Samrat Chowdhery

@guardian Not a good decision. It is at times like these that counterbalancing narratives are needed on this platform. Why cede public spaces?

@BiharCabinet The Bihar Cabinet, of all institutions, should be aware who the chief minister of their state is. @samrat4bjp

माननीय मुख्यमंत्री श्री @Samrat की अध्यक्षता में बिहार कैबिनेट की बैठक में कुल 63 एजेंडों पर लगी मुहर। ​ #BiharCabinet #BiharCabinetDecisions #BiharCabinetSecretariatDept tinyurl.com/22a5kd3y

Iran's people movements had led it change course, with Khomeni's grandson, a moderate, likely replacement after Khamenei's death. But US/Israel attack has pushed it back into hardline territory. reader.foreignaffairs.com/2026/04/29/how…

What happens if OPEC collapses overnight? First, rock-bottom cheap oil. Smaller producers go bankrupt, deepwater drilling & shale become unprofitable. More concentration. After that, without OPEC's reserves, every global crisis will trigger massive price explosions.

Iran war amplifies UAE isolation and rift with Saudi The relationship between the Emirates and the Saudis has been deteriorating for several years. Old grudges go back to the 1974 Jeddah Treaty, which was supposed to settle disputed borders. The Emirates claim they were forced to hand over oil-rich territory (the Shaybah field) and a land corridor linking the country to Qatar in exchange for Saudi recognition of their independence. In the early 2000s tensions flared again when Saudi Arabia blocked Emirati maritime infrastructure projects, claiming they crossed its territorial waters. There were even naval incidents involving coast guard vessels. In Yemen the rift became glaringly obvious. In 2018-2019, UAE-backed forces clashed directly with troops of the internationally recognized government, which were supported by Saudi Arabia. Heavy fighting broke out in Aden, with dozens killed and wounded as separatists seized parts of the city. A brief calm followed. Then, between December 2025 and January 2026, the STC, heavily backed by Abu Dhabi, advanced and seized the governorates of Hadramaut and Mahra, precisely the ones bordering Saudi Arabia. Riyadh responded with airstrikes on ships and cargoes linked to the UAE, accused Abu Dhabi of threatening national security, and gave a 24-hour ultimatum for Emirati forces to leave Yemen. After the withdrawal, the STC itself was weakened and partially dismantled. The Emirates weren’t just supporting the takeover of cities on the Saudi border, they were planning to overthrow the Yemeni government. What began as a coalition against the Houthis turned into an open dispute over influence, ports, and control of southern Yemen. The UAE bet on separatists and proxies; the Saudis prioritized central government unity and their own border security. With overflowing coffers in recent years, the Emirates began running their own highly interventionist foreign policy. The country is now involved in at least eight conflicts across Africa and plans to expand its influence, always in partnership with Israel. In Somaliland, the Berbera base operates under tight coordination between the Emirates and Israel. But the cooperation goes far beyond that base. On the arid, remote islands of the Socotra archipelago in Yemen, the UAE built a network of military and intelligence bases. Israeli officers are on site, operating radars, drones, and Israeli equipment integrated into the system. The entire network was developed in direct coordination with Israel to monitor the Houthis and control the Gulf of Aden. The Emirates chose Israel as a strategic partner years ago, but during the war against Iran and the truce period it was the first time Israeli soldiers operated equipment on Emirati soil. In fact, it was the first time the Iron Dome was deployed anywhere outside Israel or the United States. None of this pleased Riyadh. Saudi Arabia is now acting on two direct fronts to curb UAE influence: Sudan and Somaliland. On April 20, MBS received Sudanese Army chief General Burhan in Jeddah. In addition to the high-level meeting, Riyadh is financing and guaranteeing a major $1.5 billion arms deal with Pakistan to equip Burhan’s forces, while also increasing direct financial and logistical support to the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which are fighting the Rapid Support Forces financed by the Emirates. To read the full article: open.substack.com/pub/global21/p…

With exit polls about to open, good to keep in mind they had all missed TMC's sweep. indianexpress.com/article/politi…

Trump wanted to break a 45-year tradition by refusing to let a comedian roast him at the Correspondents' Dinner, so the British sent in King Charles.

Shows cig tax hikes don't hurt companies, only consumers. Least govt can do for them is not ban safer options. @PiyushGoyal moneycontrol.com/news/business/…

A lot of jokes from King Charles tonight. “You recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French”

Iran and Russia illustrate how economic warfare backfires when unleashed against resource-rich states. Both have built fortress economies and are now using soaring oil revenues to outlast US pressure and turn sanctions into profits. responsiblestatecraft.org/putin-iran/

UAE quits OPEC, right after getting currency swap from US, citing war instability. Win for Trump who wanted to break this cartel but one has to now wonder if he's at war with Iran or Saudi Arabia.

@tajmahalfoxtrot While also draining our mangroves cover and protection against rising sea levels.

The ill-conceived Coastal Road is draining our tax coffers.

Energy giants are reaping the rewards of geopolitical chaos. Closure of Hormuz has driven huge windfalls for producers while households absorb the cost. #iranwar theguardian.com/business/2026/…

@maheshperi @raghav_chadha Large companies routinely buy disruptive startups and waste them to quell competition.

The angst against @raghav_chadha is not because he left AAP. Many left AAP as they were upset with Arvind Kejriwal. The 7 of them could have left AAP and forged a separate group. They could have joined Congress or TMC or any other group. In the past 5 years, AAP and its leaders were harassed and jailed by BJP. For every AAP person, BJP was the abuser, the enemy. To that extent, no AAP leader could sleep with the enemy. Raghav Chadha moved away from AAP and joined BJP as he wanted to be in power, enjoy power of a politician. It was all about being in power. What Raghav Chadha projected of himself and what he has done are the exact opposite. He sold himself as a young idealist politician and what emerged from the facade will put even the worst politician to shame. Raghav Chadha will lose, big time..

Iran is leveraging its strategic partnership with Russia to outmanoeuvre the United States. Coordinating directly with Russia amid stalled peace talks cements an anti-Western front designed to resist American unilateralism. #iranwar upi.com/Top_News/World…

Pushing for a privately-funded White House ballroom after the recent shooting threatens a free press. Hosting journalistic events on federal property gives the executive branch dangerous leverage over media access. poynter.org/commentary/202…

The UK training rookies to execute autonomous drone strikes in days shows how AI battle systems will compensate for severe troop shortages in modern conflicts. The future of warfare relies on algorithms. express.co.uk/news/uk/219863…

Look at this map. Nagpur 45°. Ahmedabad 44°. Prayagraj 43°. Delhi 42°. The entire country is a single dark red mass. This is not a heatwave. This is a country that was told its forests were fine. And this is April. Not May. Not June. The hottest months have not even arrived yet. The past few days have been hell. So I did what I always do when something bothers me. I went looking for answers. What I found was a policy con job that has been running for over two decades. But before I explain what happened, let's clear some definitions. A garden is not a forest. An orchard is not a forest. A plantation is not a forest. A forest is a living system. Soil, water, fungi, insects, birds, mammals, decades of accumulated complexity, specific to its land and climate. It cannot be designed. It cannot be harvested. It regulates water, cools land, shelters hundreds of species. It takes decades to become what it is. You can plant a forest. But it will take decades to become one. In 2001, India's forests were disappearing. The Indian state, led by the Vajpayee government, faced a choice. Protect what remained, or change what the numbers said. It chose the numbers. The Forest Survey of India quietly changed the definition of what a forest means. Any land with 10% tree canopy cover and more than one hectare in area was now a forest. Your mango orchard. A coconut plantation in Tamil Nadu. A tea garden in Assam. Lodhi Garden in Delhi. All forests, on paper. The FSI will tell you that 10% canopy cover follows international norms. The FAO also uses 10% as its threshold. But the FAO's definition comes with a crucial exclusion that India's FSI quietly dropped.  The FAO explicitly states that fruit tree plantations, oil palm plantations, olive orchards, and agroforestry systems are not forests. The World Bank says the same. India adopted the number but discarded the exclusion.  It took the cover of international legitimacy while gutting the standard that gave it meaning. The government will also tell you this was never hidden. That it was publicly stated in every report, disclosed in Parliament. That is technically true. But a disclosure buried in a technical government document is not transparency. It is the appearance of transparency.  I did not know any of this until I went looking. Neither do most Indians whose forests, whose land, whose air this directly concerns. The con is not in what was hidden from experts. It is in what was never explained to the people it was done to. This is not a technicality. This is the con. It was a trick as old as power itself. If you cannot fix the problem, fix the measurement. For ten years after 2001, Congress governed India. Two terms, two environment ministers, including Jairam Ramesh, one of the more serious ones. They saw the numbers. They knew what the numbers meant. They did nothing. Because the lie was convenient. India looked good in international climate negotiations. The fiction of a greening India served everyone in power, so everyone in power kept it. Congress did not create this lie. It simply chose, year after year, to live inside it. The BJP is different. When they returned to power in 2014, they came with something Congress never had. An absolute majority, and no coalition compulsions. They did not merely inherit the lie. They built on it. And in 2023, they legislated it. The Forest Conservation Amendment Act of 2023 removed legal protection from "deemed forests." Forests that existed outside the official definition but were ecologically real.  Forests that Adivasi communities had lived in and depended on for generations. Forests that cooled land, held water, sheltered species. They were not on the right list. Since the amendment, forest destruction on Adivasi land has accelerated.  The people who knew these forests best, who had protected them longest, now watch them being cleared. Legally. CONT++

Different Semantics: Pirates When Poor, Interceptors When Powerful 😅

AAP vindicated for breaking up with Raghav Chadda before he could. But he took six others with him, which is going to hurt.