Since a lot of us are trying to amplify SOS calls in this silent-apocalypse mutating around us in India, am sharing some tips from personal experiences on:
a) How to seek help with clarity. (Clarity helps better reach & response.)
b) How to offer leads effectively.
(Thread)
a) I know people SEEKING HELP are distressed & might skip some of the details but please try to include these points too in your call for help.
- Date+Time of request
- Contact # of 2 diff people (in case one is unreachable)
- City+Area (to amplify in local circles)
2/10
Also, when your call for help is closed and IF you find time:
- Please send an update that the help has reached
- Delete the original tweet so people can focus on other, open SOS calls
- Share the verified leads you got. Will aid others with same requirements.
3/10
b) And now a few requests to people OFFERING HELP.
We are more in numbers than people seeking help & we have more resources & time than someone struggling to get a bed in hospital or arranging an Oxygen cylinder.
We can be way more methodical, way more efficient.
4/10
1. Don't just share a pdf or drive link with 100s of numbers. It requires A LOT of time for the patient's caregiver to sort through them. And most of those leads are dead anyway.
If you want to help, call the nos. & give a short-list of definite or probable leads at least.
5/10
2. Don't simply share the official state helpline number without first checking if it's reachable or can provide the specific help. Trust the patient's family that they must have tried it before asking for help online.
Again, helps if you make the effort first.
6/10
3. If you have found a lead and are sharing its info online, always mention the "last verified at [time+date]" so that when it gets circulated later, people don't automatically assume it's available.
Basically, do everything to reduce the clutter in responses.
7/10
4. Things are moving very fast because of the supply shortage. Med stocks disappearing from shops in five mins etc. Many fake numbers floating too.
So constantly checking and updating the leads floating on internet is also a job. You can help by flagging the bogus leads.
8/10
A lot of these jobs can be done way more effectively if groups of people team up.
But as individuals too, we can achieve more just by understanding that a caregiver already short on time might get overwhelmed if we dump all unverified leads on to them in replies.
9/10
Lastly, the virus & our broken health infra have made sure that we have no hope of survival if we don't cooperate. So let us set aside whatever political differences we might have & help - citizen to citizen.
May we all see better days soon.
10/10
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The Vinod Kambli incident in 1993 didn't change my views immediately but with more reading over the years (Om Prakash Valmiki's Joothan especially) and real life interactions, the various myths propagated about Dalits in savarna-circles started to crumble.
A Dalit Prof told me a savarna support staff member in his University still doesn't greet him back when he says 'good morning' to him. He responds to everyone else except him - the only Dalit faculty member in that department.
And they have been in the dept together for 20-yrs!
As far as heists go, this is an innocuous one. But it's as much fun as baffling - and exposes chinks in the background checks by @IMDb.
IMDb is the most well-regarded database of movie/TV credits. For every professional, getting their 1st IMDb credit is a memorable day. /thread
I stumbled upon this name while checking the IMDb page of Sacred Games. 'Abhishek Chaudhary' is listed as one of the writers on the show.
Nobody with that name ever wrote anything on the show in its two seasons. (The writers were Smita, Vasant, Pooja, Dhruv, Nihit, and I).
Now Pooja Tolani, one of the actual writers in S2, had to wait a long time & post screenshots from the show footage to @IMDb to get her name added in the credits on the website. While Abhishek - probably a hoax name - gets credited for all 16 eps!
Dear housing societies - if somebody in your area is tested positive & home- quarantined (because they are asymptomatic or due to shortage of beds in hospitals), please step up and make a rotation system to deliver meals to the patient's home because they can't & shouldn't cook.
Please bring more awareness and scientific temperament about how it spreads (through direct or fomite transmission). It can't reach you if you just deliver meals at somebody's doorstep in disposable boxes, keeping safe distance.
By staying in panic and socially ostracizing the patient - you are putting EVERYONE at a higher risk because the patient is then forced to order food and essentials from outside. More people involved, more folks on the road & entering the premises, more chaos in the system.
Some friends looking to fund kitchens specifically for migrant workers walking on the highways - esp on the high-traffic routes like Mumbai-UP, Delhi-Bihar etc.
Any such reliable organisations/kitchens already running & trying to expand? Please share leads.
Thanks for all the leads. So many self-funded initiatives doing such important and wonderful work to feed the migrant workers on the long road home.
Sharing some of the options for those who might want to contribute now or later.
This complete apathy towards the horrible tragedies & ordeals of the migrant workers and poor people stems from a much rooted, even celebrated mindset of urban India.
That the poor deserve it because they are lazy/non-meritorious by choice. [Thread]
Since childhood we city-kids are taught to chase this (academic) idea of merit that completely ignores the multiple levels of privilege we are born into. We not only take the access to food, electricity, water, love & care for granted - we are made to believe we have EARNED it.
Of course we hear the rare stories of kids from severely under-privileged backgrounds making it big & that becomes a bigger stick to beat other underprivileged people with - if that person can do it, why didn't you?
Yes it does feel like a bit of a PR-exercise for the Aussie team post sandpaper-gate but THE TEST still achieves something yet unseen in Cricket - it humanises the mechanics of the sport much like Masterchef humanised the mechanics of cooking.
It shows us vulnerable men. Thread/
There's a bit of manipulation in its grain when it frames Steve Smith's batting prowess against the booing he got for his unethical conduct. The way the team & the documentary celebrate his centuries as some sort of redemption is like completely (deliberately?) missing the point.
He was banned from Cricket not for batting skills but for ball tampering so how can making centuries on return be redemption? The only redemption would be his long term ethical conduct but then that's not drama. And still, the film takes us where no Cricket fan has been before.