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Raghu Karnad

@rkarnad

Jul 19, 2021

It's one hell of a Monday. If you haven't had time to read the #Pegasus hacking revelations in detail, here are a few observations from day 1 & 2.
A thread I'll keep building.

@thewire_in

1. Today we learnt from #PegasusProject & @thewire_in that potential targets for political spying, ahead of the 2019 election, include Congress president Rahul Gandhi and – equally shocking – Ashok Lavasa, the most independent of India's three election commissioners.

@PrashantKishor

... @PrashantKishor is on the list, and offered his phone for forensic analysis, which proves that he was being spied on from before the election until as recently as July 14, 2021. Right through his crucial role helping the TMC through the West Bengal elections.

Read 35 tweets

Raghu Karnad

@rkarnad

Jul 6, 2021

Yesterday #StanSwamy died, after eight months in prison conditions that exacerbated his Parkinson's. He was one of the jailed human-rights advocates aka #BhimaKoregaon 16.
The story of the evidence against them is... amazing and bizarre, and is worth going over. A thread.

2. After the first arrests in June of 2018, police began to leak sensational 'electronic evidence' – letters found on the activists' laptops, which showed their links to Maoist guerillas. The most shocking letter even proposed a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Modi.

3. The letters were strangely explicit: Conspirators used each others' real names, instead of aliases as Maoists typically do.
They openly detailed requirements for arms and planned attacks, without using code-words.

Read 27 tweets

Raghu Karnad

@rkarnad

May 12, 2021

Today is World Nursing Day, and I think we could all get behind a hashtag like #ThankYouNurses. But India's nursing staff need more than that, to keep fighting the second wave.
Few of us have any idea how much physical and psychological strain nurses have been enduring. A thread.

@thewire_in

1. Before the pandemic, nursing as a profession was given little respect, *severely* underpaid, and thus understaffed across the country.
I spoke to Usha Krishna Kumar, of the Nurses' Welfare Association, on how we can support nurses better:
@thewire_in

2. The daily demands in Covid wards, ICUs, but also home-care, are shattering - tending to routine care, medical crises and deaths, every day, all in full PPE in the summer heat.
What reward do many nurses receive for risking their lives to save ours? Rs 15,000-20,000 per month.

Read 17 tweets

Raghu Karnad

@rkarnad

May 10, 2021

Natasha Narwal, a young activist leader held in jail, has lost her only parent to Covid. She could not speak to him before he died.
Last August, the imprisoned activist GN Saibaba was refused a video call to see his dying mother one last time. A video call. /n

Of India's hundreds of thousands of Covid 19 deaths, this could be the most emblematic.
A young woman who led protests to defend an inclusive, Constitutional India is imprisoned on charges of leading a deadly communal pogrom... /n

Through India's first lockdown, the Home Ministry and Delhi police occupy themselves with locking up protest leaders, based on a feeble theory of a 'conspiracy'.

In May 2020, Narwal and D. Kalita were arrested, granted bail -- then rearrested in minutes on murder charges... /n

Read 5 tweets

Raghu Karnad

@rkarnad

May 4, 2021

One of the early stories I reported was from panchayat polls in #Nandigram, soon after the farmers' rebellion, just as Mamata began to topple the CPIM edifice.
It was an illustration, and a caution, about interpreting images of violence during polls in West Bengal /n

The intimidation and violence, even sexual assault, mostly by the CPIM cadre, was serious. On polling day, the CRPF was heavily deployed, led by an admired DIG Alok Raj.

I was with a patrol when two TMC activists approached, asking for help at a village called Garupara /n

They said CPM men were obstructing the way there and scaring off voters.

We followed them. On the path we found a woman, so old her torso was lined like a leaf, knocked to the ground by goons. The local CPM candidate left the scene on a bike as we arrived, visibly sneering. /n

Read 16 tweets

Raghu Karnad

@rkarnad

Apr 14, 2021

On the 130th #AmbedkarJayanti, a short thread on a milestone in his life, described as the "Beginning of a New Era" – when he was appointed to the Viceroy's Executive Council at the height of the WW2...

2. In July 1941, to win support for the war-effort, the Viceroy of India agreed to expand his Executive Council, the cabinet in charge of the Central government. He would appoint eight ‘representative Indians’ -- all of course, from the social elite.

3. With his appointments, he had left out the Indian politician most staunchly supportive of the war – and a leader with a mass following – BR Ambedkar of the Independent Labour Party.

Read 15 tweets

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