Thread
1 Been talking to friends in Kabul - Mazar & Herat. In Herat almost all my friends are Shia. They are safe, there have been no massacres/reprisals. It seems that several of the Talibanis patrolling are also Shia. In Mazar they’re telling me some folks have been picked up
2 folks who were apparently close to General Dostum, but some have been released. In Kabul the Taliban have already visited the home of two of my more visible friends - told them they know about their “collaboration” with the Americans but as long as they don’t make trouble
3 they’ll be fine. In short the Shia, the Uzbeks & westernised atheist youth in Kabul have not been purged yet. Will reprisals happen at a later stage? Possibly. But it’s not happening now. Kabul, except for the scenes at the airport is calm. People who want to leave are not
4 being blocked. However the real surprise for a coming from friends in Islamabad. They seem to believe the Taliban pulled a fast one in them. They’re still not able to comprehend how the TB seized control so rapidly without any significant help from them. As one colleague put it
5 “if the fighting had been bitter & we would’ve had to help them their dependence on us, would’ve given us leverage ….now we have extremely limited leverage”. Almost all seem convinced that this sudden collapse in the space of a week was “staged” as a kind of mutual
6 Taliban-Afg Government “fuck you” to Pakistan. As a rule since my Islamabad friends tend to be paranoid I wouldn’t have taken this seriously. However as satellite imagery is confirming - the actual battle damage of Afghan army Artillery & Armour is negligible.
7 that means the Afghan army wasn’t defeated… heck they didn’t even fight - they coordinated a laying down of arms after a few hours of firing in the air. Infrastructure & home damage is minimal to non-existent - hallmarks of a staged non-battle. If we were to assume a morale
8 collapse it begs the question, how does morale collapse so suddenly across several battlefront - separated from each other by hundreds of kilometres simultaneously? Moreover why hasn’t the Afghan airforce chosen not to fly its planes from one air base to another as they fell
9 sequentially? Why did they ensure these would fall into Taliban hands, when unlike ground troops they didn’t need “safe passage”?This simply isn’t adding up - the Americans don’t know what hit them, the Pakistanis don’t know what hit them & the Afghans sure as hell don’t know
10 what hit them. I guess with a bit of time & retrospect things will become clearer in the coming weeks.
11 btw when I say “situation at the airport” it’s like a few lakh people - the images don’t capture how many people have actually lined up outside in waves. Even Kabulis don’t seem to know how many - but the satellite images are scary

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More from @Iyervval

15 Sep
THREAD on @nytimes “investigation” into India’s covid response

1 errors & selective obfuscation from para 1 itself - Note the PMs goal was the contain the spread even at the cost of the economy - the BJP wanted online campaigning, others opposed it
2 as for lockdown it was both the opposition & industry opposing it. Note what part time industrialist & fulltime social climbing yuppie Narayanmoothri said & also what Rahul Gandhi said “tughlakian lockdown”
3 the entire data point for the NYT article seems to be one Dr Agarwal. Everything is “he said”, no proof provided. Turns out Dr Agarwal is a 32 year old - a low level researcher - whose opinions would be lost in the hierarchy & wouldn’t have access to core data anyway
Read 13 tweets
6 Sep
Today Adar Poonawala donated 10 crores to an NDTV initiative. This was the same NDTV amplifying charges of cronyism and what not else, against him. The RW outlets that defended him got Zero. This is the extortive power of the Left cabal. Enjoy.
.this of course is exactly what the social climbing yuppies - the NaraynaMoortys do too - fund some “public minded journalism” fraud, to give a known “liberal” historian dispersal poets over money, which he then duly disperses to liberal outlets. In the process they don’t attack
Him or the shameless way he regained control over infosys. His son similarly donates to Hindu baiter Sheldon pollock to get a halo of “intellect” bestowed on him. All up doesn’t matter what dirty games the yuppie family gets up to, they’ll never be attacked by liberals.
Read 15 tweets
4 Sep
1n The #frugalIndian birthday lunch: Sashimi omakase: (clockwise from top left) Mackerel, Hokkaido scallops, Scottish wild salmon, hamachi & Tuna Image
2n Seafood miso soup with onion tempura & lobster; pork belly simmered in a beef marrow broth. An interlude of 3 sorbets (clockwise from top left) litchi, ginger-soy & mango yuzu ImageImageImage
3n the piece de resistance: Nobu style black cod, marinated in a maple shiro miso & cooked under turnip slices, served with pickled ginger & mustard micro-greens Image
Read 4 tweets
8 Aug
1 We accept Chinese constructions from 2020 on 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 territory as permanent & in return China accepts Indian infrastructure from 2020-2021 on 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 Indian territory as permanent. This is what surrender looks like. Wuhan redux. Thread
2 this turn is particularly curious because the reason for delaying talks was to build “facts on the ground” (to use Israeli lingo) in undisputed Indian territory as a counter to Chinese infrastructure in undisputed Chinese territory. Sadly whoever negotiated this crap decided to
3 to bargain permanent structures in undisputed territory for permanent structures in disputed territory. I knew this government was stupid, I never suspected they were this criminally incompetent. For all effects and purposes we’ve accepted the Chinese claim line in practice.
Read 8 tweets
8 Aug
1 The NDTV-Usmani episode is the best example of how the “Secularist”-Jihadist alliance works & is mutually beneficial.

First Jihadi plays victim, Then secularist plays victim, Then complies with Jihadist demands.

Both achieve their objectives:
2 NDTV gets lauded for “journalistic bravery” & gets the victimhood olympics gold for initially sticking to the post. Then when they remove it they get lauded for “sensitivity” to minority sentiments reinforcing their “secular credentials”. This is used as proof of impartiality
3 Usmani also gets exactly what he wants - noticed & quote tweeted by big shot news desk editors, recognition by SJWs, victimhood olympics gold, and lauded as the “voice of the subaltern muslim suppressed by mainstream media”. When NDTV deletes tweet he is lionised as a
Read 5 tweets
20 Jul
A thread on Digital Surveillance
1 was the government the one snooping on assorted journalists & politicians? Yes, almost certainly: it’s rebuttals have been obfuscatory so as not to be caught lying outright. In my case from 2016 to 2019 during the #Rafale brouhaha 2 journalists
2 from @EconomicTimes had apparently got my entire call records from Punjab police & were tracking my cell phone movement to see who I was meeting. It wasn’t a big deal for me as I had literally nothing to hide - but certain editors warned me as to what was happening
3 I ignored it despite the fact certain Intel agencies also told me what exactly was happening. For starters what I’d been doing was open & knowing a bit about cybersecurity I knew there was literally no way to protect myself. The second issue is the trust you have in government
Read 11 tweets

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