Aatish Sharma

Finding myself has been a boring revelation. Nothing makes sense but beer sometimes helps in clearing the clutter

[Aatish Sharma @HaanMainAatish]

"You write your snide bullshit from a dark room because that's what the angry do nowadays."
Erica Albright, The Social Network 2010

[Ramachandra Guha @Ram_Guha]

Back in 1998, the great playwright Girish Karnad wrote a brilliant essay on the arts and social change in India. Sadly, it was published in Holland so little read here. It is wonderful to see the essay now available online for desis and non-desis both:
https://t.co/3y1Fxwd2hn

[Aatish Sharma @HaanMainAatish]

Exactly. I would add fascist to it. So, Fascist Collaborator.

[kuldeep @ku1deep]

Honestly Godi media is too soft now. The word we are looking for is “Collaborator”.

[Aatish Sharma @HaanMainAatish]

@KanojiaPJ Yes. Bahut lambi list hai hamare Radio Rwanda ki.

[Prashant Kanojia @KanojiaPJ]

Students also defeated

Sudhir Chaudhary
Aman Chopra
Rubiqa Liyaqat
Sushant Sinha
Chitra Tripathi
And 99 others Godi Media

[shantanu srivastava @journoshantanu]

What a fall. An institution that once had a proud and enduring culture of dissent and debate has been systematically reduced to this pathetic and subservient state. The project to take over JNU that began in 2016 looks to have reached its culmination.

[Jarshad NK @jarshadnk]

Sachin Tendulkar has finally spoken on the student protests, and I had to read his note twice: once as a fan and once as an editor. The fan was disappointed, but the editor realised that this was a textbook specimen of the kind of writing that George Orwell warned about in his essay “Politics and the English Language”.

The essay was written in 1946, but it might well have been written yesterday about this very statement. Orwell’s point was that when people want to hide something, they stop using plain words and reach instead for the passive voice, for fog, for phrases that sound like they mean something while meaning nothing at all.

Consider the line, where students are disappointed that “their hard work hasn’t been rewarded”. Rewarded by whom, and denied by whom? There was a paper leak, which means somebody leaked it, some institution failed to prevent it, and an official presides over that institution. Yet none of them appears in the statement, and neither does the leak itself. A crime with identifiable custodians has been turned into something that simply happened to lakhs of children through nobody's fault.

Then comes the list of those who must set things right: parents, teachers, friends, relatives, schools and administrators. If you read that list again slowly, you will notice it covers everyone in India except the people the students are actually protesting against, which is to say the NTA, the education ministry and the government. When everyone is responsible, nobody is, and that is not an accident of drafting. It was engineered to deflect blame.

There is also a quiet sentence buried in the middle. “A society which prioritises outcomes over effort will seek shortcuts over meritocracy” is a line about those who take shortcuts, meaning the cheat. So a note on protests around paper leaks ends up gently lecturing the leaked-upon about honesty. His father’s lovely lesson—that failure is okay but cheating is not—is again aimed squarely at individuals, while the scandal and protests right now are about institutions that failed them.

The rest of the statement is what Orwell called ready-made strips of words, glued together. Full of dreams and energy, fuel to our success, safeguard their aspirations. Nobody can disagree with any of it, which is precisely the point, for this is prose engineered so that no one in power will find a single sentence to object to.

What an actual position would have looked like is a single sentence in the active voice: The government must find and punish those who leaked the paper, and fix the system that allowed it. He wrote 160+ words to avoid writing that one.

Here’s Orwell’s full essay for those interested:
https://t.co/VlPoJdOcDG

[Tony Joseph @tjoseph0010]

You must have heard the story about the drunk man looking for his lost keys under a streetlight even though he knows he dropped them elsewhere, simply because: "That is where the light is".
Much of Indian news media is like the drunk man. They go after the Opposition and its leaders knowing very well that the problem lies elsewhere, simply because: "that is where where it is safest to criticize and attack."

[Aatish Sharma @HaanMainAatish]

And Coomi Kapoor in her article from 3 days back only.

[Sushant Singh @SushantSin]

Rather curious last line in Tavleen Singh's column today: "It is true that we in the media have not been doing our job well and it saddens me to admit that I cannot go into reasons why."

And pray, why so?

[shantanu srivastava @journoshantanu]

.@himantabiswa is the prez of Badminton Assn of India (@BAI_Media) that just conducted a tournament marred by bird droppings, monkey sighting, and pathetic standards of hygiene. Nowhere to be seen then, he has comfortably resorted to what he does best -- communal hatemongering.

[Korah Abraham @thekorahabraham]

Anybody who has followed Sharda Ugra’s body of work knows that she is among the very few Indian sports journalists who actually care about the development of sport in India, not just scorecards and match results. She wrote about corruption, discrimination, governance failures and institutional rot in Indian sport.

I don't expect those who view sports only from a fan-service or PR point of view to understand this. If you really want to see sports and cricket in India to grow, you need to support journalists like Ugra who genuinely call out the rot within the system.

[Aatish Sharma @HaanMainAatish]

@debayansen I was too young for Perth tied ODI against WI but have watched its highlights and that Srinath's bowl to Arthurton & then Azharuddin's catch at the end. Other notable memories are heartbreak against Pak in 2000, Brisbane, but then win over them and Kanitkar's catch to get Inzamam

[Tansu Yegen @TansuYegen]

The goalkeeper, frustrated with his team, made an assist to himself from midfield using the goalpost and scored an incredible goal.

India / West Bengal region

[Saurav Das @SauravDassss]

How terrible is this. The Supreme Court ought to have come to the rescue. None of Neha Rathore’s comments on Pahalgam fall within the meaning of “waging war against India”. Yet, the Bench chose not to protect her by quashing that frivolous charge and saving her from years of legal harassment and financial drain. When sought to withdraw the plea, the Bench refused. Where will the citizens go if this is the state of the apex court?

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

The Indian comedian Kunal Kamra was forced offstage after a political joke led to a mob attack. Unlike Jimmy Kimmel, he is unlikely to return anytime soon.
https://t.co/MxBxqgBH4u

[Paranjoy Guha Thakurta @paranjoygt]

The National Alliance of Journalists, the Delhi Union of Journalists and the Kerala Union of Working Journalists (Delhi Unit) demand an urgent inquiry into the death of Uttarkashi based senior journalist and YouTuber Rajeev Pratap, 36, who went missing on the night of Sept 18, 2025. His body was found ten days later on Sept.28 in the Joshiyara Barrage. Pratap ran a channel called Delhi Uttarakhand Live.
His wife has said that Pratap received death threats after he uploaded videos on the state of a district hospital in Uttarkashi and a school. He was warned to take these down, she has said. Pratap was driving alone in an Alto car on a local road late at night when he went missing. The car was recovered from the Bhagirathi river. The body was found days later.
The body has been sent for post mortem. Police say the car may have fallen down a gorge into the river.
However, the circumstances in which the journalist went missing are extremely suspicious.
The NAJ, the DUJ and the KUWJ (Delhi unit) call for a full investigation of the mysterious death and compensation for his family. We remind the state government that attacks on journalists, particularly those who report on local issues are becoming frequent and all such cases must be critically examined to identify, arrest and punish those responsible for them.
Sd/-
Sujata Madhok – President, DUJ
A.M.Jigeesh – General Secretary, DUJ

S.K.Pande – President, NAJ

N.Kondaiah – Secretary General, NAJ

Prasoon S.Kandath- President, KUWJ (Delhi Unit)

D.Dhanasumod – Secretary, KUWJ (Delhi Unit)

T

[IIMC Alumni Association @IIMCAA]

Team IIMCAA regrets to inform that Mr. Rajiv Pratap (HJ, Delhi | 2020-21) has died in mysterious circumstances in Uttarakhand. He was missing since 18th September and his body has been recovered from Joshiyara Barrage in Uttarkashi today. The car, he was driving, was found in the Bhagirathi river earlier.

Rajiv was running a digital news channel- Delhi Uttarakhand LIVE. His Family had suspected a foul play in disappearance. The Chief Minister has ordered a thorough and impartial probe into his death. We expect police to come clean with transparency in this case.

May god grant peace to Rajiv and strength to family members and friends to bear this loss.

[Aatish Sharma @HaanMainAatish]

@Su4ita One may never know if this is part of Panahi sir's next movie frame or not 🤗

[Parth MN @parthpunter]

Scholars rot in jail. Hate mongers in TV studios continue to incite masses.

That's new India. That's fascism.

[Joy Bhattacharjya @joybhattacharj]

What a marvellous gesture, carrying a picture of her first coach. Goes so much beyond just mentioning his name!
Divya Deshmukh is a class act.

[Raz @RazOlsRF]

The point that made Federer fans dream again! The commentator’s emotion while delivering the line ”I will never ever forget that rally!” is etched into my heart and mind forever. Federer’s tennis was just something completely unique �