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Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
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18 Oct, 8 tweets, 3 min read
#Tanishq ad: In January 2006, a prequel to the violence that unfolded next year in Nandigram in 2007 and developments in Singur, 14 tribal persons and a policeman were killed in a firing to protest the takeover of tribal land by Rotten #Tata's company >>
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubanesw…
This Amnesty report from a year after the firing notes that the fine, upstanding Tatas in collusion with the Odisha govt
a) grabbed land with poor compensation
b) provided no information
c) didn't invite them for consultation >>
amnesty.org/download/Docum…
The Times of India story written ten years after the massacre mentions that local residents had not really got jobs with the good, decent Tata plant despite assurances. >>
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhubanesw…
The #Tanishq ad does reflect India's secular values, and I hold no brief for those attacking the ad. But Tanishq is owned by Rotten Tata's companies, Tata is primarily responsible in getting us to this moment of zero tolerance for India's constitutional principle of secularism >>
Not only has he paid galactic sums of money to the BJP and PMCares fund, in recent years his companies have also been behind the most savage excesses against Indian citizens to grab their land, resources, even right to justice. I've been doing threads on this. Sharing below >>
How Tata lobbied to deny Bhopal citizens their right to justice in the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster >>
How Tata has consistently, systematically abused tea workers on their plantations using their outsize "good, honest, decent" employer image: excerpts from a Columbia university report >>
How #Tata has paid out oceanic sums of money to the BJP and PMCares

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More from @sohinichat

Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
21 Oct
There's been a slew of editorials in prestige publications) about Bollywood's inclusive values and how Modi are destroyed it.
This is the wrong way of looking at it. Bollywood has always broadcast Dilli's politics. In the Nehruvian years, it was secular socialism >>
After Liberalisation, it was the NRI romance establishing Indian culture in global capitals. In the Modi years, it is Hindu pride in history and the muscular Hindu nation-state vanquishing terror in the capitals of Islamicate: Istanbul, Dubai, Tangiers, Kabul, Central Asia >>
Bollywood exists to broadcast Dilli (= central govt) narrative. Why else do you need a Hindi-language industry in a Marathi land with a Marathi industry?
I have written this in multiple essays. Here is a brief list. How nationalism took over Hindi cinema
livemint.com/Leisure/b59Z5F…
Read 9 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
15 Oct
#TanishqJewelry: Columbia University published a report on abuse at #Tata Tea's plantations in 2014. These plantations are under an entity called APPL, managed by World Bank guidelines. But APPL means Tata plantations. Highlights from the report >>
web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/…
"the management warned the team not
to trust what [tea] workers said because they were
"just like cattle, unintelligent, prone to mob mentality". At Namroop, the plantation doctor said we had to understand that the workers had "lower IQ".
Pg 26 here >> web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/…
Columbia's report found that the World Bank's pvt investment arm did not scrutinise the Tatas' compliance with the law because of the group's "outspoken commitment to corporate social responsibility".
Important to note this: Tatas get huge credit for TIFR, IISC, philanthropy >>
Read 5 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
28 Jul
The chocolate is slightly salty, but unlike those that come embedded with crystals of sea salt, the saltiness is uniform here. Deliciously so.

Like mildly sweetened peanut butter, with that same dreamy creamy texture.
For a certified dark chocolate lover, I am smitten
The chocolate is produced by the same co-operative in Anand that is at the heart of Amul
But the push for the use of camel milk came largely from the NGO Sahjeevan, which works with communities in the Rann of Kutch, @amitangshu tells me. Their focus areas are pastoral societies +
biodiversity and water. Camel milk is a staple of some Rann communities. It's more expensive to produce than cow's milk as I understand. Camels produce less milk per unit, for one. Also, camels produce milk largely when their foal are nearby. Thus, mom + kids must be maintained>
Read 8 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
1 Jul
#DoctorsDayIndia marks the birth + death day of Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, a fabled doctor in Calcutta, and West Bengal's second chief minister after Independence. He was in office for 14 years. The story about him goes that he could diagnose a patient by their walk to his table >> Sourced from Wikimedia Commons
Apparently, he planned his 'chamber' such that the distance between the door and his table was significant and he would observe the patient as they walked. This created the Sherlock Holmesian myth that famous doctors like to cultivate: that they can diagnose patients by seeing >
their faces. He was known to be fond of Jyoti Basu's father, a medical practitioner called Nishikanta Basu, and the reason why Basu sr. was aghast at his son's Communist values. But there you go: a personal link between two famed Bengali chief ministers, Roy and Jyoti Basu >>
Read 12 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
14 May
As the bubonic plague gripped India, buriers in Jaola (present-day Latur) refused to dig graves. They demanded higher wages as deaths soared uncontrollably at a time when it was unknown how the disease spread so rapidly. Their salary: Rs 12 a month >>
sohinichattopadhyay.com/2020/05/the-si…
The district board conceded to their demands; their salary was increased to Rs 15. Such stories of assertion of rights by essential workers are hard to come by. Colonial archives rarely mention mortuary workers as archives contain texts that underwrite caste + class prejudices >>
The gravediggers, mostly from the Mahar community in Bombay Presidency, engaged in hereditary forms of stigmatised labour that included removing animal carcasses + the human dead. Payroll slips also mention caste names like Doms and linguistically fluid terms like 'murdafarashis'
Read 9 tweets
Bed Tea Debi Profile picture
14 May
This young man, 34, a neighbour of sorts in Salt Lake, died in a Pune hospital for lack of B+ blood. Think about it: B+ is one of the most common blood groups in India
He was privileged, Anglophone, savvy. Imagine how our health system has collapsed
m.timesofindia.com/city/pune/man-…
In the first week of April, I had written about blood donations plunging and banks running dry. Maharashtra was one of the state's doing well then. In these weeks, things have gone from bad to worse clearly
livemint.com/mint-lounge/fe…
What a horrible way to underline that your reporting is on the mark: big city + common blood group + privileged young person, yet death. I've seen plenty of city newspapers writing about blood shortages in their cities. But nearly no one has followed this on a national level >>
Read 9 tweets

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