Everything about EVMs is a secret. But what's out is super worrying.

1 - ECI lies about it. EVM are not standalone, all get connected to computers.

2 - Experts giving certificates of them being safe are same people who invented VVPAT...🧵

@NeelMadhav_ and @parthpunter report. 3 - ECI has no technical capabilities. It relied on a Technical Expert Committee to ensure EVMs are safe.

This committee was 4 IIT Professors. All 4 are also listed as inventors of the VVPAT. So they certify their own invention as safe.

This is where the weirdness starts...

Listened to arguments in the Supreme Court over #EVM #VVPAT, people were terrible at explaining the issues.

We know for a fact the EVM is not standalone. Each one gets connected to a computer! It's a windows software to load candidate names and symbols! A thread. ECI keeps saying standalone as a reason for it being unhackable, except it isn't. It's connected to computers - all EVMs have to be, for them to have the candidate name and symbol to print.

Then claim EVM has had the same glass, and it's not been made black and totally opaque...

There has been only one justification of Electoral Bonds - that otherwise money was moving in cash. It's surprising how little people understand about political money flows!

Political funding is not even 20% in EBs. It's still mostly all black! Then why bring EBs? A 🧵... Cost of elections and even running a political party's organization is MUCH higher that the amount in EBs. Covered this in my first book.

So the businesses that generate a huge amount of black money are still giving black money to parties! That's still most of political funding.

Think EVM - VVPAT hacking is a conspiracy theory? Found out one part of it is 100% true.

Earlier VVPAT screens used to be transparent, they changed it to translucent, and now it's completely opaque. You can't see the slips being printed or cut now. Just light on and light off. Video above is how it used to be - you could clearly see slip being printed and cut. Then they changed it to where light only turned on after slip printing, and turned off before slip cutting. You could still see the process from the right angle though...

#AdaniExposed Few weeks ago, Deloitte resigned as auditors to Adani. They stated Adani wasn't willing to provide details of suspicious transactions.

The new auditor reported on in the media, BDO Global, isn't even an audit firm! It's a network of independent auditors... 🧵 The actual auditor is a tiny little Bangalore firm called MSKA & Associates, with a 2.3 star rating on Google with 9 reviews. From Deloitte to this? Why?

Today we found out!

Manipur won't recover for decades, but it's worse than that. The insurgency across India's Northeast, mostly ended after decades of work by the govt and local leaders in the 2000s.

Now, with its actions, the govt has told many communities it'll not only not protect them... It can become an active participant in helping spread a genocide.

All the leaders from Modi to N. Biren Singh and all of BJPs office bearers... no one has even mentioned making things normal in Manipur. They instead talk of West Bengal, do whataboutery and suppress information.

Talked to BJP folks to understand how they're justifying getting the police to beat up athletes who are protesting against sexual harassment.

The story spun is now surprisingly more complicated.

Initially it was just, politically motivated protest to defame India. As usual. The athletes now seem to have public sympathy though, as per their assessment. So the defaming needs to be more robust. With a backstory that explains it all away as a conspiracy.

New message is that this all started because Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh is from UP...

A very interesting phenomenon I've been trying to explain to people for a while...

The poor and uneducated aren't the ones who fall for and support Hindu-Muslim, Sengol, Vishwaguru because took foreign trips narratives.

It's the middle class and rich! This bears out in surveys and election results, and even conversations time and again!

The poor 60% of India will vote on welfare, law and order. It's a clear calculation of who is more beneficial to my interests. Then the narratives are secondary.

India now has a supremely young population with 50% of its people under the age of 30 years. Indian population will continue to climb until at least 2050.

This phase that India is reaching in its population patterns is commonly referred to as a “demographic dividend”.

🧵🧵 In the initial stages, fertility rates fall, leading to a labor force that is temporarily growing faster than the population dependent on it.

This means more workers, less children and old people (dependents). Usually per capita incomes grow too during this time.

I hate commenting on what @INCIndia is doing wrong, but the party has ZERO idea on how to do politics.

Everyone knows the media won’t showcase INC. What is the party doing about this?

A thread on strategy - how they could have used the President election brilliantly!!

https://twitter.com/atti_cus/status/1575713881569099776

Individual spokespersons and people in the party are doing phenomenal work!

@Pawankhera, @SupriyaShrinate etc. clearly know what they’re doing, but the party lacks strategy!

If I was designing the party’s presidential elections, this is what I’d do:

I am pro vaccines and I also want government to release important data surrounding it. That’s not hesitancy, it’s common sense.

What data do I want?

- Covaxin Phase 3 trial, peer reviewed.

- How many got COVID after 1st, 2nd dose. With what variant. (We need genome sequencing) - How many had to get hospitalised, died after vaccines (1st and 2nd dose breakup. Covaxin / Covishield breakup, state and region wise.

- Status of variant identification in India. Because with these many cases, virus has a much higher chance of mutating. Must be tracked.

I think I’ve figured out COVID death discrepancy. Was looking at how states are compiling the death data that they release, and it’s crazier than one could imagine. [Thread]

Looked at 3 large states, but the figures they release of deaths are collected from hospitals! The death figures you hear only counts people who died while COVID positive when admitted in a hospital!

Someone never admitted to hospital - not counted.

Someone released after being negative and dying due to post COVID complications - not counted.

Why is the PM missing? Why are they campaigning in Bengal? Here’s the likely answer:

In any event, the first question he asks is what’s best for his image. It’s never what’s best for people or nation, it’s always the image.

In the current crisis, they took a concerted call... And they reached the conclusion that staying out of reach and away from the crisis was a better bet for his image.

Thought process: Nothing to be done, we’ve already exported vaccines, not allowed foreign ones or prepared hospitals and oxygen, so people will die.

Many are asking how the iPhone, crypto and jobs scammer Neel that @zoo_bear has been tweeting about is RW’s fault. It’s one individual scammer.

Well, the over 50 crores in scams happened under the guise of nationalist, pro-BJP, Hindutwawadi credentials! [Thread] The scammer used these for credibility and reach. No one would trust a random account, but many fell for it because IT Cell ecosystem amplified Neel’s hateful content, building him up!

For every 1 person who believes BJP’s hateful rhetoric, there are 10+ in it for personal gain!

Lots of people wonder how this AAP strategy makes any sense. Strategically, it makes a lot of sense... It’s brilliant!

By attacking Congress, they position themselves as an opposition to INC - a space that BJP occupies. Then voters unhappy with INC have a choice: (Thread)

https://twitter.com/rohini_sgh/status/1329109768066121750

That anti INC vote can go to BJP or to AAP.

Next step in the AAP journey will be to present it’s Delhi model of schools, mohalla clinics and water+electricity to these states to show they’re better than BJP. But for now, they’ll embed in people’s minds that they’re anti INC.

I’ve been following some data security hygiene since 2012 and some might have thought it was paranoid, but suddenly everyone thinks it’s really smart... so sharing it for your information:

1. If you don’t want your internet search known, incognito mode isn’t enough... Good VPN + incognito of a separate browser is an okay practice.

DuckDuckGo + TOR is the best!

2. Online backups aren’t really secure unfortunately. iCloud, Google Drive have all been compromised in the past. Encrypted local storage (external HD/SSD) still wins in my book.

Indian Middle Class is honestly the most morally corrupt entity in existence.

A group of gardeners, security guards and maintenance staff just came to my house almost crying... A lady in our colony has decided to fulfil her political ambitions by using the power of the RWA. I didn’t care until now because I assumed it was some petty dispute.

What it’s turned into is some really absurd thing where a power hungry crazy person is making absurd rules.

The Indian Express expose on a Chinese firm tracking 10,000 high profile Indian individuals is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read.

It’s obvious why they didn’t get a single quote from any Indian working in cyber security or information operations... No one would lend their name to such a joke of an expose!

The company essentially took any Indian it thought could be important and wrote a document on them that is about as detailed as a Wikipedia entry + public social media profile. The rest is all random words thrown around.

Watch this! Do you think this senile old man is even close to competent of ruling a world superpower like the US of A?

But wait, there’s more. Read on! The very viral video is made by using two unrelated clippings by @damonimani. Joe Biden was sleeping at some random Zoom call, and the news anchor was asking a different guest to wake up... splice it together, and voila!

When Rahul Gandhi resigned after 2019, there was speculation on who’d be the new INC President.

I had an incredibly interesting conversation with someone in the know that’s extremely relevant again. Without it, INC decisions can’t be understood. The gist: People who demand a non-Gandhi INC President don’t know much about the current state of politics.

The disbalance of power and resources is incredible. If the new President isn’t from the family, it’s entirely possible that BJP will own the INC President!

The Naga Framework Agreement controversy made me realise something important.

I can’t believe that the value of an open and honest government that keeps the people informed is so lost on us all. That is literally the basis of democracy! From sealed cover jurisprudence to Electoral Bonds to RTI’s now being denied on the grounds that it’d take officials time to compile information, so they won’t do it... Citizens know less than they ever have!

We’ve structurally destroyed citizens knowing important things!