Curator of Curiosities

Our family lost ₹5 lakhs in an online financial fraud few years ago. It takes less than 7 seconds to execute an online transaction for a scammer. When we complained on the Cyber Crime helpline immediately, it took them 7 days to just assign the nearby police station that is walking distance from my home. I went there everyday but the officer wouldn't 'start' till the case was assigned to him. By then, the money trail had been lost. The fraudsters had transferred money to different bank accounts (in West Bengal) and taken out cash through ATMs. It was all over before the case was even "assigned". That is the 'law and order' situation in India in the 21st century to deal with crimes that take place in 'real time'. Let's come to the telecos now. Do you know any scammer can deactivate your number from anywhere? All they need is basic details like your full name, date of birth or certain digits from your Aadhaar. Data sets that are widely leaked and available. They called Vodafone and claimed that their phone had been lost/stolen. So Vodaone does its "verification" and turns off your number. It is done so you can't receive an SMS regarding a fraudulent transaction that has been done. Else you might alert the bank. While you try to figure what suddenly happened to your SIM, everything is done within minutes. When our number was deactivated the first time, we alerted Vodafone and told them no phone had been lost. That night, only a payee had been added (we found this out much later) and no transcation had been done. And the bank rules state a 24 hour cooling period for a newly added payee. But it was weird enough to us that our Vodafone number had been deactivated out of nowhere in this manner. When we spoke to Vodafone, we told them do not switch off the number if you get any such request in the future. Since we have not made it. Please confirm with an alternate number before you take any action. But the next night, the number went off again, and this time, the transcation was executed. Vodafone didn't call the alternate number. They said this is their process. If someone calls and gives the verification detail, they have to shut the number. And that is how we lost the money. Despite telling and begging them to do one additional step since something was off. Moral of the story: both the telcos and the police will do jackshit. You are on your own. Please please please take precautions. Enable 2FA on every mail and banking account. Especially with family members and elders who aren't that tech savvy. You have no idea how sophisticated some of the new scams are.

On 26/11, while Mumbai faced terror, Staff Nurse Anjali Kulthe risked everything to protect 20 pregnant women at Cama Hospital. From hiding patients to delivering a baby under gunfire, her courage saved lives. Months later, she faced Ajmal Kasab in court, standing fearless in her nurse’s uniform. Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata honours such unsung heroes who chose duty over fear. Scroll down to know their extraordinary stories! #UnsungHeroes #26November #HealthcareHeroes #KanganaRanaut #BharatBhhagyaViddhaata [Staff Nurse Anjali Kulthe, Kangana Ranaut, 26/11 Mumbai Attack, Nurse Hero Story, Cama Hospital Heroes, Staff Nurse Courage, Inspiring True Stories]

In Bharat, nature was never seen as a resource to exploit, it was revered as mother, river, forest, prana. 🌿 This World Environment Day, let us reconnect with the dharmic way of living in harmony with creation. #worldenvironmentday #environmentday #sanatandharma #hindu #prachyam

India had secrets that could end civilisations. Not weapons. Not armies. Knowledge. Sealed inside Nine books. And buried before the world could touch them. 261 BC. Ashoka ruled a land larger than today’s European Union. From Afghanistan to Bangladesh. From the Himalayas to Karnataka. 50 million people. One emperor. Historians call it military genius. They are right. But incomplete. This was not sword alone. Ashoka had found something older. Nine books. Ancient. Pre-civilisational. Terrifying. They carried knowledge of Ages. Book One: Sammohana Vidya. Propaganda. How to make millions believe into something. Book Two: Mrityu Sparsha. The Touch of Death. One touch. No wound. Book Three: Sukshma Jeeva Shastra. Microbiology. How diseases spread. Book Four: Rasayana. Alchemy. The science of transformation. Book Five: Akasha Vani. Communication. Messages across impossible distances. Book Six: Vaimaanika Shastra. Flight. Anti-gravity. Book Seven: Brahmanda Vidya. Cosmology. Time. Space. Book Eight: Tejo Shastra. The Science of Light. Its power. Its speed. Book Nine: Samaj Chakra. The Wheel of Society. How civilizations rise. How they prosper. And the exact moment they begin to die. This was not mythology. This was operating software for civilisation. The Mauryan empire used it. Its intelligence. Its administration. Its military dominance. Its invisible control. And then Ashoka understood the horror. If he could use it. So could the next king. So could an invader. So could a mad general with an army. In the wrong hands, this was not power. It was extinction. So he made a cold decision. Seal it. He chose nine men. Not princes. Not generals. Not bloodline. Nine scholars. Nine minds. Each received one book. Each took one vow. Silence. When one guardian aged, he chose another. Merit selected merit. For centuries, the Nine moved in shadows. Then the Huns came. They disappeared deeper. Then came 1193 AD. Bakhtiyar Khilji burned Nalanda. Nine million manuscripts. But the Nine had already moved. Then the British came after 1757. The Nine moved again. Somewhere in India today, nine people still exist. No names. No faces. Only knowledge. And sometimes, it leaks. A French scientist came to Madras. Met an unnamed man. Left with the cholera immunotoxin formula. Millions were saved. He never fully explained the source. Judo’s nerve-strike science appeared centuries later. No one traced the root. The Ganga still neutralises infectious bacteria. Millions bathe. Mass outbreak never arrives. Modern science calls it anomaly. The Nine may call it maintenance. Their promise was simple. Knowledge will reach humanity. When humanity is ready. Bharat was a civilisation that had solved, what we still struggle to understand. This is what Bharat was. Not a land of drifters waiting for salvation. Not a land of consumers waiting for imports. A civilisation of scientists. Astronomers. Surgeons. Engineers. And silent guardians.

🚨NEW INVESTIGATION: A Fortune 500 company reportedly cancelled a @HinduAmerican training session after employees circulated its Wikipedia page. That page tells readers HAF aligns with Hindu nationalism, threatens academic freedom, and has been accused of acting as a foreign agent. We traced who built that narrative. The same handful of accounts kept appearing across HAF, its critics, activist groups, and key public figures—building an interconnected narrative that now feeds Google and AI systems. Full investigation in thread. Receipts 👇

be @ni5arga → 19 years old, from West Bengal, studied in Delhi for a few years → just finished his own Class 12 exams in 2026 → calls himself a hobbyist cybersecurity researcher → says he is an engineer, not a hacker → built an OSINT engine, a stock-tracking TUI, a pastebin in Rust → once found bugs in FOSS United and disclosed them quietly → just another CBSE student watching his own board roll out a new digital marking system then he opened the portal → CBSE moves Class 12 evaluation to On-Screen Marking, 1.8 million students affected → Nisarga sees the portal link is fully public, gets curious → opens DevTools, downloads the Angular JavaScript bundle → first vulnerability found in 30 minutes → a literal master password sitting in plain text inside the frontend code → enter it, the OTP field auto-fills, the entire login flow gets bypassed → OTP validation happens in the user's browser, not on the server → no route guards, every internal page reachable by editing browser storage → password reset API never checks the old password → systemic IDOR across the entire API, change one value in sessionStorage, become any examiner → outcome: take over any teacher account, view answer sheets, edit marks 25 February 2026. He reports everything to CERT-In the same day. → CERT-In asks for a screen recording, he sends a full walkthrough → acknowledgement comes back as a boilerplate reply → reference number assigned: CERTIn-16590126 → he follows up multiple times. no response. → three months pass. portal still live. Class 12 results released. vulnerabilities still there. → 22 May: publishes the blog post and a thread on X → Deedy Das, Satish Acharya, Internet Freedom Foundation amplify it → the post goes viral → CBSE issues a clarification: that was just a test portal, no breach → the URL CBSE cited in their own tweet was not even a registered domain → a friend buys the domain and points it at Nisarga's blog → CBSE quietly deletes the tweet then it gets worse → 25 May: finds an SQL injection vulnerability on the live production portal → reports to CERT-In, gets a one-line thank you → gains admin access to the live cbse.onmark.co.in server → portal stays up for four more hours → he uploads anime videos and memes, links them publicly from CBSE servers → plays a viral Japanese song on a CBSE page, makes the news for it → CBSE finally takes the whole portal down then he reads the database → master table accessed: 10 GB, 9.3 million records → examiner names, addresses, school names, bank account details → passwords stored in plain text → login tokens anyone can paste into a browser to log in as that user → 31 May: finds a second live CBSE production portal, 45,074 records of failed payments → emails, phone numbers, payment IDs, order IDs, all readable → 31 May, the bigger one: an AWS S3 bucket is misconfigured → ListObjectsV2 works without authentication, the bucket root is listable → samples pulled from 18 lakh scanned 2026 answer sheets, every subject → multiple institutions sharing the same bucket → also notices something strange in the scans: bedsheets visible in the background of answer sheets CBSE paid for proper scanners to handle CBSE responds → posts an AI-generated image saying the system is robust and secure → three days later admits some vulnerabilities existed and have been contained → refuses to name the cybersecurity firm doing the audit → claims they tried contacting him. he says they have not. → Internet Freedom Foundation writes to the Ministry of Education and CERT-In → asks for an investigation into CBSE, a review of the contract with vendor Coempt EduTeck, a full audit → he points out he could have sold this data and made a lot of money → he did not. he is a CBSE student too. → his own analogy: the door wasn't just unlocked. the key was lying on the ground in front of everyone. a 19-year-old with a anima pff broke a national exam evaluation system in 30 minutes with browser developer tools and the government is still pretending it was a test environment

How continuous our civilisation is? Here's a hint. Kid : *swings his legs while sitting on a chair His parents : Stop swinging your legs! Āpastamba Dharmasūtra (~3rd century BCE) : One shouldn't swing legs. Such a small detail has survived to this day. [Sūtra 2.8.20.13]

@jaydp922 @DivaJain2 US doesn't have the depth with Pak that we share with Russia. & Russia is an actual power, albeit rn a weakened one. Pak has never been a power & is in its weakest position ever atp. So I don't think this comparison holds. & yes, US has reservations but so do we. typical rel'ship

@DivaJain2 When Jaishankar says our relations with Russia can't be a zero sum game everybody praises, but when US does the same with Pakistan Indians start crying. Do none of you ever think that US feels exactly like this when India deals with Russia? Good for me but not for thee?

Good news for our resident RW intellectuals who were imploring us to choose the "winning side" :).

As on today Chennai is the Hottest Mega City of India, not Bengaluru nor Hyderabad. The built-up area of Chennai has increased from 30% to 74% from 2003 to 2023. The heat increase in area surrounding Sriperumbudur is very high as high built-up area is completely making that area very high is thermal discomfort. Chennai’s land is subsiding due to various factors including Sea level rise and exploitation of ground water. Chennai’s elevation in 3Feet from MSL, whereas Bengaluru is 3,000 feet from MSL. Chennai is a flat megapolis on the sea and looked from a different perspective. The people who support Paranthur airport and Run X handles may have different agenda to Project Chennai as a Heat Disaster Prone City, thereby pushing Industry to other states. The Government should be careful about the voices that voice out for Paranthur. Also look at the image of Bengaluru, how the Urban heat island has increased. #SayNo2Paranthur @TVKVijayHQ @TVKHQITWingOffl @CMOTamilnadu @CTR_Nirmalkumar

This 4,500-year-old terracotta dice from the Indus-Saraswati Civilization is a powerful reminder of India’s living heritage. Dicing is also mentioned as a popular game in Rig and Atharva Vedas (two of the four sacred Vedic scriptures). From symbols and craftsmanship to rituals, yogic practices, and collective memory, numerous elements of ancient Indian civilization continue to thrive in the daily social and religious life of Indian society across regions and communities. Civilizational inheritance is not just about geography or ruins, it is defined by living customs, symbols, rituals, and unbroken cultural consciousness. India is the enduring living continuity of the Indus-Saraswati Civilization. #IndusSaraswatiCivilization #AncientIndianHeritage

Original Thiruvalluvar and his consort Vasuki during panguni utsavam . What your ecosystem shows is whitewashed.

On the auspicious occasion of Thiruvalluvar Jayanti Vaikasi Anusham, the Nation pays its deep reverence to Thiruvalluvar, the great Tamil saint-poet of the Bharatiya Sanatan tradition. Thiruvalluvar’s Thirukkural stands as an eternal confluence of Dharma and Niti, guiding righteous living, ethical governance, and the values that shape both individual conduct and collective life. His teachings continue to guide humanity, shaping the spiritual evolution of Bharat with global resonance. #SaintThiruvalluvar #VaikasiAnusham #Thirukkural #GovernorRavi #LokBhavan

Today is the birth anniversary of Thiruvalluvar who composed the Hindu Dharmasastras in Tamil as Thirukkural !

No. This is not a shot from dunes movie. It is a sandstorm as observed from Bikaner, Rajasthan today.

In a landmark judgment on May 22, 2026, the Delhi High Court held Google liable for trademark infringement. The case was between Hindware and Google. The court held that, by allowing competitors of Hindware to purchase the keyword “Hindware” (a trademarked name) through Google Ads, Google enabled trademark infringement. The court said that “Hindware” is not a generic English word but a specific brand trademark. By allowing competitors to place ads on that keyword, Google is enabling competitors to divert traffic that should have legitimately gone to Hindware. This has been a big challenge for companies, both big and small. Even today, if you search for Zerodha, you will see search results from competitors. This has been happening for well over a decade. Although it is hard to quantify, we have lost a lot of business to this. Think about what happens. Whenever someone searches for "Zerodha", the traffic should rightfully come to Zerodha. But what often happens is that the first couple of results on Google Search are ads, leading the customer to a competitor's website. In the process, we lose business that should have come to us. This is made worse by the fact that we do not advertise. There is also an even more ironic thing here. A lot of brands, just to capture the traffic that should have come to them organically, end up bidding on their own keywords. Think about it. If you own a business and have a trademarked name for your business, you still have to pay Google just to hopefully make your name too expensive for your competition to run ads on it. But now, thanks to the Delhi High Court judgment, we have the option of taking legal action whenever we come across instances of other companies squatting on our keyword. The other brilliant part about this judgment is that it levels the playing field. And this matters even more for startups, who are already starved for resources and have the odds stacked against them. The last thing they need is for competitors to bid on their brand keywords and steal their traffic. This judgment now opens up a route for legal recourse whenever such deceptive practices occur. While keyword squatting is most visible in Google web results, it is an even bigger problem when it comes to app stores. Whenever someone searches for your brand, the first couple of results, both above and below your app listing, often tend to be those of your competitors. And in the case of app stores, I think the ads are even more problematic. When a user clicks on an app-store ad, they often end up installing an app. That is a much higher-commitment action than clicking on a competitor’s web search result and then just closing the page. Because the user has installed an application, the conversions, at least anecdotally, tend to be much higher. Again, brands that do not advertise are at the receiving end of this. So I welcome this ruling and hope this changes the unfair norms we've been living by for so long.

When we look up at the pole star, we think it's fixed and assume its always been in the same place. That is not so. Because the Earth wobbles, a phenomenon known as precession. Which changes the sky regularly. Today it's the Polaris at 'pole position' but a few thousand years, it was a different star. Our Vishnu Purana places Dhruv within the Shishumara, the Draco constellation. Modern astronomy confirms this would have been true... but around 4,500 years ago! That was the peak of the Indus Valley Civilisation! Dr. Rao's research points out that whoever wrote those lines in the Vishnu Puran was looking at the sky at that period of time, which is during the Mature Harappan Civilisation! Our Puranas are not just stories. They are the oldest astronomical data logs ever recorded.

I created this poster to provide a clear explanation about why the IVC Pashupati Seal clearly cannot be derived from the Proto-Elamite "Master of Animals" motif.

Top 10 things to urgently implement in @tnhrcedept - things to do - things to be stopped - My charter of suggestions published in @dinamalarweb today. I request Shri @RameshOffcl , the Hon'ble Minister for @tnhrcedept considers these as something that would benefit Temples in Tamil Nadu immensely. மாண்புமிகு அமைச்சர் @RameshOffcl அவர்களுக்கு அறநிலையத்துறையில் உடனடியாக செயல்படுத்த வேண்டிய 10 விஷயங்களை, கோரிக்கைகளாக இந்தத் தினமலர் கட்டுரை மூலம் வைத்துள்ளேன். அமைச்சர் இவற்றை பரிசீலித்து ஆவண செய்யின் தமிழகக் கோயில்கள் மிக்க நலன் பெரும்.

Laura Loomer appears not to know this, but as a Hindu, the entire Universe, all of it, is the Divine. Going to a Church and praying to Jesus is perfectly fine and I have done it myself on many occasions. I often quote the Bible and my favorite verse is Matthew 25:40 where Jesus says: 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'" That is the call to service. What would be a sin for me as a Hindu would be to call what other people hold sacred as "Demonic", which unfortunately a Christian pastor recently did to Hindu deities. That is why Sanatana Dharma is the most tolerant spiritual system in the world. The world needs to understand the eternal Dharma, if we all have to get along.

It has been apparent to me for quite a while that Pakistan as a mediator is more than problematic. Their animosity towards Israel is long standing.    It is undeniable that Iranian military aircraft are being housed on Pakistani air bases and past rhetoric from the highest Pakistani officials against Israel is disturbing.    As to the defense minister’s comments about the Abraham Accords, saying that Pakistan would never join because they don’t trust Israel: The clip may be a year old, but I fear the sentiment is fresh.    In that regard, it is imperative that Pakistan give an answer now to President Trump’s call to join the Abraham Accords.