tanya

vc, ex-public policy/foreign policy. health, climate, consumer. views personal.

[Gautam Bhatia @gautambhatia88]

I can’t stress how important it is to understand that this is the result of a deep structural flaw in the Indian Constitution’s design, and not just a temporary “aberration.” Brief thread. 👇🏼

[The Telegraph @ttindia]

The Nandigram puzzle: 95% of deleted voters in SIR supplementary list are Muslims

#voters #Muslim #SIR #assemblyelections #Nandigram #Westbengal

https://t.co/TV4B875pMb

[Srinivas Kodali @digitaldutta]

Electoral maps of India are published as pdfs with no latitude or longitude not to allow anyone understand the borders by delimitation commission. I had to digitize that stupid pdf map and draw every border of all constituencies to understand the scale of manipulation in #Assam.

[Edgar Allan Poeha @bhanilaessence]

A sinister element in this trans bill is how it seeks to isolate a trans individual from any kind of community. By criminalizing "those who infleunce a person to be trans" it cuts transpeople off from doctors, healthcare workers, NGOs, and even individuals. Pure evil this

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

Alt News is ₹10 lakh short of breaking even this financial year.

We need 2,000 people to donate ₹500 each before March 31. That's 6 days.

Fighting misinformation isn't like putting out a fire. There's no moment when it's done. It's a fact-check every morning, a verification every afternoon, documentation of hate speech that nobody else is recording - day after day, year after year, for nine years.

We don't take ads. We don't have sponsors. We have readers.

Donate before March 31!

https://t.co/sPD312mkZT

If not you, who? If not now, when?

[Himal Southasian @HimalSouthasian]

From manufacturing mythic pasts to promoting muscular nationalism, militarism and Islamophobia, Hindi cinema is increasingly aligning with Hindutva politics, and ripping up Indian secularism and democracy in the process.

@Razarumi on Hindi cinema’s appalling descent into Islamophobia and Hindu nationalism: https://t.co/v2B6ub6X1i

[ismosis @ccphusrox]

delhitwt will romanticise every monument in this city for likes but never acknowledge the community whose culture built them. and when uttam nagar happens, there’s silence. muslims in this city are being set up to be burnt and you all look away.

[mimi ♡ @virtualangel39]

re: how many people are willing to treat all of this as a joke or spectacle - here are some excerpts from an article by Dr. Stacey Patton about the intentional psychological conditioning happening right now that are worth reading and thinking about

[Anusha Ravi Sood @anusharavi10]

Congratulations fellow countrymen.

Amritkaal in New India.

While temple inaugurations are spun as "rise of new republic" please know it's only to divert your attention from things that actually affect your life & wellbeing.

[Adv. M @RURALINDIA]

War is peace.

Orwellian surveillance:

[Mohit Chauhan @mohitlaws]

🚨Countries with non-deletable govt mobile application on citizens phones:

• Russia
• North Korea

Now the Modi government has asked smartphone makers to preload all new devices in India with the non-deletable, state-owned Sanchar Saathi app.

[Suhasini Haidar @suhasinih]

Even pegasus seems more benign than this- government wants to install an app in all mobile phones to monitor your activity, locations, conversations and transactions.

[svs 🇮🇳 @_svs_]

This is the disaster scenario unfolding.

Resist this Sanchaar Saathi with all your might. When this line falls it gets real bad.

We owe it to ourselves and also to future generations that we don’t allow a mandatory government app on personal communication devices.

Surely we can agree on this.

[Nikhil Pahwa @nixxin]

More bad news for mobile phone users in India (after SIM binding): Our government is mandating a government app (sanchar saathi) on every new phone, permanently, Reuters reports.

Will be pushed to your phone via OTA. New smartphones need to have it. Users cannot delete it. This is a first. India has never before required an unremovable state app on every device. Russia does btw, with its MAX Messenger (started September 2025).

A few comments regarding this:
1. Sanchar Saathi is a lost phone tracker, but if it gets embedded with no possibility of removal, it becomes a government tracker on your device.

IF the government is allowed to get away with this, what’s next? A mandatory digital ID app? Digiyatra forcefully installed on each device? An app that disables VPNs or tracks your app and browser history? An app that sends copies of your messages to the government once a month?

Once the OS layer is opened to the state, it doesn’t close.

2. Legally, one can argue that your mobile phone is your personal space, and this is an invasion of your personal space.

It’s where we have our most private conversations. Exchange sensitive information with people we trust.

How do we know this app isn’t used to access files and messaging on our device, which is unencrypted on device? Or a future update won’t do that? This is clearly an invasion of our privacy.

3. Remember how the government exempt itself from much of the Data Protection Law. This explains why.

The Data Protection Law will make private companies more accountable and the Indian government less accountable.

4. Bloatware is already an issue with some phones (It’s why I don’t use Samsung). Now there’s more, and this time the government is forcing bloatware. I guess we’ll all have to root our phones now. When you buy a phone with bloatware, you're choosing to buy it with bloatware. This is different.

5. The way things work with India’s Department of Telecom, there was no public consultation, the order wasn’t disclosed. Just forced. This is dictatorial in nature. If they get away with this, more will follow.

[Srinivas Kodali @digitaldutta]

State sponsored appware is state sponsored spyware
https://t.co/Yqr3u6SCps

[Sarayu Pani @sarayupani]

You notice how in this country, despite all the state repression and nameless faceless trolls, it is ordinary citizens who are willing to stand up, with their names and faces in a press conference, to fight for all of our right to a free and fair election?

[first ethical space cowboy @cowboybecsbop]

“I’m not a political person” ok then go back to your room and let the grown ups talk

[s @shutupsg_]

sick of rumali roti erasure from restaurant menus. we’re losing our culture in front of our very eyes and no one is doing anything about it

[Neil Renic @NC_Renic]

Please stop assuming that too many em dashes means AI written. Some of us are producing grammatically incoherent work the honest way!