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Devavrata stands on the brink of becoming Bhishma. Amba’s humiliation hardens into vengeance. Dhushasana steels himself for an act that will scar history. Bhima waits for the moment to strike Kichaka. Karna wrestles with the consequences of using the all-powerful Shakti on contemplates before entering into the Chakravyuha on the Kurukshetra battlefield.
These are not stories of gods and heroes.
They are stories of desire and doubt, rage and love, ambition and guilt—of ordinary human emotions colliding with extraordinary destinies.
In this extraordinary retelling of the Mahabharata—Mahakshana—Arun Krishnan steps inside the minds of the men and women who shaped Bharatavarsha, capturing them at the instant when choice becomes destiny.
Mahakshana is my retelling of the Mahabharata through the eyes of the various characters and delving into their innermost thoughts.
PREORDER LINK:
amazon.in/dp/9377300444?…
@LipikaB @PenguinIndia
These are not stories of gods and heroes.
They are stories of desire and doubt, rage and love, ambition and guilt—of ordinary human emotions colliding with extraordinary destinies.
In this extraordinary retelling of the Mahabharata—Mahakshana—Arun Krishnan steps inside the minds of the men and women who shaped Bharatavarsha, capturing them at the instant when choice becomes destiny.
Mahakshana is my retelling of the Mahabharata through the eyes of the various characters and delving into their innermost thoughts.
PREORDER LINK:
amazon.in/dp/9377300444?…
@LipikaB @PenguinIndia
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
Did the oppn walkout from the Mock Impeachment like how they do in the real parliament ?
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And these guys wrote our "history". It is "their-story". Which is why I took up writing historical fiction. To put out "our-story".
“Just because all judges agree that there’s a temple in Ayodhya, it doesn’t become a temple. Masons could’ve brought stones from any temple”
- Irfan Habib
cc @HinduLegalFund
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
There is no instance in medieval global history of a single man uniting over 500 kings into surrendering their kingdoms for a larger cause. Pay tributes to Iron Man of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, on his Jayanti.
Empires break, States fall, dynasties become extinct kings live for ever.
But it is the duty of an honest historian to see things in Nation-First perspective in every case.
It is equally true that had Sardar opposed as early as in late 1930s the Muslim appeasement policies of Gandhiji & Congress - which Sardar did later - he could have played a key role in preventing Bharat’s partition along with Veer Savarkar.
For , by the time Sardar woke up Jinnah had laid the foundation of partition by capitalising on the pro-Muslim policies of the Cong. As it seems now , Sardar might not have been happy with Cong’s Muslim appeasement in 1930s but he held Gandhiji in such respect that he chose to keep quiet.
But Bharat should appreciate that the Govt of PM @narendramodi has carried forward the national security/integration agenda of Sardar Patel with distinction with such achievements as removal of A370 from J&K & smashing of the violence Maoist movement & many other milestones.
Empires break, States fall, dynasties become extinct kings live for ever.
But it is the duty of an honest historian to see things in Nation-First perspective in every case.
It is equally true that had Sardar opposed as early as in late 1930s the Muslim appeasement policies of Gandhiji & Congress - which Sardar did later - he could have played a key role in preventing Bharat’s partition along with Veer Savarkar.
For , by the time Sardar woke up Jinnah had laid the foundation of partition by capitalising on the pro-Muslim policies of the Cong. As it seems now , Sardar might not have been happy with Cong’s Muslim appeasement in 1930s but he held Gandhiji in such respect that he chose to keep quiet.
But Bharat should appreciate that the Govt of PM @narendramodi has carried forward the national security/integration agenda of Sardar Patel with distinction with such achievements as removal of A370 from J&K & smashing of the violence Maoist movement & many other milestones.
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
"We starve 10-15 days a month"
This is India in 1998.
Dear GenZ,
See the golden era of India, built by Congress
By 1998, Nehru, Indira and Rajiv had all got Bharat Ratna.
This is India in 1998.
Dear GenZ,
See the golden era of India, built by Congress
By 1998, Nehru, Indira and Rajiv had all got Bharat Ratna.
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Something I noticed.
Hindi speakers use "and" to switch from Hindi to English and "Ki" to switch from English to Hindi.
They do it very seamlessly :-)
Hindi speakers use "and" to switch from Hindi to English and "Ki" to switch from English to Hindi.
They do it very seamlessly :-)
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
You know why some Congress supporters are nostalgic about that India?
Because it was an India where a handful could enjoy everything while millions struggled for basic survival.
AC trains had fewer waitlists because hardly anyone could afford them. Roads had less traffic because owning a car was a luxury. Tourist places were peaceful because most families couldn't afford holidays. Even basic facilities felt premium because most people were too busy fighting hunger.
(I say this from personal experience. I am the first person in my entire family to travel to another city just for a holiday)
Millions lived without proper houses, toilets, electricity or drinking water. Some barely had enough to eat. Many never even got to see a world beyond their villages.
Today, trains are crowded, roads are congested and tourist places are packed. Why? Because millions who were once excluded can now afford to participate.
Some people mistake the exclusivity of poverty for the elegance of a better India. They miss the India where the poor couldn't afford to enjoy life. We want an India where they finally can.
Because it was an India where a handful could enjoy everything while millions struggled for basic survival.
AC trains had fewer waitlists because hardly anyone could afford them. Roads had less traffic because owning a car was a luxury. Tourist places were peaceful because most families couldn't afford holidays. Even basic facilities felt premium because most people were too busy fighting hunger.
(I say this from personal experience. I am the first person in my entire family to travel to another city just for a holiday)
Millions lived without proper houses, toilets, electricity or drinking water. Some barely had enough to eat. Many never even got to see a world beyond their villages.
Today, trains are crowded, roads are congested and tourist places are packed. Why? Because millions who were once excluded can now afford to participate.
Some people mistake the exclusivity of poverty for the elegance of a better India. They miss the India where the poor couldn't afford to enjoy life. We want an India where they finally can.
I was looking at this NDTV clip from 1998
HOLY FUCK THE LEVEL OF DESTITUTION IS EYE WATERING
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
This was India under Congress in 2010, when the lack of sanitation was being sold to global media outlets and poverty-porn enthusiasts.
Speaks volumes about the state India was left in after 60 years of Congress rule that, in 2014, the country needed a Prime Minister to make onal priority.
Speaks volumes about the state India was left in after 60 years of Congress rule that, in 2014, the country needed a Prime Minister to make onal priority.
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
THREE THINGS INDIA DID IN THE LAST 12 HOURS
11.51 pm last night. GSLV-F18 put NVS-03 into orbit. NavIC had three working satellites, one short of a position fix. Now it has four, with an Indian built atomic clock on board. India’s own GPS is back in business.
9 am this morning. Air Chief Marshal Ashutosh Dixit took over the Indian Air Force. 3,300 hours in fighters, Kargil on his record, two years as Vice Chief. The man who handed over, Air Chief Marshal A P Singh, ran the air war in Operation Sindoor and left after 42 years with a wreath at the War Memorial and no speech.
10 am. The PM laid flowers at the Statue of Unity for Sardar Patel’s 151st. The man who made 565 princely states into one country, mostly with a letter and a handshake.
A satellite, a new Air Chief, and the memory of the man who drew the map. Not a bad Saturday.
@isro @IAF_MCC #RashtriyaEktaDiwas2026
11.51 pm last night. GSLV-F18 put NVS-03 into orbit. NavIC had three working satellites, one short of a position fix. Now it has four, with an Indian built atomic clock on board. India’s own GPS is back in business.
9 am this morning. Air Chief Marshal Ashutosh Dixit took over the Indian Air Force. 3,300 hours in fighters, Kargil on his record, two years as Vice Chief. The man who handed over, Air Chief Marshal A P Singh, ran the air war in Operation Sindoor and left after 42 years with a wreath at the War Memorial and no speech.
10 am. The PM laid flowers at the Statue of Unity for Sardar Patel’s 151st. The man who made 565 princely states into one country, mostly with a letter and a handshake.
A satellite, a new Air Chief, and the memory of the man who drew the map. Not a bad Saturday.
@isro @IAF_MCC #RashtriyaEktaDiwas2026
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
A few days back, Prof. Venugopalan Sankaran Ji (@Gopalee67) from SASTRA University Tamilnadu shared a document with me on how the Vakya Ganita system was reconstructed step by step in a 2025 Indian Knowledge Systems internship project.
IKS division of Ministry of Education Govt researches.
1 example deserves to be seen before anything else:
मन्त्रितं प्राज्ञाय
That Sanskrit phrase encodes an entry in a table of the Moon's longitude: 10 rashis, 26 degrees and 25 arcminutes.
The sentence is not describing the Moon. Its letters carry the numbers used to calculate its position.
Vakya Ganita draws on the Vakya Karana, a Sanskrit astronomy manual dated to the 13th century and associated with Kanchi. "Vakya" means sentence. Numerical tables are encoded in words that can be memorised.
The key is katapayadi, where consonants stand for digits, following specific reading rules.
Take mātula, meaning maternal uncle. Ma gives 5, ta gives 6, la gives 3. Reverse the digits: 365.
Devara gives 248, the number of days in the lunar cycle used by this method.
The phrase above is entry 243 in the Moon table. It supplies a base value. The calculation then interpolates for the time within the day and applies corrections. The words are part of a working mathematical procedure, not decorative verses around it.
Similar sentence tables support calculations for the Sun, Rahu and the five visible planets. Memorising a verse could also mean memorising astronomical data.
The manual begins by invoking Bhagavan Varadaraja of Kanchipuram. Its author presents the work as making Bhaskara's method easier to use.
Now to the project Prof. Venugopalan ji shared.
He and Dr. Shriramana Sharma Ji, working with 6 student interns, set out the procedures step by step. Their report describes correcting printing errors across more than 2,000 source-table entries and preparing an English-Tamil presentation.
They also derived reverse procedures for the Sun, Moon and Rahu: starting with a given longitude and working back to a date. The original gives reverse procedures only partially for the five planets; these extensions are the modern team's contribution.
The report includes worked calculations, so readers can follow how the encoded words become numbers and how those numbers are used. It does not establish a comparison with modern ephemerides; the remarkable thing here is the method itself.
Thank you, Prof. Venugopalan ji again, for sharing it. 🙏🙏
P.S. Shriramana Sharma Ji has now done the part 2 & working on part 3, the final part of the entire work.
Source: Prof. Venugopalan S and Dr. Shriramana Sharma, The Vakya Ganita Method of Finding Celestial Longitudes, IKS Internship Project Report, Ministry of Education, 2025.
Photo 1: The worked lunar example: day 243, मन्त्रितं प्राज्ञाय to 10r 26°25′. This is the base table value; the calculation below shows interpolation, not the final corrected longitude. (p.32)
Photo 2: The decoding itself: मातुल → म त ल → 563 → reversed to 365. (p.16)
Photo 3: देवर encodes 248 days in the lunar calculation's Mandala 3 table. (p.30)
Photo 4: The team's contribution: additional reverse procedures inferred from first principles, and printing-error corrections across over 2,000 table entries. That means entries checked/corrected, not 2,000 separate errors. (p.5)
IKS division of Ministry of Education Govt researches.
1 example deserves to be seen before anything else:
मन्त्रितं प्राज्ञाय
That Sanskrit phrase encodes an entry in a table of the Moon's longitude: 10 rashis, 26 degrees and 25 arcminutes.
The sentence is not describing the Moon. Its letters carry the numbers used to calculate its position.
Vakya Ganita draws on the Vakya Karana, a Sanskrit astronomy manual dated to the 13th century and associated with Kanchi. "Vakya" means sentence. Numerical tables are encoded in words that can be memorised.
The key is katapayadi, where consonants stand for digits, following specific reading rules.
Take mātula, meaning maternal uncle. Ma gives 5, ta gives 6, la gives 3. Reverse the digits: 365.
Devara gives 248, the number of days in the lunar cycle used by this method.
The phrase above is entry 243 in the Moon table. It supplies a base value. The calculation then interpolates for the time within the day and applies corrections. The words are part of a working mathematical procedure, not decorative verses around it.
Similar sentence tables support calculations for the Sun, Rahu and the five visible planets. Memorising a verse could also mean memorising astronomical data.
The manual begins by invoking Bhagavan Varadaraja of Kanchipuram. Its author presents the work as making Bhaskara's method easier to use.
Now to the project Prof. Venugopalan ji shared.
He and Dr. Shriramana Sharma Ji, working with 6 student interns, set out the procedures step by step. Their report describes correcting printing errors across more than 2,000 source-table entries and preparing an English-Tamil presentation.
They also derived reverse procedures for the Sun, Moon and Rahu: starting with a given longitude and working back to a date. The original gives reverse procedures only partially for the five planets; these extensions are the modern team's contribution.
The report includes worked calculations, so readers can follow how the encoded words become numbers and how those numbers are used. It does not establish a comparison with modern ephemerides; the remarkable thing here is the method itself.
Thank you, Prof. Venugopalan ji again, for sharing it. 🙏🙏
P.S. Shriramana Sharma Ji has now done the part 2 & working on part 3, the final part of the entire work.
Source: Prof. Venugopalan S and Dr. Shriramana Sharma, The Vakya Ganita Method of Finding Celestial Longitudes, IKS Internship Project Report, Ministry of Education, 2025.
Photo 1: The worked lunar example: day 243, मन्त्रितं प्राज्ञाय to 10r 26°25′. This is the base table value; the calculation below shows interpolation, not the final corrected longitude. (p.32)
Photo 2: The decoding itself: मातुल → म त ल → 563 → reversed to 365. (p.16)
Photo 3: देवर encodes 248 days in the lunar calculation's Mandala 3 table. (p.30)
Photo 4: The team's contribution: additional reverse procedures inferred from first principles, and printing-error corrections across over 2,000 table entries. That means entries checked/corrected, not 2,000 separate errors. (p.5)
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
At least in their own mock Parliament, Congress could have made Rahul Gandhi Prime Minister!
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Arun Krishnan 🇮🇳 retweeted
Received my friend @ArunKrishnan_ 's latest. I had read a very early draft of this book, and am very excited to read the final version.
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Raju Darbari finally, finally meeting our expectations!
The decline in extreme poverty numbers maybe credible @surjitbhalla but I think @over2shailaja does have a point: we may need a credible standard of living index that may give a better sense of where we are in terms of transforming the lives of millions. Another more focused discussion (not debate) soon!🙏👍
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Am SO surprised by this beginning from a columnist who I have enjoyed raeding. It is like it has been written by a white person for a white audience. "Waved the silver oil lamp with multiple wicks before the goddess, and then in succession a silver camphor lamp, incense sticks" etc.
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One would have thought that this news would have been a SCREAMING headline in the Economic Times.
This was hidden in Page 3.
This was hidden in Page 3.
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Alright! Let us gently persuade the Rohingyas to go to the UK.
The UK govt has come up with a new plan. It now wants to resettle refugees currently in India in the UK. Read more:- timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/uk-govt-…
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My #PGWodehouse moment in writing. I remember writing this and then taking a figurative step back with a "wow, that almost sounded like a Wodehouse phrasing".
What do you think?
#Mahakshana
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As usual, we at MYPOL have played our own little role in this launch!
ISRO successfully launched the GSLV-F18 rocket carrying the NVS-03 navigation satellite from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
The GSLV-F18 vehicle successfully placed the NVS-03 satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit.
NVS-03 is the Third Satellite in Next atellite system envisaged for providing continuity of navigation services for IRNSS series. The satellite carries Indigenous Atomic clock, along with the procured Atomic clocks. It also includes L1 signal in addition to existing L5/S signals with Coverage over India land mass and a region extending 1500 km around Indian geopolitical boundary.
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