Brinda Karat was not alone. It was an organized left delegation. Hannan Molla was there. Rajiv Kunwar was there. Ravi Rai of the CPI(ML) was there. And this is just the leadership. This absurd liberal take needs to end. 1/ The left parties send organized delegations. That is their politics. The CPI(M) had sent an organized delegation yesterday as well. So have other parties and trade unions. Left parties did a joint fact-finding exercise. It was all over the news. 2/

The "was it the teleprompter" brouhaha misses the forest for the trees. The person on the other end was Klaus Schwab, founder of the WEF, who coined the term "the Fourth Industrial Revolution".

This language was replicated in the draft National Education Policy 2019. Has a sovereign nation ever produced a policy document citing the interests of a private body in this manner? I'm not experienced enough to comment. But it wasn't very difficult to see where the interests of the WEF and the GoI converged in the DNEP.

There are many things that are wrong with Delhi University. The cut-offs aren't one of them. 🧵 Delhi University colleges have a norm where they are not supposed to turn away anyone within the advertised cut-off. This means that if they have 30 seats for an advertised cut-offs, and 55 people show up, they will have to admit 55.

Except, that will lead to over admission.

Fantastic Nazrulgeeti thread by @adilhossain. But must add some contemporary reworkings:

Chol chol chol by Musician's Alliance

https://twitter.com/adilhossain/status/1397553229538349057

Kandari Hushiar by Artcell, guaranteed to deliver goosebumps by the time you get to 'phashir monche geye gelo jara jiboner joyogaan'

A couple of years ago, Robi Thakur purists everywhere had taken immense offence at the popularity of Roddur Roy's remix of "Shedin dujone dulechhinu bone", which inserted random swear words within the song. Even the newspapers had op-eds on it. I have never been a Roddur Roy fan, and I did not find the parody offensive. But it did make me revisit the song, which looks back upon an idyllic moonlit evening.

This is a desperate measure, but might be useful for the simple reason that RMPs are trusted members of the community and can be useful for last mile delivery of resources. They need to also be mobilized for the vaccination program - not that there are vaccines.

https://twitter.com/htTweets/status/1390207484602683396

If you don't understand why this is even a consideration, consider what's mentioned in the article. Nadia district, overwhelmingly rural and paddy producing, had 869 recorded cases yesterday. The most 'medically advanced' town in Nadia is Kalyani, my hometown.

#twdeath #twgraphicimages

Among Bengali Hindus, people who accompany a person on their last journey are called shashan bondhu (শ্মশান বন্ধু, literally, friend who accompanies you to the crematorium). Often, when a family lacks in manpower or support, neighbours will chip in

https://twitter.com/achakrava/status/1387384781910929409

as shashan bondhus, organizing the final rites. Bengali fiction has a lot of stories about young men* who jump into such tasks, such as Saratchandra Chatterjee's Lalu.

* Technically, women were not allowed to the shamshan grounds. I have never witnessed it enforced.

On your left: image from Google Photos courtesy Arup Halder, a view of the dinghy lending room of the Kalyani Public Library from 2019. The last shelf is for young readers. Yes, just the one.

On your right: a govt advt. for our town, prob. from the 60s. This image is courtesy Mousumi Mandal, who very generously shared it from her archival work. Both of us forgot to note complete bibliographical details, which is why it will never be on anything academic. But look at this advertisement. Look at it!

Hi! Exited to be here! My presentation - what a novel thing to say about a Twitter thread - is titled 'Literary Histories, Digital Futures', and I will be talking about the potential of spatial humanities for literary historiography in India. (1) #DHARTITwitterConf I come here as a scholar of print/the history of the book/cultures of reading, primarily trained in depts. of English. My interest in the spatial humanities rests on a recognition that our English depts didn’t quite announce a ‘spatial turn’, despite the (2) #DHARTITwitterConf