Oil, jails, AI, and solar rails

Hello DoorDesi,

Ganesh Chaturthi (Ganesh’s birthday celebration) is on the 26th and 27th of August this year. Anyone who has lived in Maharashtra knows what a big deal it is in the region. I have been inundated with videos of Ganpati celebrations gearing up in Mumbai and Pune. That reminded me of something I had recently read in a book which I thought I’d share with you guys in this edition.

Did you know Ganpati celebrations were once used as a social movement? While the celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi is said to have been ongoing since the 13th century, it had started as a private affair, then made into a public affair by the Peshwas and pushed back into private quarters but the British. It was in 1893, following a communal riot between Hindus and Muslims and a non-gathering rule that the British had instituted to quell rebellion that Bal Gangadhar Tilak leveraged Ganpati celebrations to foster a sense of community. While the British had a non-gathering rule in place, they were more tolerant of religious gatherings. Lokmanya Tilak took that opportunity, turned Ganpati celebrations in Puna (then Poona) into a full blown community event with street fairs, singing, and gathering local youth. With that he wanted to broaden the appeal of Ganpati and encourage a sense of community and nationalism within the society and across communities, hoping that the then mostly Brahmin ranks of Congress would see an uptick in representation from other communities. So Ganpati celebrations, as they are now, is more than just a religious festival.

I don’t know about you but I found this story quite fascinating. I first came across it while reading the book ‘Highway to Swades’ by Bhairavi Jani.

Anyway, thanks for humouring me. By the way, before I go and leave you with the news of the week, I wanted to let you know that in the past weeks we have received a lot of detailed feedback from many of you. We spent a lot of time going through the feedback, made some decisions based on that and some plans for the future. You can see what we are thinking in the ‘Our journey’ page on this Substack. Here, we plan on updating you about changes to we make to the newsletter, to the Doordesi community, and anything in between. It is a living blog of how we grow with you. If you are interested, come along!

Alrighty! Enjoy the read!

Just the gist

🔗Pushed into Lula’s arms for more than just awkward hugs

With Trump turning tariffs into a foreign policy hobby, India is busy hedging its oil bets. After getting slapped with penalties for buying Russian crude (ironically once encouraged by Washington), New Delhi is deepening ties with Brazil, another Trump target, hit with a 50% tariff. Reminds me of school days - remember getting all giggly with the nemesis of your crush all the while side-eyeing your crush? No? Just me?

Imports of Brazilian oil to India have already jumped 75% this year, making Brazil India’s ninth-largest supplier. Costs and logistics remain complicated but things are clearly in motion. It is, however, clear that New Delhi is making efforts to diversify India’s crude oil imports and strengthen its energy security.

➡️ You won’t suddenly pay less for gas in New Jersey because India buys from Brazil. But the diaspora often finds itself caught in perception wars. If India gets painted as “aiding the war on Ukraine” or pissing off the ever pissed off Trump, that will start featuring in your conversations with friends/colleagues/strangers abroad.

🔗No work from jail-office for politicians. I mean criminals.

Amit Shah has tabled the 130th Constitutional Amendment Bill, requiring removal of any Minister - including PMs and CMs - who spends 30 consecutive days in custody on serious charges (5+ years jail). They can return if released. Currently, under the Representation of the People Act, disqualification applies only after conviction. Supporters say the Bill tackles criminalisation of politics which seems fair given that 46% of the 543 winning candidates in the 2024 Lok Sabha election have criminal cases registered against them. The flip side of this is of course that it could be misused through politically motivated arrests. The Bill needs a two-thirds majority to pass.

➡️ I have learnt enough in my years of following politics to know that no amendment to the Constitution is ever for the betterment of the people. I have also learnt enough to know that when we vote for a candidate saying “yeah, I don’t agree with their bigoted views but they promise to build roads“, we are also voting for their bigotry, if you catch my drift. So stop voting for isolated issues. Nothing ever exists in isolation. And again, Bihar elections are coming up, and I encourage eligible voters abroad and across the country to make the trip.

🔗No country for affordable dreams

Affordable housing is slipping out of the middle class’s grasp. Once touted as India’s growth engine, homes under ₹40 lakh have nearly vanished from the market. Developers are blaming rising land and construction costs, high taxes, and better profits from luxury projects. Meanwhile, salaries haven’t kept up, and bank loan terms are pinching harder, pushing middle-income buyers further to city fringes. While the rich snap up ₹1.5 crore+ penthouses, the so-called “affordable” dream is now a distant suburb with no metro line. For millions of middle-class Indians, owning a home is starting to look like a luxury too.

➡️ If you are planning on investing in Indian real estate align your investment with the purpose - pure investment, retirement, or for family back home. Investing in luxury homes maybe tempting due to high margins but the cost of entry is significantly high. For both investment and retirement purposes, mid-tier cities will give you a higher return on investment at this stage and now seems like a good time too.

🔗How to train your (AI) dragon?

One morning in July, Airtel users woke up to an unusual freebie: a year of Perplexity Pro, an AI-powered search engine worth $200. Days earlier, Google had dangled its own bait — free Gemini AI access for every college student. Welcome to India, Big Tech’s new AI battleground. With 700 million internet users and dirt-cheap data, India is the pressure cooker where search engines are fighting for global dominance. One beenfit of training these LLMs on the massive volume of data in India is teaching it to handle linguistic diversity.

The logic seems to be the same as how we feel about learning to drive in India - if it works in India, it can work absolutely anywhere in the world!

➡️ AI models trained on Indian datasets could reframe stereotypes and biases that AI had about India and Indians. At the same time, such heavily financed penetration of AI into the India market is likely to have an impact on how information is consumed and shared in India - think WhatsApp university on steroids.

Keeping up with the internet

🔗A shocked judge who took over the internet

A video from the Gauhati High Court went viral after Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi reacted in disbelief to 3,000 bighas in Assam’s Dima Hasao being handed to Mahabal Cement: “The entire district? What is going on?” Online, the clip mutated into a fake story about Adani, forcing the company to issue denials. Lost in the noise was the real issue, as always - tribal villagers alleging coercion and illegal land grabs in a Sixth Schedule area they’ve cultivated since the 1970s. The court has flagged the allotment as “extraordinary” and will hear the case again on September 1.

➡️ Land rights of tribal communities have been in the margins of news in India for ages. From Tata’s acquisitin of tribal land to establish Tata Steel in Jamshedpur to Isha Foundation grabbing tribal land in Tamil Nadu, tribal land is a point of contention in India.

✊I want to add another link here. I have been reading Arundhati Roy’s political essays lately and she often talks about tribal land and rights. So, if you are interested, Walking with the Comrades is one of her essays I highly recommend to the DoorDesi readers to understand the nuances of this issue better.

Desi culture

🔗 Powering our stations with the sun

Banaras Locomotive Works has pulled off a first in India: laying solar panels right between railway tracks. A 70-metre removable system of 28 panels (15 kW) has been installed on a yard track in Varanasi, designed to pop out easily for maintenance. No extra land, no interruption to train operations and the power generated will be powering stations, signals, sheds, and lights. Once installed, the panels generate free electricity for years, slashing costs and dependence on outside supply. It’s a green leap for railways, though the real test will be scale and durability.

Time will tell how successful and safe this is. I wonder if there are backups in place especially to power signals.

➡️ Now, guys, I am super excited to share this news piece with you guys for more than the content. I have been wanting to share a Khabar Lahariya (the news outlet) link with you guys. It is India’s only women-run rural news brand, powered by reporters from Dalit, tribal, Muslim and backward communities who know the streets, fields, and families they report on. Their journalism is fiercely feminist, unapologetically rural.

❣️I have been in love with them for years now. I highly recommend following their reporting for local news about the Hindi heartland. And become a paying member if you want to support them!

💌 Community feature

Every week, one of you sends a little postcard from your DoorDesi life — a snapshot, a story, a moment worth sharing. Think of it as our way of waving hello across cities, countries, and dosa queues.

🥲 This week we do not have any postcards from you. We rely entirely on our readership to keep this section going. So please send us a wave, a text, a hi, if you are interested in sending a postcard to the rest and we will be in touch with you!

With love on behalf of two women who cringe at the mention of chai tea latte,

Sudeshna

Co-Founder, DoorDesi 💃

Housekeeping

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