Not an expert in anything but definitely have an opinion on everything
Jul 10 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The kind of cope and seethe our people dish out.
July 1, 2003 1 lakh govt employees including some 15k teachers went on strike. The iron lady of TN (for all her corruption I miss her steady stewardship) Jaya said nothing.
2 all the employees, get back to work and then we will talk.
They, motivated by the DMK unions said no.
2 weeks later she overnight sacked 1.7l, arrested 10,000, invoked ESMA hired 1,000's of temp workers.
3 weeks later the unions collapsed, surrendered (some shamelessly
May 27 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
@VSJpyper @Akshay_VAK @Me_Predictor While @prathgodbole weighs in on the Maratha aspect. One thing though, you are right in that we would have never been a single polity. Starting the fall of the Mauryans, Hindustan has always gone through a cycle. 3 (very rarely 2) power centres would form. One centred
@VSJpyper @Akshay_VAK @Me_Predictor @prathgodbole Around the Gangetic plains, another in the West around modern day Karnataka (Rashtrakuta, Chalukya, Satavahanas etc though the Satavahanas had their capital in modern day Maharashtra) and one in the South, almost always a Tamil empire.
These would jockey for power
Nov 16, 2023 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Well Ms Tara replies but again it lacks any merit entirely.
Taking one year GDP drop as a "gotcha" proof simply doesn't cut it. Economies have patterns and trends.
Here is the Pakistani GDP tre f from 1994-2018 broken into 5 year chunks.
2/n a 25 year horizon, Pakistan goes through minor booms and busts.
As I explained yesterday there was no secular dip in Pakistani growth and if anything the period 2014-18 was the second highest average growth Pakistan has had in 25 years!
Jun 26, 2023 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
1/n Obama’s murderous track record is fairly widely known, however what is less well known is his outright pandering of the nastiest dictators when he was the POTUS. A short thread.
Leading the list is, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, one of the worst dictators on earth, he
2/n has been in power for decades, has murdered or imprisoned without cause every single political opponent of his, corruption in Equatorial Guinea is legendary and often in the top 5 of most corrupt countries on earth rankings. Yet, under Obama, US oil investments into
Apr 1, 2023 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Not a "bhosad piller"and I firmly believe reservations should stay. Infact I believe existing reservations reduced a bit and a full 5-10% given to children of inter caste marriages. Incl maybe full sponsorship of children born to such parents. The numbers are negligible rn
1/n that said. These are very vague and tenuous arguments. Correlation is not equal to causation.
Take a foundational metric, both Kerala and TN (to name the few key South Indian states one associates with higher standards of living) had much higher literacy rates
Apr 1, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Our first education minister Abul Kalam Azad, had no formal education, was born to an Afghan father and Saudi mother in Saudi Arabia (then Ottoman Turkey)
Indira Gandhi never completed her formal education. She at least was undeniably intelligent.
2/n a senior Mandarin in the MEA wrote to an attache in the Indian embassy in London (who himself was a Cambridge PhD) asking for him to help with Pappu sr's admission into Cambridge.
The attache then spoke to high officials in Trinity Cambridge and got Pappu sr
Apr 1, 2023 • 16 tweets • 7 min read
I am curious as to just how much these western "liberals" spew fake news on very objective and verifiable truths.
And break it down para by para to understand the lies and Propaganda.
1/n the opening para has a clear lie and a partial truth written to twist facts.
Lie 1 (L1) - Rahul Gandhi was convicted of insulting an entire community named Modi. Not just for "likening" the PM to a thief.
If @IChotiner had an iota of journalistic integrity
Dec 24, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Let's just take this bit and deconstruct the colonial propaganda that still resonates across the centuries.
Sati was NEVER a widespread problem. British records themselves note that there were only a few 200 cases a year (even 1 is 1 too many) and this was localised
2/n to Rajasthan and Bengal. The linkage to Islamic depredations is clearly manifest.
Female infanticide and sex selection were never a recorded issue till the 1970's when US propaganda backed by funding for research pushed the theory that sex selection will help
Nov 10, 2022 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Truschke here says that "Nalanda recovered" offering no proof but the claims of one Tibetan monk who visited a 100 years later with the implicit argument being "Khilji didn't destroy Nalanda"
But what did this monk, Dharmasvamin (chag lo Chosrjedpal) say she skips.
2/n called Latin rights. Brutal wars were fought by Rome's Italian neighbours over the discrimination they had to endure, they even fought brutal wars over this (see, Social wars).
Then you have the Provincials (conquered nations outside the peninsula) and these had
Nov 5, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
So will break this up into multiple pieces lest it get unwieldy.
This shorter part will cover something very important, port turn around.
1/n. Port turn around is very very important to attract large vessels. Why? Because for them time is literally money. Container carriers (think CMA OR Maersk for ex) only own a portion of their fleet, like airlines they lease the rest. Even in normal times these are expensive twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Nov 5, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
To add to this excellent thread, a few other points and esp as someone who works in the Supply chain industry, these are something I see and work with daily.
In this thread below I will only consider maritime haulage of the non oil variety i.e Container and Bulk shipping
1/n the obvious place to begin is our abysmal port capacity but before we go there, we must understand how the container carriers operate. They operate on a hub and spok(e) model.
Mother vessels serve the main base ports dropping off cargo at these mega ports, from which
Oct 22, 2022 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
The #FATFgreylist normalisation, the F16 package, this is just a Dem regime doing what they do best, push for closer ties with Pakistan. A thread.
1/n The pivot towards Pakistan started under LBJ, his administration explicitly wanted a weaker India. R Nixon then continued this policy.
Carter famously threatened to sanction us if we continued our nuclear experiments and even signed a presidential order
Mar 8, 2022 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
There is a lot of chatter about how the Russian army has underperformed, how it was / is a paper tiger etc etc. Leaving aside the fact that Western propaganda only gives us one side, the Ukranian side, let's look at some possible tactical / strategic reasons. Thread.
1/n The same reason the Americans struggled in Vietnam, or managing the insurgency in Iraq / Afghanistan. Or the Soviets themselves in Afghanistan.
Soviet and later Russian doctrine envisages fast mobile wars with loads of artillery to soften the offense.
Mar 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Nice to read but in reality Indian emperors often ravaged towns and cities too. The differences here with Christian and Islamic empires being this was not motivated by Faith, or creed.
Take the campaigns of Raja Raja Chola in Chalukya territory or his utterly destructive wars in Sri Lanka (that saw the ancient Sinhala seat of power Annuradapura sacked to the ground), there are plates that talk about how Brahmanas (in Chaklukyan territory) were killed
Dec 12, 2021 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
With the #UkraineWillResist crisis heating up, here is a primer on why braindead US actions and foreign policy is responsible for this.
Thread.
1/n America under Bill Clinton didn't care much for democracy and rigged the 1996 elections blatantly.
2/n in which Putin was on the sure to win but eventually los. Many tactics were deployed including a till then record IMF handout, large portions of which were used to grease palms, provide liberal doles etc. All of $ 10bn of it. (washingtonpost.com/archive/busine…)
Dec 10, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Say what you want of the private sector but in terms of sheer efficiency they are unmatched.
I moved cities, reached my new city last night at 1230 AM.
Woke up at 0800 and since then
1- got my house thoroughly deep cleaned @urbancompany_UC. Placed an order on the app at 0030
Last night, they showed up promptly at 0930, just wrapped it up.
2- booked an @airtelindia broadband connection last evening, 0930 they showed up, by 1030 am online and got a free landline connection to boot.
3- registered online for my gas connection yesterday
Nov 18, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Let the lies and lies on Chacha commence for the billionth time.
theprint.in/opinion/nehru-…1/n a personality no less than Ambedkar thought his foreign policy deeply flawed. It left us isolated and weak. Our neighbour Pakistan hitched it's stars to the US orbit and till the mid 2000's had much higher economic parameters.
Nov 17, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Let's look at data and see what it tells us. If I take rapes of Indian women, liberandus will be like, but under reporting is 100000000 times. So let's take unimpeachable, 100% reported data. Rape of foreign, white women.
1/n the UK foreign office (the US state department doesn't publish such a report afaik) publishes a report on crimes committed by and on UK residents abroad.
In the period 2016-18, sexual assaults reported per country / annum.
Spain - 218 / 72 pa
Turkey - 68 / 23 pa
Nov 17, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
While the likes of unfunny men like Vir Das lecture Indians in the US on our "rAPe culture", its a good time to look at how the US treats child rapists.
1/n A Billionaire ran a grooming, underage sex trafficking ring, farmed kids out to some of the richest and most powerful men in the West, was arrested got 13 months in jAiL. Basically he got a work release program, flew down from pRisOn in Florida to his offices in NYC every day
Nov 16, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Much ado is made about Negruji and having a very brilliant first cabinet, how he was a very democratic leader but facts don't hold up to this hagiography.
Of the 25 ministers in his 1st cabinet, many stalwarts resigned in disgust at his autocratic and dictatorial ways
1/n C Rajagopalachari - resigned 2 years into his tenure as HM because Negruji constantly micromanaged and overruled his decisions. Like the good Liberandu he was Negruji thought that the Hindu Mahasabha was the greatest threat to India, Rajaji predicted that it was the Commies
