u/IREDA1000

People mention mobile data becoming cheaper often but it’s the human life that has become cheaper than mobile data.

Every few weeks, dozens/who knows even hundreds of people die somewhere in India. Sometimes it’s a stampede, sometimes a flood or cyclone which we come to know from Russia media condolences, sometimes a fire, sometimes a quarry collapse, sometimes a train station, sometimes a hospital or oxygen or water sometimes a rich kid driving a luxury car. The headlines disappear before most people even hear about them.

12 die in a quarry accident yesterday or day before.

Over 100 die in floods.

Morbi bridge collapse

The Hathras stampede kills over a hundred people, yet the man at the center of the event continues his online presence.

People die in crowd crushes during celebrations.

People die at railway stations.

People die at the Kumbh.

Over 290 in Odisha train collision

Over 100 unidentified bodies found floating in the Ganga in Unnao. Most people barely remember it today.

Children die in hospital fires or because basic public systems fail.

People died during demonetisation.

COVID came and went, and many still don’t believe we know the real human cost.

The list keeps listing some with citation, some getting called, threatened, some fabricated. Most of us can’t even remember half of these incidents because another tragedy replaces the previous one within days.

What feels different today isn’t that tragedies happen, they always have. It’s how quickly they disappear from public consciousness. Earlier, even relatively smaller incidents could trigger protests, road blockades, political outrage and sustained media attention. Today, mass casualty events often become just another news cycle before everyone moves on. Most of these are just a Google search away, but somehow too far from our collective memory.

The saddest part isn’t only the deaths. It’s the normalization of them.
It increasingly feels as though human life has become so cheap that unless you’re directly affected, another hundred deaths barely register.
Maybe that’s the most disturbing change of all.

A different perspective on ethanol blending. Public trust is built on the expectation that essential systems work reliably. People assume the roads they drive on, the vehicles they own, and the fuel they buy will perform as intended. When official messaging is inconsistent and reports/videos/social media raise unanswered questions, that confidence begins to erode.

It took years to build public trust around fuel quality. People gradually learned to identify reliable fuel stations, understood differences in petrol quality, and adapted to changes in engine and fuel standards.

The rollout of ethanol blending has, in many ways, undone part of that effort. Whether or not the policy is technically sound, the way it has been communicated has created confusion rather than confidence.

In a high-trust society, inconsistent messaging may be a minor issue. In a low-trust society, however, credibility is a critical asset. People pay close attention to whether officials communicate consistently and transparently.
First, ethanol blending was described in ways that suggested it was an experiment. Later, the messaging shifted to saying it was never experimental and that no such claim had been made. That kind of inconsistency weakens public confidence, regardless of the merits of the policy itself.

Good public policy requires not only sound technical decisions but also careful communication and due diligence. Without those, even well-intentioned reforms can face unnecessary skepticism.

Whatever the motivation behind it, this policy should be paused until it has been subjected to transparent scrutiny and proper due diligence. If significant concerns remain unresolved, the rollout should be halted rather than expanded. Continuing amid inconsistent communication and lingering public uncertainty risks creating a much larger problem than the one the policy was intended to address.

It took years to build public trust around fuel quality. People gradually learned to identify reliable fuel stations, understood differences in petrol quality, and adapted to changes in engine and fuel standards.

The rollout of ethanol blending has, in many ways, undone part of that effort. Whether or not the policy is technically sound, the way it has been communicated has created confusion rather than confidence.

In a high-trust society, inconsistent messaging may be a minor issue. In a low-trust society, however, credibility is a critical asset. People pay close attention to whether officials communicate consistently and transparently.
First, ethanol blending was described in ways that suggested it was an experiment. Later, the messaging shifted to saying it was never experimental and that no such claim had been made. That kind of inconsistency weakens public confidence, regardless of the merits of the policy itself.

Good public policy requires not only sound technical decisions but also careful communication and due diligence. Without those, even well-intentioned reforms can face unnecessary skepticism.

Whatever the motivation behind it, this policy should be paused until it has been subjected to transparent scrutiny and proper due diligence. If significant concerns remain unresolved, the rollout should be halted rather than expanded. Continuing amid inconsistent communication and lingering public uncertainty risks creating a much larger problem than the one the policy was intended to address.

The cucumber situation in Bengaluru has become pretty alarming for me.

I ordered 1/2kg from Blinkit and bought another 1kg from my local market.

In both cases, they started turning watery and developing that white, mushy layer just beneath the green skin within a day.

At this point, it feels like the cucumbers being sold are meant to be used immediately and won’t last even 24-48 hours in the fridge/outside, tried all combinations with all variants.

I’ve tried organic, local, seedless, only the expensive Japanese ones(which of course was great) lasted more than 2 days. Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto, local vendors…… same story.

Is anyone else noticing this, or have I just had incredibly bad luck?