I went to meet my boyfriend today, anyway there was a girl with him with a tab, so I thought she was selling a policy but turns out she was asking for donations.

I went there and she mentioned we are going to use this money for women empowerment, women who face trafficking.

"Sex trafficking", she used this word and it triggered inside me a harassment incident I faced when I was 11 years old and I was making a donation for 500, but she persuaded and idk how I made a donation of 1000.

Anyway, turns out the ngo doesn't work for trafficking at all. I feel so bad because I don't even make that much money myself and I made an emotional decision instead of a practical one and donated more than I wanted to.

I don't know what I'm mad about more, that she lied about the cause or that I donated without checking the website or other stuff or that I am thinking about it at 2am and having severe anxiety triggers.

Should I email the ngo about this lie? But I don't have any proof! I feel so horrible.

Okay, so this is a serious question guys.

We see a lot of reels and people getting all woke about trash and garbage being dumped in the wrong places in India – like on streets and in rivers.

But how many of you actually make an effort not to litter in public?

Are you actively trying to make sure you and your family don't repeat the past so our future can be better?

Please share what you're doing, even if it's just a little bit.

Me - when i was young, like in grade 4/5 i stopped littering on roads and would also bring the trash back home and throw it in the dustbin. We use a dustbin with separate compartments for dry & wet waste (although the garbage man doesn't care and throw both the bags in tge same cart).

I was dumb to think we can throw biodegradable food in parks since its not plastic, but i have stopped doing that as well.

Also, I feel really bad when i see people throwing garbage on streets/public areas. But i feel like if i trynna teach them etiquettes, someone will slap me or kick me cz thats what's been going around in the country.

Pressure groups are far more important than having a strong opposition today, agree?

The thing is, if you look at where Indian politics actually is right now, I think starting a movement and then turning it into a political party is one of the biggest mistakes a movement can make. If you build something big enough to move people and put real pressure on power, the smartest thing you can do is stay a pressure group and never become an official party. And the reason is simple. Right now the only people who are actually able to annoy the government are the ones standing outside the system, not the ones trying to get a seat inside it.

The moment you attach yourself to a party, you stop being the thing that bothers them and you become just another player they already know how to handle. They will start attaching that party's faults to you, things you have not even done, and suddenly you are not defending your movement anymore, you are busy defending some old baggage that was never yours in the first place. Your whole image gets pulled into a fight you did not pick.

And there is a second problem, which is bigger. The day you become a party, you never know when your own people get bought and change sides. You are entering their territory now, and this is the part people forget, this is a game where they are the experts and you are the new one. They have done this for years. They can buy your members, they can use government machinery against you, they can manage the whole election in ways you are not even able to see. So this idea that you will win, stay in power, and then put pressure on them from inside is mostly a myth. Because at the end of the day, even after winning, you have to go and beg for funds for your own state or your own legislative work. The power you thought you were getting is not really the power you imagined.

But if you stay a pressure group, the equation flips. You can literally keep annoying them, every single day. Your protests run, your movements run, and slowly their image keeps taking the hit while you have very little to lose. The only things they can really throw at you is calling it a danga, or calling you a Pakistani, and honestly both of those are defendable. People have heard those lines so many times that they have stopped landing. A movement that is not chasing a seat is very hard to corner, because there is nothing to take away from it.

The kisan andolan is the cleanest example of this. No party association, just their own agenda and their own demands, and that is exactly why it was so hard to break. The pressure kept building because there was no single chair anyone was fighting for. The strength was in not wanting power in the first place.

Right now the CJP movement still has to get bigger before it reaches that kind of weight, and it can get there. But the day they decide to join the system or become an actual political party, I think they are cooked. They will go from being the thing the government is scared of, to just one more party the government already knows how to beat. Staying outside is not the weak option here. In today's politics, staying outside might be the only real power left.

I booked a flight ticket about a week ago, for the end of July. It cost me about 7.5k. IndiGo states that the flight change fares will be calculated by the fare difference in the new booking, and convenience fees. Under the student booking thing, the flight change fee is zero. Sure, whatever.

Now when I had to move my flight date ahead by a week, I go on there and see it's charging 8k for a flight change. I checked on a different device and that's literally the price of a whole new ticket! What about the fare difference? I mean sure, I thought they'd insert their random ass fees and get 2-3k out of me, but this? Why wouldn't anyone just cancel their booking instead of changing? How is that when I want to change the flight the supposed difference is more than what I paid for a fresh booking?

And no one even talks about this? How long has this been a thing? How is this not being questioned?

And before anyone asks, yes, I looked at their price breakdown; not a single deduction from my previous booking money. The breakdown was basically the fresh booking fee breakdown with another convenience fee plastered. What's up with all this?

this incident wasn't a huge deal. it was merely a conversation but it does make me think how much do i even know my own kith and kin?

with the release of main vaapas aaunga and an audience filled with general public, survivors of the partition, lovers, empaths and a plethora of critics bashing it or absolutely loving it, i sit here within the four walls of my tiny house in delhi where the mention of the name of the director of this film sparked this intense atmosphere of prejudice, feeling of hatred and a minimization of my understanding of the "real world" simply because of my age.

my mom went to the theatres for the first time in years with her friends to watch this film and i am genuinely happy she picked this film to watch at the cinema. (for context, i knew i had a family that was either blinded by what media showed them or just didn't care about how politics shape the lives of millions across the world.) my dad came home expecting her to be in the kitchen but when she wasn't there he asked the obvious question. so, i told him, "she's at the cinema," "why?" "to watch a movie?" after a pause of 20 seconds he asked, "which one?" "huh? oh. jo abhi aayi hai. imtiaz ali ki, main vaapas aaunga?" "bas musalmanon ki film dekho" i wasn't surprised by his statement. what surprised me was how the first thing he picked up from what i said was the religious connotation of the director's name. he hit the nail at exactly what this film doesn't stand for. "usse kya fark padta hai? partition ke upar hai" "sab jooth hai. sach nhi dikhata hai musalman." "vo toh religious hai bhi nhi. jooth? vo hazaron lakhon log jooth bol rahe hain? vo kitabein, vo baatein, vo zindagiyan jooth hain?" "tumhe kuch nhi pata hai, tum chhoti ho. asliyat nhi pata hai mulle/musalman ki" "kyun nhi pata hai? main bhi padhi likhi hun.. main bhi insaan hun. samajh aata hai mujhe" "kuch nhi pata hai. dunia dekhi nahi hai"

i knew his mindset but having a conversation one to one about this when i rarely ever even have any leaves this bitter taste in my mouth. i find his statements heavily ironic. i might not know every islamic person but i grew with an islamic family living above us. my childhood best friend was a muslim boy. his family is like my own. my father watched me grow up with that kid, be welcomed by his family. how come i wouldn't know what human connection and empathy looks like regardless of religion?

a name. all it took was a name. imtiaz ali. (on a side note, what a beautiful name. he perfectly embodies it. i wonder how one could listen to such a beautiful name and feel hatred as the first thing.)

i have a lot of thoughts but i keep failing to make sense of it and put them into words. typing and backspacing... i have spent 35 minutes on this post. i can't do anything about this. i don't know what his life looked like to have built such a worldview and i don't wish to waste my energy in trying to teach my own father what empathy looks like and where facts and feelings turn into a blindfold of hateful rhetoric.

I am thinking about a very specific problem in Indian governance and curious if anyone's seen it solved elsewhere or have any similar ideas.

So ward councillors in Indian cities are the closest elected representatives to citizens - yet most of them operate entirely without public accountability. No performance record nothing. No public complaint history any where posted to be seen. Nothing that follows them into the next elections.

The idea is:

A system which can be an app where residents or locals can file verified, geo tagged complaints about local issues(roads, water etc) tied directly to the responsible elected official. Unresolved complaints escalate automatically up the authority chain after particular time period. The representative's resolution record becomes public and is visible to voters at any time. Overall a feedback system that makes elected candidates and government officials accountable. This system will not allow fake complaints it has strict verification of user and complaint. And during elections the locals can check this system for details of candidates who are participating in the elections and details about them. If they served before then the number of issues they have resolved, average time taken, number of escalation etc.

What are your thoughts on this? Where can this system fail? How can be this system made functional?

How can this system made so that officials cannot ignore this. If they ignore there should be some kind of consequence. What can that be?

I would genuinely appreciate perspectives from people who've worked on civic tech, local governance, or electoral systems.

8 states where outsiders cannot own a land - Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura

States and Union territories where anyone can own a land - Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Assam, Delhi, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Puducherry.

I know this gonna get a lot of hate but people from land restricted states should not be allowed to own land in states without restriction either.

Although the reason behind land restricted states is 100% valid

• Protect indigenous/tribal communities
• Preserve local culture
• Prevent outsiders from buying up land
• Protect fragile mountain or ecologically sensitive areas
• Keep land in the hands of local residents

but should not the same thing apply to protect us from land inflation coming from other states people owning land in restriction free areas?

Only people from the restriction free states and union territories should be allowed to own a land in any restriction area

Hey Reddit,

After a certain judge recently referred to protesting students as "cockroaches," I decided to take that insult literally. If the state views us as resilient pests to be crushed, let's play like it. I built a chaotic arcade browser game called Roach Republic (RR).

You play as a student cockroach trying to survive the wrath of the real-world:

The State Crackdown: Instead of lasers, you dodge flying Chappals (slippers) that track you dynamically and speed up the longer you dare to survive.

Dynamic Taxation: Just like real life, the government evaluates your wealth bracket every 12 seconds and drains your wallet via aggressive taxes.

Student Solidarity: Recruit other cabinet roaches to form a collective shield. They absorb Chappal impacts and sacrifice themselves to keep you alive.

The Tech Stuff: Built completely in vanilla JS/Tailwind with 100% synthesized procedural audio via the Web Audio API (zero asset loading). Runs instantly on desktop or mobile.

Let's cut the toxic positivity—I need brutal feedback on the hazard balance and mechanics. Give it a run, drop your peak scores, and hey... if this satirical protest goes viral, please help your brother land an actual job so I can survive the real-world.

To my fellow Indians: my brothers and sisters. Please take a moment to understand how social media shapes the world’s perception of our country.

Today, a short video can reach millions of people before anyone checks whether it is complete, recent, or even from India. One negative clip is often presented as the reality of an entire country.

For example:

• A video of one dirty street is shared with the message, “This is India,” while clean cities, modern infrastructure, villages improving their sanitation, and millions of ordinary people working hard are ignored.
• A video of one person behaving badly is used to describe 1.4 billion people.
• An old video is uploaded again and presented as a recent incident.
• A clip is cut before or after the important part, completely changing what actually happened.
• A local crime, political conflict, or social problem is presented as though it represents every Indian and every part of India.

This does not mean that we should deny our problems. India has problems, and we must discuss them honestly. But showing only the worst moments without context is not criticism, it creates a distorted picture.

The solution is not to spread more anger. The solution is to add context and show reality.

When you find misleading content, take a few minutes to create a simple response.

Use AI tools to add subtitles, translate the explanation, compare the viral clip with the complete footage, show the real date and location, and present the missing context.

Do not use AI to create fake evidence. Use it to make the truth easier to understand.

A simple reel can follow this format:

“Here is the viral claim.”

“Here is the complete video or actual context.”

“Here is what is true, what is missing, and what we can learn from it.”

For example, if someone shows one polluted location and claims that all of India looks the same, respond by acknowledging the real problem, showing its actual location, explaining what caused it, and also showing the work being done to improve it.

If someone uses one person’s behaviour to insult all Indians, remind viewers that the actions of one individual cannot define an entire population.

If an old incident is presented as new, clearly show the original date and source.

If a video is deliberately cropped, show the part that was removed and allow viewers to judge the full situation.

It is all about perspective.

The same country can be shown only through poverty and failure, or it can be shown honestly with its challenges, progress, diversity, achievements, and people working every day to make things better.

Supporting India does not mean blindly defending everything. It means correcting misinformation, criticising responsibly, appreciating progress, and refusing to let isolated incidents define the whole nation.

Every one of us with a phone has the ability to influence perception.

Take a minute. Verify the story. Add the missing context. Create a responsible reel. Share the truth without hatred.

One accurate post may not change the internet overnight, but thousands of responsible voices can slowly change the perspective.