This time last year, 19 people part of the #antiCAA protests were killed in Uttar Pradesh. I'd travelled to various districts of the state which saw heightened violence, police brutality, and mass arrests. Here are some stories that tell the horror. Never forget.

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A Bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan will shortly hear a plea by Former CJ of Andhra Pradesh HC Justice V. Eshwaraiah against an order passed by HC directing for an investigation into his private telephone conversation regarding charges of misconduct against sitting SC judge.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan appears.

#SupremeCourt @pbhushan1

Sr. Adv. Kapil Sibal states that he’s appearing for the Intervenors and has nothing to say at the moment.

Bhushan narrates the events to the Bench.

#SupremeCourt @pbhushan1 @KapilSibal

Bhishan: How can a private conversation be made a subject of inquiry ? What is the crime in having a private conversation, even if it’s about the conduct of a SC judge ? Without even saying into me, the HC orders an inquiry ? How can that be done ?

#SupremeCourt @pbhushan1

Bhushan: Your Lordship will need to issue notice and stay the inquiry as the inquiry is completely out of order.

#SupremeCourt @pbhushan1 @KapilSibal

A car with a 12 month waiting period in the 80s ruled the Indian roads for over 3 decades

A thread on Ambassador cars 🧵

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1956, UK - Morris Motors manufactured and sold 3 variants of Morris Oxford car

It sold the rights and tooling for these cars to Hindustan Motors, a subsidiary of CK Birla group to manufacture and sell these cars in India

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1956 - Morris Oxford Series 1 model was branded as Hindustan 10, Series 2 as Landmaster and Series 3 model as the Ambassador

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Out of the 3 cars, Ambassador was the best both in terms of looks, space and ruggedness required for Indian roads. It cost around 14000 Rs in 1958 when the production started

It was positioned as the family car given the kind of space available for bigger Indian families

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At that time, there were not many indian automobile brands. Standard 10 and Mahindra's Jeep were the only major car brands available.

The government controlled production and was encouraging domestic production. This helped all these 3 players

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What is the Gujarat Model of ‘development’? Thread.

1. Gujarat spends less than 2% of its income on education (the norm is 5-6%) with the result that 45% workers in Gujarat are illiterate or studied up to the fifth standard with the quality of education very poor. (The Wire)

2. Public expenditure on health is 0.8% of the state income, well below the norm of 4-6%. Gujarat is decelerating very fast in almost all health indicators.

3. Forty-five percent children in the state are undernourished and the decline of maternal mortality rate has decelerated.

4. Close to 93-94% workers are in informal and traditional sectors with low incomes and low social security.

One of the reasons it attracts businesses is because of the low wage rates, which are comparable to that of Uttar Pradesh.

5. The Gujarat government's cumulative public debt has shot up to an astronomical ₹2,40,651 crore in 2018-19 and estimated to rise to ₹2,66,990 crore in the current financial year, which is ₹62,000 crore more than the total budget of ₹2,04,815 crore.

6. During the Vibrant Gujarat investors’ summits held between 2003 and 2011, MoUs were signed pledging investment totalling ₹40 lakh crore. However, only 8 per cent of the promised investment, amounting to just ₹3 lakh crore actually came.

Since tweets by @rihanna and @miakhalifa are now considered 'external forces' and 'foreign interference', a small reminder... During the first Emergency, the Sangh's main line of dissent was through foreign press, governments, activists, and funding.
A short thread.

(2) The RSS has a fanciful mythology of its resistance within India, but there's not much evidence of it. @Swamy39 wrote in the year 2000 that ‘most of the leaders of the BJP/RSS had betrayed the struggle against the Emergency,’ offering ‘to work for the nation’s tormentors’...

(3) Instead it was overseas intelligentsia (from the Left) who gave the anti-Emergency movement early moral support. But Sangh leaders like Makarand Desai also lobbied @nytimes & other Western papers to editorialise on the silencing of dissent & capture of the judiciary in India.

(4) Following this, the US Congressional Committee on International Relations held hearings about human rights in India. Witnesses included Ram Jethmalani; Jagjit Singh Chohan, of the Int'l Council of Sikhs; and Leila Kabir Fernandes, married to union leader George Fernandes.

(5) Questions were also asked in the UK House of Commons – just as they were last year, in the US Congress, in the House of Commons, and in the European Parliament, in support of the anti-CAA Citizenship movement.