Strange man lying in pond, distributing words. Writer, editor and ADHDer. Senior Editor, Happiest Health and ex-words at THE WEEK, The Hindu and Madras Courier
Joined November 2010
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finalblur retweeted
The EDF (Export Declaration Form) rules are now in effect, and it seems like RBI and banks have conspired to create a new hell. Or actually 5 hells.
I consult for an American company. Raised October invoice. Received the Inward remittance. And bang! Mail from @HDFC_Bank detailing everything needed before the payment can be processed.
Let me tell you what the 5 hells are:
1. The hell of confusion – RBI clarified last month that the EDF rules do not apply to individuals. But looks like they haven’t told the banks. And CAs also don’t seem to know. There’s no official communication on who is exempt. Last I checked, I was an individual. No company, no LLP. But HDFC still wants me to file the EDF to credit my payment.
2. The hell of complexity – See the attached pic of the form the bank has sent in excel. It has 5 sheets. To be filled and submitted. Some abstruse acronyms like “AD” - no clue what it means. Some fields are mandatory. Some fields are to be filled by the bank. No idea which is what. And it needs a physical signature. Which leads to...
3. The hell of paperwork - They also sent a pdf with a bunch of request letters. I’m supposed to choose the right letter, print, sign, scan and submit. Creating more paper today is incredibly silly. And, I suppose, someone in the bank will have to upload all this somewhere. Reminds me of those hand-filled immigration forms. Pointless.
4. The hell of repetition – At least for me, most of the details are constant. One client, one payment. If it’s a one-time exercise, fine. I’ll grit my teeth and get it done. But no. These details have to be given month after month. Else… no payment will be credited.
5. The hell of unpreparedness – It would have been simple enough for RBI or HDFC to create an online portal for this. With dropdowns, saved formats, contextual help, etc. to at least make this easy. But that would be too convenient, no? So, they’ve chosen to dump the entire burden on the taxpayer.
I have no opinion or understanding of why this is needed. Maybe it is critical information. Okay! But why make the process so confusing and painful?
And poor communication has meant that the banks have just passed on the pain to the exporter, and even CAs can’t help.
Basically RBI & HDFC feel I should consult less, and comply more. Maybe my client will also agree :)
Right wing supporters are so much more disappointing than right wing leaders. At least the leaders got something out of it
finalblur retweeted
I always knew that the "blocking starlink from entering India because its a Nashonal Security risk" argument was a complete joke when this is what we are dealing with internally
Desi browsers will take their own sweet time revoking these certs, every bad actor will set up a MITM trivially in every public wifi, some boomer will try to log into something critical with his 2 year old unupdated version of JioSphere on railway wifi and get his shit blown smoove off
finalblur retweeted
The eMudhra compromise is an absolute joke. This isn't a standard data leak it's pure, unadulterated structural incompetence.
8 globally trusted intermediate CA keys were generated with basically zero cryptographic entropy. 😠 A standard NIST P-384 private key needs 384 bits of entropy so it's mathematically impossible to crack.
Yet, the blokes at @eMudhra generated production keys with 3 to 8 bits. The actual private key values were literal single digits like 4, 56, and 115. This is playground-level stuff. Infuriatingly amateur.
How does a private company with zero fundamental grasp of public key infrastructure even get global root trust? Indian regulatory and auditing bodies make us look like complete idiots. They treat cybersecurity like a casual compliance checkbox instead of critical national infrastructure.
This failure leaves the entire internet with a massive cleanup job. Browsers blocked these keys fast, but millions of unmaintained Linux distros, embedded IoT tech, Docker containers, and backend apps are completely exposed out there.
If you're an everyday user (not a developer), you still need to fix this on your personal devices right now:
Update everything: Force-update your web browsers (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari) and your operating systems across your laptop, Mac, and mobile phone. Don't wait for auto-updates manually trigger them in your settings.
Test your device: Go to emudhra.we-have-a-problem.co…
Verify the result: If your browser blocks the site and says "Did not connect" (or throws a certificate error), you are safe. If the website opens normally, you are still vulnerable.
If you're running Linux, Python, Go, or Node infrastructure:
Stop what you're doing. Manually update your ca-certificates bundles, pins, or drop a system-level blocklist immediately to prevent traffic interception.
The casual negligence of these agencies shouldn't be your vulnerability.
The Internet goes on high alert after discovery of 8 compromised TLS certs arstechnica.com/security/202…
some time ago around 3am I asked Claude to simulate what would’ve happened had the Spanish Armada landed in India
absolutely bodied outcome for the Spanish. bullets bouncing off Mughal armour, villagers packing guns everywhere
idk it’d make a great anime
finalblur retweeted
My dear friends, please, I hope to demand your absolute attention to this matter:
In 2018, my junior from St. John’s Medical College, Bengaluru, Dr. Randall Sequeira (middle in the pic), trekked up a steep, bauxite-rich plateau in Odisha to hold a monsoon health camp in the indigenous Kutiya Kondh village of Kutrumali.
In a piece he wrote then titled "Kutrumali’s Demons," Randall described sleeping under a dripping school roof in freezing fog, borrowing utensils from a local health worker to cook khichdi, and waking up at 6 AM to a line of tribal mothers. He wrote with heartbreak about treating malnourished toddlers with protruding bellies and visible ribs, listening to stories of stillbirths and chronic fevers, while noticing the shiny new solar lights installed by a mining conglomerate eyeing the aluminium ore beneath the villagers' feet.
Comparing his small medical team to hobbits sheltering in the night, Randall worried about the outside forces coming for that fragile village.
Randall stayed with the tribal/ adivasi community to serve them. After St. John’s and an MD in Internal Medicine from SMS Jaipur, he gave up every comfort of urban medicine to live in Kalahandi, recognizing that clinical prescriptions are meaningless when indigenous communities are stripped of their forests, water, and dignity.
On the night of October 16, Odisha police picked up Dr. Randall Sequeira and Dalit activist Laxman Naik at 11 PM from his home in Bhawanipatna. A gentle physician who has spent years trekking up hills to save tribal children is now locked in Rayagada sub-jail under frivolous but draconian charges (attempt to murder, dacoity), simply for standing with Adivasis peaceful protesting the mining of their sacred hills in Sijimali and Kutrumali.
thewire.in/rights/randall-se…
Odisha Govt. said it will cut down forests to connect tribal villages. But it was a way to bypass green laws and fast track London based Vedanta’s, and Adani's mining plans. Local organisations estimate that around 45 villages depend on these hills and would be affected.
reporters-collective.in/trc/…
The state has answered with repression rather than dialogue. In the last three years, at least 43 police cases have been filed and over a hundred Adivasis and Dalits, both women and men, have been incarcerated in Odisha jails. For example, from In March and april 2026, 8, 2026, to April 8, 2026, within one month, 24 people were sent to jail, 217 were made accused, and the number of “others” total 1,140. An activist who was not named in the original FIRs, but has since been implicated in about 12 cases, so that bail in one case is followed by arrest in another. This pattern of capture and releases have been used to crush rational dissent.
Dr. Randall understood that being a good doctor means understanding that prescriptions cannot compensate for the denial of land rights, that surgery cannot undo displacement and that no medical can substitute for the basic infrastructure a government has failed to provide.
thehindu.com/sci-tech/health…
To my fellow medical fraternity, and every citizen with a conscience: a kind physician who embodies the highest ethics of our profession is being criminalized to clear the way for bauxite mining. Please do not let his voice be buried in a sub-jail.
Amplify this, demand due process, and demand the immediate release. Please sign in this form to show solidarity: forms.gle/o2Rj2Uu3tXaoWu9dA
If anyone can help out in this situation please reach out to Medico Friend Circle - mfcindia.org/
finalblur retweeted
Modi's biggest achievement in 13 years is building a very strong and almost violent culture of anti-intellectualism.
He has dragged the nation into a cesspool of infinite mediocrity, covered with limitless arrogance.
Ambition is now equal to achievement. And his Bhakts actually believe every lie being peddled, despite stark proofs visible to naked eye.
The loss is generational. By the time he's done with the country, there'd be little left. It'll be back to building from near scratch.
finalblur retweeted
Tiny. Bootstrapped. Slightly terrified. But we’ve got the titles you won’t find on Netflix.
finalblur retweeted
I have ADHD. I have explained it to my mother four times. Each time it came out as an excuse, and each time I left the kitchen table having made it worse. Last Tuesday she told my aunt I had found it online.
finalblur retweeted
This story will sound like a joke but it is not.
-A teacher in MP was disappointed by bad condition of village school.
-He used his own money to paint it, put some furniture in dining space, cleaned it.
-brought a smart board. Gave some stationary to students.
-brought 2 retired people to teach students for free.
-also brought 2 other teachers & paid them from his pocket.
-school enrolment increased, kids left private schools to study here.
-kids from nearby villages also came.
-Education Department transferred the teacher.
-angry villagers protested on highway against his transfer.
-he had to leave. Kids cried, everyone sad.
-retired teachers were also removed.
-kids started leaving school.
-villagers protested again at collectorate to bring back that teacher.
-Edu Dept gave show cause notice to the teacher asking him if he really used his own money? Who gave him permission.
-Also asked him how he hired other teachers w/o permission.
-asked if he has given stationary to kids, where did he get the funds?
-warned him to reply to the notice to avoid the disciplinary action.
finalblur retweeted
Everyday I am reminded how much damage was done to generations of Indian youth because the smart people were told to be quiet and humble and let their work speak, while the idiots were given free rein to have a personality.
We got gringotts arbitrage fraud before we got gta 6
One of my favourite Harry Potter loopholes doesn't even involve magic. It involves exploiting the Muggle economy.
Hagrid tells us there are 17 Sickles to a Galleon. Sickles are silver, Galleons are gold. Simple enough.
Except gold and silver don't have a fixed exchange rate in the Muggle world. Their market value fluctuates constantly. Before 1900, the gold-to-silver ratio averaged around 16:1, which is pretty close to the wizarding world's 17:1 rate. Throughout much of the twentieth century, however, it averaged around 45:1.
See where this is going?
Wait until the market heavily favours gold. Melt your Galleons down and sell the gold in the Muggle world. Use the money to buy as much silver as possible, then take that silver to Gringotts and have it converted into Sickles.
Finally, exchange those Sickles for Galleons at the fixed 17:1 rate.
Congratulations. You've potentially turned a small pile of wizarding gold into a much larger pile of wizarding gold, simply by exploiting the difference between Muggle market prices and Gringotts' fixed exchange rate.
No Dark Arts. No Horcruxes. No elaborate schemes.
Just precious metals, a fixed exchange rate and a wizard who understands arbitrage.
The real question is why nobody in the wizarding world seems to have built an entire financial empire around this.
finalblur retweeted
Tell me you don't understand statistics without telling me you don't understand statistics.
This chart shows the share of today’s infrastructure “built after 2014.” But if an economy grows ~6% a year, about half of everything it has will always have been built in the last 12 years.
Take power. From 2002 to 2014, capacity went from ~105 GW to 249 GW, about 7.5% a year. From 2014 to 2026 it went from 249 to 540 GW, about 6.7% a year. The “54% built after 2014” headline hides slower growth than the decade before.
Coal went from 565 to 1,000 MT, about 4.9% a year, roughly the same pace as the decade before. Transmission went from 2.9 to 5.0 lakh ckm, about 4.7% a year. Gas pipelines show the same pattern. These are trend lines, not breakthroughs.
Solar isn't admissible here as module prices fell ~90% worldwide in the same period.
