Book worm,compulsive window shopper,loving wife & mom,Homoeopath,foodie,coffeeholic,crazy about cars,driving, orophile...
Bangalore
Joined September 2009
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Don't underestimate the power of 'following the process '.
In Pondicherry,hubby went to a HP petrol pump and asked for 'full tank'. The guy tried usual scam of stopping midway n starting again without bringing to 0. Hubby quietly filed a complaint online, got a call from HP 1/3
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
This post needs point-by-point factcheck, and I will do exactly that. You cannot hide behind originally written by Mr Chandra Kumar Bose. What you have shared is a delirium of the deracinated. Not a productive use of time for me, but this pseudo-secular jugglery with Hindu festivals needs a counter.
Durga Puja is first a religious festival, and then a cultural one. There is prana pratishtha ceremony of the deity ahead of the puja, and the immersion in the water kunda, before the bhashan procession. It is a Shakti puja, and needs strict observance of norms. At the centre of all the festivities, is the worship of Maa Durga.
1. "Religion (as it has become) is an organized way to deal with devotees, and the Bengalis are far far away from any sort of blind beliefs."
Then why do Hindus go to the pandal and fold their hands in prayer, partake of prasad and seek Maa's blessings? Why do they fast for anjali? It can be "blind belief" for Bongs like you, but it is devotion and faith for millions Hindus.
2. "To Bengalis, Durga is just a part of our family. She could be termed as the Goddess, but never seen with a God-like image."
What about Noni Gopal or Laddu Gopal? What about Lord Jagannath, Shrinathji and Banke Bihari? I have seen people care for and feed the toddler Gopal like a child in the family. So, Durga isn't alone. Hindus have always loved their Gods. "God-fearing" was not an adjective for us.
3. "While people outside Bengal may fast as much as they like, Bengalis will continue to feast on Mutton Biriyanis and all sorts of delicious non-veg food"
You haven't associated yourself with Durga Puja, it seems. Those who sit for the rituals observe all the strict norms. Most of our Durga Pujas are Sarbojonin, which needs only a small number of people to follow the rituals. Those who offer anjali fast. Those who offer Dashami Puja at home fast.
4. "Durga Puja as a festival is deeply connected to arts, crafts, music, theater, films ... everything! It's an all-round celebration. Only a very tiny percentage of people would bother to offer prayers."
At the centre of the days-long festivities is Durga Puja is the worship of Maa Durga. Over 90% of the pandal-hopping Hindus offer prayers in front of each and every idol. The zamindars added theatre and amusement to Durga Puja to attract workers from nearby estates. That's how you have the arts connected to Durga Puja.
5. "Durga puja is all-inclusive. Many Muslims in Bengal celebrate it too."
So? Many Hindus take part in Eid festivities too, but they don't offer namaz. Participating in festivities doesn't mean taking part in Durga Puja's religious aspect. In Bangladesh, millions of Muslims visit puja pandals. So? Durga Puja is a Hindu religious and cultural festival.
6. There are hundreds of government and private awards given for 'Best Puja'. Not a single parameter in judgement relates to the devotion aspect of it."
Hindus have never overtly projected devotion like followers of some other religions have. Devotion has been a matter of our daily lives, soft and subtle. Our devotion has never bothered others until the crass DJ system found the jobless youths. Our devotion CANNOT be judged.
"Our country had no religion, but we thrived on our culture. It's time we pack religions into the sacks and throw them back to the western world"
Yes, India or Bharat of yore didn't have religion, it had Dharma. There was no need to name the way of life or living by Dharma. Because it was only us. When others came, the Dharma needed a name. However, the Dharma has now been encapsulated into several Indic faiths. It is that Dharma in our DNA that has allowed both the worshiping and feasting during Durga Puja.
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
VIDEO | Tamil Nadu: Goddess Meenakshi at the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai adorned in the divine form of Mahishasuramardini on the 8th day of the ongoing Navaratri celebrations.
(Full video available on PTI Videos - ptivideos.com)
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
Every day at Tata Memorial Hospital @TataMemorial, we see patients facing their cancer with incredible courage. But for many families, the struggle goes beyond the disease — the cost of treatment and just getting by can be overwhelming.
This Tata Mumbai Marathon @TataMumMarathon, I’m asking you to join me in doing something about it.
You don’t have to run a marathon to make a difference. A donation, however small, can help a patient who really needs it.
Let’s come together to make sure that no one has to give up because they can’t afford treatment for their cancer.
Please contribute, share this post, and help us reach more people. Every bit counts. ❤️
To contribute to the cause, please click the link here: unitedwaymumbai.org/fundrais…
#TataMumbaiMarathon #TataMemorialHospital
Ehh! How pampered are some?
Changing gas cylinder is considered a man's job? All females in my home do this without any fuss. 🤷🏻
🙏🏻to you, ma'am.
So, I visited a childhood friend recently. While I was there, her gas cylinder ran out, and when I offered to change it, she and her daughter freaked out! They preferred calling a male neighbour instead.
I smiled. For me, it was the simplest thing in the world.
And then it struck me. Years of living in separated family quarters, raising children and handling every little crisis while our husbands served miles away on field postings had taught us so much.
We Army wives don’t even realise how beautifully this life shapes us into strong, capable and independent women.
The Indian Army doesn’t just groom its soldiers. It quietly grooms their wives too.
And what immense pride I feel in having been part of this wonderful institution! ♥️🇮🇳♥️
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
#BREAKING: US President Donald Trump has granted India a waiver from new US tariffs linked to Russian energy purchases under the Lindsey Graham sanctioning Russia and Iran Act targeting Moscow. India has been exempted from tariffs linked to its purchases of Russian energy.
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
In 2011, Jaish e Mohammed terrorist Muneer-ul Hassan Quadri came from Pakistan to India via Nepal with his family and 'surrendered'
Then J&K CM gave the terrorist a financial 'rehabilitation package' to start a new life. Instead, he with other local terrorists like Ashiq Baba helped more Pakistani JeM terrorists to infiltrate across our border...
Three of them carried out the Nagrota Terror Attack on November 29th 2016, killed 4 unarmed sleeping soldiers before dawn and entered residential buildings with families trapped inside...
My brave son Akshay led the Quick Response Team. Brave soldiers fought to stop the evil terrorists take innocents as hostages and 3 more Bravehearts sacrificed their lives.
All 3 terrorists were killed and innocents including women and infants were safely rescued. Govt giving terrorists 'rehabilitation packages' has thankfully been stopped.
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
On this day—October 12, 2000
The Ramallah lynching.
Two Israeli reservists took a wrong turn. Yossi Avrahami, a 38-year-old toy salesman, and Vadim Nurzhitz, a 33-year-old truck driver, were heading to their unit near Beit El in a civilian Ford Escort. They took a wrong turn and ended up in Palestinian Authority-controlled Ramallah.
PA police stopped them, but instead of turning them around, the officers took them to the police station in el-Bireh. Rumors spread that Israelis were being held there, and more than 1,000 Palestinians descended on the station and began calling for their execution.
They stormed the station, found the two Israelis and began beating, stabbing, and mutilating them. Aziz Salha later described entering the room: “We were in a craze to see blood … I saw an Israeli soldier sprawled on the floor … a knife lodged in his back … I removed the knife and stabbed him … I put my hand over his mouth … to strangle him.”
He then walked to the window, hands and shirt soaked in blood, and waved at the baying crowd below. An Italian television crew captured it, and broadcast the images to the world. One of the bodies was thrown from that same window, and the mob immediately started stomping on and beating him. The other man was shot and set on fire. Once they were unrecognizable as humans, the crowd dragged their bodies through the streets to Al-Manara Square for an impromptu celebration.
British photographer Mark Seager arrived in time to see a body being hauled by the feet, lower half on fire, head “a pulp, like a red jelly.” He reached for his camera, but the mob stormed him with punches. They smashed his equipment and shouted, “no picture.” He later wrote: “It was the most horrible thing that I have ever seen and I have reported from Congo, Kosovo, many bad places … There was such hatred … It was murder of the most barbaric kind. When I think about it, I see that man’s head, all smashed. I know that I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
A Palestinian police officer, Raed Sheikh, later admitted he took an iron pipe into the room and struck one of the still-living Israelis across the body and head. “The soldier began making a grunting noise.”
This was not “resistance.” It was a deliberate, ecstatic, public slaughter of two Israeli men who had taken a wrong turn, carried out in broad daylight by a Palestinian mob.
The image of Salha’s bloody hands became a defining photograph. Salha was later arrested, convicted of murder, sentenced to life, released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal, and finally killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza in 2024.
Decades later, Hollywood celebrities and other professional virtue-signalers put on red hand pins. They call it a “ceasefire” symbol. To anyone who lived through October 2000 or who otherwise knows anything about the history of the conflict, those pins are not ambiguous. They are a stylized recreation of the exact gesture a murderer used to show a cheering crowd the blood of the Jews he had just helped butcher. The useful idiots who wear them either do not know, or they do know and have decided the image is aesthetic. Either way, it is a disgrace.
One needs it while travelling to remote areas where you get power only for few hours, for Himalayan treks where you'll be camping in tents, etc
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
'എസ്ഐആർ നടപ്പാക്കിയതിന് ശേഷം ഭരണത്തിൽ വന്ന എല്ലാ മുഖ്യമന്ത്രിമാരും നിയമസാധുതയില്ലാത്തവർ ആണെങ്കിൽ വി ഡി സതീശനും വിജയും രാജിവയ്ക്കേണ്ടതല്ലേ?'
#NewsHour #CJPProtest #DelhiProtest #GyaneshKumar #ElectionCommissioner
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
Early demand for satphones will come from the state, the rich, and smugglers and insurgents, not Ladakhi goatherds.
Across the Myanmar border and in troubled regions, satphones that bypass internet shutdowns could make policing impossible.
Add Musk’s dubious record of switching Starlink off near the front in Ukraine and wading into politics in the UK, Germany and the US, and India’s caution makes sense. @TheJaggi via @bsindia
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
Elon Musk's recent thread calling Ambani as PM looks written by a "South Asian", and definitely not like his usual posting style.
Excessive politeness, explanatory style with "so", starting a para with "Also". They are all a give away. Just read them for yourself.
So it seems like a coordinated operation run by the same DS which attacks India's companies and capitalists, but now it's using Elon to make it political.
I am at a loss to understand why Elon is getting influenced this way and letting himself be used to generate animosity with 1.4 billion people.
Especially at a time when his companies are gaining acceptance and good traction in India. If he thinks half the Indians may support him due to politics, he's mistaken.
For the small number of Indians getting carried away politically, and taking side with these foreigners interfering in India's sovereignty:
Do understand Starlink is not being unjustifiably stopped. They are in the same regulatory approval status as India's Jio and Airtel.
They have already got required licenses, setup required infra on the ground, and the distributorship to start operations once the final approval is given. Which is also expected soon along with Jio and Airtel.
But Elon seems to be very frustrated that Starlink wasn't approved two years ago when he clearly could have monopolized Satellite internet in India. Now, with Jio and Airtel competing in parallel for satellite net, it is super tough for Starlink.
So, as an Indian, it is important to understand while getting access to newer tech shouldn't be banned by GoI like pre-1990s India, it is also important to have a choice, competition, and clarity on security implications.
The politicians who have suddenly done a 180 degree in taking sides with Elon are the same who were, two years ago, questioning India even considering allowing Starlink claiming "Modi sold out to Elon."
We need to understand these sudden attacks on PM and India's companies are being done in tandem with other, on the ground, operations in India to destabilize and delegitimize the govt - which too has been completely organized via American social media.
The same Elon talking about how India will benefit with Starlink, when it is actually being considered for approval, doesn't say a word about how China - which bans most American companies in strategic sectors and never even considered Starlink - will benefit from it.
From this alone you can understand the agenda. India has enough services, network, the NDRF, and the Army, who can setup communication anywhere, to save our men women and children during a disaster.
Beware of such white savior syndrome. Need to remind ourselves, East India Company came in saying "Indians will benefit from western trade."
Poornima Prabhu retweeted
Guys, guys… I just looked at the actual geography and weather facts of those "11,256 unconnected villages" people keep shouting about. A ₹35,000 dish won’t fix basic physics.
Those remaining pockets aren’t normal flat farming plains. They are located in high-altitude cold deserts like Ladakh and Lahaul-Spiti, or the deep mountain valleys and thick rainforests of Arunachal, Nagaland, and Manipur.
Look at what actually happens there:
In the Northeast, relentless monsoon downpours cause massive rain fade, dense moisture and torrential clouds literally scatter and choke high-frequency Ku/Ka satellite signals, spiking latency and causing blackouts. In steep valleys, the thick jungle canopy blocks the clear 100-degree line-of-sight tracking Starlink dishes need.
And in the high Himalayas, temperatures drop to -20°C to -35°C with brutal blizzards. Starlink’s snow-melt mode pulls 120W to 180W of continuous power just to keep ice off the face. Most off-grid hamlets in high passes run on tiny solar batteries or micro-hydel channels that freeze over in winter. Where are they getting continuous 24/7 power to run a power-hungry dish?
And look at the economics: the average monthly household income in those remote tribal belts is barely ₹3,000 to ₹5,000. Who has ₹35,000 upfront for an imported terminal and ₹4,000 every single month for rent?
That is why the Government’s ₹26,316 Crore 4G Saturation Project is installing rugged, solar-powered BSNL mobile towers instead. One single tower covers the entire valley directly on people’s phones for ₹199 a month, with zero fragile hardware sitting on tin roofs.
Ground reality and atmospheric physics beat Silicon Valley PR every single time 🙃
India needs @Starlink 🇮🇳
• 11,256 of India’s listed villages still lacked 4G coverage as of May 2026.
• India had 1.093 billion internet subscriptions in March 2026, but only 440.87 million were rural. Rural subscription density was 48.31 per 100 people, compared with 126.80 in urban India.
• BharatNet had laid over 850,000 route-km of fibre and made about 221,000 Gram Panchayats service-ready. However, its Points of Presence were reported operational at only 80,472 Gram Panchayats in June 2026.
• Only 4.26% of India’s internet subscriptions were wired connections in March 2026. Starlink could give underserved communities another route to high-speed broadband.
• Starlink has already built 20 gateway sites in India, according to SpaceX Vice President of Starlink Business Operations Lauren Dreyer, speaking at India Mobile Congress today.
• Starlink says it has developed India-specific security controls designed to keep Indian user data within India.
• Its satellite network could bring high-speed internet to remote villages, mountains and islands where extending fibre or mobile networks is difficult.
• Better connectivity could help rural schools access online learning, clinics offer remote consultations and small businesses reach more customers. Starlink already supports education and healthcare in remote communities internationally.
• Portable Starlink terminals have supported disaster response around the world. They could give Indian emergency teams backup connectivity when floods, earthquakes or storms damage ground networks.
• Direct to Cell could also help ordinary 4G phones connect beyond tower coverage, subject to Indian approvals and mobile operator partnerships.
• The government itself identifies difficult terrain, low commercial viability and infrastructure constraints as reasons for remaining coverage gaps. This is exactly where Starlink could help India reach more people.
• India should complete the remaining clearances and spectrum allocation so Starlink can begin commercial service.
• SpaceX’s Vice President of Starlink Business Operations, Lauren Dreyer, said that Starlink is ready to help achieve Prime Minister Modi’s vision of 100% connectivity across India. She highlighted its potential to connect remote classrooms, support telemedicine and restore connectivity after disasters, adding, “With Starlink, people can get connected within minutes, not years.”
India’s hardest-to-reach communities deserve reliable internet too.
Arre wahh, aap toh chhaa gaye ji😁🙏🏻🇮🇳
Mr. Musk, yes, no billionaire should dictate a nation’s policy - Indian or American.
India must welcome competition in satellite internet, from Indian and global providers, whoever offers the most practical and affordable last-mile solution for those in remote regions. In countries with lower per-capita incomes, satellite internet must be affordable too. High subscription fees and equipment costs risk putting it beyond the reach of ordinary households. Connectivity must bridge the digital divide, not create a new one.
India knows our networks and spectrum are strategic infrastructure, not merely commercial assets. India’s national security safeguards are non-negotiable.
Every country makes choices based on its own interests. Those in the West cannot preach free markets while practicing protectionism at home. USA imposed 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs to protect its domestic industry, just as India takes measures to protect its own domestic manufacturers. Both India and the US have restricted Huawei over security concerns. One cannot demand a level playing field from others only when it suits its own agenda.
Indians will internally debate, question and address our strengths and shortcomings as a democratic country.
Take BharatNet, India’s programme to bring broadband to village-level local bodies. We will question why, as the CAG’s 2026 audit report found, the programme is struggling to meet its original objectives. Why were only 33.2% of service-ready Gram Panchayats operational, despite ₹39,888 crore being spent? At the same time, we know to appreciate our telecom sector and regulations, which has made internet data among the world’s most affordable, bringing millions online.
India is a democracy, not a colony. We welcome the world, but we, the Indian people, will decide our own future - not Western vested interests, their double standards or any billionaire - Indian or American.
Smelly cat, smelly cat
What are they feeding you?
Smelly cat, smelly cat
It's not your fault
Suddenly sounds better 🤷🏻🤣
@Geeky_Foodie
A poem by Anne Carson, who was awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature. Read it in full: newyorker.com/magazine/2001/…
When I see this post and the replies to it from the 'whites', I can only be too glad for my appa's ideals and that he passed it on to us.
Being a Dr in the 60's he was offered a job in Kuwait which he refused, saying he didn't want to be a 2nd class citizen in another country.
When Amazon hired me on an H-1B visa, Amazon was making losses for 10 straight years. It was operating out of a rented building where we worked on door desks in small cabins. I was in the initial team that built AWS.
Today AWS contributes more than 60% to Amazon's profit. The stock price has gone 300x. Amazon's buildings have changed the skyline of downtown Seattle. Jeff Bezos went on to become the world's richest man.
There were about a hundred H1B visa holders like me in the initial team of Amazon. Good luck building companies and wealth without these 'indentured servants'