Ordered an AC on Flipkart. 10th day since delivery, with constant followup but no installation. Today poor support fellow from Flipkart calls and apologises and says if nobody shows up by EOD today we'll take the AC back. Like why sell the thing if you don't have ops capacity?

Does sihub (specifically for @HDFC_Bank) work for anybody here? Not able to log in. Nor is a friend. CC @billdesk

I am launching GigInvoicer today 🚀. This is my first ever solo product launch. GigInvoicer is a tool for freelancers in the Netherlands. I used this app for 5 months as a freelancer myself before launching. It’s built for the freelancers based in the Netherlands to help them with exactly 4 things: - Tracking work hours - Client management - Invoice creation - VAT reminders That’s it. The app does nothing else. It works perfectly for those limited usecases. The app has freemium pricing model so those who are not in the Netherlands can still check it out. I did everything in this product, yes, including that logo 😀. I built this on Biscuit and my confidence to launch comes from the fact that there is an amazing team behind this product. Try it out, let me know what you think -> giginvoicer.com/welcome PS: Only people in the Netherlands will understand the 2nd picture 😀.

Anybody else think these “test” cellular broadcast alerts are a bit too frequent these days? I imagine if a real alert came in, I would probably ignore it without reading assuming it is a test alert.

Maharashtra's #Solar Tax Move: A Blow to Consumers 1. The Maharashtra government is preparing to levy an #electricity duty on solar consumers — a segment that chose clean energy to escape rising power costs. 2. Solar consumers are already burdened with Grid Support Charges (GSC), now collected across all categories with systems exceeding 10 KW. 3. GSC is being collected at ₹1.96 per unit from LT customers and ₹1.42 per unit from HT customers, adding directly to electricity bills. 4. A new percentage-based electricity duty structure is being formulated, which could further multiply the financial burden on rooftop solar users. 5. Electricity duty will be levied on both self-consumed (self-generation) and exported power under net-metering — leaving no relief for any solar usage. 6. Even 'Behind-the-Meter' consumers — those using solar power entirely for themselves without exporting anything — will not be spared. 7. Solar consumers' electricity bills have already risen substantially due to previous policy changes, and this new duty would be the final blow. Govt of Maharashtra have costliest rates for electricity in the country. 8. Amendments to Time-of-Day (ToD) regulations have changed peak hours, causing a significant increase in industrial electricity bills. 9. The state government previously hiked the tax on electricity sales by 9.90 paise per unit, further squeezing consumers financially. 10. This move discourages investment in rooftop solar, undermining India's broader renewable energy adoption goals. 11. Large-scale consumers and industries already face a significant financial burden due to the order to collect GSC charges. 12. The proposed duty could force ordinary citizens to abandon solar energy entirely — reversing years of green energy progress. 13. The cumulative effect of GSC electricity duty ToD changes creates a triple financial hit on solar consumers simultaneously. 14. By taxing exported #power under net-metering, the government effectively penalises consumers for contributing surplus clean energy to the grid. 15. These policy moves signal a systematic rollback of incentives that originally motivated consumers to invest in solar infrastructure. 16. Consumers who made long-term capital investments in solar panels based on earlier policy assurances now face a betrayal of those promises. 17. Industrial units using solar systems face disproportionate impact, as the combined duty burden may make solar economically unviable for them. 18. Energy expert Sudhir Budhe has raised serious concerns, pointing out that all members of the committee are government officials — raising clear conflict-of-interest issues, as those who stand to benefit from the outcome cannot be expected to make impartial decisions. 19. The government has refused to announce specific names, only vaguely referring to "inclusion of experts," and critics have strongly argued the committee should have comprised truly independent members — making it a body that lacks credibility, transparency, and public accountability from the very outset. Source: Lokmat Times

My WhatsApp account, a pro bono source for information about diverse meaningful opportunities, was banned on 11 March. The AI-driven appeals process was arbitrary and unfair. Read more: linkedin.com/pulse/please-he… Please suggest leads at chandni.parekh@gmail.com, if you have any.

Our CI dropped from 37 minutes to 9 at 35% lower cost - but after the first round, the compute bill actually went up. We kept iterating until both numbers moved the right way. 90 days, 57 major changes across 1,303 files at @DiversioHQ while Optimo delivery continued in parallel. What we learned about the hidden queue, mixing Claude Codex, and where the real multiplier came from. ashwch.com/no-code-by-hand-a…

Just received a Profession Tax notice asking why we didn’t file returns from 2017 onwards. Slight problem: the org in question legally started in 2022. Now I’m drafting a formal clarification to explain that we were not non compliant, we simply did not exist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

No we're not racist. Here's what: I love Zomato and Phonepe apps, which are built by Indian founders, and I have them on my phone, but I don't want #SancharSaathi . I chose those apps. I should have the option of choosing which apps I want and which I don't. I trust Zomato and Phonepe. Zomato and Phonepe have earned my trust. When Zomato got hacked a decade ago, they owned up to it. I trusted Paytm once. I don't anymore. That's the way it is. I do not trust a government that is constantly forcing me to give up my data, get Aadhaar for my baby, link it to an Apaar ID, makes disingenuous arguments, lies about aadhaar data leakage (remember Rachna Khaira's story in the Tribune?). That is why I don't want a government or government backed app permanently on my personal device. It's why I don't want digiyatra, ondc, bhim, aarogya setu, digilocker, sanchar saathi (as much as I respect Amit Ranjan who built digilocker). The government has earned my distrust.

More bad news for mobile phone users in India (after SIM binding): Our government is mandating a government app (sanchar saathi) on every new phone, permanently, Reuters reports. Will be pushed to your phone via OTA. New smartphones need to have it. Users cannot delete it. This is a first. India has never before required an unremovable state app on every device. Russia does btw, with its MAX Messenger (started September 2025). A few comments regarding this: 1. Sanchar Saathi is a lost phone tracker, but if it gets embedded with no possibility of removal, it becomes a government tracker on your device. IF the government is allowed to get away with this, what’s next? A mandatory digital ID app? Digiyatra forcefully installed on each device? An app that disables VPNs or tracks your app and browser history? An app that sends copies of your messages to the government once a month? Once the OS layer is opened to the state, it doesn’t close. 2. Legally, one can argue that your mobile phone is your personal space, and this is an invasion of your personal space. It’s where we have our most private conversations. Exchange sensitive information with people we trust. How do we know this app isn’t used to access files and messaging on our device, which is unencrypted on device? Or a future update won’t do that? This is clearly an invasion of our privacy. 3. Remember how the government exempt itself from much of the Data Protection Law. This explains why. The Data Protection Law will make private companies more accountable and the Indian government less accountable. 4. Bloatware is already an issue with some phones (It’s why I don’t use Samsung). Now there’s more, and this time the government is forcing bloatware. I guess we’ll all have to root our phones now. When you buy a phone with bloatware, you're choosing to buy it with bloatware. This is different. 5. The way things work with India’s Department of Telecom, there was no public consultation, the order wasn’t disclosed. Just forced. This is dictatorial in nature. If they get away with this, more will follow.

Please scrap the TIUE regulation @narendramodi . This SIM binding thing is a mess, and goes against what your government said when telecom act was passed. Two things here: 1. When he was telecom minister and the telecom act was passed, @AshwiniVaishnaw had assured that OTTs were out of the ambit of the law. Despite this, DoT issued the TIUE regulation a few months ago which gave it regulatory power over online services that use mobile numbers. 2. This regressive SIM binding ditective has been issued without a public consultation or feedback. Just blanket directive. This goes against the governments policy of public consultations. Supid policies get made when you don't incorporate feedback. We need better people at DoT.

last time i was doing this depth of technical work was to figure out why my mutual fund SIP was failing even though i set up directly with the AMC without involving any upi autopay or nach mandate back in 2023. after long knee-deep research from error logs in the console of AMC’s website, found the PAN was sent in lowercase and this mismatch which led the bank to reject the SIP request sent from AMC website. nobody from both (bank & AMC) customer support said this issue and told the same template, “try again 3-5 business days later” and when i confronted them with console logs, they said “thanks for bringing to your notice” and it took 3 months to fix, by the time i switched to new fund!

This is very interesting. And only someone like @Sengupta can go to such depths to figure out this issue

Nicely caught @jnd We had a similar issue when this was enabled in the payment portal for NRIs making third party payments. Some genius went ahead and enable name match with data coming from other apis. If the other api failed they made rule to pass dummy values. And then made the rule that X% of the name matches allow payment as surname and name and all are jumbled sometimes. And in dummy values added AtoZ. So any name comes it would match a certain number of alphabet and allow payment. This got caught when we had to issue repat letter for money to go back to NRI account and saw source of payment was third party. Dug all and got this. Had to manually ask for proofs for all third party payments and add in system for audit purpose. It's been long so some details maybe idhar udhar so don't hold me k not possible and blah blah. Just reminded me of such a incident :)