The more women speak up, the more men try to intimidate them, shut them up.
The very concept of gender equality is anathema to men.
After all, they've enjoyed privileges & power all their lives - at the expense of women.
They're not going to give these up easily, are they? Irony is, in most matters, women are actually vastly superior to men, I think.
Which could be why men have always tried to attack women's self-esteem, make them dependent on men.
And have even succeeded to a very large extent.
But now some women (still very few) are protesting.

Ppl might laugh at me when I say this, but Cong really has huge opportunity to come back to power at the Centre.
It just needs to do a few things right. 1) First of all, stop this "power is poison" talk.
Sure, it is - for the damage it can do.
We're seeing it every single day.
But someone HAS to be in power, right?
If you don't want others to abuse power and do damage, come to power yourself.
See it as preventive maintenance.

Ofc, Hindutva is one reason BJP came to power.
But it is also the elitist image that many Cong folks had (and still have) that disgusted the average Indian.
These elites, educated in top institutions in India and abroad, created a classist ecosystem, that excluded most Indians. Tharoor's "cattle class" remark was just one example of this.
He might have said it in jest, but it did rattle a few people.
We don't talk enough about classism, cos bigotry, casteism, misogyny & homophobia take up most of our bandwidth.
But classism too is very rampant in India.

Grocery shop.
Was in queue.
2 guys in front of me.
Took ages.
I patiently waited.
Couple behind me began placing order.
About 20 diff items, one by one.
Shopkeeper began attending to them.
Meanwhile another guy barged in with his order.
Got attended to.
I was still waiting. After all this, when they finally attended to me, I told the shopkeeper what happened wasn't right.
I was respecting the queue.
Persons behind me weren't.
The shopkeeper shd have told them to respect the queue.
"Next time, I will, Sir."
I know he won't.
Customers won't either.

What's SO strange about a person who has been loyal to a party for 50 yrs, getting disillusioned?
Happens all the time.
It's like an employee who has been with a company for many years.
Might've got along very well with senior execs in the past, but not with the current lot. I've always felt, if someone isn't happy at a job for a sustained period of time, and can afford to leave it, he shd.
Everyone has good and bad days at work - but if your bad days are sustained, and make you hate your job, consider quitting it if you see no hope for the future.

We need to set our metric according to our goal.
So be clear about the goal first.

I/o asking "How many schools did X govt open?", I'd rather ask "What's the literacy rate? How many children are unable to learn?".

Goal is to ensure every child has an opportunity to learn. This qn "How many schools did AAP govt open in Delhi?" by AAP critics is particularly malafide.
They know, opening a new school requires land, which isn't in control of Delhi Govt.
It'd require LG's approval - and LG has always been a thorn for AAP's plans for Delhi.

Until the 1990s, barring that 1977-80 interregnum, Cong at national level never had serious competition from another political party.
But with the BJP gaining ground, and regional parties gaining ground locally, Cong needed to up its game electorally to not lose its voter base. Although Cong regained power in 2004, and retained it in 2009, it was clear that it would not enjoy anymore those halcyon years of being comfortable winners.
It would have to fight every election hard, woo voters harder than ever before, not take anything for granted.

There are some who glow SO much with goodness and kindness within, that their very presence dispels the darkness around.
I consider @Sudhabharadwaj one such person.
And among those I know on Twitter, @MasalaBai .
They deserve a lot of good things to happen to them in their lives. Another person here who I've found to be extremely kind is @priyashmita .
I remember how, much like @MasalaBai , she used to try to find suitable job openings for others.
She absolutely didn't have to - but she did.
Also, in a natural calamity, she's there trying to help.

If the last 24hrs are any indication, there's a small sign that #Congress has started gaining ground.
Not only was TV media reporting on them yesterday, but this is front-page in TOI today.
It starts with the media. More the people get to hear #RahulGandhi and #PriyankaGandhi, more they'll be able to judge for themselves whether these are leaders they want to have.
Many ppl STILL retain the image of "Pappu" propagated so successfully by BJP pre-2014.
Let ppl see more of today's #RahulGandhi.

Meanwhile, this also happened.
Siddique Kappan denied bail by Allahabad HC.
ndtv.com/india-news/jou… "Siddique Kappan and others were charged under S. 17 & 18 of UAPA, S. 124A (sedition), S. 153A (promoting enmity btwn different groups on ground of religion) and S. 295A (deliberate & malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) of IPC, and S. 65,72 and 75 of IT Act."

Bengaluru is full of tech & startup folks who have made tonnes of money fairly early in life, and are ever trying to discover new ways to spend this money. :-) A lot of these people have been influenced a lot by western cultures, and try to bring that atmosphere to Bengaluru.
At the same time, they feel their Indianness shouldn't be compromised.
So they try to indianise their westernness, from westernising their indianness. :-)

I've had ppl disagree with me on this before, but I maintain that it is the PEOPLE who are to blame.
Not the masses who are barely surviving from day to day and don't have an agenda as such.
No, not them, but those who CONSCIOUSLY wanted a Hindu nationalist party in charge. Ppl tell me "Don't blame the people, blame the politicians".
Sorry, I WILL blame the people.
When Advani took out his Rath Yatra in the 80s, why didn't Hindus just dump him?
Truth is, he appealed to their base instinct - and they exposed their ugly belly.
They ARE to blame.

In the last few years, there have been many days when I've felt low after seeing happenings in India.
Today is one of the worst.
Partly cos earlier, however bad things were, I always felt it was a passing phase.
Like they say, this too shall pass.
Tbh, I'm not sure anymore. It's a no-brainer that if we want change, we first need BJP to be voted out of power.
Longer BJP is in power, longer we're going to see atrocities against Muslims.
It's as simple as that.
Non-BJP doesn't mean no atrocities at all.
But BJP equates to atrocities against Muslims.

There was a time when rail was THE default mode in India for long distance travel.
Most couldn't afford flights, or no airports in B/C cities.
Road travel was uncomfortable, or took longer than rail.
Today, with better highways, many prefer bus or car, to rail. While much has been done to build airports and highways, railways (IRCTC apart) haven't improved that much in the last 25 yrs IMO.
There seems to be a shift to air and road travel.
Ofc we still see waiting lists for trains, but that's due to population.

Hindutva leaders calling for a p0grom against Muslims.
Hindutva goons bullying poor Muslims, destroying their livelihood.
Various other types of Hindutva atrocities against Muslims.
ALL of this needs to stop.
And only Hindus can make that happen. But we don't see enough pushback from Hindus to the calls of Hindutva leaders, or to Hindutva goons bullying of Muslims.
A few liberals might raise their voice, but the vast majority of Hindus are either silent, or supportive of what's happening.
This is the start of the problem.

A few thoughts on Law vs Society.
(As usual, not thought through. :-))

Normally Law is supposed to put down rules of engagement, based on what Society determines as acceptable/not acceptable.
Legislators are Society's (in a democracy, usually elected) representatives. 1/n In a decent, civilised society, where legislators truly represent such decent society, the laws will largely be progressive too.
No issue there.
Issue is with a not-so-decent society.
Laws are likely to reflect will of the majority, ergo, risk being not-so-progressive.

Ok, since a few persons have evinced interest in this product that will propel me to the cusp of greatness, I'll talk about it. :-)
(I hope these ppl are deep-pocketed, and can be early-stage investors (angel or VC), cos bootstrapping ke paise to hain nahin). :-)
Here goes. 1/n

https://twitter.com/Raja_Sw/status/1528675074303479810

I want to say upfront that we need to look at this with an open mind.
Maybe the tech isn't there today, but if an idea makes sense commercially, tech usually steps up.
Maybe in web 5.0?
So, open mind pls.
In other words, keep those slippers at bay for now. :-) 2/n

So last night, watched Bajirao Mastani.
Liked it.
All the ingredients of an SLB movie, except that the story moved at a reasonable pace. 😂
Liked the music a lot too.
Btw, can someone point me to a Deepika movie where her acting skills come to the fore?
This wasn't one of them. I felt BM didn't have the intensity and slow churn I associate w/ SLB films.
Normally his films need patience to sit through, only cos he cooks the stew very slowly. :-)
But in BM, it's the other way round.
Things happen way too fast.
Takes a little away from the film IMO.

The Budget is supposed to be an important event.
The Finance Minister presenting the Budget to the People.
Ergo, in Parliament cos that's where the people's elected representatives sit.
It is supposed to be the day the Govt says "I took money from you, this is how I spent it".1/n I know there are Appendices where one can look at Budget/Revised Estimates, Actuals etc.
But if you're going to refer ppl to documents anyway, might as well skip the whole Budget presentation exercise, no?
There's supposed to be DISCUSSION in Parliament on fin performance. 2/n

MANY requests out there for financial help for medical support.
Ads on Youtube & other platforms are also often abt this.
And though someone's suffering, we tend to "Skip Ads", cos there's only so much we can deal with.
Everyone has limited resources & other priorities.
1/n Here's the thing.
At an individual level, we can only do so much.
We might be able to help a few people, but it's only a very small fraction of the people who need help.
Not saying we shouldn't help - but the real solution needs to be systemic and institutional. 2/n

Been following the Budget since C.Subramaniam's budget in 1975.
No TV then, but I'd read the details in the newspaper with great interest.
Why?
I was still in high school, so why did it matter to me?
Cos it was the Govt telling us where public money was going.
That interested me. Those Budgets would be very detailed and specific.
We were not a rich nation then, so an allocation of even 100 cr was a big deal then, and would attract attention.
Today the govt throws around numbers in lakhs of crores just like that - and no one bats an eyelid.