"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.

"We are social creatures, and we don't go alone."

Somewhere inside a jungle, under the cover of lush trees, was gathered a curious collection of animals, and an old wolf was addressing the others.

"What in the whole wide world is a lone-wolf then?"

The other animals nodded.

"As if that were not enough," said another wolf, "we don't wear sheep's clothing either."

From the sheep that had gathered, a black one bleated, "What is wrong with a black sheep, eh?"

"Whoa!" exclaimed a rabbit, "say sheep of color."

They all agreed and threw the rabbit out.

The gathering was called by some animals in protest against being abused and insulted by figures of speech of humans.

Someone suggested they block roads in protest, but they did not want to stoop to that level. "We are better than Yogendra," they claimed.

So, here they were.

"When one of my pups bit our neighbors," said the wolf that had first spoken, "we justified by calling him a lone-human."

"It's funny," laughed a hyena.

"We told the other wolves," said the wolf, "that the lone-human does not represent our ideology, our beliefs, our wolfity."

"Give it back to the humans," guffawed the hyena.

"You #LLRC," tittered a monkey, at which the hyena felt insulted and there was a scuffle.

"Silence!" roared a fat lion, but the beasts had lost respect for him after he kept criticizing his own leader and supported the hyenas.

The Greeks gave us democracy,
The Romans gave us numbers;
If not for their presence, you see,
We'll all be dumb-and-dumbers.

The French taught us revolution,
And gave us Left and Right;
Imagine our evolution,
Without this great divide.

The Germans gave maths and machines;
Philosophies galore;
If not for half-moustache obscene,
They would've given us more!

The British, too, gave us in spate,
They built all roads and tracks;
Without knowing their language great,
What worth our thoughts and acts?

Of course they gave us sins and priests,
To wake us up from stupor;
Before, we were uncivilized beasts;
After, we became super!

Italians, their gestures grand,
Taught us cooking and wine;
The world elsewhere was raw and bland,
We knew not how to dine.

The Spaniards, in their own way,
An inquisitive crowd;
Gave us dances and omelettes fey,
And tomatoes flung around.

The Swiss, even, from mountains cold,
Gave us chocolates and knives;
If not for them, let truth be told,
Will Hindi flicks survive?

Europe, the land of Arts and Science,
And Culture and Refinement;
If not for their exquisite lines,
We'll be in dark confinement!

Europe, they found out tail and head,
From fairy tales to bacillus;
So what in some places they spread,
A new disease like syphilis?! //

A few thoughts on Tooter, since it's trending and being discussed.

The landing page makes the indigenous angle quite apparent: "MADE IN INDIA" under the logo and "A Swadeshi social network" as the tagline.

It only accepts a Gmail or Yahoo! email address, for whatever reasons.

Tooter has taken to heart the indigenous angle, even comparing the American Twitter India with the British East India company.

I have no problems with this, for this is a pitch that Tooter has decided to grow.

Tooter is forked from Mastodon, which, to me, has been a sore point.

Mastodon has been around for some time, and if you remember, had become temporarily popular as left-liberals had infested the place.

After some trolling Mastodon went rogue and suspended accounts (yes, mine too).

Inditoot was based on Mastodon then, but was eventually shutdown.

While I agree that Tooter is a fork, and probably not dependent on the whims of Mastodon, the wholly indigenous part becomes simply a marketing pitch.

Someone knowledgeable can explain what a fork carries over and depends on.

Even the app is based on existing Mastodon apps.

Tooter started out on the wrong toot, I mean foot, by creating and verifying accounts of Prof. Vaidya, and making people automatically follow that. In fact, newly created accounts also automatically follow the founder, Nanda.

Prof. Vaidya has now said that he is NOT on Tooter.

1. Which politician in the post-Independence era do you most associate with vile, sinister destruction?

(A very positive, optimistic thread on politics in the post-Independence era. You can be frivolous or serious in your replies, but in either case, think before you answer.)

2. What was the single most important reform in the post-Independence era that never happened?

3. What has been the worst foreign policy disaster in the post-Independence era?

4. If you have to pick the worst decade (47-56, 57-66, 67-76, 77-86, 87-96, 97-06, 07-16, 17-now) for politics, what would that be?

5. When defining religious minorities at the state level, which state is the worst when it comes to persecution of religious minorities?

Since Tharoor has let the feline out of the Fendi, here are some of his daily routines that we know now.

* Perform Surya Namaskār so that the Sun has to rise
* Survey land to find out patches where not even a blade of grass grows
* Concoct new dishes by adding paneer to them

On the last one there's an adorable legend about Nehru that even Nehru would be surprised if he hears about it.

Nehru, rooted to the ground beneath his feet, was a nationalist at heart. While toying with green peas in his salad, he had an idea about national integration. Paneer.

Nehru, using his tremendous knowledge while discovering India (this was post-Independence, so no need to use _____), said that paneer could bind the nation together.

So he suggested adding paneer to dishes across India: paneer parantha, paneer pakoda, paneer idli, paneer khaman.

In an era when culinary creativity was a flatland, it was Nehru who raised the lone peak by adding paneer to biriyani, bisibele bath, basundi, uthappam, undhiyu, and sambar.

Soon, paneer began to proliferate with a culinary concupiscence (Tharoor's own words) not seen elsewhere.

Nehru, ever the international man of history, also realized the importance of paneer against the growing Chinese influence of tofu.

In a courageous display of cultural takeover through culinary conquest, Nehru added paneer to dumplings, fried rice, noodles. India 1. China 0.

newly minted champion of hindus, sri sri @ncbn saar.. you might have forgotten we haven't.

your own "scheme" of Divya Darshanam i.e sending 1.3 lakh poor hindus to pilgrimage.

cost: 100 crs.

borne by - TTD & 7 major temples.

cost to tax-payer: 0. Z-E-R-O. 1+

Scheme -
RO plant at Srisailam.

Development works or Construction works at various temples across AP.

Kalyana Mantapas at various places in AP.

cost: a few hundred crores.

borne by: TTD

cost to tax-payer: 0. Z-E-R-O. 2+

Scheme -
Construction works at various temples across AP.

Kalyana Mantapas at various places in AP.

cost: a few hundred crores.

borne by: TTD

cost to tax-payer: 0. Z-E-R-O. 3+

Scheme -

Land for Bharat Electronics Ltd.

51 acres.

borne by: TTD

cost to tax-payer: 0. Z-E-R-O. 4+

Scheme -

Venkateswara Swamy temple at Amaravati. in CRDA limits.

Cost: 50 lakh per acre.

borne by; TTD

cost to tax-payer: 0. Z-E-R-O. 5+

Bollywood is just a bubble of privileged, tone-deaf hypocrites. You think criticising Modi is activism? You can't even call out a director accused of #metoo. What happened to your political correctness and feminism? Is it only limited to gaslighting Dalits? Shows your hypocrisy

Secondly, if you read history, you will find that Dalits would have a broom attached to their backs by UC rulers so that the land would not be polluted. By portraying a Dalit politician holding a broom, you are glorifying the stereotype of casteist jobs which our ancestors fought

Thirdly, using a casteist slur like untouchable is not clever wordplay by any means. It is just dehumanizing and constitutionally banned. We were outcasts who were not allowed to even touch the same places as UCs. If you don't know our history, don't misuse it. Unlearn casteism

Moreover, the director of the movie is Subhash Kapoor, a man accused of sexual assault. It baffles me how all of Bollywood has shown their casteism in targeting Dalits for criticising the misleading portrayal of themselves, but no one has pointed a finger at the sexual molestor!

Bollywood is just a bubble of privileged, tone-deaf hypocrites. You think criticising Modi is activism? You can't even call out a director accused of #MeToo . What happened to your political correctness and feminism? Is it only limited to gaslighting Dalits? Shows your hypocrisy

Ever heard of Gollala Mamidada village in Andhra?
Affectionately called "Konaseema Ayodhya", this town has a famous Lord Rama temple. Set in the midst of lush greenery, the towering double Gopurams are a sight for the ages.

A thread.

The delta area of the Godavari river is called the Konaseema. This island is created as the Godavari splits into its distributaries the Vruddha Godavari, Vasishta Godavari, Gautami and Nilarevu, just below the city of Rajahmundry. Gollala Mamidada is located here

Located around 45 km from Rajamundry (and 20 kms from Kakinada), this little village is famous for the Sri Kodanda Rama Swami Temple. Kodandam is the bow of Lord Rama, and he is worshipped in AP/TG mostly as Kodanda Rama.

This isnt an ancient temple like the others around here, but relatively new.
The construction started in 1889 by two local brothers Dwarampudi Subbi Reddy and Rami Reddy donated land and built a small shrine to Lord Rama. A larger temple was constructed in 1939

The most stunning feature of this temple are the towering double Gopurams. Rising vertically to the heavens, they lord over the neighbouring hinterland, and are said to be visible for over ten kilometres.

The #toolkit dropped by @GretaThunberg had many key players but the name of the foreign expert Pieter Friedrich was dramatic as he was the part of a true story we were working(About group which tried every possible way to unsettle

These series of events have been around everyone for long but yet major stakeholders failed to notice this shift from proxy war to info-war/psy-war
Our attempt was to try & map this network, we did expect a elaborate design but the reach & depth of the planning was shocking(2/17)

The proxy war:
The story starts from the 1980’s, where Bhajan Singh Bhinder aka Iqbal choudhary was funding a terror network for carrying out large scale violence with the help of another terrorist Lal Singh & Pakistan’s ISI. India escaped this attack,Lal Singh got arrested(3/17)

These attacks were part of a large conspiracy called K-2(#Kashmir-#Khalistan), which hatched in Lahore under patronage of Amir ul Azeem, the secretary of Jamaat-e-Islami and was supported by several others like the Uncle of present S&T minister of Pakistan @fawadchaudhry (4/17)

At the same time in the US Bhinder & his gang were involved in a major trans-national drug trafficking & a DVD privacy network. In order to fund this network they managed to take control of the most prominent Gurdwara(Fremont Gurdwara) after a bloody fight within Gurdwara (5/17)

Lt Governor @manojsinha_ participated in 6th Governing Council meeting of #NITIAayog; highlighted major reforms made by the UT Government; made suggestions for giving further push to the developmental process in J&K.

After 5 August 2019, J&K got new opportunities of socio-economic development that were not there for many decades. Jammu & Kashmir is passing through a period of transition for development, peace and prosperity: Lt Governor @manojsinha_

From job creation to entrepreneurship, we are going to make J&K a model of Industry 4.0, #FourthIndustrialRevolution. The multiplier effect of industrial transformation will be felt across the entire length and breadth of the UT: Lt Governor

Lt Governor @manojsinha_ suggested the Government of India for considering the demand for setting up of Dry Port in J&K with a customs clearance facility to increase the trade within and outside the Country.

To give a boost to tourism and trade in J&K, Srinagar & Jammu should be opened to regular commercial International flights: LG @manojsinha_