Films I watched this year that I absolutely loved. A thread: The Banshees of Inisherin:

"That's what I was thinking, that he's depressed. Well, if he is, he could at least keep it to himself like. You know, push it down, like the rest of us."

Since September 2020, clinical trials were being done in thirteen African countries to test the efficacy of drugs like lopinavir/ritonavir, hydroxychloroquine, nitazoxanide, artesunate, ivermectin on COVID-19. None of the drugs are now used in COVID treatment.

1/8 Moderately/Severely ill COVID patients in Burkina Faso, Cameroon,Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea,Ethiopia, Ghana,Guinea,Kenya, Mali, Mozambique,Sudan, Uganda were administered these drugs to test if they could be used to treat people in rich nations

2/8

"Kota Factory" keeps glorifying the exclusivity & difficulty level of IIT-JEE through its protagonist Jeetu who makes it clear: "Don't go for IIT solely because there is no life without it or they teach well. Go for it because it is tough. Tough battles give you confidence"

1/10 This exclusivity of a basic right like a high-quality college education is the reason coaching institute business exists. They say "only the intelligent, hardworking ones get into IIT" but there are too many of those than the seats can accommodate. That's where coaching enters.

Stop peddling the "women are women's worst enemies" narrative in a country where men kill other men(& women) in riots/pogroms/lynchings and use rape for political violence. Women are regressive in their stances around gender issues because patriarchy pits women against each other Patriarchy appoints the relatively more conformist women to the posts of "assistant oppressor" or "personal secretory to chief patriarch" so they feel valued and important in a system built on their dehumanization. This is best seen in the traditional Indian family.

2/7

Healthcare in India and most developing countries are well concerned about the assessment /record-keeping related to pregnancies, deliveries as well as infants but not enough when it comes to chronic malnutrition & anemia in women during the non-motherhood stages of their lives. Women are seen as reproductive bodies. Anything that isn't mildly related to producing children(even healthcare access to abortions or post-partum depression) takes a lower priority.

2/5

News coming in about malnutrition deaths in Nagada(Odisha). Even after 19 kids died there in 2017 of malnutrition, Odisha Govt has done peanuts.

1/4 The road connecting Nagada to Sukinda is still pathetic and takes hours to navigate. Don't know how ambulances could ply there. Those 2 newly opened anganwadis had to see closure due to lockdowns.

2/4

"If Men Could Menstruate" by Gloria Steinem

Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event. Men would brag about how long and how much. Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Stag parties would mark the day.

1/10 To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, State would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

2/10

The philosophy of the RSS women's wing is surprisingly similar to the slogan of "Knder, Küche, Kirche" meaning "children, kitchen, church" used in Nazi Germany to describe a woman's role in society. Thread 1. They preach that the main goal of a woman's life should be motherhood and devotion to family. In the masculine nationalist project that "Hindurashtra" is, women aren't the knights but those who breed and raise them. They believe "there is nothing called marital rape.''

An excerpt from Gail Omvedt's work titled Ambedkar:

"Ambedkar and his family shared the fate of common Indians in a period when the average lifespan was in the twenties. The early death of his mother, after giving birth to 14 children of whom only seven survived..

1/4 ..his elder brother’s death after working as a labourer to maintain the family, the death of 4 of 5 of his own children—all of this showed the effect not simply of disease but of living conditions that must have included malnutrition, overcrowding and lack of sanitation"

2/4

Vaccine-hesitancy among Bahujans in India isn't the same as vaccine-hesitancy among white Americans who read fake news on vaccine-induced autism. Former stems from years of dehumanization at hospitals where treatment is provided as if its a favor done to people than their right. In govt hospitals, poor people must lie down on vomit-stained bedsheets while their wounds are open & bleeding. They bear the humiliation of unaffordable prescribed medicines as if they would have sought treatment at a govt hospital if they could shell out thousands of bucks
2/5

Even though the Vishakha Guidelines and laws made to address sexual harassment at workplaces, were formulated in the gangrape judgement of an oppressed caste woman, Bhanwari Devi, privileged caste women are meant to benefit more from them than others like Bhanwari Devi. Thread. 1. While in the formal sector, an internal committee (IC) with an independent external expert handles complaints, this task is to be done by local committees (LCs) constituted at the district level in the informal sector.

In his essay for @thecaravanindia, Akash Poyam writes with data that majority of personnel killed by Maoists in Bijapur(2007), Dantewada(2010), Gadchiroli(2018) were from oppressed communities.

1/4

caravanmagazine.in/conflict/in-ba… "The Maoists Hemant had killed were most probably Koiturs, from the tribe he himself belonged to. The Maoists who killed him were also most probably Koiturs", he writes about a relative in the force.

2/4

In April 2020, homes of 32 Kondh Adivasi families were demolished by the forest dept in the Karlapat Sanctuary(Kalahandi, Odisha) where they had relocated after landslides in their original village. Why are Kondhs being kicked out from forests they have preserved for generations? These families were homeless in the middle of a lockdown and were living under mahua trees. They had gone to visit someone and on returning, suddenly found their houses, chickens and goats had disappeared.

2/7

As we witness Odisha fund Hockey teams from money earned by mining indigenous land, sharing excerpts written by Adivasi poet Jacinta Kerketta @JacintaKerkett2 where she elaborates on the politics of sports in mining areas. A gorgeous thread ahead. "A football instead of books is placed in every hand
That may someday join in protestors
Against illicit mining of their land.
To win goats as tournament trophies
Kicked to the curb are books and studies.
Slowly but steadily the child inhales
The addicting opium of football."

An Odia news channel @otvnews is promoting and justifying domestic violence on their show "Asha ra Aloka" in which they invite couples struggling with their marriages and try to invariably solve disputes by asking women to compromise. Video in thread below. 1. The lady has mentioned in the video that her husband tried to kill her thrice. Even on video, the man is twisting her wrist and imposing himself on her as she keeps writhing in pain & saying no. Host Mihir Das asks her then, "if he tried to kill you, how are you still alive?"

23 out of 30 districts in Odisha, have a Human Development Index lower than the country with the worst HDI in the world(Niger, Africa). Khorda and Cuttack, the districts with highest HDI in the state of 0.48 and 0.45 respectively, has a HDI comparable to Ethiopia and Sierra Leone Niger has a HDI of 0.39 despite being the worst in the world. But districts in Odisha like Malkangiri, Nuapada and Nabarangpur are three times worse off with HDI between 0.1 to 0.2. Odisha, without Ebola or civil wars, is still only as healthy as Sub-Saharan Africa.

Just a reminder that Odisha ranks worst in India in terms of neonatal mortality rate, child immunization coverage & low birth weight. While Odisha Govt sponsors our hockey teams for 10 more years, newborns are not being given a chance to live, let alone grow up to play hockey. Overall, Odisha is third worst in India after Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Source: NITI Aayog Health Index report.

Adivasi lives are fundamentally antithetical to capitalism: their self sufficiency, sharing of resources and disinterest in competition prove it. As Marx wrote in Capital, capitalist colonialism through mining/industries on indigenous land is classical primitive accumulation. "The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the indigenous population of that continent, the beginnings of the conquest and plunder of India..

Why are rapes of dalit/adivasi women never declared as the "rarest of rare" cases?

1/23 When the "Nirbhaya" rape took place in Dec 2012, former Chief Justice Leila Seth was bewildered by the gruesome nature of the crime. The doctor involved in examining the victim admitted she had never seen anything so ruthless in her entire career.

2/23

"In 2012, KISS partnered with Vedanta to enroll children from villages near one of the corporation’s sites of operation, with the stated goal of "mainstreaming of Tribals.”

1/6 "As part of this, KISS signed indemnity agreements with the parents of each child, consenting to their study at the institution. Vedanta, in turn, agreed to sponsor a hundred children until they complete the tenth standard, at the rate of Rs 20,000 per child per year."

2/6

While we are speaking about mental health, thanks to @Simone_Biles & Naomi Osaka, lets not forget that many people are deprived of the agency to get rid of the stressors/causes behind their mental distress, because these causes are socio-political in nature.

(1/8) @SaibaVarma elaborates on this in her interview with @livemint. "One woman in southern Kashmir’s Tral area, who had lost her husband in an encounter, told the NGO (which was focused on counselling and psychotherapy) that she did not want more counselling but financial help...