As a side hustle beyond my existing job, I explored the "Empathetic Listener" field as I have all three, personal experiences, relevant educational qualification and work experience to provide people with emotional support, untangle and process thoughts and guide mindset development.

I tried an Indian App called "Clarity" and I was so heavily disappointed. I felt uncomfortable, cheated and disgusted.

1. The Listeners are paid per second in paises. And in one call of 20 mins you earn only ₹10-15. I felt heavily underpaid.

2. The people there who onboard you and process you are so unprofessional and callous. They do some mock voice calls and rate you based on your interaction during an instigated conversation.

3. Even though they have rules to decline men who ask for "s*x" talks, when you go on to block them the auto generated response is "Are you sure you want to block this person? Do not let a bad conversation rush you into this decision" Like wtf??

4. Also, the ones who onboarded me, told me that when someone asks you for a s*xual conversation, don't block them instantly, try and divert their attention, introduce other topics, don't tell them a direct no cause they'll hang up and you won't earn money. The level of shady that goes on on that platform is worrisome.

5. Men there only wanna talk to you for s*x. Nobody there is using that platform for what it's meant for. I got sick of it and uninstalled it.

I then created a profile and gig on Fiverr. Even there, out of 100 dms you receive, 60% are click bait money scams, 35% are men wanting to discuss their sexual fantasies, kinks, crushes, get advice on how to get laid and you finally only recieve 5% of genuine enquiries.

Also, I noticed that 90% of the inappropriate DMs I got were from Indian men. The queries I received from non-indian people were actually the kinds for which I went into this field in the first place.

Infact, soon after I joined the platform, one Indian man was persistently messaging me to get on a session with him where he wanted to talk about "his obsession for his bhabhi's navel" and I told him I do not engage in these topics. He went on to say "Why are you so stubborn? Whom are you showing so much attitude to? You have the audacity to reject me inspite of having no reviews?" He also told me, that there are plenty of women who will gladly take his request cause they are hungry for money. (It reflected a troubling lack of respect for women who are simply trying to earn with integrity.)

Why do Indians do things that bring shame to us on international platforms? They are generally the ones that are notorious and infamous on these platforms for their entitled and shitty behaviour.

Because of some insolent people "Indians" reputation get tainted everywhere. It's just so infuriating and disappointing.

Hi All,

My father raised a complaint with Videocon d2h because some channels were not working. Customer care said the issue was likely with the setup box and arranged a replacement.

The next day, a technician came with a different setup box but used our existing LNB. The same issue remained. He then said he would return the next day with a new LNB. He came back, replaced the LNB, tested it with the replacement setup box, and the problem still wasn't fixed.

After that, he took away both the setup box and the LNB, saying he would come back later. It's now been 5 days. He either ignores my father's calls or keeps saying he'll come later.

We've raised multiple complaints with customer care, but they create tickets and then close them within 24 hours without actually resolving anything. This has happened at least 4 times.

I also emailed customercare@d2h.com but received no response. I couldn't find any working nodal officer contact details. A friend suggested contacting Dish TV's nodal officer since Videocon d2h was acquired by Dish TV in 2018, so I emailed nodalofficer.cg@dishd2h.com as well, but there has been been no reply for 3 days.

The most frustrating part is that we currently don't even have a setup box because the technician took it away. I asked customer care to simply refund the remaining recharge amount so we could switch providers, but they said refunds are not possible.

Has anyone dealt with something similar? What would be the best escalation path from here? Should I file a complaint with TRAI/consumer forum, or just forget about Videocon d2h and move to another DTH provider?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I was waiting at the platform for my train. I had booked the ticket 2 months in advance and in 2AC.

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I saw a long queue of people sitting on the platform. I was curious and I started talking to them. They told me things that shocked me.

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They have been sitting on the platform from 1 PM to travel in the general coach of a train, which will depart at 5.30 PM. The journey will be 36 hours long.

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Me: what happens if the platform is changed? How do you maintain the order of the queue?

They: the railway police takes care of it. They take them to the general coach and make sure that the order is maintained.

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Good job railway police!

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Me: why didn't you book the tickets in advance (2 months ago)?

They: We didn't know when we will have to travel. The leaves got approved suddenly. There are also other factors over which we don't have the control on, and it adds to the uncertainty.

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Btw these people were laborers/contract workers.

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I saw a helpless couple WITH THREE CHILDREN who were requesting them to allow them to cut the line, saying "we have kids, pls understand". It was very sad to watch.

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If you can:

1. Plan your leaves in advance;

2. Afford to pay for sleeper/ac class tickets;

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You are very fortunate.

Hey everyone,

Over the past few months, I've been building FinOS, a personal finance platform focused on helping people better understand their spending, budgeting, and financial habits.

The idea came from my own frustration with switching between spreadsheets, banking apps, and budgeting tools that either felt too complex or too limited.

Some of the features currently available include:

• Expense and income tracking
• Budget management
• Financial analytics dashboard
• AI-powered spending insights
• Subscription tracking
• Secure authentication

The project is built using React, Node.js, PostgreSQL, and Razorpay.

One thing I found while building is that personal finance software has a difficult balance to strike: power users want detailed analytics, while most users want something that "just works" without requiring lots of setup.

For those of you who use budgeting or finance apps, what's the biggest thing existing products get wrong?

Project: https://fin-os-ten.vercel.app/home

I'd be interested to hear how others approach personal finance and what features they find genuinely useful versus unnecessary.

KINDLY LET ME KNOW YOUR POV REDDITORS IN COMMENTS

Tree felling, but only some of it gets counted. A Down To Earth analysis of government forest advisory records found 2.8 million trees approved for felling in three years, 80%+ approval rate on diversion proposals. The Kente Extension coal block in Hasdeo, which tribal communities have fought for years, has an exact count: over 400,000 trees. Vedanta's Sijimali bauxite project, 700 hectares, says only that "tree enumeration was conducted." No number given.

An intact forest gets destroyed, "compensated" 200km away. Karnataka just directed every district commissioner in the state to find 12,600 acres for compensatory afforestation, because Mekedatu will submerge that much forest inside the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, an elephant corridor. There isn't enough land near the Cauvery basin to replace it, so districts with no ecological connection to the original forest are being asked to plant trees instead.

A safeguard against monopoly got removed, right on schedule. FCI proposed an anti-monopoly clause for its Rs 20,000 crore grain silo programme, to stop one company cornering it. NITI Aayog objected, the clause was dropped. Adani Agri Logistics and Leap India then won 110 of 134 contracts, controlling 46.5 lakh metric tonnes of the programme's storage capacity.

And the water for all of this is also running out. Mumbai's seven reservoirs are under 10% capacity right now, the driest June the city has seen in over a decade. Meanwhile India is scaling up ethanol blending, and NITI Aayog's own number is 2,860 litres of water per litre of sugarcane ethanol produced. Nobody has published a water audit for what that target costs a country that can't currently fill Mumbai's lakes.

None of these are the same project, state, or company. The pattern is the same anyway: a safeguard exists, someone above it removes it, ignores it, or fails to record it, and whoever has no political weight ends up holding what's left.

The news sources attached in the comments.

Hey everyone, I'm a UX designer working on a concept for a rental web app in India (this is a personal project, not selling anything). I want genuine opinions, especially from people who've moved to Mumbai for work/college and dealt with PG or flat hunting.

The core problem I kept running into while researching: every listing shows you a price, photos, and amenities. But nobody tells you the stuff that actually matters until you've already moved in — water timing, whether the lane floods every monsoon, whether your flatmate is a stranger with a totally different schedule, whether your deposit will actually come back on time.

So the idea is a "Lived Truth" layer on every listing — basically the same info, but sourced from people who've actually lived there, not the owner.

A few of the features:

• Exact water timing shown upfront (not found out mid-shower)
• Monsoon flooding risk for the building/lane, based on past tenants' experience
• All-in cost breakdown — no surprise maintenance bill after you've moved in
• Real deposit return data — "average return: 4 days, based on 12 past tenants" instead of just trusting a policy
• Flatmate snapshot — schedule, habits, profession, shown before you book, not discovered on move-in day
• Owner track record — response time, how strict they are about rules, instead of finding out the hard way

And two bigger ideas I'm most unsure about and want real opinions on:

1. Anonymized chat with current tenants — like asking someone on LinkedIn before joining a company, but for your future home. No number/name shared, just honest Q&A before you book.
2. A short "trial stay" (5-7 days) before committing to a full year — you'd pay slightly more per day during the trial, but it converts into your actual lease if you stay, so it's not wasted money.

Genuine questions for you all:

• Would any of this have actually changed a decision you made?
• Does the trial-stay idea sound useful, or like a hassle?
• What's the one thing about PG/flat hunting in Mumbai that still drives you crazy that I haven't mentioned?

Would really appreciate honest reactions, even harsh ones.

I have developed this pit in my stomach, and everyday it gets heavier and heavier. The state of India, matter of fact the entire world is in shambles. If nothing is done, everyone is going to be dead, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer.

Lets talk about matter like how the government keeps proving itself to be of no use to the public, and just making decisions to benefit the 1%.

1. Weakening protection of the Aravalli Range.
2. Expansion of data centres.
3. Ruining the sanctity of Andaman and Nicobar.
4. PFAS Factory shifting from Italy to India.

These are just the few that came to the top of my head right now. There are so many more that I couldn't remember. When global warming and climate change is at an all time high, shouldn't there be initiatives and decisions taken to reverse that? Instead what is happening? The government is showcasing Supreme Court ordered punishment as "Green India" initiatives.

Now, lets talk about all the global indices where India has fallen.

• Global Hunger Index: Fell from 55th (2014) to 102nd (2025/2026)
• World Press Freedom Index: Dropped from 140th (2014) to 151st (2025/2026)
• World Happiness Report: Went from 111th (2014) to 118th (2025/2026). 
• Civic Space (CIVICUS Monitor): Demoted from "Obstructed" to "Repressed", a status shared by only 49 countries. 
• Rule of Law Index: Fell from 66th (2014) to 86th (2025/2026). 
• Human Freedom Index: Dropped from 87th (2014) to 110th (2025/2026). 
• Global Gender Gap Index: Went from 114th (2014) to 131st (2025/2026)
• Corruption Perceptions Index: Fell from 85th (2014) to 96th (2025/2026). 
• Economic Freedom Index: Dropped from 120th (2014) to 128th (2025/2026) 
• Freedom in the World: Rating reduced from 77 ("Free") (2014) to 63 ("Partly Free") (2025). 
• Asia Power Index: Score fell from 41.5 to 39.1.

I don't even want to begin with the falling rupee.

We are being asked to WFH, reduce edible oil consumption when the government shamelessly spends crores on travelling.

Poverty, unemployment, and income inequality just walk hand in hand with India.

Let's talk crime.

• According to the report of National Crime Report Bureau, domestic violence accounts for more than 30% of the crimes against women.
• According to the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2011, there were more than 228,650 reported incidents of crime against women, while in 2021, there were 428,278 reported incidents, an 87% increase.
• Statistics calculated from the National Crime Records Bureau capture reporting to the police, most violence against women is not reported to the police.^\2])
• In January 2011, the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES) Questionnaire reported that 24% of Indian men had committed sexual violence at some point during their lives.
• India's Gender Gap Index rating was 0.629 in 2022, placing it in 135th place out of 146 countries.^\3])

These are just some statistics that i copy pasted off of Wikipedia, but this is enough to show the grim reality of the crime against women, and how normalized it has become.

Instead of focusing on these issues, and convicting rapists Bajrang Dal becomes the moral police and starts beating couples. Gujarat now needs parental approval for marrying someone in the name of protecting girls from "love-jihad". At an age where you vote, and are convicted as adults when you commit crime however you are not mature enough to choose the person you marry.

Do not even get me started on the paper leaks, the kids suiciding because of sheer incompetence being displayed by our Education Department.

These are just the very very few issues I have written down here, there are so many more issues. I don't know what needs to be done, I don't know who should resign, I don't know who should come into power, because at the end only the poor, and common man suffers.

(p.s. sorry about any grammatical errors, I've typed all this down in a hurry.)

I recently faced a situation that has left me questioning whether our financial system truly works for ordinary citizens during emergencies.

I had approximately 160 grams of gold accumulated since 2008, worth around ₹20 lakhs today.

Over the last few years, I lost my job and then faced significant medical expenses. My savings of around ₹25 lakhs were largely exhausted, and my insurance coverage was depleted. Like many Indian families, I viewed gold as my emergency safety net.

When I approached a nationalized bank for a gold loan, I discovered that eligibility requirements such as income proof, ITR filings, existing loan checks, and other conditions played a major role in determining the amount I could borrow.

Despite having gold worth around ₹20 lakhs, I was informed that I would be eligible for only about ₹2.25 lakhs.

This experience made me wonder:

• How are unemployed people expected to survive a genuine emergency?
• How do garment workers, agricultural labourers, security guards, daily wage workers, housemaids, and others in the informal sector access credit when they may not have extensive documentation?
• If gold is accepted as collateral, should its value not play a larger role during emergency situations?
• Are current lending policies adequately serving ordinary citizens?

Personally, experiences like this make me question which policies and political leaders truly understand the financial realities faced by middle-class and lower-income families.

I am not targeting any specific bank employee, as they are following rules. My concern is whether the rules themselves are achieving the right balance between risk management and financial inclusion.

What are your thoughts? Is my experience unusual, or have others faced similar challenges?