15 min readAug 12, 2026 08:02 AM IST First published on: Aug 12, 2026 at 07:37 AM ISTThe victory claims were audacious, even amusing.“I’ve created a powerful algorithm and it is operating at 99.1%… Let this email message serve as my claim to the prize for translating the Indus Valley Script,” read one of the many messages that flooded Rajesh P N Rao’s email in the months after the Tamil Nadu government’s January 2025 announcement of a $1 million reward for anyone who deciphered the Indus script.