save the soils. Different objectives requires different approaches.

@MihirkJha There shouldn’t be any exemptions for anyone. Everyone should pay and claim from their organisation as per their policies. This will eliminate unnecessary discussions, ruckus and delays. @nitin_gadkari @NHAI_Official

May be the most photographed bird of Delhi NCR - The White Tailed Sea Eagle..with a wingspan more than 2.5 Mts and occasional visitor of Delhi NCR. This individual is a sub adult instagram.com/p/DUUfTfvkmXm/…

Gold, stocks and WhatsApp University A lot of investing wisdom now gets shared on WhatsApp. And through this ‘shared wisdom’ many retail investors learn at the sprawling, unregulated campus of WhatsApp University. One recent wisdom being taught on WhatsApp University is: Gold has given higher returns in the 21st century than stocks. This has led to the question: What’s the point in investing in stocks? In a world where people like crisp, confident and clear takes, this is a fair question to ask. But what seems like a fairly simple point can get quite complicated if one decides to get into some detail. Yes, gold’s recent surge has outpaced Sensex returns on a narrow look, but include dividends and stretch time frames, and stocks hold their own. Gold has given higher returns than the Sensex in the 21st century, but stocks beat gold hands down in the 25 year period between 1998 and 2003. The bigger lesson? Chasing simplistic headlines is dangerous. True investing isn’t about picking winners after the fact -- it’s about diversification, balance, and resisting the urge for all-or-nothing advice pushed in WhatsApp forwards. My Paisanomics column in the Mumbai Mirror. mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/opinion/gold-s…

Fun fact: The 1998 paper that introduced Google and PageRank to the world ends with this acknowledgment: "Supported by the National Science Foundation under Cooperative Agreement IRI-9411306. Funding also provided by DARPA and NASA." Sergey Brin was on an NSF Graduate Fellowship. Larry Page was a PhD student on the grant. Google—now worth $2 trillion—exists because American taxpayers funded "the Stanford Integrated Digital Library Project." Not a startup garage myth. A government grant. Every time someone says public research funding "picks winners and losers" or "crowds out private innovation," remember: the most dominant technology company of the 21st century was incubated entirely with public money, inside a public university, by researchers on federal fellowships and grants. The private sector didn't see it coming. VCs passed. The government funded it anyway—not because it would become Google, but because fundamental research into information retrieval seemed worth understanding. That's the point. You can't predict which grants will change the world. You fund the science and let researchers explore. The internet (DARPA). GPS (DoD). Touchscreens (CIA/NSF). mRNA vaccines (NIH). Google (NSF/DARPA/NASA). Public investment in basic research isn't wasteful spending. It's the seed corn of the entire modern economy.

Fog Alert ⚠️ Dense #Fog from #Punjab likely to affect #Chandigarh by 1am and would reach most parts of #Delhi NCR by 4am and may last till 11am on Friday morning. It is likely to cover most districts of #Haryana and NW #UttarPradesh in the early hours. Minimum temperatures are expected in the range of 3.5 to 5°c, higher compared to last few nights. Stay safe and plan your commute accordingly #Coldwave

“Hero worship fades. Heroism endures" Said the Wise Owl from jungle #IndiAves

Everyone needs to hear this… The Donkey Principle: (a visual thread)

11 of America’s top food companies are being sued over their ultra processed foods The companies being sued are Coca-Cola General Mills Kraft Heinz Mars Nestle PepsiCo Post Mondelez International Kellanova (formerly part of Kellogg’s cereal business) “Saying they sell ultra-processed food knowing that they are harmful to health — A growing body of scientific research says diets high in ultra-processed food lead to chronic diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and depression.” (and cancer) “By some estimates, more than 60% of the food consumed in the United States is ultra-processed.” Higher consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) is associated with an increased risk of several cancers: - Colorectal cancer - Breast cancer - Ovarian cancer - Pancreatic cancer - Prostate cancer - Brain cancer - Head and neck cancers - Esophageal cancer - Liver cancer

Actual temperatures reported at peak afternoon hours at 2:30pm #Amritsar 10.2°c #Rohtak 11.0°c #Churu 11.4°c #Bareilly 11.8°c #Patiala 12.0°c #Hisar 12.2°c #Ambala 12.8°c #Delhi Palam 12.8°c #Chandigarh 12.8°c Widespread #Coldday conditions in NW #India, expect a chilly cold evening ahead with #Fog making onset in various parts starting 8/9pm tonight

Nothing much other than a Painted Stork having a tilapia for breakfast

Brace yourselves.... The upcoming 10 days will challenge "The great north Indian ColdBlast" of 24th Dec 2019 - 1st Jan 2020. Thats the tweet! It looks promising, will share more data points soon. #Winters #Coldwave #ColdBlast

Desperation is not consent: Why Deepinder Goyal gets it royally wrong Deepinder Goyal’s defence of the gig economy follows a familiar corporate script: selective statistics, convenient averages, and a steady shifting of responsibility – from platform to partner, from company to consumer, and finally to society itself. By continuing to live in The Camellias, one might hallucinate that the air in Gurugram is clean. But anyone who has looked out of their window knows that it isn’t, and is choking those on the street below. India’s gig economy undoubtedly delivers speed, scale, and convenience. But it also systematically transfers risk – unstable incomes, capital costs, safety hazards, and job insecurity – onto workers with the least bargaining power. History is unambiguous on this point. From factories in industrial England to the cotton plantations of the US to platform companies of today, markets and capitalists rarely correct power imbalances on their own. They require scrutiny, regulation, and pressure from outside their system. Treating desperation as choice and churn as flexibility may work in investor presentation decks, but it does not make the system fair. The real question is not whether the gig economy creates work, but whether it creates work that is economically viable once risk, costs, and churn, are honestly accounted for. That’s the long story cut very long. newslaundry.com/2026/01/03/whe… My essay in @newslaundry. The best piece I have written this year 🤣

Warming up for 2026

How long do you think HDFC Bank will take to transfer the money from your account to your nominee's after you die? Public sector banks get a bad rap, but it's been more than a year and we have not been able to get funds transferred from my now deceased husband's account in the country's largest private bank. The nominee is our adult daughter, there are no conflicting claims, the paperwork is clear, and yet for more than a year now HDFC has been giving us the run around. Get this paper, get that paper. Each time my daughter comes home for holidays, we have to take 2 days out to go and wait at the bank branch. Today, more than a year after the first application, they said a) we can't find the paperwork including the death certificate you submitted because the employee you submitted to is not here b) you have to get a stamp paper and notarise it for the auto debits that hit his account between the date of his death and the date the account was frozen (on the basis of the paperwork in point a, now non-traceable) c) you have to get HDFC Standard life to sign off because there is an auto debit for an investment from his account. (ME: they are the payee, he is the payer, why does the payee need to approve stopping a standing instruction? Bank: Hamare main aise hi hai). If you wait for 30 minutes, we'll get you the form. d) after 30 minutes. Sorry, we can't get the form, you have to go to their office and do it. By now it is 2.45 PM, HDFC Standard life office is at least 35 minutes away. They are open only till 3.30 PM. We are not sure we'll make it there on time. I call their number to ask if the branch is open tomorrow. Person: Sorry, I can't give you the information today, you will have to call and check tomorrow. (To repeat: HDFC Standard Life's call centre cannot tell you if a branch is working or not the following day) In all, we have spent many hours over many months trying to get this money in a case the bank officials themselves say "should not be complicated". What is worse is for my 20-year-old daughter to relive the trauma of losing her father each time we have to go and explain the case. Just today, we had to speak to three different people and start the story from the beginning. This is not just the bank's inefficiency, it is its utter callousness. (My husband also had money in Indusind Bank. It took one visit and two weeks for that to be transferred). The other, more important point, is that I have a job, we have the money to continue to pay for our needs without having to immediately access these funds. But I am certain that is not the case for many others. What about them? How can this be the system of a bank whose customers are dependent on it for giving them access to their own money?! It beggars belief. @HDFC_Bank @HDFCBank_Cares