#RRR and #NaatuNaatu winning the Oscars is in many ways a life lesson for us.A catchy tune with a foot tapping dance is how I see the song.Nice but hardly extraordinary. Yet it wins the biggest prize in cinema.Why?Promotion is one big reason. An above average product made to look extra special by months of promotion.Of course just promotion cannot make any product win but it does make a key difference.If you promote yourself in life you give yourself a better chance at success.There have been many better songs to come out of India but they didn't make it

Time to nail yet another D-stockists story.Charge is that knowledge of Sanskrit was mandatory for learning Medicine in Tamil Nadu and the Justice Party ended this.This is an extract from a Govt. Education report of 1914. Please see the student data.30 Native Christians,2 Muslims 1 Parsi and 56 Non Brahmin Hindus besides the 73 Brahmins in the class. Were all of them proficient in Sanskrit? Were Christians,Muslims &Parsis forced to learn Sanskrit?In fact most Brahmins were also not proficient in Sanskrit. Is there a G.O that said Sanskrit was compulsory?

For those asking what is the problem here it is.
1.Many of the medical terms do not exist in Indian languages and need to be either used in English or hv words created
2.Medical journals are in English and carry the latest updates.Translating every issue would be near impossible

https://twitter.com/sumanthraman/status/1580113949240209408

3. Research collaborations are globally mostly in English. How will the Hindi only candidates participate in such research?
4.Creating a database of Hindi Textbooks in Medicine would take years of effort and would need significant resources to keep updated.

Conversation with a Whatsapp Uncle yesterday.
Profile: Late sixties,Retired from senior position in a corporate,children in the US. Upper middle class
Thread..
Uncle:So,how is the political scene? Modi will win in 2024,no?
Me:Too early to predict Sir.
U:He has done a great job Me:On what exactly?
U:Oh,everything.India's stature has grown tremendously
Me:Where? How?
U:I visit my children in US.They say India is regarded highly now
Me:Regarded highly as what,by whom?
U:Our economy is fastest growing in the world.And world leaders seek our PM's opinion

#Queensland amusement park case verdict cd be a classic example of how a prosecution can collude to lose a case. No dispute at all that it is Govt land.Only issue is whether it belongs to HRCE or Revenue Dept.Eviction sought by HRCE quashed bcos they cd not prove it as their land Why isn't Revenue Dept pressing its case for eviction? Dist. Collector rejected temple claim that the land was theirs. Also judgement says that Queensland offered to provide alternate land and Collector had inspected it. Contrast this with Sastra case where Govt says no

On the #Karthikgopinath case the sculptor Padma Shri K V Munuswamy told me that HRCE often does not pay directly for the orders placed.They ask donors to do so on their behalf. For Siruvachur temple idols also he says that an advance was paid by devotees. He says devotees also paid for the earlier works for the private temple which is nearing completion. He also said that the idols for the HRCE temples at #Siruvachur were being sculpted & work was going on in Villianur near Puducherry.He says he was approached by Karthik Gopinath who had told him

Thread on State Transport Corporations of Tamil Nadu.
1.TNSTC buses carried 2 crore passengers a day in 2010-11.That number dropped by 2019 before Covid to 1.4 crore.During Covid it dropped to around 75 lakh per day. Post Covid,buses carry 50-60% of numbers they did 10 yrs ago 2.Number of buses operated has remained more or less the same over last 7-8 years at around 20000 buses
3.Number of staff has remained almost the same over last decade at between 122,000 to 126000.
4.Bus fares in TN are lower than neighboring states despite hikes in 2011 & 2018

A few weeks after the assassination of #RajivGandhi I got a call from the News Unit of DD Chennai asking for me to give the voice over for a tape that was being put together compiling the evidence.Since the evidence was confidential at that time,the dubbing would be done at night For days together I would go to the studio post 10 pm. A DSP from the CBI team would join me along with one editor and a sound engineer. Painstakingly each piece of evidence would be given an exhibit number and the details of what it was, where it was found etc.wd be recorded

Lie 1:Students took oath in Sanskrit.NOT TRUE. It was in English
Lie 2:Oath taken on fire, Brahmin etc.NOT TRUE
Lie 3:Oath had in it stuff about not treating widows,growing beard etc.NOT TRUE
Lie 4:Central Govt said it is compulsory.NOT TRUE. It is optional #MaduraiMedicalCollege The ability of the media to twist facts to suit a narrative is mind boggling. What oath the students took at Madurai is what should matter, not what all Charak wrote in the 2nd Century. I personally think that we should stick to the Hippocratic oath but that is just my opinion

Dear Hindutva friends, a few points to ponder
1.Putting down Muslims is not going to make your lives better even by a tiny bit
2. By supporting intolerance&hate you are putting at risk your future and that of your children as no country which has persistent disharmony can thrive 3. It takes just one spark to burn down a forest. Do not think violence can be easily controlled or that it only happens to others.Most victims of communal violence are not those who indulge in violence themselves.
4.Those who feed you a steady drip of hate are better protected

Muslim girls have been wearing hijab to school in several schools across the country for quite a while. It has hardly been an issue until now.Schools themselves did not think it created a conflict with the uniform. In fact in several schools the hijab was in the color of uniform By raising this issue now the opportunity is created for Hindutva groups/Govt to force schools into taking a stand. This will further alienate the Muslim community and importantly, put their own girls in a difficult situation. Educating the Muslim women is the best chance we have

At a time when oil prices are going through the roof here is something to ponder. Sources tell me that ONGC production from their oil wells in Tamil Nadu in Jan 2021 was 1125 TPD. It is now down to 850 TPD. One TPD is around 6.4 barrels so that's a shortfall of 1760 barrels/day Apparently this is because ONGC is being denied permission to drill new wells or even carry out repairs to existing wells. So the loss is almost 1.76 lakh dollars a day in foreign exchange. As far as natural gas goes, just not being allowed to repair sick wells is costing India

Tamil Nadu float has been "rejected" in R-Day because Modi Govt felt that freedom fighters in Tamil Nadu should not be respected? Wow. Fake propaganda machine in full swing today. By the time the truth is told to people the lie would have travelled all over the world. Each year only limited number of floats from States are selected. Defence Ministry appoints committee of people from field of arts etc to finalize the list. 6-7 rounds of shortlisting and discussions are held. Floats can be rejected for any number of reasons, theme, visual appeal

For all those asking what is her legacy and if it is only corruption here is a thread
1.A belief in the idea of India.She put down separatist forces with a firm hand.Never compromised on National interest. TN cd hv been a troubled spot otherwise
2. No compromise on Social justice

https://twitter.com/sumanthraman/status/1467329135538147328

69% reservation in the State got Consitutional protection due to her Govt.
3. No compromise on State Interests. Cauvery one example but many more. Even CM Stalin accepted this publicly
4.Commitment to secularism. Except for the brief attempt to push thru anti conversion

My tweet on the Madurai Library has caused so many to react. I hv even had people calling in to say how wrong I am. So let me explain my point of view.
1.Worldwide the patronage of public libraries has fallen. Many countries have started shutting them down. In UK over 800 public libraries have been closed in last 10 years. In the US there has been a 31% fall in public library usage between 2010-18 (pre-covid)
2.Within India also there has been a documented fall in patronage of public libraries though exact numbers are hard to find.

Over 17000 trees to be cut including plantations,26 water bodies to be affected for this new Expressway. Some of the 106 km in TN passes thru cultivable land. Environmentalists in TN are missing. Media is in mute mode. This Expressway is most essential and will greatly help

https://twitter.com/THChennai/status/1462294289480773637

economic development but so would have the Chennai Salem expressway. The sheer political opportunism masked as environmental concern needs to be called out. Every development project has some impact on the environment. Our aim should be to strike a balance between the two

A CM not greeting people on one of the two most celebrated festivals of the State,one celebrated by the majority of people in Tamil Nadu only shows that this is not an inclusive Govt. A party leader can be as he likes.A CM has to be inclusive. தீபாவளி பண்டிகை ஹிந்து மதத்தை சார்ந்த பெரும்பாலானோறால் கொண்டாடப்படுகிறது. ஒரு கட்சி தலைவர் வாழ்த்து தெரிவிப்பது அவர் விருப்பம். முதலமைச்சர் வாழ்த்து தெரிவிப்பது அவர் கடமை. பாகிஸ்தான் பிரதமர் வாழ்த்து தெரிவிக்கிறார்.

Why a #NationalHealthID is neither needed nor desirable. Thread...
#AyushmanBharatDigitalMission
1. Indians are already drowning in ID's. Aadhar is already a unique ID.Why do we need another one just for health?Why not use Aadhar? #DigitalHealthMission @mansukhmandviya 2. It is well known that vast majority of people seek medical help within their State or neighbouring State.Someone who is from a village in say, UP,is most unlikely to seek medical assistance outside the State or beyond nearest metro city.Why is a National ID required for this?

Life lesson: Never reply to an email or message when you are angry or provoked. In my younger days I would get easily provoked and send angry replies to mails and msgs. A few years ago I learnt to apply a different technique. I would compose the reply but wd save it in drafts. Then I wd do something else & return to look at the draft at the end of the day or next day when I had cooled down. 99% of those drafts never got sent. I wd not delete those mails from Drafts folder. Every few weeks I look at them and wonder how stupid I wd hv been to send them

Thread on Justice A.K.Rajan Committee report.
Issues
1.Selective usage of Data.
2. Makes several unverifiable assumptions
3.Non exclusion of outlier data
4.Drawing inferences/conclusions without evidence Concerns
1. Data on students from Govt schools who got MBBS seats pre and post #NEET is selectively put out.(Everything else is from 2010-2020. This alone is from 2014) . Why?
2. How did Committee decide that 99% of students who qualified through NEET took coaching?

Genius of #Periyar lay in getting a majority of people of TN to identify themselves with what they were not. Normally we identify with who we are by religion/ caste/language etc.Periyar got people to identify themselves as non brahmin,not as who they were,but as who they were not In no other part of India would you find people referring to themselves as non brahmins. They would always see themselves as being part of their community or social group. In Periyar's days it made sense. Brahmins dominated disproportionately and oppressed other communities