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Prem Panicker Profile picture
Prem Panicker
@prempanicker
Cogito, ergo sum confusion. I write, edit, and teach writing. I write at https://t.co/Ns79Iq5J4Z and my article archives are at https://t.co/fYZPLMSn7L
3 subscribers
Aug 7 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Okay, I have a problem wrapping my head around what just happened with Vinesh.

Back in the 1980s, I was friends with a couple of professional jockeys, spent a lot of time at their home in Chennai.

They have to manage their weight; they are weighed before each race + The race takes a lot out of them. When they are done, they rehydrate. They have to, or they will collapse.

Then, before the next race, I've seen my friends put on layers of clothing, and skip rope, for an hour and more, sweating it all out again. +
Apr 14 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is an extraordinary document -- extraordinarily cynica, that is.

Never mind that the very first bullet point -- 80+ crore citizens are receiving free rations since 2020 through PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana -- is not an achievement so much as a testament to rising poverty+ Never mind that there is, a little later on, a bullet point making the extraordinary claim, without figures:

"Unprecedented hike in MSP"

+
Apr 19, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
A coconut tree across from my place has developed an annoying habit of bursting into flames for no visible reason 🙇‍♂️

The latest episode, just now, was serious enough to summon the fire brigade Image The thing though is, the fire brigade came and put out the blaze. What to do about the fronds, some of them still smoking, though?

That is another department.

So the electricity guys are called (the blaze, among other things, resulted in a blown transformer) +
Jan 15, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I don't know why, but the minute I heard this news, the first thing to occur to me was: January 22.

On that day, the SC is scheduled to hear -- unless it gets postponed again, which is SOP in this case -- a petition relating to the continuance in office of Ganguly and Jay Shah + Their tenures ended in June 2020. Here we are in January 2022, and the two are in occupation of their seats, in violation of the BCCI's own constitutional provisions. "Limpet" was a word in currency, once, in Indian politics -- but we hadn't seen nothing yet, then. +
Jan 14, 2022 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
Free Press Journal was where newbie journalists went to learn the ropes. Or, if you weren't good enough, to vegetate, going through the motions of journalism. Eight years after I dropped out of college–eight years of a living hell where it gradually dawned on me that I had no prospects, no future, no life to look forward to -- a friend of my father's called to say there was an opening for a trainee at the FPJ. Pay Rs 750/month.
Dec 15, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
"informed sources" told you that Virat Kohli was given two days prior notice to put in his papers. The president of the BCCI told you he had been in constant touch with Kohli, and both he and the chairman of selectors had informed VK of the change in leadership. + "I was contacted one-and-a-half hours before the selection meeting on December 8 for the Test series," Kohli said. "There was no prior communication at all from when I announced the T20I captaincy decision until the 8th (of Dec), when I got a call before the selection meeting."
Dec 15, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
So I recently shifted house. Which involves among other things a few dozen places where I have to update my address. Decided to start with my bank because I had some other work there anyway.

Bank: Sir, we need some kind of official document.

Me: Here is my rental agreement + Bank: Oh, that won't do, can you provide an updated Aadhar or DL or Passport or some such?

So I go to an Aadhar Seva Kendra.

Me: Need to update my address.

ASK: Please provide some documentation

Me: Here is the rental agreement.

ASK: Oh, that won't do. ++
Nov 18, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Reading @Aakar__Patel 's Price of The Modi Years (get it if you haven't already) is both scary and time-consuming. Scary, because Aakar relentlessly eviscerates the creator of the self-styled Gujarat model and lays out in pitiless detail where the country has reached under NM + + And time-consuming because every statement is linked to the source, so to read an average page I find I'm wading through, annotating, and saving a dozen articles or more.

Want a textbook on how connect-the-dots journalism is done? This book is it.
Oct 22, 2021 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
Who thought we'd live in an age where fact-checking the PM and his cohort, every single day, would become a full-time job?

A few clips from my Evernote folder titled 'vaccines":

1, whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/… -- India's plight prompted the US administration to allocate vaccines. A fact-check within a fact-check, on Modi's early flip-flops: reuters.com/world/india/in…

Another fact-check, of one of his more bizarre claims:
thehindu.com/news/national/…

Par, because the RW narrative is India had nothing before Modi took pity on the country and became PM.
May 15, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Speaking of manufacturing: Modi "warned states" on March 17 - then plastered newspaper front pages with a come-one-come-all invitation to the Kumbh. Are you referring to him as one who "did not pay heed", @HardeepSPuri ? Also, someone stood on stage April 17 and said he had never seen such crowds before. "Wah! Kamaal kar diya!"

Does Modi listen to Modi, Minister?

Stop cut-pasting from that amateurish table put out by your IT Cell and sit down.
May 14, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Well, at the least it is nice to know the Home Minister, who vanished after piloting his party to serial defeats, is alive, and well, and doing what he does best: use the arsenal at his disposal to harass anyone who is actually doing something useful. If the Congress -- actually the Opposition in toto -- has an iota of sense, every single leader will now step up and take forward, amplify, accelerate the work @srinivasiyc and his team have been doing so well, for so long.
Apr 30, 2021 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Five days ago, a good friend of both of us called to chat. With my wife, first, for a good half hour or more, then he asked her to pass the phone on to me, and the two of us chatted for close to an hour. About life here, about how his wife and kids were coping ++ He spoke of movies he had seen. And of the one he was planning to make. He narrated the story in detail. At one point, in the midst of the narration, he interrupted himself to say, on a laugh: "You and Raji won't like this bit, but remember you are not my audience" +
Apr 28, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I wonder how cold it gets, up there on the moral high ground. Yes of course, the last rites are sacred. And yes of course, the grieving deserve a chance to bid a last farewell to the ones we have lost. Speaking of which:

Apr 25, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Aaj ki Narendra Sangeet karyakram mein pehle, ek request aayi hai Jumritallaya se:

Aur phir:

Apr 20, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Did you guys read this @beastoftraal thread? Okay, now ask yourself some questions:

1. Who placed these ads? The government.
2. How was it paid for? Public funds -- which is to say, your money.
3. Who benefits? The government and particularly Adityanath, who these ads celebrate+ So, first up, you are paying for Adityanath's propaganda. Next:
Who else benefits? The media houses running these campaigns -- think for a moment of the cost of inserting one single full-page ad, then multiply as appropriate. And remember, this is just one instance. +
Jun 8, 2020 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
So, PSA: For young people and not so young people, but basically, for people who want to tell stories: @AratiKumarRao and I are jointly doing this, starting July 1 👇: All details, form for registering, etc are here:

peepli.org/workshops/

And then there is the why. So:
Mar 31, 2020 • 8 tweets • 1 min read
Follows an excerpt:

1. Construct an internal enemy, as both focus and distraction

2. Isolate and demonize the enemy by unleashing and protecting the utterance of over and coded name-calling and verbal abuse. Employ ad hominem attacks as legitimate charges against that enemy. + 3. Enlist and create sources and distributors of information who are willing to reinforce the demonizing process because it is profitable, because it grants power, and because it works.

++
Mar 28, 2020 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Kerala government puts up a website to crowd-source solutions to fight the Coronavirus:

breakcorona.in Haha, Kerala's CM is a rockstar! In the midst of announcing how many free canteens have been set up, and how the production of emergency supplies is being ramped up, segues into an aside on how folks are thronging such centers to take selfies. Don't, he says in his "uncle" voice.
Mar 27, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
"The home ministry has issued an advisory to States/UTs to prevent mass exodus of migrant agricultural labourers, industrial workers and unorganised sector workers, so as to prevent the spread of COVID19," an official spokesperson said.

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/coronavi…

++ I'd like to record my appreciation for the firm, decisive handling of this situation by the GoI and its various arms.

1. For the PM, who decided to shut down the entire country with just four hours notice. No waffling, giving time for people to sort their lives out, no nonsense+
Mar 22, 2020 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
While on appreciation, had a visit from a cop, a health service professional and his assistant just now. My neighbor has a guest from Canada; the cop was armed with a long list of folks who had flown in from elsewhere.

The guest had his hand stamped, and was asked to remain + + in quarantine. They then came to our place, to ask what if any interactions we have had with the neighbors. No quarantine, but recommended that we (wife and I) avoid non-essential travel/going out for the next 7 days (the guest had come 7 days ago) +
Feb 27, 2020 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Read this piece, now: 👇

(Some context follows) Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin first coined the word "genocide" in 1944.

On December 9, 1948, the UNGA adopted the Genocide Convention which, among other things, declared that “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” is a crime. +