Asma Rizwan ☺😇

India’s economic news is worrying. Youth unemployment is very high: 15.6%. Unemployment among young graduates is even higher. GDP growth is mostly going to the rich. The rupee is falling. Such things happen when politics replaces policy. Sad for a country with so much potential.

An important piece by @_sabahgurmat on the perilous status of religious minorities in Gujarat today: article-14.com/post/a-teen-s-…

The pre-Covid peak of 2019 was 1.09 crore foreign tourists. We are not even able to reach that level again till now. This is despite the rupee sitting at historic lows against the dollar, which should make India a bargain for foreign visitors. But alas, foreign tourists are going elsewhere - despite more airports being built, more flight routes opening, better connectivity than ever. Despite all the "Incredible India" campaigns. So what's going wrong? Basically everything that actually matters to a tourist. Start with the e-visa portal. Just google search reviews of the Indian government's online visa process and you will find hundreds of travellers sharing their own nightmares: forms crashing mid-application, payments failing repeatedly, data not being saved, the site randomly displaying a list of India's tallest mountains in the middle of a visa form. You will see that some tourists just gave up and booked somewhere else. Then when the foreign tourists actually arrive. Good luck getting a local SIM card without jumping through hoops. UPI, which Indians love to flex about, is practically unusable for foreign visitors. Hotels across India are required by law to report the arrival of foreign guests to the police, adding another layer of babu-raj hassle. Scams are rampant at every tourist spot from Agra to Rishikesh, harassment is common, and the less said about public hygiene in most cities the better. And the hotels in Indian tourist destinations like Goa are completely overpriced compared to equivalent properties in Bangkok, Hanoi, or Colombo. The irony is, Indians themselves have figured this out. Outbound travel hit a record 3.3 crore trips in 2025, up 21.5% from pre-Covid. The Indian middle class now finds it cheaper to holiday in Thailand, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, or the UAE than in Goa or Kerala. We keep building airports and announcing new routes, but nobody wants to visit a country where the first interaction with the state is a government website that looks like it was coded in 2003 and the last interaction is an overpriced hotel room with subpar service.

“I can send my daughters abroad, but we can’t move to a posh society in Ahmedabad” In a neighbourhood derogatorily called “mini Pakistan”, wealth cannot buy mobility—only costlier segregation, writes @_sabahgurmat open.substack.com/pub/article14/…

JUST IN: Authorities in Nepal accused Mount Everest guides of poisoning climbers to trigger helicopter rescues in an insurance scam Investigators said guides allegedly put baking soda in food to cause symptoms that mimicked altitude sickness Police said the groups then arranged costly helicopter evacuations and submitted fraudulent medical and flight documents Authorities said the scheme generated about $19.69 million in insurance payouts Police charged 32 people, including trekking company owners, helicopter operators, and hospital executives, with organized crime and fraud

Nothing summarises the brain drain and severe indictment of research infra in India than this study by @Careers360. On a comprehensive study of 31 JEE toppers from 1990 to 2020 (31 years), this is what we found: A. 23 of the 31 toppers are settled abroad. B. 28 of the 31 toppers work for a non Indian company. C. 17 of them are settled in USA. D. In the 1990 to 2010 period, 7 chose to stay in India. However in the 2011 to 2020 cycle only one in ten stayed back in India. E. In a severe indictment of academic research in India, 19 of them went on to pursue masters and Phd(13), But NONE chose to pursue any masters in India. F. 6 studied at Stanford and 5 studied at MIT. G. 16 of the toppers chose IIT Bombay followed by kanpur and Delhi. However, since 2007, IIT Bombay is the preferred choice. G. While the initial years, 7 of them chose to be in academia and research, of the 2011 to 2020 period, no one chose academia and research. In fact, many chose to work in investment and hedge fund companies. So, not many stayed back. Not a single person chose India to study further. Just 10% work for an Indian company. engineering.careers360.com/articles/the-j…

April 1, 2015, Indian Express.

We are living in a time where evil is fully exposed and people still refuse to see it.

Pathetic.

Do read this saddening account of how the Congress & other opposition parties are failing to defend India’s Muslim minorities at a time when they face daily persecution When the opposition to the BJP fails to display poliitcal courage where can they turn? scroll.in/article/109181…

Votes in 6 seconds, 4% cast after midnight: Major allegations over Andhra polls Several 'unusual' voting patterns in the 2024 Andhra Pradesh assembly elections were flagged at a press conference in Delhi. Economist Parakala Prabhakar claimed that around 4.16% of the total votes were cast between 11.45 pm and 2 am in Andhra, which was won by the NDA. Story by @AishPaliwal - intdy.in/vz3adk

One in four #Indians living with #diabetes may already have hidden #liverdamage without knowing it, a large nationwide study has found, raising concerns about a silent complication that is largely going undetected. The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health – Southeast Asia, analysed over 9,000 patients across routine diabetes clinics in the country. It found that 26% of diabetics had clinically significant #liverfibrosis, or scarring of the liver, despite having no symptoms. Around 14% had advanced damage, and 1 in 20 patients already showed signs of cirrhosis, an irreversible stage that can lead to liver failure. @timesofindia #health #diabetes #liverdamage

Why do I feel Foodpharmer has sparked a revolution in India? Here’s a simple example- he made a straightforward video exposing the ingredients in Nutella, one of India’s most beloved chocolate spreads, often marketed as a staple on kids’ breakfast tables. Every parent should watch this video.

Not even apartheid South Africa codified executions for only one ‘race group’. Israel is now the most racist state the world has ever known. Shame on every government, every company, every individual who offer it support.

Born in 1832, Jonathan the tortoise turned 193 today. Yes… 193. This dude is literally the oldest land animal alive. He survived 2 world wars, outlived 40 U.S. presidents, 8 British monarchs, and probably watched more drama on Earth than all of us combined. He can’t see and smell anymore, but he still recognizes his caretakers just by voice and touch like a wise old gangster. Think about this: Jonathan was alive before the lightbulb existed… and there is a high chance he might still be here AFTER some of us are gone. Happy birthday legend... keep confusing time, history, and all of us… and may you live many more years!

4 out of every 10 employees impacted at Oracle are from India. The expected layoffs? 12,000 out of 30,000, and they’re not done yet. Most of those affected are mid- and senior-level professionals who gave 10–15 years of their lives to the company. Just imagine how much income tax they’ve paid over the years. And overnight, they’re out, with zero real support. To make it worse, even their severance pay gets taxed at normal slab rates. If that isn’t inhumane, what is?

Out of a headcount of 30,000 employees in India, with another mass job cuts planned within a month.

Your alarm goes off at 6 AM. There's an email from "Oracle Leadership." You've never gotten a message from that sender before. It says your job is gone, today is your last day, and severance details will arrive by DocuSign. By the time you finish reading, your company laptop is already locked. This happened to up to 30,000 Oracle employees this morning. Oracle reported $17.2 billion in revenue last quarter, its best in 15 years. And it still fired nearly 1 in 5 of its people. The stock went up 6% today. Oracle owes over $108 billion. The company signed a $156 billion deal to build AI data centers over five years, mostly for OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT). That requires buying roughly 3 million specialized computer chips. Two years ago, Oracle spent $6.9 billion a year on this kind of construction. This year it's $50 billion. The 30,000 people who got that email are funding the gap. Investment bank TD Cowen estimates the layoffs will free up $8 to $10 billion in cash flow, money going straight into chips and construction. Oracle filed a $2.1 billion restructuring plan with regulators in March, and nearly $1 billion had already been spent before the emails went out. Lenders are getting nervous. The cost to insure Oracle's debt against default has spiked to levels last seen during the 2009 financial crisis. Barclays downgraded Oracle's debt in November, warning the company is one step from "junk" status, the point where lenders consider you a serious default risk. Some banks have stopped lending to Oracle for these projects altogether. The gamble gets worse. CNBC reported on March 9 that OpenAI, Oracle's biggest customer for all of this, is already looking at newer, faster chips from Nvidia. Oracle ordered the current generation and spent billions building out a massive Texas facility. OpenAI may not fully expand into it. The chips improve faster than the buildings go up. Larry Ellison, Oracle's founder, owns 41% of the company. In September 2025, Oracle's stock hit $346, and Ellison briefly became the richest person alive at $393 billion. Today, the stock sits around $146. His fortune has dropped to roughly $201 billion in six months. Oracle is spending borrowed money to build data centers that could be outdated before they're finished, for a customer already shopping for newer equipment. 30,000 people woke up to a 6 AM email because that's what it costs to fund a $156 billion bet when your lenders are running out of patience.

Why is she doing this? Because there was general strike after general strike in Rome calling for an end to the genocide. Because the Italian dockers refused to ship weapons to Israel. The people made their fascist, pro-war PM change her tune because they demanded it. ✊🇮🇹

But no one is listening