Long read - but worth it. First there is zero evidence here for Chinese conspiracy theory. Lots of this research was funded jointly by USA in China, so USA bears responsibility too. The article makes a strong case that we should not rule out an accidental leak from Wuhan lab...

https://twitter.com/ianbremmer/status/1393669363362893828

...the article does posit that Chinese authorities may have been guilty of cover up due to fear of embarrassment as the lab was on their soil ( though as noted above research was funded by USA also). It also hints at some disturbing scenarios -did USA intelligence deliberately...

Dear @ShashiTharoor @JhaSanjay @PChidambaram_IN Since you three represent the intellectual backbone of Congress, addressing this to you as a concerned citizen. I think Covid second wave is going to fundamentally change the political discourse in India. This thread got... ...triggered as I am irritated at Congress's unsubstantiated claim that it would have done better given the unpredictability of the severity and suddenness of the Covid second wave. While I do deeply respect Congress commitment to tolerance and pluralism, Congress is in...

Let me put this straight, even if I get trolled for this. UP has been terribly governed over the years. Competitive politics did improve it marginally in last 3 decades. I have said it before - Yogi Adityanath is a good administrator. Even before Covid, he had slowly begun to... ...fix UP's broken institutions, infrastructure and law and order. He has vastly improved UP. Of course Pandemics can overwhelm any system and that cannot be used to point to his bad administration. Having said that I do have two concerns with his administration. One is that...

Isreal-Palestinian issue is complex. Despite peer pressure from co-religionists I refuse to see it as a Muslim issue, I will see it as a Human issue. Most people who are complaining do not know the complicated past history of middle east ( and I am not a scholar). Fact is Jews... ...have been persecuted throughout history. They were treated in the most inhuman way by Nazis. What makes the story so difficult is also the arbitrary way the middle east was divided by UK, France etc around the two world wars. The Palestinians got caught cross fire of...

Lots of old tropes going around. I could understand treating India at par with some very poor African countries till 1970s. But since last 4 decades India has done huge strides in removing poverty and modernizing itself. India can no longer compared with very poor African... ...nations- sure we still have lots of poor people, but we have made lots of progress. Also I saw some pamphlets from some NGOs here who are basically collecting relief for India bracketing India in the same class as sub-Saharan Africa. Also there is unfortunately a wrong...

I have my own ideas on India’s secularism and I am not a big fan of a section of the left liberal hypocrites. India positively needed a Hindu Renaissance, but if handled wrongly can lead to a deeply polarized country. Having said that many India upper middle class Hindus are..

https://twitter.com/AsimAli6/status/1393211336478257156

...a bunch of unprincipled hypocrites. When once in a century event combined with our 70 years long broken health infrastructure and not very proactive preparation for the second wave ( government did excellent in first wave), and they personally got affected they suddenly...

Thanks respected doctor for saying this. We should make sure that in our eagerness to do good ( and patient pressure) we do not do harm. We need to be alert. Having lots of doctors in India as friends( and relatives too) and having seen the medical systems outside India as...

https://twitter.com/VincentRK/status/1393205757944946690

...well I can definitely say Indian doctors have lots of clinical experience as they see much more higher number of cases and variety of cases. However where I sometimes have heated discussions with my Indian doctor friends ( and some relatives too) is the relative ease with...

I do not know the full reason here. But if it was dropped simply because it had the courage to criticize our PM and home minister, disappointed with Times of India. Jug may be wrong, but we cannot curb freedom of expression like this. India has one of the most free press in...

https://twitter.com/svaradarajan/status/1393125219661795333

...the world, but on and off lately one sees examples like this which are worrying. Though I do not get time not always to read Jug Surraiya, growing up on the weekends ( print edition) some columns were a must: Swaminathan Aiyar; Khushwant Singh; Vir Sanghvi, Swapan DasGupta...

Covid India: I have to say this as this has been bothering me. I have myself been active in putting up Covid help resources, websites which help common people to look up available hospitals, oxygen etc and have pointed people to these and other websites on twitter. Some of ... ..these websites in fact take their feeds from government sources or private providers. This is normal and is just like a telephone directory to find the nearest doctor or hospital. We should do more of this nationally and in fact consolidate this nationally in a systematic...

I like your commitment to India’s secularism and tolerance (which has roots in its Hindu ethos), yet you tweet lots of irresponsible stuff without context. You are just reducing a complex topic to a simplistic tweet. There is more to the topic than your tweet seems to suggest...

https://twitter.com/ReallySwara/status/1391891267752185863

...I have always personally supported Muslim-Jewish unity and argued to stop all the Jewish hate which is propagated in many Muslim mosques on every Friday sermon. Jews have been persecuted throughout history and were very badly treated by Nazi Germany. But of course this is...

Let me say this bluntly. I do not care about any political party. I have always criticized Congress double speak on secularism and I am partly concerned with BJP sectarian politics. Yet on governance there is zero proof that Congress could have done a better job on... ...the pandemic. There is a general pre-existing governance malaise in India which got exposed due to the sudden ( partly unexpected severity of second wave). Many of the India’s rich elites are a bunch of hypocrites- they had no problems with this government till now, but now...

Nothing new here. Absolute logical inconsistency. Fact is India is growing in fits and pieces consistently since Rajeev Gandhi slowly started liberalizing independent of which party comes to power. This was accelerated after 1990 when India’s balance of payment crisis, a...

https://twitter.com/kaushikcbasu/status/1392296160635785219

...pragmatic reformer, and an able finance minister coincided to push this liberalization further. This growth in a up/ down fashion has contributed independent of which political party came to power. Both parties had bright spots. We had some good years of UPA-1 and we had...

Israel-Indian politics: A thread: I have always argued for Jewish-Muslim peace. I have argued against the hatred against Jews which is sometimes preached in mosques globally. I have also said that Jews have been unfairly persecuted throughout history. I do support Israel’s...

https://twitter.com/tejasvi_surya/status/1392402415744262144

...right to exist. I also do believe that Palestinians are a party to the dispute and due to the way middle east was divided by the UK, France etc and horrors of Nazism and cruelty against Jews, Palestinians got caught in the cross fire and we need to be fair to them as well...

Not be misunderstood. I feel the pain. I know how bad it is currently, young people are dying, entire families have been wiped out. My parents, brothers, sisters , relatives in India are living in the same system - I know it is very very bad. My only problem is that people....

https://twitter.com/SimnaniIqbals/status/1391905511012962306

...are making this political. Instead of focussing on governance issues, the systematic flaws which we know are party independent ( non-BJP states have not done better), people are just using selective facts and playing politics - now is not the time for secularism debate ....

Covid India: Of course 250 thousands deaths is a lot and it is heartbreaking. Yet Perspective. India stil has one of the lowest deaths per million - India comes at 110 rank. Almost all rich countries have a much much higher deaths per million. See ranks on deaths per million. ...does the above data prove that India's health infrastructure is better than rich countries - no it does not prove that. Does it prove that some lives could not have been saved if we had prepared better with oxygen- no it does not prove that. Above data juts proves the....

I cannot comment on numbers. But I also do not think numbers are being deliberately misreported. We have had always patchy data collection ( have improved recently). But I agree actual number of deaths are much higher- no question about it.

https://twitter.com/dhume/status/1391252675027742720

...as as I tweeted today. Basically whole of India is more or less infected( most will be fine due to natural immunity). While the government should have prepared better, I do believe the severity of second wave in India took all by surprise- and a pandemic like this was....

Dear @ShashiTharoor @HindolSengupta @gurcharandas @sushantsareen The following essay deserves to be read more widely. Along with the one from @gurcharandas , this is one of the most unbiased articles on the topic. Anyday over @Ram_Guha 's( well meaning) but inaccurate analysis.

https://twitter.com/SimnaniIqbals/status/1391166936852074504

...The one from @gurcharandas is below.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/men-and-… .....

A gem of an essay. Incisive. One of the best analysis of India's second Covid wave. Devoid of any political bias. Imagine our ministers and policy makers having the kind of systematic thinking outlined in this article - Alas!
thewire.in/government/ind… via @thewire_in Thanks Shashank Kela @Shashankkela for writing this brilliant article. We need more such informed, neutral and dispassionate analysis; and not political rants which passes as opinion from different media commentators nowadays (who support one ideology or other). ...

Post event wise cracks. From Nov 2020 till Feb 2021, in USA, Europe second wave was devastating them, but in India cases were going down. Even respected virologist were hinting( were not sure) India might have got mass immunity. Govt should have prepared better, their early...

https://twitter.com/incindia/status/1391033898671374339

...warning system should have been better. But there is no scientific consensus the severity of second wave was predictable. After going down drastically for 4 months beating the global trend, cases went up suddenly in April 2021- Congress playing politics. Plus instead of...

The India story is bright. The debate on secularism/Hindutva/Hindu Renaissance is not a straightforward one. I agree India’s unique tolerance ( due to its Hindu ethos) is partly in danger and above GDP. But after emergence of a new Hindu middle class, there was bound to be a...

https://twitter.com/kapskom/status/1391010523131654145

...a disturbance to the equilibrium. What we have now is not ideal, but after UPA2 screwed big time, and the one sided debates on politically correct secularism in India, there was bound to be some reaction. We cannot simply ‘talk down’ to the masses, we have to understand them.

Fully understand the pain the country goes through. By all means ask accountability from the PM and ask for better crisis management. With respect. But how do you conclude that the building of a new parliament building in our national capital is responsible for our bad...

https://twitter.com/PriyaDutt_INC/status/1390887526861217797

...response to Covid. All countries redesign their capitals as it gives them a sense of togetherness and pride to have a beautiful capital city and parliament- this was initiated before the Covid crisis. Our problems are not due to money, but partly because of bad organization...