Nitin Gupta

This is what happens when a country decides brick is not a basic material but a design language. Prestige University. Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. Designed by Sanjay Puri Architects. Completed January 2026. 30,843 m². The defining feature is a 9,000 square metre walkable roof comprising 463 stepped platforms, usable as individual social spaces or as a single open auditorium for up to 9,000 people. The design was modelled on India’s ancient stepwells civic gathering spaces that existed for over 1,100 years before the building typology was ever theorized. The brick screens on the east, west and south facades are not only decorative. They are a ventilated climate skin, reducing heat gain in a city that sits between 30°C and 40°C for eight months of the year. Landscaped courtyards pull indirect natural light through every level. Minimal air conditioning. Minimal artificial lighting. This is brick doing structural work, climatic work, spatial work and cultural work simultaneously. Africa has the same soils for brick and enough resources to produce it. The same need for spaces where 9,000 people can gather. The question is when we start investing in our materials with the same seriousness. Architects: Sanjay Puri Architects | Indore, India | 2026 | Photo: Vinay Panjwani

We are resolved to ruthlessly crush the narcotics cartel. The @narcoticsbureau has cracked down on a major international narcotics ring seizing 349 kgs of High-Grade cocaine worth Rs.1745 crore in Mumbai. This is a trailblazing example of bottom to top approach where the agency traced back a smaller consignment to net a massive network. Congratulations to Team NCB for this monumental success.

There is one news story that I will never forget in this lifetime. It is about a man named Avijit Sarkar. He was the first person to be killed by the TMC after winning the 2021 West Bengal Vidhan Sabha election. Minutes before his gruesome murder, Avijit Sarkar took to Facebook to narrate that he had been surrounded by a mob of TMC workers. He did not know what was written in his destiny on that fateful night. Look at the date - 2nd May 2021. This was the last time Avijit posted on Facebook. In the following weeks, TMC workers killed a dozen more people as part of a coordinated wave of political violence. But the story of Avijit Sarkar never left my mind. Avijit was holding a puppy in his hand and narrating his ordeal. At that point, he did not know that he would be killed. I was tasked to translate his dying testimony from Bangla to English so that non-Bengalis can know his story. Bangla is my mother tongue, and every word he spoke captivated the anxiety that a man experiences when his life is in danger. While writing the news report, I broke down several times because I knew what happened after the video ended. It was a traumatic experience. Death has always been a triggering subject for me. The fact that I was new to this industry and that I was already suffering from mental health issues made it worse. It has been 5 years since that incident. Tears have dried up, but not the rage that continues to stir inside me. This is why I have taken a pledge. As long as I am alive, I will make sure that the story of Avijit lives on. I will leave you with something I wrote in my diary back then - "Ek din bichar hobe. Ek din sasti hobe, adalat e na hole rastai" ( One day, there will be justice. One day, the perpetrators will be punished, either in court or on the road).

Our #50WordEdit on the relatively peaceful, fatality-free election in West Bengal

I was reading Telegraph and a few other papers today. Just wanted to know when was the last time, a major election happened in West Bengal, without a murder. At least not since 1977!! CEC Gyanesh Kumar deserves the highest possible award for 2026 West Bengal elections 🎉🍁

I am a Naval Veteran and Merchant Navy officer, and this is why I think @RahulGandhi is wrong on Great Nicobar. From an Indian national interest standpoint, Great Nicobar is not a “scam”; it is a strategic port located astride one of the most critical maritime chokepoints on earth, close to the Strait of Malacca, where a huge share of global trade moves every day. India cannot afford to treat Great Nicobar as a sentimental issue when it is a rare natural asset for maritime power, deterrence, and economic security. Yes, Great Nicobar is ecologically sensitive. India respects that. But national strategy is about balancing environmental safeguards with long-term security, logistics, and sovereignty. The current project is designed around an international container transshipment terminal, a dual-use airport, power infrastructure, and a planned township -all of which strengthen Indian Navy’s ability to monitor international sea lanes, improve military response times, and reduce commercial dependence on foreign transshipment hubs. To dismiss this as “destruction dressed in development’s language” is politically convenient, but strategically shallow. This kind of language suits our adversaries rather than us. India’s maritime future cannot be secured by empty slogans. It will be secured by developing ports, airfields, logistics nodes, surveillance, and persistent military presence in the Indo-Pacific. That is exactly why Great Nicobar matters. The real question is not whether development should happen, but how to execute strategic development responsibly while protecting our National interest. We can and should demand strict environmental compliance, tribal safeguards, and transparent implementation not reject a project that strengthens India’s maritime security simply because it is complex and uncomfortable. Great Nicobar is not just an island. It is a test of whether India can step up to its destined role as a great maritime power or remain trapped in slogan politics.

Trump admin, you have a problem. Your good friend Pakistan appears to have just opened six overland links to Iran, helping the regime bypass your counter-blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. This will help Iran continue to resist US pressure. Islamabad double deals America...AGAIN!

No one was rattled when people were strung up from trees and electric polls during elections in West Bengal - suddenly tough talking cops on the streets to prevent such incidents are the problem? Political violence is almost always state sponsored.

The Economist magazine is disappointed that India did not celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Mughal conquest of India. Oh, those ungrateful natives who do not celebrate the gift of civilisation. Who knows, they may even refuse to celebrate the Battle of Plassey. Dangerous trend.....

Walking through Pune today. You would not guess this city has 399 deeptech startups. 96 funded. 20 at Series A+. Bangalore got SaaS. Mumbai got fintech. Delhi got consumer. Pune got hardware muscle memory. The real moat for India's deeptech decade. PS: Pic from German Bakery in Pune. Forgot to click pic, so AI helped. :-) #DeepTech

A college in Karnataka taped the traditional nose ring worn by girls students before an entrance exam College - MES College in Chikkamagaluru Exam - CET held on Thursday The management covered the nose rings with adhesive tape before entering exam hall. Many bled after trying to remove it later Similar incidents keep repeating across Indian schools and colleges - even Janeu thread was removed from students recently. At the same time, more and more institutions are allowing hijab just to avoid mob pressure @KanoongoPriyank, please take note The institute must be asked to provide, in writing: - What exact rule allowed this and why? - Why was adhesive tape used on students’ bodies? - Who authorised it? If the college cannot give a satisfactory written explanation, strict action must follow

They won’t go Viral , because they don’t suit the narratives of people who want to defame Bihar.

"South Asia" accounts trying to create controversies and incite Indians using caste, religion, region differences = BLOCK. Do not engage please. Destroys their reach and psyops capability even if a few do it. Takes 1 min to go check the account, report for hate, and block.

IndiGo Airlines एयर इंडिया lenskart से भी दो कदम आगे निकल गई 🙄 IndiGo को हिजाब वाली महिला पायलट कबूल है लेकिन तिलक कलावा सिंदूर मंगलसूत्र नामंजूर

.@atomberg_tech introduces 1st Generation Drone Propulsion Systems. An excellent step towards becoming 'Atmanirbhar' in drones. Presently most of these propulsion systems are imported. Keep up the great work Manoj and team! linkedin.com/feed/update/ur… #Pune @TiEPune @iitbombay

Bloomberg hit job against Sanjay Malhotra is a very strong indicator that he is the right man for the job and is doing the right things.

In the 1990s, India was facing a Biological Colonization. If Dr. R.A. Mashelkar had not stepped in, we might have ended up paying a royalty to a US corporation every time we used turmeric on a wound/exported Basmati rice. In 1997, a Texas-based company called RiceTec was granted a patent by the USPTO (US Patent & Trademark Office) for Basmati Rice lines & grains. They claimed they had invented a superior strain of rice. Mashelkar realized that if this patent stood, Indian farmers would be barred from selling their own rice under the name Basmati in the US. It was a theft of Geographical Intellectual Property. He did not just shout Injustice. He assembled a team to find Genetic Fingerprints. They proved that the new rice was actually derived from Indian germplasm that had existed for centuries. The USPTO was forced to strike down the majority of the claims. 2 researchers at the University of Mississippi were granted a patent for the use of turmeric in healing wounds. To a Western patent officer, this was a novel invention. To an Indian, it was something their grandmother did every day. Mashelkar produced an ancient Sanskrit text as Prior Art. The USPTO demanded a translation. He provided evidence from the Journal of the Indian Medical Association dating back to 1953 + ancient Ayurvedic texts. This was the 1st time in history that a patent granted to a US entity was successfully challenged & revoked based on the Traditional Knowledge of a developing country. Mashelkar also realized that India could not fight 10000 legal battles every yr. He needed a Scalable Solution. Patent officers in the West were not malicious; they were just Data Blind. They could not read Sanskrit/Tamil/Persian. If a discovery was not in an English journal, it did not exist in their system. He hired 100s of experts (Ayurveda practitioners, IT engineers, & Patent lawyers). They took 500000+ formulations & converted them into a digitized Shloka to Code format. The data was rendered in English, French, German, Japanese, & Spanish. Today, India has signed agreements with the USPTO, the European Patent Office, & others. Before an officer grants a patent, they run a TKDL Scan. If the herb/method is in the library, the patent is rejected instantly.

South Korea is the Most Cunning Partner India have :) FDI Comparison if we do - Korea total investment in Vietnam is 13-14 times higher than in India. Vietnam economy is only 1/10th India's size. Samsung alone exports $54 billion a year from Vietnam. India has huge market but gets less factories and jobs. Vietnam got the real manufacturing boom. Even Recently Samsung going to build new factory there in Vietnam, in case of china we know the problem but in case of South Korea they do business under Radar, even this is bigger than i Imagine How South Korea Used free trade deal with India is just a Case study - when yu read it in detail yu will get it. Korea got a free trade deal (CEPA) in 2010. Under that deal, Korean goods entered India at zero or low duties. Samsung, Hyundai, LG used this to sell massively into India - phones, cars, appliances. India's imports from Korea went from $10B to $21B. India's exports to Korea actually fell - from $8B (FY22) to $5.8B (FY25). The trade deficit tripled from $5B to $15.2B. But selling wasn't the only play. The real play was value extraction: Hyundai - Paid itself a ₹10,782 crore special dividend (7.2x its normal payout), then did India largest IPO - 100% offer-for-sale. Every rupee of the $3.3B IPO went to the Korean parent. Then raised royalty rates from 2.5% to 3.5% per car. Three moves, one after another, all designed to drain cash from the Indian subsidiary to Seoul. LG - Same template. 100% offer-for-sale IPO, $1.4B to the Korean parent. The Indian subsidiary now trades at $12.5B market cap - higher than the Korean parent itself. LG used Indian investors money to value an Indian business that it still controls and still pulls dividends from. Samsung - Royalties paid to Korea jumped 50% to ₹3,322 crore in one year. After Korea changed its tax law in 2023 (no tax on foreign dividends coming home), Samsung pulled ₹22B worth of dividends from all overseas units in 9 months. India was one of the biggest sources. Combined - Hyundai + LG alone pulled $4.7B out of India in 12 months. All legal under CEPA. Best way to fuck RBI stricter Foreign Outflow What Korea did in Vietnam (same period) Korea put $92B of FDI into Vietnam. India got $6.7B. India economy is 10x Vietnam size. Samsung alone runs 6 plants in Vietnam, employs 100,000 people, exports $54B/year from there - that's 13% of Vietnam's entire exports. Vietnam got factories + jobs + exports. India got imports + deficit + cash extraction. Why Delhi stayed quiet for 15 years Diplomatic politeness. Also, during 2010–2020, India negotiating leverage was weaker. India needed Korean investment, Korean tech, Korean defence platforms. So the imbalance was a known problem that time but that time of dealmaker didn't think of long term MEA Secretary Kumaran publicly named the $15.2B deficit before President Lee landed. Commerce Minister Goyal called the 2010 CEPA irrational and lopsided. This was intentional signaling. What India wants in CEPA 2.0 - Four things: Services access - Indian IT exports to Korea are only $200M (vs $200B globally). India wants visa quotas for Indian engineers in Korean semiconductor/AI projects, and recognition of Indian professional qualifications. Pharma access - Indian generic drug exports to Korea are just $167M. Korea has rules that kill generic price advantage. India wants those removed. Forced local content - Like what Vietnam and Indonesia did. India wants 50% local value-addition by year 5, 70% by year 10. If you want to sell in India, build in India. Reciprocal sourcing - For every $1B defence/steel/shipbuilding contract India gives Korea, Korea must buy equivalent value of Indian services, pharma, components. Must read this Article: swarajyamag.com/economy/the-im…

What geniuses run the national capital. It took years to get a new road paved in front of my home. Months later, it’s being broken down to lay a sewer pipe. This after a portion was already dug up for Jal Board work. What great coordination between agencies

Kamal Haasan couldn’t wait even a few minutes in the queue; he jumped the line and voted. These people deliver grand sermons on reels for the public, but in real life, they’re the biggest offenders.