🧵 On 31 May, as torrential rains battered Mizoram, we found ourselves stuck in a massive landslide jam b/w Lunglei & Thenzawl. We spent 16+ anxious hrs inside our car, perched on the side of a hill, as rain & thunder pounded us through the pitch dark night.

But… +


a tiny Mizo hamlet near the landslide point showed us what kindness means. The entire village quickly arranged warm dinner for us & 200+ others under the local YMA unit's guidance. Their generosity, warmth & sense of community touched our hearts in ways that's hard to describe. +

🧵 Paatal Lok S2 is brilliant. Razor sharp writing and sublime acting by Ahlawat. But, I'm not sure what it does to the already morphed representation of Nagaland/Northeast in mainstream Indian gaze – as a politically obstinate region flushed with guns, drugs & arbitrary rage. + To cut some slack to the show writers, they also show Delhi as a violent, volatile city. But, Delhi's image in the mainstream gaze isn't coloured by racialised markers, unlike Nagaland's. I somehow can't dismiss that lopsided context that all creative artists must be aware of. +

🧵Since the coup in Feb 2021, the people of #Myanmar have been making similar appeals to New Delhi – to stop working with the junta & support the democratic forces.

More than 3 years later, we see India doubling down on its ties with the brutal coup regime in Naypyidaw. +

https://twitter.com/smzakaria/status/1819977250118177080

New Delhi sees the Burmese junta as a guarantor of its strategic + economic interests, which imo is a myopic view. It sees the Sheikh Hasina gov in a similar light.

Notably, India’s faith in both regimes converge on a common concern: insurgency in the Northeast. +

The pro-Palestine protests in American universities reflect one of the most pivotal moments of modern higher education in the country. All of these fancy unis, especially Ivy Leagues, have long been intellectual ivory towers feeding off of global networks of capital. (1/n) They have nurtured progressive spaces for sure, but at its core, they are wolves in sheep clothing – capitalist institutions continually benefiting from American exclusivism & global militarism, but masquerading as liberal lighthouses for the rest of the world. (2/n)

The liberal Meitei sophistry and spindoctoring has begun (as expected).

What is this JNU prof trying to say exactly? That the assault on the Kuki women has roots in the Partition?

Whom does he refer to when he says “separatist & exclusivist”? Kukis?

Shameless! The ethnocentric left from the Northeast will say ANYTHING but call out their own communities (like any honest intellectual/scholar must). They can even whitewash the most heinous of crimes by propping up the facade of historical continuity & colonial legacies.

Today, #India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) released its Annual Report of 2022.

What does it say about #Myanmar? Any change in tone and content from last year's report?

A thread 🧵 (1/n) Introductory section:

2022 report projects the usual Indian diplomatic, "neutral" narrative on post-coup #Myanmar – except the following sentence that appeared in the 2021 report:

"Restoration of democracy in Myanmar remains a priority."

L: 2022 report; R: 2021 report (2/n)

🧵"China wants peace" is too simplistic a narrative.

Weeks before the #China-brokered deal b/w #Iran & #SaudiArabia was announced, Beijing sent its top envoy, Deng Xijun, to northern #Myanmar to meet top ethnic rebel groups & convince them to sign ceasefire deals with the junta. And last week, Xijun travelled to Nay Pyi Taw to meet the coup leader, Min Aung Hlaing. Beijing wants to tell the US (which has sanctioned "non-lethal" aid to the democratic resistance) that it has more access in Burmese power corridors.
irrawaddy.com/opinion/analys…

🚨 IMPORTANT: The #Manipur gov has withdrawn its Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with the Kuki National Army (KNA) & Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA) following violent clashes between some Kuki groups & police over encroachment of tribal land. (1/8)
nenow.in/north-east-new… Protests have taken place in mostly Kangpokpi district, but also in Churachandpur & Tengnoupal districts. Demonstrators allege that the #BirenSingh gov has been taking over tribal land in the name of expanding reserve forests & wildlife sanctuaries. (2/8)
thehindu.com/news/national/…

Yesterday, #India's Development of North Eastern Region (DONER) minister virtually met the #Myanmar junta's Minister of Border Affairs.

Here's the Indian press release on the meeting. Few salient points... 🧵(1/n)

pib.gov.in/PressReleseDet… - New Delhi continues to wager on the junta to keep its Northeastern borders secure & stable;

- India wants to resume its development projects, including the Border Area Development Projects (BADP), in #Myanmar at the earliest. Most of these are funded by grants; (2/n)

👋🏾 all, I’ve been running @eleventhcolumn since 2017 along with my talented friend @ahmausaf. We’ve managed to create a rich repository of 600+ pieces (both fiction & non-fiction) on politics, geopolitics, environment, society, worker rights & other themes. (1/n) We don’t have any budget beyond basic server & domain upkeep costs. We stopped publishing in late 2021 due to technical challenges. But we’re slowly beginning to publish again.

Do check out our website eleventhcolumn.com & write for us! (2/n)

🧵 Quick glance at the #India sections of this detailed & timely report by @SpecialCouncil on the global supply network of the #Myanmar junta's defence production industry. (1/n)

Full report: bit.ly/3XzNbh6 The @SpecialCouncil found that the #Myanmar junta was relying on defence production supplies from #India (among other countries) because of deteriorating quality of Chinese products. This new dynamic creates a major incentive for the supply side. (2/n)

For #India, #Myanmar has been a key development partner in the neighbourhood. Since the last 1 decade & half, Delhi has spent more than $2 billion in various development projects in Myanmar (connectivity, border area dev, training, etc.).

How did the Feb 21 coup affect this? 1/n One would think the coup choked #India's development aid programme in #Myanmar. But that's not true.

MEA dashboard shows high budgetary allocations & spendings after the coup. In fact, the amount 🇮🇳 disbursed in 2021-22 (Rs 598.25 cr/$72.5 mil) is the highest ever recorded. 2/n