Trump is positioning two aircraft carriers, a dozen warships & hundreds of fighter jets to prepare for a possible war with Iran. I first got into politics to end the Iraq War. I won’t let Trump launch a disastrous war without Congress voting to stop it. https://t.co/mykiIgwGRg
A war with Iran would be catastrophic. Iran is a complex society of 90 million people with significant air defenses and military capabilities. We also have 30-40k U.S. troops in the region who could be at risk of retaliation. Congress must do its job and stop this march to war.
I don’t believe a lot of Iranians love the fact that US might get in a war with Iran. At the end of the day Iran is our homeland and it’s hard to see it get attacked. Unfortunately the Islamic republic has gotten us to a point where we believe military action is the least bad…
•570,000 — Toronto •350,000 — Los Angeles •250,000 — Munich •100,000 — Brisbane •100,000 — Montreal •100,000 — Sydney •50,000 — London •35,000 — Vancouver •35,000 — Dallas •35,000 — Washington •30,000 — Manchester •25,000… pic.twitter.com/f5lcSTO91Y
— Gazelle ╪║╪▓╪з┘Д┘З ╪┤╪з╪▒┘Е┘З╪п (@GazelleSharmahd) February 17, 2026
At a YC dinner last week, a founder casually mentioned they're not hiring sales anymore.
"So.. how do you do outbound?"
"14 AI agents."
Thought they were messing with me, but they showed me the dashboard - it's real.
Agents handling: - Onboarding - Support → feedback -…
I will say, having spent many months using bucket baths at my grandparents’ house in India during my childhood, the absurd pleasure of a hot shower is something you never again take for granted again.
Bharat Taxi: Can India’s Cooperative Bet Become the “Amul of Mobility”?
On February 5, 2026, India unveiled an experiment that could redefine the economics of the gig economy. Launched by Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah, Bharat Taxi positions itself as India’s first government-backed, cooperative-owned ride-hailing platform—a driver-owned alternative to Ola, Uber, and Rapido.
The pitch is bold and simple: No commissions. No surge pricing. Full driver ownership.
Already live in Delhi-NCR and Gujarat after a two-month pilot, the platform aims for nationwide rollout within two to three years, targeting full coverage by 2029. But Bharat Taxi is more than a new app—it is an ideological challenge to the prevailing “aggregator capitalism” model that has dominated urban mobility for over a decade.
The question now is not whether it is different. The question is whether it can win.
The Cooperative Model: Rewriting the Rules of Ride-Hailing
Bharat Taxi operates under Sahkar Taxi Cooperative Limited (STCL), a multi-state cooperative registered under India’s Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002. It is backed by eight major national cooperatives—including Amul, IFFCO, KRIBHCO, NAFED, and NABARD—with institutional support from India’s Ministry of Cooperation.
This is not accidental branding. It is structural intent.
How the Model Works
1. Zero Commission Drivers keep 100% of the fare. Instead of the 20–40% commissions common on private platforms, Bharat Taxi charges a small fixed daily access fee (approximately ₹30 for taxis, ₹18 for auto-rickshaws).
2. No Surge Pricing Fares are predictable and transparent. The absence of dynamic surge pricing is designed to eliminate rider distrust and fare volatility. On routine routes, rides may be 20–30% cheaper due to the removal of commission markups.
3. Driver Ownership Every driver—referred to as a “Sarathi”—becomes a shareholder. A minimum purchase of five shares (₹500 total) grants voting rights and future dividend eligibility. Drivers elect representatives to the governing board.
4. Revenue Structure The cooperative earns only the daily subscription fee and modest platform maintenance charges. Any surplus is distributed as dividends among driver-members.
5. Welfare Layer Drivers receive ₹5 lakh health insurance coverage, access to vehicle financing support, training programs, and safety integration features such as real-time tracking and panic buttons.
6. Technology Backbone The app leverages open-source ride-matching technology similar to systems supported by ONDC initiatives, enabling UPI and card payments while reducing infrastructure costs.
In theory, the model flips the gig-economy script: instead of labor serving capital, capital serves labor.
Why It Is Being Called the “Amul of Ride-Hailing”
The comparison to Amul is deliberate—and powerful.
Amul transformed millions of small dairy farmers into collective market power. Farmers supply milk; the cooperative processes and markets it; profits flow back to producers. There are no venture capitalists extracting value.
Bharat Taxi attempts the same alchemy in mobility:
Dairy Cooperative Model
Ride-Hailing Cooperative Model
Farmers supply milk
Drivers supply rides
Cooperative owns brand
Cooperative owns app
Profits shared
Dividends shared
Democratic governance
Elected driver board
The slogan often invoked is “Sahkar se Samriddhi”—prosperity through cooperation.
India has proven this model works in milk and fertilizers. The question is whether it can survive the brutal, tech-driven arena of real-time logistics.
Market Opportunity: A $44 Billion Question
India’s ride-hailing market is currently valued at roughly $21 billion and projected to reach $44 billion by 2032. Urbanization, rising smartphone penetration, digital payments adoption, and growing middle-class mobility needs make the sector structurally attractive.
But ride-hailing is not merely a transport business—it is a network effects business.
In platform economics:
Riders choose the app with fastest pickup times.
Drivers choose the app with most ride demand.
The winner becomes self-reinforcing.
Ola and Uber built this density through years of aggressive venture-backed subsidies. Bharat Taxi does not have the luxury of billion-dollar war chests to burn.
Instead, it bets on something else: moral alignment and economic fairness.
Strengths: Why Drivers May Switch
1. Higher Take-Home Pay
A driver losing 25% commission on ₹2,000 daily earnings forfeits ₹500. Over a month, that is ₹15,000—a material difference in a price-sensitive economy.
2. Ownership Psychology
When drivers own equity, retention improves. Behavioral economics suggests ownership increases commitment and service quality.
3. Government Backing
Regulatory alignment and institutional trust could smooth expansion across states.
4. Cooperative Distribution Networks
Existing cooperative ecosystems—from dairy to agriculture—offer ready-made grassroots organizational channels.
Challenges: The Execution Mountain
However elegant the model, reality will test it.
1. Technology Experience
Matching the polished interfaces and predictive algorithms of Uber requires continuous investment in AI routing, demand forecasting, and fraud detection.
2. Network Density
Without rapid onboarding, riders may face longer wait times—a death sentence in urban mobility.
3. Competitive Response
Incumbents could slash commissions temporarily, offer retention bonuses, or improve driver benefits to defend territory.
4. Governance Complexity
Democratic structures are empowering—but can slow decision-making. Tech markets move at “Internet time,” not committee time.
5. Sustainability Without Subsidies
Unlike venture-backed rivals, Bharat Taxi must balance sustainability from inception. There is little room for prolonged discount wars.
The Bigger Idea: Can Cooperation Beat Capital?
Bharat Taxi is not merely an app. It is a philosophical challenge to platform capitalism.
Traditional aggregators extract value from distributed labor. Bharat Taxi attempts to redistribute that value back to labor.
It is a reversal of gravitational pull.
But history offers caution. Cooperatives thrive when:
Governance is professionalized.
Technology adoption is aggressive.
Incentives remain aligned.
Political interference is minimal.
If bureaucracy creeps in, speed evaporates. And in mobility, speed is oxygen.
Comparison: Bharat Taxi vs. Kalki Sena Drive (Kathmandu)
Both Bharat Taxi and Kalki Sena Drive challenge foreign-dominated ride-hailing models, but they diverge sharply in structure and intent.
Similarities
Reject high commission extraction.
Frame themselves as ethical alternatives.
Emphasize local economic retention.
Differences
Bharat Taxi
Kalki Sena Drive
True cooperative ownership
For-profit company
Drivers are shareholders
Company donates profits
Dividends to drivers
100% profit to healthcare initiatives
National-scale ambition
Kathmandu-focused
Mobility fairness mission
Public health funding mission
Bharat Taxi redistributes value to workers. Kalki Sena Drive channels value to social infrastructure.
Both represent post-aggregator thinking—but through different moral architectures.
Out-of-the-Box Perspective: What If It Succeeds?
If Bharat Taxi scales effectively:
Template for Gig Reform Food delivery, logistics, domestic work platforms could replicate cooperative ownership.
Policy Export Model Other Global South nations may adapt the cooperative-tech hybrid.
Behavioral Shift Consumers may begin choosing platforms aligned with worker dignity.
Investor Rethink Capital markets may need to adjust to profit-sharing, non-extractive models.
It could signal a new chapter where technology is not owned by capital alone—but by participants.
Early Verdict
The early pilot reportedly handled around 10,000 rides per day across two cities, with over 300,000 driver sign-ups. These are promising signals—but early traction does not equal structural dominance.
On paper, Bharat Taxi offers:
Higher driver income
Lower rider fares
Democratic governance
Institutional backing
In practice, success hinges on:
App quality
Onboarding speed
Fleet density
Brand trust
Operational discipline
The cooperative model resonates deeply with India’s economic history. But scaling a tech platform while maintaining low costs and high quality is a different beast from milk collection or fertilizer distribution.
It requires algorithmic precision, real-time coordination, and relentless product iteration.
Final Thought: A Mobility Revolution or a Noble Experiment?
Bharat Taxi stands at the intersection of ideology and infrastructure.
If it falters, skeptics will argue that markets punish idealism.
If it thrives, it may become India’s most important gig-economy innovation—a platform where dignity is not a marketing slogan but a balance-sheet entry.
The road ahead stretches from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
Whether Bharat Taxi becomes a footnote—or the “Amul of mobility”—depends not on its ideals, but on its execution.
In the gig economy’s crowded highway, cooperation has entered the race.
From Milk to Mobility to Markets: Where the Amul Model Could Reshape India’s Platform Economy
When India built Amul, it did more than create a dairy brand. It created a template for economic sovereignty.
Millions of small farmers—once price-takers at the mercy of middlemen—became owners of a national powerhouse. The cooperative aggregated supply, built processing capacity, invested in brand and logistics, and returned profits to producers.
Now, with Bharat Taxi challenging Uber and Ola, a larger question emerges:
Where else can India apply the Amul model to reclaim value from global platforms?
Because if milk could be organized, and mobility can be reorganized, why stop there?
India is full of fragmented producers—and platform capitalism thrives on fragmentation. The Amul model thrives on aggregation.
The future battlefield is not dairy. It is digital infrastructure.
1. Food Delivery: The “Amul of Restaurants”
Today, Indian restaurants rely heavily on Zomato and Swiggy.
Commission rates can reach 20–30%. Restaurants often complain that:
Margins shrink dramatically
Visibility is algorithm-controlled
Data ownership belongs to the platform
The Cooperative Alternative
Imagine a Restaurant Cooperative Delivery Network:
Restaurants become shareholders
Delivery partners are members
Commission is replaced by fixed subscription
Customer data remains with merchants
Instead of extracting value from restaurants, the platform becomes their shared infrastructure.
India has 1.5+ million restaurants. Even 10% participation could create a massive cooperative logistics grid.
2. Grocery & Kirana Digitization: The Anti-Platform Platform
Amazon, Flipkart, and BigBasket dominate online retail.
But India has over 12 million kirana stores—tiny neighborhood retailers with deep trust and local relationships.
Instead of replacing kiranas, the Amul-style cooperative could:
Digitize inventory
Pool procurement power
Share warehousing
Build a shared app
This becomes “Digital Amul for Retail.”
Not anti-market. But anti-extraction.
3. Home Services: Reclaiming Value from Gig Intermediaries
Platforms like Urban Company connect plumbers, electricians, beauticians, and cleaners to customers.
The problem:
Workers pay commissions
Ratings determine livelihood
Pricing is centrally dictated
A Service Provider Cooperative App could allow:
Professionals to set floor prices
Shared insurance and pension funds
Peer governance over disputes
India has millions of informal service workers. Organizing them digitally could formalize and empower at scale.
4. Freelance & Digital Labor: The Indian Alternative to Global Marketplaces
Indian freelancers dominate platforms like Upwork and Fiverr.
Yet:
Fees can reach 20%
Currency conversion losses hurt earnings
Dispute mechanisms are opaque
An Indian Freelancer Cooperative Platform could:
Reduce commission to 5% or fixed membership
Offer legal and tax assistance
Share profits among members
Provide collective bargaining power for enterprise contracts
India is the world’s back office. Why not own the platform layer too?
5. Trucking & Logistics: The Invisible Giant
India’s trucking sector is massively fragmented. Brokers often take significant margins between manufacturers and drivers.
Instead of broker capitalism:
A Truckers’ Cooperative App
Direct shipper-driver matching
Collective fuel procurement
Fleet financing support
This could displace intermediary-heavy logistics chains and reduce freight inflation.
6. Agriculture Platforms: Beyond Fertilizers
India already has cooperative success with IFFCO and KRIBHCO.
But agri-tech platforms are increasingly venture-funded and data-driven.
What if:
Farmers owned crop marketplaces
Agri-data platforms were farmer-controlled
Storage and cold chain apps were cooperative-run
The next Amul might not sell milk—it might sell data.
7. Pharmacy & Healthcare Delivery
Online pharmacy platforms such as Tata 1mg and PharmEasy are consolidating healthcare commerce.
India has thousands of independent pharmacies.
A cooperative health-delivery platform could:
Pool procurement
Reduce drug costs
Share logistics
Create community health insurance pools
Healthcare margins are thin. Cooperative pooling could be transformative.
8. Education & EdTech
Indian educators increasingly rely on platforms like Udemy or centralized edtech companies.
A Teacher Cooperative Learning Platform could:
Let educators own course revenue
Share marketing infrastructure
Pool certification credibility
India’s knowledge economy does not have to be platform-dependent.
The Amul Model: How a Farmer Cooperative Built India’s Most Enduring FMCG Powerhouse
Few institutions in India combine scale, brand power, rural transformation, and democratic ownership as effectively as Amul.
What began as a local protest against exploitative middlemen in Gujarat evolved into the world’s largest dairy cooperative network — a system owned by millions of farmers, professionally managed, and nationally dominant in dairy.
This article explains:
The historical origins of Amul
The “Anand Pattern” cooperative structure
Its three-tier governance model
Revenue and pricing mechanics
Supply chain and operations
Brand and marketing strategy
Expansion into value-added products
National and global footprint
Strengths, weaknesses, and future challenges
Part I: The Origins — A Revolt Against Exploitation (1940s)
The Problem: Monopoly Control in Kaira
In the 1940s, milk producers in Kaira district (now Anand), Gujarat, were forced to sell milk to a private contractor supplying the Bombay Milk Scheme. Farmers were paid low prices and had no bargaining power.
Milk was perishable. Farmers were fragmented. Middlemen controlled aggregation.
The Spark: Sardar Patel’s Intervention
Local farmers approached Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel for help. Patel advised them to form their own cooperative and bypass middlemen entirely.
Under the leadership of Tribhuvandas Patel, farmers formed the Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union in 1946.
That union would later brand its products as “Amul.”
The Name “Amul”
Derived from the Sanskrit word Amulya (meaning priceless), Amul became the consumer-facing brand of the cooperative.
Part II: The Architect — Verghese Kurien
In 1949, a young engineer named Verghese Kurien was posted to Anand by the Government of India.
Initially reluctant, Kurien became the operational visionary who:
Professionalized processing
Introduced modern dairy technology
Built large-scale milk powder production
Designed farmer-first economics
He later became known as the “Father of the White Revolution.”
Part III: Operation Flood & The White Revolution
In 1965, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was established under Kurien’s leadership.
Operation Flood (1970–1996)
Funded partly through European milk powder aid, Operation Flood replicated the “Anand Pattern” across India.
Results:
India became the world’s largest milk producer
Rural incomes increased dramatically
Dairy shifted from subsistence to commercial scale
Today, India produces over 220 million tonnes of milk annually — a transformation rooted in the cooperative model.
Part IV: The Three-Tier “Anand Pattern” Structure
Amul operates through a federated cooperative system, not as a conventional company.
It consists of three levels:
1️⃣ Village Level — Primary Milk Cooperative Societies
Farmers are members
Each member has one vote (not proportional to milk supplied)
Milk is collected twice daily
Quality testing is done transparently
Payment is based on fat and SNF (solids-not-fat) content
This ensures:
Transparency
Immediate incentive alignment
Direct farmer payment
2️⃣ District Level — Milk Unions
Village societies supply milk to district unions, which:
Pricing balances farmer welfare and consumer affordability
Part VII: Why Amul Succeeded
1. Alignment of Incentives
Farmers are owners. Management is professional. Brand is centralized.
Ownership and supply are integrated.
2. Scale Without Exploitation
Private dairy firms often:
Source from contractors
Push down procurement prices
Amul ensures competitive milk pricing.
3. Democratic Governance
One member, one vote
Elected leadership
Farmer accountability
4. Professional Management
Kurien insisted that:
Cooperatives must be run by professionals, not politicians.
This prevented bureaucratic stagnation (at least in early decades).
Part VIII: Challenges Over Time
Amul has faced:
Political interference in cooperatives
Competition from private dairies
Supply chain inflation
Climate-related milk productivity risks
Urbanization reducing dairy households
Yet it continues to grow.
Part IX: Amul Today
Today Amul is:
India’s largest food brand
One of the world’s largest dairy cooperatives
Exporting to 40+ countries
Expanding into protein beverages and new-age nutrition
It competes directly with multinational FMCG firms while remaining farmer-owned.
Part X: Lessons from the Amul Model
1. Aggregation Beats Fragmentation
Small producers gain power through scale.
2. Ownership Matters
When suppliers own the platform, extraction reduces.
3. Branding Is Crucial
Commodity becomes premium through brand trust.
4. Infrastructure Is Power
Cold chain + logistics = market access.
5. Cooperative ≠ Inefficient
With professional management, cooperatives can outperform corporations.
The Deeper Significance
Amul was not merely a dairy enterprise.
It was:
A rural development strategy
A poverty alleviation engine
A gender empowerment mechanism
A model of economic democracy
The White Revolution lifted millions out of poverty.
In an era dominated by venture-funded platforms, Amul offers a contrasting model:
Scale without surrendering ownership.
From a farmer protest in 1946 to a ₹60,000+ crore brand today, Amul represents one of the most successful experiments in cooperative capitalism anywhere in the world.
Milk was the product. Ownership was the innovation.