1/ Indians must have no confusion about how we reached impressive Covid herd immunity: "India’s masses didn’t have the luxury to ‘work from home’ and follow social distancing, but they might have silently built India’s herd immunity"

"Who likes to fire crackers during Diwali?" asked the teacher.

About half of the nine-ten year olds in the classroom raised their hands.

"You should be ashamed," chided the teacher. "Crackers are harmful to our environment!"

The ones who did not raise their hands felt proud.

Sources : A senior journalist with very good political connections, suddenly went out of job. He is a person capable of getting info from any political party over phone. He didn’t even call me. 1/n

I found this issue and called him. I asked him plainly, is he in search of a job.
At that time, @IndianPAC was recruiting furiously.

I spoke to a leader in DMK, who is very senior has some clout. 2/n

Do you know, what is the response of @IndianPAC ? They said, we don’t recruit, any one above 35. The reason they stated is, people above 35 years of age, don’t work hard.

The @IndianPAC thinks number crunching alone will elections. 3/n

People watching TN politics know very well that TN is a unique state. How would a Bihari Brahmin with prime ministerial ambitions be true to DMK, a party which flourished on anti-Brahminism.

Sources say, Prasanth Kishore, 4/n

around one year back, called all those who were active in anti CAA/NRC protests for a meet in Delhi and offered them money and asked them to work for 10 years, when a 3rd front will come to power. 4/n

#FarmReforms
#FarmBills

Who Is Protesting and Why?

Reforms have proved controversial. In Sept, BBC wondered whether they were a “death warrant” for farmers.

Some worry whether reforms might lead to the end of wholesale markets and guaranteed

Currently, the government offers a minimum support price that acts as a safety net for farmers. Even though the government has promised to retain such a price, farmers fear its withdrawal over time.

There is an added fear that big private players will offer good money to farmers in the beginning, kill off their competition and then pay little for agricultural produce.

Farmers might go from the local monopsonies of APMCs to the national oligopoly of Amazon-like behemoths.

It is important to remember that the government offers price support only for the staple crops of the Green Revolution.

Other crops do not qualify, nor do fruits and vegetables.

Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming number of protesters are farmers from India’s northwest, the region that has benefited most from the old system. In particular, they belong to Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, the birthplace of the Green Revolution.

[QT: INDIA, THE GOLD STANDARD OF CLASS]
1/28
Some time last week, an American shared this on LinkedIn. A neutral (note the 3rd-person verbiage) observation of the goings-on in our capital with a legit @AP thumbnail. Of course India had to descend on him like an avalanche of poop.

2/28
This is a quick thread of some of the worst responses out there, just to illustrate the obvious, which in one way makes the exercise pointless. At the same time, such loss of a demography's class must never be out of the spotlight. So am doing it anyway.

3/28
Just before we start, here's a small bummer: I've redacted all identifying information even though it's all in public domain. This is to avoid any inadvertent code violation; Twitter doesn't seem to like doxing and neither do I.

So here we go.

4/28
1. Corporate affairs general manager at a Japanese auto heavyweight.
2. DB architect with a Silicon Valley giant. Sum total of his argument? Farmer leaders lean Left. Interestingly, also disses the IAC shindig the biggest benefactor of which was the party in power today.

5/28
Here's another, this time no less than the COO of one of the biggest electronics retail chains in India. From his English, to his demeanor, to his self-entitlement, tweet naming one thing that isn't oozing class.