As suggested by @BurgerrB let me tweet a little about the significance of Rajyotsava, with special focus on Bombay Karnataka as I come from Uttara Kannada district which used to be part of Bombay Presidency.

First, look this map to see how Karnataka was peiced together.

1/OK, I should really write another thread about university-centric regional development, because I think people often make some (very understandable) mistakes when thinking about this issue.

2/The biggest myth, I think, is that universities help regions by educating locals as undergraduates.

Skeptics of universities say: "But most of the people who graduate end up leaving."

3/In fact, most of what a university does for a regional economy is NOT about educating local kids.

Educating local kids is good for the nation, but doesn't help a region much.

The way a university helps a region is through

4/Undergraduates usually leave town after graduation.

But university RESEARCH pulls in OTHER smart people from other regions, and they stay there.

Here's a paper showing that this is the main way universities increase a region's human capital:

5/Research also pulls in business investment.

Companies want to partner with university labs, so they can commercialize the technologies the labs produce. So they invest in the labs, and sometimes they even put their offices in the town.

So, on the subject of bonkers hyperbolic pretzeling over the Bell judgement, Grace 'destroy books I don't like & make inappropriate jokes about sterilising teenage girls' Lavery has some thoughts.

Tell me why my feminism is wrong Grace.

Oh

Well, if anyone thought the Bell judgment was going to make TRAs reconsider making massively overblown claims with no evidence backed up with nothing but a thick wadge of emotional blackmail.... HAHAHA, no one thought that.

A high court in the UK made a delimited judgment about teenager's ability to consent to puberty blockers. This puts all trans people everywhere in the world at risk.

Because if any human anywhere has any thoughts that deviate in any way from the rote line dictated by

the trans rights movement, this puts all trans people everywhere in mortal danger.

Let's be honest Grace. It doesn't put trans people at risk. It puts trans ideology at risk. Because trans ideology depends on the idea of innate gender identity, and the trans child is the

necessary material evidence of the ontology of gender identity.

That is, children are being medicalised to provide evidence to underwrite adults identities.

Nothing to see here.

Today is Jayanti of Ahilyabai Holkar

She was a widow who became Malwa's greatest queen. Defended our country & personally led armies into battle.Never plundered anyone. Developed Malwa into a prosperous kingdom. Rebuilt temples destroyed by Mughals. Built Dharmashalas at Tirthas

Unfortunately, her memory has been blemished by inaccurate representations in modern popular media.

The serial "Punyashlok Ahilyabai" depicts her as ultra secularist feminazi icon who questions Hindu rituals & Pandits while patronising Sufis.

This is far from historical truth!

Ahilyabai was born on May 31 1725 to Patil Mankoji Shinde.

She was from Dhangar clan(classified as OBC today). While Dhangars were traditionally into herding, they took up arms & held several military /civil roles in various eras of history(especially during Maratha resurgence)

In 1737, when she was 12, Ahilyabai Holkar was married to Khanderao , son of Subedar Malhar Rao Holkar.

By the time she was married, fortunes of Holkar family had already waxed.

Malhar Rao was a Subedar of territory comprising 30 Parganas yielding a revenue of at least 7 Lakh

In 1741, when Ahilyabai was newly married, her father -in-law Malhar Rao Built Indore palace & ordered the kanungo to populate the settlement with a promise of protection to traders.

This began rise of Indore from its background as modest trading town Indrapuri to a great city

ugh i wanted to do a thread about the wars in Star Wars and how the two outlying wars (the clone wars in the prequels and the cold war/civil war in the sequels) are really weird but i don't feel like it any more.

my first argument is that the Clone Wars were a really complex morally gray moment in Star Wars canon in like, 5 different directions and I'd kind of like to know why Lucas did that.

especially with the direct line that's drawn in the OT with the allegory of WW2 and Vietnam with the rebels being the Vietnamese and the Empire being America. That...doesn't exist in the Clone Wars.

for starters: it's weird it's called the Clone Wars. I get why, because that's what Kenobi calls it in STAR WARS, but the clones are a small facet in the larger story of the war.

the clones basically only exist as a macguffin in AOTC that is...extremely confusing ultimately. Because if you accept that Sidious has this grand master plan to use this war to destabilize the Republic and form an Empire...it's way too complex.