The Sunday Draft

Nabil went from spray-painting harassers' backs in Cairo to building a framework for how humans survive AI displacement.

Chapter 1: Harass the Harassers — The Origin Story (0:00)Nabil shares how a campaign to fight sexual harassment in Cairo (2012-2015) led to legislation change, international coverage, and ultimately showed him the power of direct action against systems.

Chapter 2: Why Both Experts and Mobs Are Wrong (7:40)Blind elitism, ignorant populism, and why algorithms push us into both traps. The introduction to Enlightened Populism.

Chapter 3: AIDOP — Use AI to Sharpen Your Own Thinking (17:59)The methodology: prompt AI to criticize your work, publish the unedited debate within 24 hours. Revolutionary impact on education, policy, publishing, contracts.

Chapter 4: What Global Governance Looks Like (30:21)Citizen assemblies, universal basic income, reduced work hours, and a world where creativity thrives because people have time to think.

Chapter 5: The Feasibility Question (45:00)Hard truths: communities splinter, billionaires won’t cooperate, distracted populations are hard to mobilize. But it’s already happening globally in pockets.

Chapter 6: Your First Action Step (1:16:48)Learn to prompt AI better. Make it debate you. Publish the transcript. That’s AIDOP. That’s how you start practicing Enlightened Populism today.

Chapter 7: Final Thoughts (1:22:20)Closing remarks and momentum.

▶️ WATCH ON YOUTUBE

Prefer video? This episode is also available as a live recording

on YouTube with Mohammed Nabil in real-time.

⬇️ Watch the full video ⬇️

Varun and Aneesh flew into one of the world’s most dangerous airports, laced up their boots, and started walking. No warm-up day. No easing in. Just a 17-seat plane, a thin cotton curtain between them and the cockpit, and a Sherpa named Prakash setting the pace.

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Raj sits down with Varun and Aneesh to relive their March EBC trek — from the frantic weather delays at Kathmandu’s domestic terminal to the grueling uphill grind into Namche Bazaar. Along the way they get honest about overpacking, the surprisingly good toilets, dal bhat for every single meal, and why taking a hot shower at altitude nearly sent Varun into hypothermia.

They also get into the story that was circulating online about Sherpa “scams” — and why, as always, the truth on the ground looked very different from the headlines.

In this episode:

* Why the time on your Lukla flight ticket is basically fiction

* What “dal bhat power” actually means — and why carbs rule the mountain

* The Hillary Bridge, 800 steps, and the climb that will humble you

* Oxygen saturation checks, AMS symptoms, and how Prakash kept them honest

* The two-sided story behind the helicopter evacuation “scam”

* What Varun wishes he’d packed differently (and why the hot shower was a trap)

Part 2 drops next week — Tengboche, Labuche, Gorak Shep, and the moment they finally saw Everest Base Camp.

🎥 Watching on YouTube? The full episode is up with photos, maps and visuals from the trek — Everest Base Camp Trek Part 1 | Lukla to Namche Bazaar — What Nobody Tells You

My cohost Nidhin and I have a complicated personal history with cockroaches. Growing up as NRI kids in the Gulf in the 80s and 90s, the first thing every household bought was a can of Piff Paff. You’d spray it into every crack in the bathroom, hold your breath through what felt like light chemical warfare, and watch the cockroaches scatter — only for more to show up the next week. Years later, when I brought my wife to Dubai for the first time, she ran out of the bathroom because a cockroach had crawled out of the drain. Resilient little things. Kill one, and somehow two show up in its place.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly the branding logic behind the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) — the satirical Indian youth movement that’s been the subject of two episodes of The Sunday Draft now, three weeks apart.

The one-line recap, for anyone just joining us

On May 15th, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant made an off-the-cuff remark during a Supreme Court hearing — something to the effect of “there are youngsters like cockroaches, they don’t get any employment, they don’t have any place in the profession,” going on to call such people “parasites of society.” He later said he was talking specifically about people using fake degrees, not Indian youth broadly. Didn’t matter. The internet had already run with it.

The next day, a 30-year-old public relations student named Abhijeet Dipke — studying in Boston turned the insult into a website, a manifesto, and an Instagram account. Within 78 hours: 3 million followers. Within a week: over 20 million.

That’s where we left it on May 24th, in an episode I recorded with my friend Varun. And we were, frankly, skeptical.

The report card, one month on

Here’s how our original doubts have held up:

“Is this genuine, or astroturf?”

“Will Dipke actually show up, or run this from Boston forever?”

“Does it have a real leader?”

“Will it register as a political party?”

“Will it just die out as an online fad?”

The manifesto, revisited

The five-point manifesto hasn’t changed a word since May 24th — which is itself a little notable.

No Rajya Sabha seat for any retired Chief Justice as a “post-retirement reward” — only makes sense once you know the backstory.

Cancel media licenses owned by Ambani and Adani, and investigate the bank accounts of “Godi media” anchors — is the one that got the loudest reaction from us on air.

Women’s rights, and a few more.

What’s not in the manifesto, interestingly, is anything about education — even though the actual demand driving every protest so far.

The shadow hanging over all of this: the Aam Aadmi Party precedent

The fear isn’t that CJP gets crushed. It’s that it succeeds just enough to get absorbed — that the moment it needs money to keep going, money comes with strings, and the movement that started as “we are not here to set up another PM CARES” ends up looking a lot like the things it was protesting.

Or, as we put it on the show: the problem was never the cockroaches. It’s the conditions — the heat, the gaps in the walls, the trash nobody collected — that make a place hospitable to them in the first place. Spray it down, and something will always come back, until someone fixes the actual conditions.

What’s next

We’re planning to bring on an actual Gen Z voice for a future episode — someone closer to the ground, ideally once this movement has been through a real test (a setback, a stall, a crackdown) rather than just riding a growth curve. Until then: follow the protests, not the follower count.

Thanks for listening to the full episode. Our banter will definitely enlighten you.

See you next Sunday.

The Sunday Draft is a weekly conversation about the news nobody asked us to cover. Subscribe to get next week’s episode straight to your inbox.

In the episode of The Sunday Draft, Raj sits down with his oldest friend and fellow IT veteran Nidhin for an honest, unfiltered conversation about the one question nobody wants to answer at work: are we actively enabling AI to replace us?

These are two guys who started their careers in the post-dot-com era, survived every wave of tech change since — Java, cloud, mobile-first — and are now staring down the biggest shift yet. This isn’t a panel of experts. It’s a conversation between people living it.

What We Get Into:

The Mercor Story — A $10 billion startup founded by three 21-year-olds is paying doctors, lawyers, engineers, and IT professionals $50–$150/hour to train AI models for Meta, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The catch? You’re essentially transferring your career’s worth of knowledge into a machine that won’t need you once it’s done learning. We break down how it works, who’s backing it (Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, Larry Summers), and what the growing wave of lawsuits and a major data breach reveal about what’s really going on underneath the hood.

The “2 Years vs 5 Years” Debate — Nidhin thinks IT professionals have about two years before AI fundamentally changes what their jobs look like. Raj thinks maybe five. Neither of them is optimistic. They unpack why this wave feels different from cloud, mobile, or any previous disruption.

The Terminator Timeline — Half joking, completely serious. Our generation grew up watching those movies as fiction. The timelines are starting to line up and that’s not a comfortable thought when you’re in the industry building the tools.

Can You Actually Trust Anthropic? — Raj questions whether Anthropic’s “ethical AI” positioning is genuine conviction or just a smarter marketing strategy. If everyone’s racing to build the same thing, does the branding around safety actually mean anything?

What Happens After the Jobs Go? — The conversation goes beyond careers into what mass displacement actually does to society, economies, and the next generation entering a job market that looks nothing like the one we walked into.

India, Unrest, and the Bigger Picture — The guys connect the dots between youth unemployment, political instability, and the AI wave hitting emerging markets — drawing a line from Bangladesh to what’s stirring in India right now.

Watch on YouTube

We’re Being Paid to Train Our Own Replacements | AI, Mercor & The Future of IT Jobs

Timestamps:

* 00:00 — Cold open and introductions

* 04:00 — Did we make the right call going into IT?

* 08:00 — Why this wave is different from every previous one

* 13:00 — Mercor explained: hiring humans to replace humans

* 20:00 — The “we” in “are WE enabling AI” — who’s actually responsible?

* 28:00 — Can you trust Anthropic’s ethics?

* 40:00 — What mass job displacement actually looks like

* 55:00 — India, youth unrest, and the geopolitical angle

* 1:10:00 — Where do we go from here?

* 1:17:00 — Closing thoughts and “until they come for us”

Referenced in this episode:

* Mercor - Organizing human intelligence to power the AI economy

* LiteLLM supply chain breach (April 2025)

* Anthropic’s stance on human-in-the-loop AI

* The Terminator (1984) — still relevant, apparently

About The Sunday Draft No script. No corporate filter. Every Sunday, we talk about the tech stories that aren’t getting enough honest conversation — from AI and jobs to geopolitics and the world we’re all navigating together. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

If this episode made you uncomfortable, good. That means we’re doing our job. Leave a comment, share it with someone in tech, and we’ll see you next Sunday.

This month’s AMA started with a question most of us have never thought to ask: what if the anxiety your child carries isn’t theirs? What if it was handed down — through rituals, rules, and family beliefs — before they were old enough to question any of it?

Tvarita Iyer Vemuri , award-winning child psychologist and our resident expert on The Sunday Draft, joined श्रीraj and co-host VarunVijayNair for a wide-ranging conversation that began with Culture-Bound Syndromes and ended somewhere far more personal.

Here’s what we covered:

What Culture-Bound Syndromes actually are — not superstitions, but clinically recognised patterns of psychological distress that only exist within specific cultural frameworks. Tvarita used Nazar, possession states, and Dhat Syndrome to explain how real suffering can wear a cultural costume — and why a doctor outside that culture might not recognise it at all.

The CBS in disguise — the everyday beliefs we pass to children without realising it. Never say no to elders. Finish everything on your plate. These feel like values. Tvarita explains why they function as something else entirely — and how the “finish your plate” rule alone has a measurable link to emotional eating and obesity in adolescence.

Why NEET isn’t technically a CBS — but why the distinction matters less than the damage. When children start competitive exam prep so young they lose what Tvarita called their radiance — the natural energy and childlikeness that competition quietly erases — the psychological distress is real even if the symptoms aren’t clinically new. Tvarita and Raj pushed back on each other here in a way worth listening to.

Screen addiction and what it’s actually telling you — Tvarita’s take was simple and stuck: children who are addicted to screens almost always have an escape they needed. The device isn’t the problem. It’s filling a gap. When a child has a real relationship with their parent and real alternatives, the pull weakens on its own.

Neurodivergence, over-diagnosis, and the wave of ADHD labels — Tvarita raised something the room hadn’t expected: that the rise in neurodivergent diagnoses is partly a good thing — people finally understanding themselves — and partly a new problem, with parents bringing children in for traits that are just personality.

What a child-friendly society actually looks like — the answer wasn’t structural. It was about inclusion, about learning and unlearning, and about making sure no child ever feels displaced or cornered. Small things. Dating culture being less taboo. Parents accepting that their child has a crush. Society catching up to children rather than asking children to hide.

The closing image that stayed with everyone — Varun said it simply near the end. A person is radiant when they are stress-free, happy, and content. That happiness radiates outward. If we raise happier children, we get a happier society. It sounds obvious. Tvarita spent the whole episode explaining why we keep failing at it.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Welcome & Tvarita’s latest achievements

03:00 — What is a Culture-Bound Syndrome?

05:00 — Nazar, possession states & Indian examples

07:30 — DSM to ICD-11: how CBS became Cultural Concepts of Distress

10:00 — How parents pass CBS to children without knowing

13:45 — Dhat Syndrome explained

15:00 — Why psychoeducation needs community & spiritual psychologists

18:00 — Stigma around therapy in India — who’s actually coming to clinics

23:00 — Varun: raising a child across cultures as a single parent

27:00 — CBS in disguise: never say no to elders

32:00 — Never waste food — and how it links to emotional eating

36:00 — Can parents even detach from superstition to help their kids?

44:00 — How children see their parents across different age groups

47:00 — Neurodivergence, over-diagnosis and the ADHD wave

54:00 — Screen addiction — what it’s really filling

1:05:00 — What should a single parent watch out for?

1:08:00 — How to limit screens without a fight

1:15:00 — What will it take to make society child-friendly?

1:17:00 — India’s subtle shifts — dating culture, acceptance, inclusion

1:20:00 — What the US gets right: sports, community, cheering from the sidelines

1:23:00 — NEET, competition and losing your radiance

1:29:00 — Closing thoughts: radiant children make a radiant society

The Sunday Draft airs every Sunday at 10:00 AM EST / 7:30 PM IST. Subscribe to never miss an episode.

Tvarita Iyer Vemuri is an award-winning child psychologist, newly registered with the National Commission for Allied and Health Professions and the National Health Authority, and joins the Delhi Council of Child Welfare as a psychologist this week.

🎙️ The Sunday Draft drops every Sunday, please subscribe on YouTube @TheSundayDraft to be notified of our next LIVE session.

🎙️ Episode Overview

In this episode, we address, dismantle, and answer the most common (and sometimes wacky) questions, misconceptions, and online trolling points regarding India’s massive, diverse population and rich heritage. From language barriers to cultural traditions, we dive deep into what it truly means to navigate Indian identity in the digital age.

📌 Key Topics Covered

* The Reality of Trolling & Cultural MisunderstandingsAn exploration of how online discourse shapes, challenges, and sometimes stereotypes Indian culture across global social media platforms.

* The “Language” MythDeconstructing the common misconception of “speaking Indian.” We break down the sheer linguistic diversity of the subcontinent, highlighting its multiple official regional languages.

* Traditions vs. StereotypesAnswering FAQs about daily life, modern clothing choices, regional culinary realities (no, not everyone is a vegetarian!), and the religious significance behind historical traditions.

* Unity in Massive DiversityA look at how India blends ancient spiritual history with a highly active, modern digital population.

⏱️ Key Timestamps & Takeaways

* 00:00 - Introduction: Welcome to the episode and setting the stage for addressing internet cultural wars.

* 05:15 - Linguistic Landscape: Why assuming there is only one language ignores hundreds of millions of voices.

* 12:30 - Debunking the Monolith: Tackling food, regional lifestyle differences, and western assumptions.

* 22:45 - Navigating the Comments Section: How creators and everyday users handle targeted internet trolls.

🔗 Resources & Links for further reading

* Community Discussion: Read what others are saying about explaining their culture abroad on the Reddit ABCDesis Thread.

* Cultural Literacy: For a primer on regional demographics, review the official Wikipedia Culture of India Entry.

📣 Leave a Review!

If you enjoyed this deep dive, please subscribe, leave a 5-star rating on your favorite platform, and drop your thoughts in the comment section below!

In this deep-dive episode of The Sunday Draft, Raj and Varun unpack the shifting landscape of global energy, geopolitical power plays, and what it means for the future of American society. From escalating military conflicts threatening trade routes to high-level diplomatic summits, they explore the fragile systems keeping the modern world running. Is the era of cheap energy officially over, and is America ready to pivot?

Varun just got back from trekking to Everest Base Camp. Fourteen days through Nepal, no signal, no news. Meanwhile, a war had started and it’s been escalating. And an airline many budget travelers relied on closed its counters, grounded their planes, fired their staff, and stranded their passengers.

Spirit Airlines collapsed on May 2nd, 2026. 3am. No warning. Seventeen thousand jobs gone before most people’s alarms went off. But this episode isn’t really about Spirit Airlines.

It’s about what Spirit’s death revealed — about jet fuel, the Strait of Hormuz, and the assumption that every American system was quietly built on: that oil would always be cheap, always be stable, always be there.

Raj and Varun spent a Sunday morning unpacking it. The rescue fares that were also a land grab. The Indian aviation system teetering on the edge. Why you can live off a 7-Eleven in Japan and need a car to reach one in America. What Italy, Singapore, and India get right that the US keeps getting wrong. And the middle class that keeps getting squeezed from every direction with nowhere to go.

No scripts. No prep. Just two friends peeling back the layers.

This is The Sunday Draft.

One Month In — Five episodes. Stories that matter to people paying attention.

This week marks one month of The Sunday Draft, and instead of the usual format, the tables got flipped. Alicia — globetrotter, Substack regular, and the very first person Raj ever went live with — sat across from him and asked the questions.

What followed was an honest, unhurried look at what this show is actually trying to do and why.

Raj talked about how The Sunday Draft came to life — the name, the co-host he found by luck, and the gap he kept seeing: stories that matter getting a blip of coverage and then disappearing. The kind of stories that don’t trend but don’t go away either.

They walked through the episodes so far. The 46 million children in India invisible to the education system — a number so large it doesn’t feel real until someone like Raman puts a face on it. The child psychologist on the front lines of a social media addiction epidemic that nobody wants to call an epidemic yet. The Mohammad Deepak story, where identity and defiance collided in a politically charged corner of India. And the Meenu Batra case — where immigration policy stopped being abstract and became someone’s life.

They also talked about what it costs to build something like this alongside a full-time job, what trolls actually signal, and what independence means when the left and right feel equally exhausted.

A month in. Still figuring out the connective tissue. Still showing up every Sunday.

New episodes every Sunday. Find us on YouTube and Substack at @thesundaydraft.

🎙️ Spotify →

Your Questions. Real Answers. Honest Conversation.

In this inaugural Ask Me Anything episode of The Sunday Draft Podcast, we sit down with Tvarita Iyer Vemuri, an award-winning child psychologist, to tackle one of the most pressing challenges facing parents and caregivers today: how technology is reshaping childhood development.

Whether you’re worried about your toddler’s tablet time, concerned about your teen’s social media addiction, or simply trying to navigate the digital parenting landscape—this episode is for you.

Episode Highlights

🏆 Meeting an Award-Winning Expert

Tvarita recently received recognition from Nestology, a leading platform specializing in early childhood development (ages 0-3) using Montessori methods. Discovered through LinkedIn and The Sunday Draft podcast, she’s now dedicated to helping families understand and navigate the complex relationship between children and technology.

📊 Shocking Stats About Teen Tech Addiction

* 50% of US teens (13-18) self-report being addicted to social media

* 9+ hours daily spent on social media platforms

* Children under 5 in India average 2.2 hours/day on screens

* These numbers are only increasing as schools integrate more technology into learning

🤔 The Question Every Parent Asks: When Does Device Use Become Addiction?

There’s no magic age where children suddenly become addicted to screens. What matters is:

* Parental modeling — Kids emulate what they see at home

* Environmental factors — When peers are on devices, non-digital activities lose appeal

* How devices are introduced — Distraction vs. dependency

* Individual susceptibility — Some children are naturally more prone to problematic use

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 The Parental Mirror Effect

Children naturally copy their parents’ technology habits. If parents are constantly on phones and tablets, kids will replicate this pattern. Setting healthy boundaries isn’t just about rules—it’s about modeling the behavior you want to see.

🎮 Tech Isn’t All Bad—Balance is Key

Gaming, YouTube, and online resources provide real educational value and skill development. The goal isn’t elimination—it’s intentional, purposeful usage that supports learning and development rather than passive consumption.

📚 The Great Print vs. Digital Debate

Research shows better information retention with print reading vs. screens. But here’s the reality: the solution isn’t digital elimination. It’s cultivating a reading culture where both formats have a place, and books are accessible and normalized in family life.

Key Takeaways

✅ There’s no one-size-fits-all age when addiction begins—prevention starts with parental awareness and modeling

✅ Peer influence matters — As kids get older, what their friends are doing becomes as important as what parents are doing

✅ Environment is destiny — When books aren’t around, kids won’t pick them up. When screens are always accessible, they will be used.

✅ Balance, not abstinence — Technology offers real learning benefits. The goal is intentional usage, not elimination.

✅ It’s never too late — Even adults can build healthier technology habits by reading print, joining book clubs, and creating accountability

What’s Coming Next

This episode launches The Sunday Draft’s monthly Ask Me Anything series. Each month, Tvarita will answer YOUR questions about:

* Child mental health & emotional development

* Screen time & device addiction

* Parenting strategies & family dynamics

* Learning & cognitive development

* Sibling relationships & social skills

* Anxiety, behavioral challenges & more

📝 Have a Question for Next Month’s AMA?

Reply in the comments or email your questions. The best questions will be featured in our next episode.

About Tvarita Iyer Vemuri

Tvarita is a dedicated child psychologist with a passion for understanding how children develop in an increasingly digital world. She works with families across India and internationally, helping them navigate the complexities of modern childhood. Her approach combines clinical expertise with practical, actionable guidance that works in real family life.

🌐 Learn more: Connect with Tvarita

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New here? Start with this episode—no prior listening required. Just bring your parenting questions and your curiosity.

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