Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா

Feminist || Left(ish)
✍️📚💭✳️👁️‍🗨️🌐💡💻🖇️🔖
Words in DH,TheWire, WaPo, IE, ToI, OneWorld SA +
MMS Fellow AIPC | Alum

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

https://t.co/wVyqKfJbQj

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

RT @ProfCong: Heartiest Congress to you, Sir. Best wishes from all of us at AIPC. @pravchak

[TheLiverDoc™ @theliverdoc]

Dear friends, as promised, the citizens funded generics vs. branded drugs project is now published after 4 months in peer review. It was hardwork, but worth the effort because all of you helped us realize this important work.

You can read the full detaild paper here: https://t.co/jZhm8ZcPCq

Here is a simplified summary:
Do cheaper generic medicines work as well as expensive branded ones? It's a question that worries patients and even many doctors, who often quietly assume that a low price must mean lower quality. This doubt has real consequences in India, where medicines make up nearly two-thirds of what families spend out of their own pockets on healthcare — a burden that pushes millions into poverty and forces people to split doses or stop treatment altogether.

To put the question to a fair, independent test, our team at the Mission for Ethics and Science in Healthcare (MESH) carried out a fully citizen-funded study, paid for entirely by donations from ordinary members of the public, with no money or influence from any drug company.

We bought 131 samples of 22 commonly used medicines — covering heart disease, diabetes, infections, pain, acidity, and more — from seven different kinds of outlets across Kerala, including government stores like Jan Aushadhi, private generic chains, and premium branded pharmacies. Every sample was then coded, blinded, and sent to a top accredited laboratory for rigorous testing against the Indian Pharmacopoeia 2022 standards. What makes this study unusual is that very few before it have tested branded and generic versions from the same market side by side, included government-supplied medicines, and combined strict quality testing with a hard look at price — all at the same time.

The result was striking in its simplicity: every single one of the 131 medicines passed every quality test. 100%. It made no difference whether a pill was generic or branded, cheap or expensive — they were all equally good in their active ingredient content, their purity, and how they dissolve in the body.

Yet the prices told a completely different story. Generic medicines were, on average, 48.6% cheaper than their branded twins, and the most expensive brand cost up to 13.9 times more than the cheapest generic of the very same drug. Government Jan Aushadhi stores were the cheapest source for 18 of the 22 medicines tested, with potential savings running into thousands of rupees a year per medicine — for instance, over ₹16,000 a year on a single liver drug.

For doctors, this is reassuring, hard evidence that prescribing a quality-assured generic is not a compromise on care; it is the same medicine at a fraction of the cost. For patients, it means you can stay on your treatment without it draining your savings, which is exactly what keeps people healthier over the long run.

And this is precisely why independent, publicly funded projects like this matter so much for the future of healthcare in India: they answer the questions ordinary people actually have, free from commercial pressure, and they build the trust that programmes like Jan Aushadhi need to truly succeed. Affordable and high-quality are not opposites — in a well-regulated market, they go hand in hand.
More here: https://t.co/jZhm8ZcPCq

[Darab Farooqui @darab_farooqui]

Let me take this argument further. Assume the worst.

Assume CJP is an AAP outfit.

Even then, picture Rahul Gandhi simply saying this:

"CJP is a non political movement of young people. It stands for equality, justice and fraternity for all. That is our ideology too. So this is not a question of political support. It is a social movement, and we stand with it morally."

Now walk the branches.

If it grows, he was with it from the start. He literally gives moral support to millions of anti establishment youth. He gives them hope.

If it fizzles, millions of young people remember that Rahul Gandhi stood next to them when they were angry and alone, even when they never asked, even when they couldn't return the favour.

And if CJP turns around and says we don't want his support? Then they've shown their hand. Everyone sees whose side they were really on, and that support melts within days.

Grow, fizzle, or reject. Every branch pays him back.

And the AAP worry? Moral support costs nothing and commits nothing.

He isn't sharing a stage or a ticket. He's blessing the sentiment, not the vehicle. If it turns out to be AAP, he lost nothing he had.

He comes across as gracious. He comes across as unafraid. In politics, both travel a very long way.

I genuinely can't find the branch where supporting it costs him.

But here's the part that should end the debate. For Congress, not participating isn't even an option anymore.

CJP is fighting for the exact things Congress claims to stand for. Equality, justice, fraternity.

So sitting it out isn't caution. It's telling your own base that your values hold only until they get risky.

A movement carrying your ideology shows up, and you look away. That doesn't read as strategy. It feel like fear.

You don't get to claim the ideology and skip the moment it actually costs something.

[Warrior Moms @Warriormomsin]

Mother Dairy is rolling out what it says is India’s first naturally degradable milk pouch, designed to break down in soil over a few years instead of persisting for decades as plastic waste.

With millions of milk pouches discarded every day, tackling "fugitive plastic" at source could be a meaningful step toward reducing landfill and environmental burden.

The real test, of course, will be scale, cost, and measurable outcomes. But it's encouraging to see sustainability being built into everyday products.

#CircularEconomy #PlasticPollution #Sustainability

[NDTV @ndtv]

#NationwideAt6 with @GaurieD | TVK offers lone Rajya Sabha seat to ally Congress; Praveen Chakrabarty likely to be RS candidate

NDTV's @jsamdaniel tells us more.

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

https://t.co/Bav89LWVRo

[All India Professionals' Congress (AIPC) @ProfCong]

#AIPCAnnouncement

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Pallavi Nayak as National Head, Arts & Culture Domain, AIPC. She will continue to serve in her existing role as Head – Strategy & Organisational Engagement, AIPC Secretariat.

We wish her every success in taking forward Congress’s engagement with the arts and cultural community across India.

[All India Professionals' Congress (AIPC) @ProfCong]

AIPC wishes the LGBTQIA+ community and all allies a Happy Pride Month 🏳️‍🌈

@mleccha

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

In which I look at the Prajwala judgement as a Law and Economics judgement:
https://t.co/oponTjorH9

[Rahul Gandhi @RahulGandhi]

CBSE’s May 2025 tender required answer sheets to be scanned with automatic robotic scanners, spines preserved, at a minimum of 300 DPI.

The tender re-issued in August quietly removed all of it. “Scanners” became generic. Resolution dropped to 200 DPI.

Now we know what that meant in practice. It has been exposed that COEMPT scanned the answer sheets using mobile phones.

The blurred copies, the missing pages, the unscanned books - they are not “errors.” They are the predictable outcome of a contract written to fit a vendor.

This is fraud. And every child whose marks were wrongly evaluated is a victim of it.

This morning, the Prime Minister had time to speak about mangoes. He has not had time to speak about 18.5 lakh children whose answer sheets were scanned with phones.

Dharmendra Pradhan ji still sits in office.

Modi ji’s silence is no longer indifference. It is complicity.

[Gaurav Pandhi @GauravPandhi]

https://t.co/pIPpwgRklG

[TheLiverDoc™ @theliverdoc]

The Minister of Education Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan must resign not only because he screwed up the National Testing agency's credibility by allowing the medical entrance exam papers to get leaked and destroying the future of 2200000 young women and mens careers...

...but also for manipulating The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to create utterly nonsensical chapters on pseudoscience such as Ayurveda that will be taught to students in higher schools. They are made to forget science and rationalism and taught rubbish such as vata, pita, kapha for disease diagnosis and management.

Further, they have also strategically placed parts in the chapter which makes it look like learning "science" is anti-National (because the British destroyed Ayurveda) and embracing primitive traditions and dmbfckry of the highest order such as ancient Ayurvedic knowledge will make them successful nationalists.

These guys ruining our country by creating obstacles to progressing with science and ridiculing rationalism, and damaging critical thinking skills among our children must be booted out.

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

Congratulations 🎉 @Devvratpd well done! #scaora #supremecourt

[Bar and Bench @barandbench]

#BREAKING

Devvrat elected as President, SCAORA
Nikhil Jain elected as Vice President, SCAORA
Yugandhara Pawar Jha as Secretary, SCAORA

#supremeCourt

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

In which I am quoted by journalism's finest @ravish_journo on NEET: https://t.co/EBOc8SarXH (16:21 onwards). Also wrote on NEET for @timesofindia today:

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

Had the absolute pleasure of being part of this panel on cash transfers! If you missed the live, please watch this recording and don't forget to join #FEN for more! @BehanBox

[BehanBox @BehanBox]

1/ Who do India’s direct cash transfer schemes actually reach and who do they leave out? Watch the full BehanBox Feminist Election Newsroom conversation on cash transfers, welfare, electoral politics and state responsibility for India's care economy.
https://t.co/2yKAiZ9b3B

[Anjali Bhardwaj @AnjaliB_]

3 more points to add to the Cockroach Janta Party agenda:
- It will be answerable to people under the RTI Act
- Will not accept anonymous donations in cash or through instruments like electoral bonds
- Will never start a secret Cockroach CARES Fund
Thanks! ✊🏽

[Saurav Das @SauravDassss]

This kind of a statement should directly lead to impeachment of the judge. As responsible citizens, we cannot allow judicial standards and ethics to fall to such pits. The dignity of the chair and institution is at stake here. Leader of Opposition @RahulGandhi should condemn this statement and consider moving an impeachment motion against the Chief Justice. Someone should speak up for our courts!

[Neelam Ahluwalia @nahluwalia20]

Citizens vehemently object to the Chief Justice of India calling our youth "cockroaches" and referring to concerned & affected citizens seeking enforcement of environmental law & protection of our fundamental rights as “environment, RTI & social activists” in a derogatory manner.

[Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா @Varna]

And yet economists keep saying it can't be done, it can't be done
@ZohranKMamdani's just shown that money, debt, taxes etc can be done another way.
https://t.co/xxJF02G8KT