Vichitra Collective
About

Privacy Policy & Support Terms

Privacy Policy

  • Effective Date: May 27, 2026
  • Owner & Data Controller: Vichitra Collective (Registered Sole Proprietorship, India)
  • Contact Email: [email protected]

1. Minimal Data Collection

We believe in a tracker-free, privacy-first web experience. We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data. We only collect information when you actively interact with the Collective:

  • Newsletter/Email Sign-up: If you subscribe to our blog updates, we collect your full name and email address. This data is securely stored within our internal Ghost content management system. Outbound newsletter scheduling is handled via a self-hosted instance of Listmonk, which dynamically calls the active subscriber list from Ghost.
  • Financial Support (Sponsorships): If you choose to voluntarily fund or sponsor our digital articles, photography, or open-source software maintenance, transactions are securely executed through our third-party payment partner (Razorpay).

2. Third-Party Payment Processing

Razorpay, our payment processor, collects the information needed to complete a payment and to comply with Reserve Bank of India cross-border regulations: an email address and phone number for every transaction, and (for international card payments) the cardholder's name, card details, billing country, and postal code. This data is entered directly with Razorpay at checkout and is governed by Razorpay's own privacy policy; none of it is stored on, or ever transmitted to, Vichitra Collective's own servers. The sponsorship page also detects your approximate country from your network connection, in order to display the payment amount in your local currency. This detection is not stored anywhere and exists only to render that page.

3. Purpose of Processing Data

We use the information gathered only for the purpose it was collected for:

  • Newsletter data (name, email — held by Vichitra Collective): providing access to our published media and newsletters.
  • Sponsorship payment data (handled directly by Razorpay, never stored by Vichitra Collective): validating cross-border digital service transactions under Indian compliance requirements, and preventing fraud and payment disputes.

4. International Data Transfers and Security

Newsletter and site infrastructure (Ghost, Listmonk) is self-hosted on our own server in an EU data center and not operated by a third party. Data is transferred to third parties only for payments (Razorpay) and outbound email delivery (Zoho, as SMTP relay). The sponsorship page runs on Cloudflare's global network. Infrastructure uses HTTPS encryption, firewalls, and access controls for protection.

5. Your Rights over Your Data

Depending on your geographic location (such as under the EU's GDPR), you hold specific statutory rights regarding your personal information, including the right to access, update, or delete data we hold about you. For newsletter data, we maintain full administrative control over our Ghost database and can fulfill these requests directly. Payment data is held by Razorpay, not by us. Requests concerning payment data will be forwarded to Razorpay on your behalf. Contact us at [email protected] to exercise either right.

Terms & Support Policy

Payments made through the 'Sponsor' links on this blog or GitHub are voluntary micro-fees designed to support independent creative writing, photography dispatches, and open-source project maintenance. Sponsorship payments are voluntary, final, and non-refundable, supporting server maintenance and development.