“Send me a message when you board your connecting flight and I’ll be there.”

My cousin in India, casually coordinating a pickup. A sentence so ordinary I almost scrolled past it.

But I’d been in a reflective mood — the kind that long flights invite — and something about that message made me pause. Not because of what it said, but because of everything it represented. The invisible infrastructure underneath a single, unremarkable ping.

Almost 40 years ago, that message was not just difficult. It was impossible.

What a trip to India looked like in the late 80s

My first memorable trip to India was in the late 80s. I was young, but I remember the weight of the planning. My parents spent over six months preparing for a trip they’d been away from for six years. That wasn’t unusual — it was simply what international travel required.

You called a travel agent. Multiple times, over multiple weeks, to find the best routing and price. Paper tickets arrived in the mail. Then you wrote a letter — actual snail mail — to family in India, sharing the flight details, hoping they received it in time, hoping they could confirm back that they had everything right.

The economics made the distance feel even larger. Minimum wage in the US was $3.35 an hour. A phone call to India cost several dollars a minute — a luxury most families rationed carefully, timing calls to the minute. And on the Indian side, a household phone wasn’t a given. The waiting list for a telephone connection was anywhere between five and seven years. For people who could afford it at all.

When we finally landed, exhausted and disoriented, my uncle was there. He’d been there for hours. He didn’t know exactly when the flight would land. He didn’t know if customs would take 20 minutes or two hours. So he arrived early and waited. That was the system. Human presence substituting for information.

What changed — and how

Last week I booked my flight in minutes, alone, at whatever hour I felt like booking it, with real-time seat availability and instant confirmation. I didn’t speak to a single human being.

My T-Mobile phone worked in India the moment I landed — same number, same apps, no SIM swap, no roaming fees. It’s worked that way for years now, the result of international carrier agreements that most people never think about and almost nobody remembers negotiating.

My cousin didn’t wait at the airport. He knew roughly when I’d clear customs. He left when it made sense. He was there when I walked out.

How did we get from there to here? The honest answer is: not in any straight line, and not because of any single invention.

The AT&T breakup in 1984 introduced competition into long-distance telephony and set the stage for prices to fall dramatically through the 90s. The internet transformed information distribution and made ecommerce viable. Online booking — really only widely accessible about 20 years ago — put travel agency functionality in the hands of individuals. Mobile networks expanded rapidly across developing countries, and in many parts of India, the landline era was skipped entirely — homes went straight from no phone to a mobile phone. Telecom companies built cross-border alliances that made international roaming seamless. And then applications like WhatsApp abstracted away location and device entirely, making a message between a plane over the Atlantic and a house in India feel as natural as texting someone across the street.

Each of these was its own story. Its own set of companies, policy decisions, technical standards, regulatory battles, and engineering problems. None of them alone would have produced the experience I just had. But together, layered over decades, they made my cousin’s casual message possible.

This is the pattern that I think we undervalue when we talk about technology: convergence. The meaningful breakthroughs in human experience almost never come from a single innovation. They come from the moment when multiple innovations — often developed independently, often by people who had no idea what the others were doing — reach a point of simultaneous maturity and interact.

What I did for a living, and what I didn’t see

I’ve spent most of my career in technology — years at Motorola, years at Xilinx (now AMD) — working on deeply technical problems in semiconductors and telephony. I worked on chips. Specific, narrow, intensely focused engineering problems.

Some of those chips, I’m now fairly confident, ended up inside devices and systems that enabled the very things I described above. The telephony infrastructure. The mobile networks. The processing that made real-time booking viable.

At the time, I didn’t see that. Not fully. You’re in the details — the specification, the architecture, the manufacturing challenge. The downstream human implication is, at best, a distant abstraction.

I think about this when I hear engineers talk about their work as disconnected from “real world” impact. The connection is almost always there. It just takes time to become visible, and it depends on ten other things also becoming true at the right moment.

The question my niece asked

A few weeks ago, my software engineer niece called me. She’s smart, she’s early in her career, and she’d been reading the usual flood of takes about AI.

“Will AI take my job?” she asked. “Should I be worried?”

I didn’t want to dismiss the question. It deserves to be taken seriously. But I also wanted to give her the answer I actually believe, not the one that’s easy or that generates clicks.

Here it is: AI is genuinely powerful. More powerful than most technologies I’ve seen in my career. But it is still one technology. And one technology, in isolation, does not transform human experience. It never has.

The internet was genuinely transformative. But only when paired with ecommerce, with mobile devices, with payment infrastructure, with logistics networks that could fulfill what people ordered. The mobile phone was genuinely transformative. But only when paired with app ecosystems, affordable data plans, and a generation of developers who understood what to build on top of it.

AI will be transformative. But the people who actually change things with it will be the ones who pair it with deep product insight, with genuine understanding of where human friction lives, with the patience to see how it converges with everything else being built right now.

My niece’s career won’t be threatened by AI. It will be shaped by it, the same way my career was shaped by the emergence of mobile, of IP telephony, of the internet. The question isn’t whether to be afraid of it. The question is whether she’s paying attention to what problems still need solving.

The friction that remains

Even on the trip I just took — smooth, fast, connected — the gaps are visible if you look.

The airport experience is largely unchanged from decades ago. Security lines, baggage carousels with no real-time information, customs forms asking for data the government already has. My cousin knew roughly when to leave — but “roughly” still required judgment, still required a buffer, still had failure modes.

International money movement remains painfully slow relative to how fast information travels. A WhatsApp message is instant and free. Sending someone $50 across a border involves fees, delays, and friction that would feel at home in the 80s.

The document burden of international travel — visas, passport renewals, travel insurance — is largely paper-adjacent, bureaucratic, and slow. You can book a flight in four minutes and wait four weeks for a visa.

And underneath all of it, the mental load. The tracking, the coordination, the contingency planning. We’ve reduced it enormously. But “reduced” is not “solved.”

What the next 40 years might look like

If the pattern holds — and I think it will — the next transformation will again be a convergence, not a single invention.

Your identity is currently fragmented across a passport, a boarding pass, a visa, a hotel booking, a SIM card registration. The friction in international travel is largely a friction of identity verification and information that doesn’t flow between systems. That will get solved, slowly and bureaucratically, but it will get solved. A verified digital identity layer that travels with you across contexts is not science fiction.

Coordination overhead will continue to collapse. You sent a message when you boarded. In a different version of the future, your cousin’s phone simply knows — with your permission — that your flight has landed, that the customs queue is currently 18 minutes, and that you’re 35 minutes from his door. The message becomes unnecessary because the context is shared. That’s not a far-fetched AI application. It’s a straightforward extension of things being built right now.

The deepest change, though, will be in returned human attention. Every friction removed is hours given back. My cousin didn’t wait at the airport. Those hours went somewhere — his work, his family, his sleep, his health. That’s the real product of the last 40 years of communications innovation: not faster travel, but more life around the travel.

That’s what AI can continue. Not replacing human judgment, but absorbing the coordination overhead, the translation tasks, the “what do I do now” moments in unfamiliar systems. Giving back attention that was previously consumed by friction.

For the builders

I’ve been lucky to spend a career building things without always knowing exactly what they’d enable. That’s the nature of this work. You solve the problem in front of you, as well as you can, and trust that it matters.

What I’d tell my niece — and any builder early in their career — is this:

The most valuable skill in the AI era isn’t prompt engineering or model fine-tuning. It’s noticing. Noticing the friction that has become so familiar that nobody questions it anymore. Noticing that your uncle waited at the airport for hours and wondering why. Noticing that the thing everyone accepts as normal is actually a problem that hasn’t been named yet.

AI is a powerful new substrate. What gets built on it depends entirely on the quality of human observation brought to it.

The gaps are everywhere. They’re in the trips we take and the errands we run and the forms we fill out and the hours we spend waiting for information we should already have.

Our job, as builders, is to find them — and to understand that the solution will almost certainly require more than one idea, more than one technology, and more than one person who noticed the same thing.

That’s not a reason to worry. It’s a reason to pay attention.

Every few years, the U.S. housing market revisits the same question: how do we make homes more affordable without inflating another bubble?

The latest idea making headlines is the 50-year mortgage — a way to stretch payments across half a century to reduce monthly costs. But while it may sound innovative, it’s really a long, expensive way to buy a little short-term relief.

In my own life, I’ve been fortunate to buy several homes during periods when interest-only (IO) mortgages were common. Those loans helped me buy earlier and stretch affordability at moments when a traditional 30-year fixed might have priced me out. That head start compounded: I was able to own sooner, build equity through appreciation, and move up as my income grew.

That experience shaped my view: the right kind of IO mortgage — structured responsibly — can be a powerful tool for expanding access to homeownership.

1️⃣ The Problem With the 50-Year Mortgage

Extending mortgage terms does lower payments — but not by much, and at enormous long-run cost.

That extra 20 years of debt only trims the monthly payment by about 5%, while nearly doubling lifetime interest.

And because homeowners typically move or refinance within a decade, most never see the benefits of such long amortization — but they bear all the extra cost and inertia that come with it.

2️⃣ What History Tells Us

The 30-year fixed has been the backbone of U.S. housing finance since the mid-20th century.
There were limited experiments with 40-year terms, mainly for loan modifications or non-QM loans, but never at scale or with GSE backing.

Globally, few countries have gone beyond 30 years for mainstream lending, and those that have (like Japan’s “Flat 50” program) still rely on heavy government guarantees.

In short: there’s no proven precedent that ultra-long amortizations improve affordability sustainably.

3️⃣ A Smarter Alternative: 10-Year Interest-Only Fixed

Instead of extending the term, we should redesign the front end of the loan to match how Americans actually live.

The median homeowner stays in their home for 8–10 years. Most loans are refinanced or repaid before significant principal is ever paid down.

A 10-year fixed-rate, interest-only (IO) mortgage, properly structured and underwritten, fits this behavior perfectly.

Under this model:

• Borrowers pay interest only for the first 10 years at a fixed rate (no ARMs or teaser rates).
• At year 10, they requalify to continue amortizing or refinance.
• The loan would be full-doc, ≤ 80% LTV, and GSE-purchasable — ensuring liquidity and oversight.

This preserves the affordability benefits of extended terms without introducing 50-year debt.

4️⃣ The Numbers: How Much Affordability It Adds

Let’s look at what income a household needs to buy a median U.S. home at $420,000 with 10% down.

👉 The 50-year mortgage improves affordability by just 5%, while a 10-year interest-only fixed improves it by 7%, without extending debt by two extra decades.

If rates were equal, the IO product’s advantage would be even larger — 10–12% lower required income for the same home.

5️⃣ Why It’s Safer Than the 2000s “IO” Loans

Interest-only loans gained a bad reputation during the 2000s, but that was largely due to layered risk — not the IO structure itself.

Those loans were:

• Adjustable-rate (often with teaser periods),
• Low- or no-doc,
• Frequently 100% LTV,
• And used for speculation.

A fixed-rate, fully documented, conforming IO mortgage is none of those things.
It provides payment stability, verifiable income, and predictable credit performance — all while improving access to ownership.

6️⃣ A Sensible Safeguard: Requalification or Balloon at Year 10

One refinement: borrowers could requalify at year 10 to continue amortization, or make a balloon/refinance payment if their financial position has improved.

This aligns incentives:

• Borrowers build equity through appreciation, not forced amortization.
• Lenders reassess risk at predictable intervals.
• The system avoids embedding 50-year liabilities.

Historically, nominal home prices in the U.S. have risen in 95%+ of all 10-year windows, making this structure far more resilient than critics assume.

7️⃣ The Policy Case

Allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy 10-year fixed-rate interest-only mortgages could:

✅ Improve affordability by 7–12% without longer debt terms.
✅ Preserve GSE oversight and risk-based pricing.
✅ Match real homeowner behavior (8–10 year tenure).
✅ Reduce systemic risk versus ultra-long amortizations.

With proper guardrails — higher down payments, verified income, and requalification triggers — this approach is more innovative and safer than stretching the same 30-year design another 20 years.

💬 A Personal Reflection

When I first bought a home using an interest-only loan, it wasn’t about speculation — it was about access. The product let me buy a home sooner, in a good neighborhood, at a time when I couldn’t yet afford the full amortizing payment. Over the following years, my income rose, my equity grew through appreciation, and that early decision helped me build a foundation for everything that followed.

That experience taught me something policymakers often overlook: the structure of financing can change the trajectory of ownership and wealth.
Done responsibly, IO mortgages can open doors for families who are locked out — not by lack of creditworthiness, but by rigid, outdated mortgage design.

🧩 Conclusion

The 50-year mortgage looks like innovation, but it’s really financial duct tape — a way to paper over the affordability crisis without addressing root causes.

If we want genuine progress, we should rethink how mortgages are structured, not just how long they last.
A 10-year fixed-rate, interest-only mortgage would give buyers the breathing room they need today while maintaining systemic integrity tomorrow.

We don’t need longer debt. We need smarter debt.

Everyone seems surprised by the new $100,000 H-1B fee. While I deeply disagree with it, the move makes sense if your goal is short-term political wins — trading away long-term U.S. technology leadership to patch self-inflicted problems.

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What Happened

On September 19, 2025, President Trump signed a proclamation imposing a one-time $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions submitted after 12:01 am Eastern, September 21, 2025. The fee does not apply to renewals or existing visa holders, but it is the largest single fee increase in the program’s history. (USCIS FAQ)

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Why This Fee? Three Explanations

1. Geopolitical Friction

More than 70% of all H-1B visas go to Indians. (Reuters) Given U.S.–India tensions over Russian oil imports and other trade disputes, it’s tempting to see this fee as retaliatory. There’s no official admission of that — but politics doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

2. Housing Shortage

The U.S. faces a massive housing shortage. Homelessness and affordability gaps are growing, while Bay Area prices have barely budged despite higher interest rates. Many H-1B holders work in these same high-cost markets, making them easy political targets when housing stress is rising.

3. National Debt Pressure

With interest rates high, the cost of servicing U.S. debt has ballooned. This fee raises revenue without technically raising taxes. But there’s an irony here: many of these jobs will simply move overseas, meaning lost payroll and income tax revenue in the long run.

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The Human Cost of the Backlog

The H-1B program was originally designed in the late 1990s to help the U.S. upgrade systems before Y2K. Today it looks very different.

The green card backlog is staggering: over 1.8 million employment-based cases, including more than 1.1 million from Indian nationals. (Congressional briefing)

In the EB-2 and EB-3 categories, wait times for Indians now stretch into decades. (Khandelwal Law)

That means a worker can spend half their career in legal limbo — tied to an employer, living with the constant risk that a job loss could mean uprooting their family. That is not the freedom the United States was built on.

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The Points-Based Immigration Angle

Another way to look at this fee is as a nudge toward a points-based immigration system.

Trump has long flirted with the idea of a merit-based or points-based policy — awarding visas based on skills, education, and language. But he has never introduced a formal proposal.

If the administration had paired this $100,000 H-1B fee with even a debate about points-based immigration, it might have softened the blow. A points system could strike a better balance between temporary work programs and permanent migration, giving talented people a clearer path to stay.

Instead, the fee dropped on its own — no long-term vision, no balancing mechanism. That’s not the Trump style. His political brand is about bold gestures and optics, not careful frameworks. And it’s the style American voters signed up for.

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Conclusion

So is this surprising? Not really. It’s politics. The U.S. is trading off long-term competitiveness for short-term optics.

I disagree with the approach, but it’s not unexpected. It’s just the game of politics and gamesmanship — and this time, the cost is $100,000.

Let me start by saying this: I think Trump is a showman and often a disrespectful human being. But I’m not writing this to rehash character debates. I’m writing because I’m trying to understand the why behind the return of tariffs in U.S. economic policy — and what it really means for the American middle class.

A Quick History of How We Got Here

A hundred years ago, tariffs were how the U.S. federal government funded itself. From 1790 to 1860, over 90% of federal revenue came from tariffs. Only the very wealthy paid income taxes, and even that didn’t become permanent until the 16th Amendment in 1913. (PBS, Investopedia)

By the 1950s, the government had shifted away from tariffs and toward income taxes. This shift helped the U.S. lead the way in building a global trading system after World War II. Free trade created global demand for U.S. goods and helped promote global economic stability. At the same time, U.S. immigration policy (especially after 1965) brought in skilled workers who helped fuel our technological edge. (History.com)

The Price of Globalization

This global trade strategy worked — just not for everyone. While multinational companies thrived and emerging economies gained ground, the American middle class slowly lost its footing. Wages stagnated. Manufacturing jobs disappeared. Even owning an entry-level home has become a stretch for many working families. (Pew, CBS)

Meanwhile, government spending rose — especially on defense, Social Security, and Medicare — and today, interest on the national debt is one of the fastest-growing line items in the federal budget. (CBO)

The Political Problem: Who Pays?

Here’s the problem: we’re running out of easy ways to raise money.

In the early 1980s, Reagan had to raise taxes — including on the middle class — to deal with mounting deficits. It was politically painful but helped stabilize inflation. (Tax Policy Center)

Fast-forward to 2025, and the debt is even bigger. But raising taxes on the middle class would be political suicide. Cutting Social Security or defense is equally untouchable. And while there’s certainly government waste, it’s not enough to move the needle.

Enter Tariffs: A Tax by Another Name

Trump — ever the showman — found a back door. He didn’t call it a tax. He called it America First.

Tariffs don’t require Congressional approval. Presidents can impose them using trade laws and national security loopholes. They sound patriotic. They’re framed as punishments for foreign countries. But in practice? They’re a tax on American consumers. (CBO, PIIE)

Take washing machines. Trump imposed tariffs in his first term, and prices jumped 12% — including for U.S.-made machines. (NBER)

Now he’s proposing broader tariffs, possibly across the board. That will raise prices on everything from cars to clothing. The middle class — not billionaires — will feel it most.

Why This Matters

Tariffs may look like a bold, America-first policy. But they’re really a workaround to avoid politically risky tax hikes. And like any consumption tax, they hit the middle class hardest.

Inflation is already elevated. Tariffs will only add fuel to that fire — and put more pressure on families who are already struggling to make ends meet.

We should be honest about what’s happening: tariffs aren’t just a trade policy. They’re a stealth tax. And once again, the middle class is footing the bill.

But here’s the hard truth — the alternatives aren’t painless either. Raising income taxes, especially on the middle class, could curb demand and potentially slow inflation, but it also risks weakening the very engine of the economy. Cutting spending sounds nice in theory, but the largest line items are politically off-limits.

In the end, the path forward will require tradeoffs — between what’s popular, what’s sustainable, and what’s fair. Tariffs might feel like the easy button, but if we care about the long-term health of the middle class, we should be honest about the cost.

• my thoughts but edited and fact checked by chaptgpt

There has been considerable discussion about dynamic pricing in restaurants, especially following the recent comment by Wendy’s, a well-known restaurant chain, to incorporate dynamic pricing, a decision they later retracted after facing backlash.

Dynamic pricing is prevalent in ride-sharing, travel, entertainment tickets, petrol, and more. So, why not in food? It’s arguable that the same consumers who accept dynamic pricing in these areas often reject it in others.

In my opinion, this discrepancy comes down to categorizing purchases as either essential or splurges.

A splurge, such as a vacation, concert tickets, a rideshare, or an expensive meal, can easily be rationalized. Even though we desire these things, alternatives exist: camping instead of vacationing, playing video games at home, taking the bus, or cooking at home. The price elasticity of these splurges — meaning demand drops quickly as prices increase — is high.

Essentials, on the other hand, are purchases that are painful to give up and occur frequently. This category includes your morning coffee, family Friday pizza, lunch with colleagues, groceries, etc. While substituting these might be possible, it would be a significant inconvenience. Demand for essentials drops more slowly, but consumers might switch products if one becomes more expensive. For instance, if Wendy’s introduces surge pricing, customers might opt for McDonald’s instead.

One data point may explain why all brands should approach dynamic pricing with caution. Cities that introduced sugar taxes experienced a 33% increase in sugary drink prices and a corresponding 33% drop in sales. This phenomenon is attributed to the economic principle of Price Elasticity, which measures how demand changes in response to price fluctuations. For instance, takeout has a price elasticity of 0.8, meaning a 0.8% drop in demand for every 1% increase in price, similar to soda. However, it’s interesting to note that Coke, a specific brand within the soda category, has a much higher price elasticity of 3.3. This indicates that if prices increase for one product but not the entire category, consumers are likely to switch to alternatives. In Coke’s case, they might shift to store brands or Pepsi at a rate three times higher than the average.

Why did Wendy’s face such backlash? It’s likely because Wendy’s has a very loyal customer base that dines there frequently — a positive indicator for the brand. These customers didn’t want to switch to competitors; they valued predictability and consistency in their dining experiences.

Does this mean dynamic pricing is unworkable for restaurants? Its success will likely depend on the brand and factors such as customer loyalty and frequency of orders. Michelin-starred restaurants, for example, often charge more on weekends compared to weekdays, yet still manage to fill seats. These, however, are considered one-time splurge purchases. Moreover, consumers have shown a willingness to pay for convenience, as evidenced by their acceptance of markups on delivery platforms. Nonetheless, for restaurants fortunate enough to have a highly loyal and regular customer base, dynamic pricing may prove ineffective.

Could there be a new model? Quite possibly! The primary motivation for restaurants to explore dynamic pricing is the need to increase revenue in the face of rising wages and costs. For some brands, dynamic pricing might be the solution. Others, however, could consider segmenting their customers, offering predictability to their most frequent diners while applying dynamic pricing to occasional customers.

Perhaps through a loyalty program, consumers could attain “platinum” status, exempting them from all surge charges and delivery fees. To achieve this status, they would need to either spend $100 per month or opt for a $4.99 monthly subscription. This approach might offer the best of both worlds for a brand: providing predictability for loyal customers while applying dynamic pricing to others.

What are your thoughts and ideas on the topic?

(image produced by Dall-E and article proofread by ChatGPT)

I recently came back from India in November 2023 which was 8 years after my last trip. I am always astonished at the progress of the country after such gaps in my visits. For context, I’ve been to India 11 times, typically 3–8 years pass between my visits. Noting a few observations for discussion / comment.

• Infrastructure is growing. You are seeing highways, overpasses, airports, metros and improved trains. Travel is faster and much more accessible to all. New national highways are going to reduce the time of travel between popular routes like Mumbai to Ahmedabad in half in the coming years. Newly introduced trains like the Vandebharat are a fast, clean and pleasant experience to travel within India. While I did not get to ride a Metro, the experience appears to be fast and affordable for local travel. The airports are getting upgraded everywhere with more flights and a much improved experience.
• Payments — Every stall operator is now equipped with a QR code to accept digital payments. Even a Rs 30 (~US$0.40) coconut can be paid through a qr code using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Speaking to some startups by nationalizing payment infra the government has lowered the cost of digital transactions which help onboard the wider population into banking and reducing friction. You have to give the government credit for investing in the fintech infrastructure to make it accessible and equitable to all.
• Renewable Energy — Much of the energy growth is being done through renewable energy. If you fly into Ahmedabad you see a sea of solar above homes. Looking through wikipedia the numbers are astonishing as they have gone from 30% to 41% renewal in the last decade. Anecdotally, a driver mentioned Gujarat is a leader in solar (second largest according to Wikipedia) and 75% of homes in Ahmedabad have solar and 45% in Vadodara which is driven by lower cost installations and government subsidies.

Mixed.

• Cleanliness — it was amazing to see how clean parts of India have become. Especially the bigger cities like Chennai, Ahmedabad and Delhi. Cleaner than parts of the US. Tier 2 cities still have a ways to go.
• Non-residents — while the digital infra is growing it is almost harder to operate there as a non-resident as much of the banking system (including UPI) is not easy to set up as someone who doesn’t have an active bank account. Much of the red tape to set up things continues to exist. While the foreigner “surcharge” seems to be reducing with transparent pricing in e-commerce (Uber, Ola, Swiggy, etc.) there continues to be some overcharging when prices are not clearly posted.
• Stress — just driving around and negotiating with folks was stressful at times. You hear how it’s uber competitive from an education perspective with kids working 7 days a week for exam prep which is stressful for kids and parents. All in all, it’s got to take a toll on people’s mental health. It likely has improved over the years however it was the first time I noticed its toll on myself and those living there.

There were also some challenges.

• Traffic — within cities it’s getting increasingly harder to move around with more cars on the road. Even moving 2.5 km (1.5 miles) can take 20–30 minutes. This is a double edged sword — cars are a symbol of wealth however we actually want less reliance on cars for environmental reasons. The tier 1 cities continue to rank as some of the highest traffic areas.
• Pollution was very high, especially in Delhi. At an AQI of over 500 at times, it made it harder to move around. Even cars are coming with AQI monitors and filters now. Improved metro and trains help however the population is also getting wealthier with more cars on the road and farmers doing slash and burn causing the pollution. It was interesting to read in the paper that in conjunction with IIT the government was looking to manufacture rain to help reduce the pollution. Reading about sources of pollution — it appears that dust + construction and waste burning are leading causes.
• Religious tensions are growing — this is a bit political however in several conversations with older generations it came up how there are seeing more racism and religious tensions. While expected with the BJP (hindu nationalist party) in power for the last 10 years and growing nationalism worldwide. It will be interesting to see how the election next year will go.

This was my kids first trip to India that they will remember. Honestly, the culture shock for them was not high. Their biggest surprise was not the cows (which I found less of on the street) but the stray dogs which we didn’t prepare them to see.

India is growing, the Indian people are optimistic about the future and living conditions for the masses are improving. It’s not simple to grow and move the largest population through a democracy however they are doing it. It’s messy and not always a straight line, however, I have to continue to give the Indian people a lot of credit for the progress they are making. I’m sure my next trip, whenever it is, will continue to amaze me.