Of course my luck issued an orange alert for the heavy winds or 大风. Being a coastal Indian girl, I thought the hype was overblown (pardon the pun lol). But a pandemic takeaway has been to not worry much about out of control things. So I spent restful days shopping and even going to the theatre.

...ate food I dreamt about, strolled around old haunts, and rejoiced with old friends and new.

Being back at Beida was warm, and nostalgic and intellectually stimulating as always!

This spring, five years after I left Beijing abruptly, I came back to make peace with this part of my life. I climbed the Great Wall (though not in a graduation gown), went to temples Tagore had written about...

Cancel my goals for the rest of December because I'm only now wtarting on the book that I've been waiting for over 2 years! The local indie bookstore is shipping me a physical copy on 14th Dec when it hits the shelves in India but I'm getting a head start now.

It's interesting that a CRI journalist is taking 2 Indian influencers (with a following of ~434k ppl) around China just after tensions between India & China eased. Ofc correlation does not equal causation, but I will bet good money that we're going to see 'positive' stories from state media soon.

Alright Bluesky, I need your help.

I am a little away from my book goal for the year - ambitious I know. But a sabbatical means that I can read three books a week!
I will commit to ANY suggestions that aren't horror/gore/ have sexual assault. Hit me with your favourite books for the year!

Macropolo's AI Talent tracker is fantastic. TIL that India is doing better at retaining tech talent.
"In 2019, nearly all Indian AI researchers (based on undergraduate degrees) opted to pursue opportunities abroad. But in 2022, one-fifth of Indian AI researchers ended up staying to work in India."

You know what I miss about the birdsite? The Gender Wage Gap bot. So here's your reminder that Indian men made 48% more than women in 2023. So go back to your orgs and ask them the hard questions. Give women more money.

Guys, it's official. #melodi will be the topic of future studies in diplomacy. I foresee a study on how digital diplomacy is adopted by viral narratives.

A year ago on Shah Rukh Khan's birthday, a bunch of wonderful friends and I went to a special midnight screening of Dilwale Dulhaniye Le Jayenge. We screamed, we danced, we cried. It's going to be one of my favourite memories of Delhi.

Thought I'd be spontaneous and head to Bangalore on Dussehra morning. So, I spent 3 hours between 6 -9 am stuck in a Vande Bharat train in Avadi. Turns out that the goods train before us had derailed... reminds me that India needs to upgrade essential infrastructure at all levels not just the top.

In Bir (Himachal Pradesh) which houses both a Tibetan community and a paragliding destination.

I missed this in the news cycle but saw these posters protesting Xi Jinping's visit to India for G20.

Chinasky polisky

If you look at how the Huawei Mate 60 is trending on the birdsite, you'd think that it was an actual information campaign about how Chinese companies can withstand sanctions. Oh wait...

And that got usurped by possibly the best Monday ever, because Bloomberg ran a piece on China, the waste water release and ASEAN, and also quoted some of my work.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

My weekend started off with a colleague congratulating on my BBC piece and I was still cranky from lack of caffeine. But turned out that the BBC had done a piece on Chinese disinformation and Fukushima, and had quoted me. 🪭

www.bbc.com/news/world-a...

The highlight of my week is that some of @kylewalter.bsky.social and my work on Chinese disinformation targeting the discharge of treated waste water from the Fukushima power plant was quoted in this great NYT piece.

www.nytimes.com/2023/08/31/w...

Of course. That makes sense. This para is top of the line though. Don't know if i should laugh or be appalled...

I don't know if other #indiasky friends have faced this but somehow Azerbaijani businesses want to pay me 3k INR a day to take screenshots for them lol.

Zoom in and you'll catch a glimpse of a tawny owl who decided to trash my balcony and even break the lamp there. She didn't even bring me my letter to Hogwarts. Disappointed with this day.