Ayush

Books, Writing, History, Wildlife. He/Him

[Ayush @LotusTile]

Hi folks, I've started a substack blog and the first post is a long-form essay about impact of the Mutiny in 1857 on the massacre in Amritsar in 1919. I don't think we get enough context in our books and movies. If you like it, please share and subscribe!

https://t.co/GvmIwS27av

[Ayush @LotusTile]

Excellent essay. I had no idea that Mrs Gandhi was very opposed to Bluestar and was only convinced after an assurance from the army chief that the temple wouldn't be damaged, one he didn't keep. The images of the damage horrified her. Rajiv shoulders blame here as well.

[Hartosh Singh Bal @HartoshSinghBal]

R. K. Dhawan said Rajiv Gandhi & his 2 Aruns who roped in Sundarji (armed with pompous overconfidence) felt an army operation, “would be able to win the elections hands down.”
It was a cynical use of force for political gain, disastrously executed.
https://t.co/LHK2bJzMmQ

[The Hind Rajab Foundation @HindRFoundation]

The @hindrajabfoundation filed an urgent complaint in 🇮🇳 #India, demanding the immediate arrest of Eitan Gilboa, Israeli national and reservist in the 271st Combat Engineering Battalion. Gilboa is currently vacationing in Old Manali and Gondla Village, Himachal Pradesh.
Full details → https://t.co/AyXjznPsyE

[Idrees Ahmad @im_PULSE]

I finished @weizman_eyal's Ungrounding last night and it has left me overwhelmed & speechless. I'll have a lot more to say about it but suffice it to say for now that, while some extraordinary books have been written about Gaza, this one for me is the most important. Here's why:

[Ayush @LotusTile]

@ori_goldberg Wishing you all the best for a speedy recovery, Ori 💞

[🚨Indian Gems @IndianGems_]

Govt removes anti-monopoly clause, Adani wins another battlefield. This time, Rs 9,700 cr FCI contracts — News Laundry

[Vinay Aravind @vinayaravind]

Just read this story. The rigging is so brazen to favour Adani. This is just the teeny tiny sliver of the tip of the iceberg. The whole economy of the country now runs on patronage to the cronies. Even lower level cronies like Vedanta are getting shafted in the process.

[dun hill @whorezum]

just found out RCB's ownership consists of the Blackstone Group, whose chairman Stephen Schwarzman has actively supported and aided the genocide by israel. this is too sad

[𝖢𝖺𝗍𝖺𝗅𝖾𝗒𝖺 @catale7a]

Don't forget

Bharat is the only country where a medical college is shut down by the government, because Muslim students secured more seats through official entrance process

[navya नव्या @navya17012001]

One man eating an entire nation and still having citizens who defend these blood suckers is insane. Incredible india

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

I can’t see you how you can possibly avoid using the term ethnic cleansing, without losing your last remaining shreds of integrity as a journalist, Adam.

Lebanon's internal displacement rate is now 22.6 percent — more than one in five of its people. Over 1.2 million people, including 350,000 children, have been forced from their homes, with the IDF launching more than 1,840 attacks on Lebanon since March 2, killing more than 1,497 people and injuring more than 4,639.

Moreover, the language used by Israel Katz to describe his aims in Southern Lebanon is extraordinarily explicit and self-incriminating. He has confirmed that Israel's military would establish a permanent "security zone" inside Lebanon up to the Litani River, that hundreds of thousands of displaced residents would be "completely prevented" from returning, and that "all the houses in the villages adjacent to the border in Lebanon will be demolished in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza."

The targeting of civilians for displacement specifically identified by their religion (Shia), combined with the destruction of their homes to prevent return, combined with the explicit statement that they will not be permitted to return — these are precisely the elements that international law identifies as forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing. Human Rights Watch has said that "the displacement of the Shia population looks less like a temporary military necessity and more like a move to permanently displace the civilian population based on their religion."

Its not complex, Adam. You just haven't got the balls to say it straight, and that failure makes your reportage worse than worthless. It makes it morally bankrupt.

[AnnieZaidi PhD @anniezaidi]

Is anyone comparing the amount of newsprint devoted to the breaking of the Bamiyan statues to the amount of coverage the destruction of the ancient city of Tyre is getting?

[Ayush @LotusTile]

@LeftOfChordRoad 🤦🏽😁

I need to watch more

[S 🇮🇳 @Nrig021]

🇮🇳🇵🇸
Indians who spread hate against Palestinians should see this:
an Indian travel vlogger visits West Bank & he is met with love by Palestinians
— some locals insist on paying his bus fare, a café refuses his money, and a bakery offers a discount on knowing he’s from India.

[Ayush @LotusTile]

@LeftOfChordRoad Saka is right wing?

[Ayush @LotusTile]

@HPGodfather_ Actually the IVC cremated their dead which is why we have such few bodies and almost no DNA evidence. And Vedic Hindus also ate cow meat.

[Maitreya Bhakal @MaitreyaBhakal]

India shits from the top. The rot in the country starts from the elite and the "middle class", and then spreads downward.

Never in modern history has a country failed this much while being this cocksure of its success. India is now officially the world's biggest circus. And Indian diplomats, whether current or retired, some of its loudest clowns.

They're a herd of pampered, privileged babus (privileged only because of their accident of birth of course; they just happened to spawn in the right litter) who have spent their entire lives attached to the state like leeches on an artery, sucking people's blood like parasites, gorging themselves on public money while lecturing the very people they feed on about "democracy".

And then after retirement, their bellies full, having spent decades drinking from the national bloodstream, the vampires suddenly reinvent themselves as philosopher-kings, dispensing wisdom to the world about India's superior "democracy".

Just imagine, a country that barely potty trained most of its people less than a decade ago, a country where at least 80 women get raped DAILY, a country where at least 28 farmers commit suicide DAILY, a country where 3 in 4 people don't get enough daily nutrition...yes, China must be green with envy of all this.

If these people are supposed to be the country's best minds, it's over before it even started.

People's actual lives don't matter to these leeches. They are completely detached from material reality. What matters is just an idealized version of India they've cooked up in their heads, sitting in their air-conditioned offices while the average Indian toils away in the sun like a slave, just so that they can benefit from his labour. They call this "democracy", just like a mosquito would call it blood donation.

India's reality is now so rotten and so overly exposed to the world, that even Jaishankar has stopped his quips. Even Modi has dialed back his sermons and chest-thumping on India's supposed greatness. But some are apparently still going at it.

In truth, India's "democracy" is the LEAST impressive thing about India. It is the least worthy of emulation by other countries. Zero percent of India's successes are attributable to its "democracy".

The greatest beneficiary of this obsession of comparing India with China has been China itself. It is laughing hysterically that THIS is the shithole country that was branded as China's rival for decades. Every time an Indian diplomat opens his mouth, Chinese Socialism gets another free advertisement. As always with China, the "Do nothing, Win" outcome remains undefeated.

India meanwhile is never beating the allegations.

[Ayush @LotusTile]

Truly. This is the reason even a Bolivar couldn't unite nations of South America into Gran Columbia despite the common faith, language etc amog elites.

The liberated countries were indistinguishable from the Spanish Empire's administrative units. So much of Nationalism is habit.

[shoaib daniyal @ShoaibDaniyal]

Nationalism is so arbitrary.

Uttarakhand and Nepal are practically culturally indistinguishable. Yet, since the former was part of Britain's Indian Empire, it is part of the modern Indian Union.

Nepal otoh is not only independent, it is so antagonistic to India, it is openly saying it is talking to China about what it claims is a border dispute with Delhi.

https://t.co/qiM87IZHdN

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

This is so true. Practically all the assholes I know support Israel. And all the compassionate, justice minded people I know have empathy for the Palestinians and are bothered by their suffering.

[Parth MN @parthpunter]

What's happening to Vinesh Phogat is exactly why we can never be a sporting nation.

She's a world class athlete playing a sport run by an uncultured thug.

[Ayush @LotusTile]

@Scheherzadeh Excellent