Baladevan Rangaraju

@internetfreedom Great work. But let’s hope the govt doesn’t make people voluntarily opt for the app like in the case of Aadhar.

Statement The PIB has just issued a statement at 3:00 PM on December 3, 2025 that the government will not make pre-installation of the Sanchar Saathi app mandatory for mobile manufacturers. This is a welcome development, but we are still awaiting the full text of the legal order that should accompany this announcement, including any revised directions under the Cyber Security Rules, 2024. Everyone who raised their voice, reported on the issue, or pushed back against this mandate deserves credit for bringing us to this point. For now, we should treat this as cautious optimism, not closure, until the formal legal direction is published and independently confirmed. pib.gov.in/PressReleasePa…

Good folks of Chennai and the south. A friends mother walked out of her home in Pune and is missing. Some indication that she is here in Chennai - south india. No history of dementia but may have been confused. Pls spread this word around. Her name is Vasanthi Phadke (have son's permission to post)@chennaipolice_ . The second pic is the last pic we have of her

GPT-5 just casually did new mathematics. Sebastien Bubeck gave it an open problem from convex optimization, something humans had only partially solved. GPT-5-Pro sat down, reasoned for 17 minutes, and produced a correct proof improving the known bound from 1/L all the way to 1.5/L. This wasn’t in the paper. It wasn’t online. It wasn’t memorized. It was new math. Verified by Bubeck himself. Humans later closed the gap at 1.75/L, but GPT-5 independently advanced the frontier. A machine just contributed original research-level mathematics. If you’re not completely stunned by this, you’re not paying attention. We’ve officially entered the era where AI isn’t just learning math, it’s creating it. @sama @OpenAI @kevinweil @gdb @markchen90

@srajagopalan @JanhaviNilekani Yuck

Absolutely fantastic and timely essay by @JanhaviNilekani on how gender-identity theory in healthcare is compromising core ethical principles. I was aghast when I read the inclusion of chest feeding practices in healthcare.

Anywhere in the world, you don’t need to cross anything to feel like a foreigner and realize how intelligent you are simultaneously. Just speak in a non-local language and expect the locals to know it.

@ScrewedbyState Wow

@ScrewedbyState I thought this was a parody account. Are these his views really?

Genocide is noble?

@angry_birdu 1 step at a time formula. They don’t expect first gen learners to speak Hindi fluently. But just as Modi can communicate in English, Hindi learners will know enough for native speakers to communicate with South Indians easily, and for GoI to further push for lang homogenization.

It is understandable that Modi cannot speak English fluently despite studying it as one of the subjects in school, because he doesn't use English every day. Will those idiots who impose Hindi as a third language at least now understand why it is useless to study Hindi in school?

@souvik_dutta05 Can you please share the paper/ working paper if possible?

Happy to share that our paper titled, "Impact of Breaking the Language Barrier on School Education − Evidence from West Bengal in India" co-authored with and Maharnab Naha has been accepted for publication at Economics of Education Review.

Despite his case was pending in the SC Khairul Islam a Govt teacher born & brought up in Assam, was detained from his home on 23rd May & pushed into Bangladesh by security forces. There the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) again pushed them to No man's Land & they stuck there. 1/13

@madarassi What the heck! Imagine how many decisions in his official capacity could have been influenced by this mindset, and how many lives they could have destroyed legally.

I am aware this guy is a moron, but this one tweet tells you all you need to know abt how they think, and how they do their jobs.

@Prof_Nishith_P @vox_dev It’s really cool work, which I read with interest 👏🏾In case there was some intervention done with lay school personnel but was not included in this paper, I hope you all will write about it sometime.

@Baladevan @vox_dev Thanks! I edited and reposted!

One of my all time favorite papers. It provides empirical evidence that the government-coordinated slaughtering of the bison in the late 19th century had immediate and persistent negative impacts on Native Americans. "Once amongst the tallest people in the world, the generations of bison-reliant people born after the slaughter lost their entire height advantage" "By the early twentieth century, child mortality was 16 percentage points higher and the probability of reporting an occupation 19 percentage points lower in bison nations compared with nations that were never reliant on the bison." "Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century and into the present, income per capita has remained 25% lower, on average, for bison nations."

The Economist saying it as it is

This is truly a commendable reform in recruitment. Hopefully the processes we will be watertight.

@amrasabicPHD Fantastic news, Amra! Congratulations and all best wishes for the project!

I am delighted to share that I have been awarded a research grant by Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies. This grant will support a study exploring the power and mechanisms of narrative persuasion in my memoirs, The Cat I Never Named (Bloomsbury, 2020) and Three Summers (FSG, 2024), and their potential to mitigate stereotypes against Muslims. The study will examine responses from individuals who identify as active members of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Grounded in Walter Fisher’s narrative persuasion paradigm, the project investigates how immersive storytelling--when used as a pedagogical tool--can strengthen resilience against stereotypical messaging.

Breaking: In an unprecedented move, the CJI Sanjiv Khanna has released data on the appointment of judges to the High Courts from November 9, 2022, to May 5, 2025. The data includes whether candidates belong to special categories (SC/ST/OBC/Minority/Women) and whether they are related to any sitting or retired High Court or Supreme Court judge.

This is insanely hardcore

NCERT has dropped all portions on Mughals from Class 7 Books. Now Students will get to read about how Rajputs fought against nobody and lost