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Category: Better Citizen

WazirX Heist and Lazarus Group

WazirX Heist and Lazarus Group

Cryptocurrency and Exchange like WazirX If you are looking for a primer on Bitcoin, I wrote this years back. Feel free to check it out. Recently on July 18 2024 WazirX, an Indian Crypto Exchange, was hacked and there was $230 million dollars heist (2000 crores in Indian rupees) which was about 40% of its over crypto assets. Indian Crypto scene is still in infancy and many earlier exchanges like Zebpay, Coinex shut their operations owing to regulatory challenges or…

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Bangaluru Hero Stones or the Veeragallu

Bangaluru Hero Stones or the Veeragallu

What really is Old Bengaluru? History of Bengaluru for many starts with Kempegowda and there is no doubt Kempegowda clan (Yelahanka Nadaprabhus) played a major role in 16th century building of city of Bengaluru. But the history of Bengaluru goes way back in the time. It is also true that today’s central business district MG Road or the so called old Bangalore is more like a misnomer because to be precise the ones that we call new Bangalore like Sarjapur…

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Read Indian!

Read Indian!

I write in English probably because of ease of the qwerty keyboard and also I read in English most of the times. But for long I wanted to change that. So my friends this is a request for all people who read “even today” to read Indian in Indian languages as well. This is not really just for Indian people to read in their local languages but for all across the world, but many places like China, Japan and many…

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Are you exercised about exercise?

Are you exercised about exercise?

Not Exercising is normal Personally I hate going to a gym and have wondered is this really something humans like doing. Exercise as we know is relatively new phenomena and probably started less than 50 years ago when humans started  to lead industrialized life which made day to day life sedentary. Running tens of kilometers of treadmill going nowhere seemed to me last thing to do. All the huffing and puffing in order to get your body exercised. ]If you…

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Jagadish Chandra Bose – A pioneer in Wireless Tech

Jagadish Chandra Bose – A pioneer in Wireless Tech

A brief Intro Jagadish Chandra Bose was an Indian scientist whom I knew more about his research on plant physiology but it never came to my notice that he was a pioneer in wireless technology. Before he changed his attention to botany he was into physics and electromagnetics. What we know today as the latest 5G technology (millimeter waves) in mobile communication, he was working on such stuff in in the last decade of 19th Century. It was common for…

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The Panchatantra Project

The Panchatantra Project

Panchatantra – A project  It was sometime during the Covid a thought came to my mind about starting a Podcast. I have been a listener to Podcast for a while. It was probably a lost love that I rediscovered again. As a kid, I remember listening to BBC Hindi News under the night sky. Also I remember listening to Hello Farmaish ( हेलो फर्माइश) with my mother in the afternoons after the school. I still remember a road trip where…

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Is QWERTY Keyboard best?

Is QWERTY Keyboard best?

QWERTY For the story of Qwerty keyboards, we will have to go back 150 years to late 1880 when one Mr. Christopher Latham Sholes was tinkering in his lab in Milwaukee to develop the prototype for typewriters.  Now the legend has that the Sholes was trying to develop a layout such the expensive typewriting machines won’t get jammed. There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that this was the case and some research has debunked this theory.  But whatever may…

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100th Post on Shabdh

100th Post on Shabdh

100th Post I started to write on a blog 10 years back and registered shabdh.com about 8 years back. Its my humble attempt to share something useful or interesting. Since this is somewhat like a milestone for me I thought I will just do some giveaway to mark the occasion. Here is a book that I am planning to giveaway to a randomly chosen person who has liked the post. Since I can ship only in India, this is limited…

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The Calculus Affair

The Calculus Affair

Calculus – A little Personal Background Calculus was introduced to us in India in Plus 1 is the CBSE curriculum (we have a 10 +2 system, where one spends 12 years in School + 3 years in Nursery, KG1/2 before getting to school). I am an engineer and have taken many courses in mathematics but unfortunately my interest started waning down quite a bit and I missed the fun in doing mathematics and it became a very dry subject for…

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The Last Mile is sometimes the most difficult

The Last Mile is sometimes the most difficult

Last Mile Businesses that directly deal with customers probably want them to have best customer experience but that is generally not delivered in a way that most businesses and customers would like to. Businesses normally spend a lot of time hiring and training people who are in the backend and but not their frontline workers. The frontline workers who directly interact the customers are many times contractors, outsourced or temporary. The call centers that service customer calls are one thing…

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Dehypothecation: A step by step Process

Dehypothecation: A step by step Process

Dehypothecation What? So whenever you take a vehicle loan for 4 wheeler or 2 wheeler, basically debtor (one who takes loan) pledges a collateral to secure a debt. Once the debtor closes the loan the Registration Certificate (normally called RC Book, it is mostly a Smart card now like a Chip Credit Card) needs to be updated and the process is called Dehypothecation and recently I closed loan for my two wheeler and had to go through this. Now why…

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Excerpts from History: Then and Now

Excerpts from History: Then and Now

“He diagnosed the disease as Influenza. But he has never seen Influenza like this. This was violent, rapid in its progress through the body, sometimes lethal. This Influenza killed. Soon dozens of his patients – the strongest, the healthiest, the most robust people in the county – were struck down as suddenly as if they had been shot”   “All Influenza viruses mutate constantly”   “On September 27, the day before the parade, hospitals admitted 200 people sufferings from Influenza….

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How I lost my capital on DHFL Investment?

How I lost my capital on DHFL Investment?

My Initial Investment It was September 2018 that I made my first investment of 80 shares in Dewan Housing Finance Corporation Limited (DHFL) at a rate of 409.55 per share. I bought another 100 shares over the period from September 2018 and January 2019 at an overall average of 309.16 for all the 180 shares which makes the investment 55648 worth of my hard earned money. The shares had fallen by about 42% on bond default concerns. I assumed that…

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Boeing and it’s 737 Max Conundrum

Boeing and it’s 737 Max Conundrum

Airline Industry Overview Commercial Airplane manufacturing industry is mostly a duopoly between Boeing and Airbus for many years now after lot of consolidation that happened. Erstwhile USSR had Antonov and recently Chinese company Comac has been trying to develop C-919. But largely the duopoly has existed and both the firms wants the status quo. There are other aircraft companies in the smaller aircrafts Bombardier, Pilatus, Cessna, Dassault,Fokker, Gulfstream, Embraer and other. The markets they play in are different. Airbus had…

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What’s up? UPSC?

What’s up? UPSC?

UPSC – A history Official UPSC website has a brief history and it is clearly seen that genesis of civil servants in India has colonial hangover like many other government systems. Initially, the board of directors of East India Company nominated the candidates and they were trained in Haileybury College in London. Later after Lord Macaulay’s report merit based modern Civil Service in India was introduced in 1854. For a long time exams were conducted only in London and eligible…

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