Vijay Ramachandran

Storyteller. Enterprise Tech Watcher. Free Agent.

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

A sense of humour is all we have left, everything else the government has put GST on

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

When India accidentally wiped out its vultures, half a million people died in five years.

The bird doing zoomies in this video runs the most extreme digestive system in the animal kingdom. Vulture stomach acid sits near pH 1, strong enough to destroy anthrax, rabies, and botulism in the carcasses they eat. A flock strips a cow to bone in about 45 minutes.

India had 50 million of them. Free sanitation at national scale, in a country where religious custom means most cattle die natural deaths and every dead cow becomes a carcass someone has to deal with.

Then the patent on diclofenac expired in 1994. Farmers started using the cheap painkiller on livestock. Trace amounts left in a carcass cause kidney failure in vultures. Within a decade, 50 million birds fell to a few thousand. The fastest collapse of any bird species since the passenger pigeon.

The carcasses didn't disappear. Feral dogs took the vultures' place and brought rabies with them. Rotting remains leached into waterways. In districts where vultures once thrived, human death rates rose more than 4 percent. Economists at Chicago and Warwick put the toll at 100,000 extra deaths a year and $69 billion in annual damages.

So yes, the goofy bird sprinting down the walkway is adorable. It's also a disease firewall that evolution spent millions of years building and one generic painkiller nearly erased in ten.

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

(In his cell) Next to a picture of the anti-colonial revolutionary Bhagat Singh, Khalid has scrawled his famous words: “I am that mad soul who is free even in captivity.”https://t.co/tLPsbBysK6

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

@Aunindyo2023 Well spotted. https://t.co/2UR1v46SMW

[John Oliver @iamjohnoliver]

Hello again! Here's our piece from Sunday about Twitter. Bye! https://t.co/KqA7EUY18B

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

“Some will question spending administrative capital on animals amid so many other urgencies. The answer is simple. A civilised state must do more than one good at once…” https://t.co/mBRC4AdwxB

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

@r3dash @Chaits_ Foundation keeps bunch of the original Asimov series of novels BUT massively diverges too. Give it a watch and you’ll find it grow on you. Masters of the Air is a great watch specially if you liked Band of Brothers

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

@r3dash Superb

[sunny @thePiggsBoson]

Sad: Noted Indian astrophysicist and emeritus professor Jayant Narlikar passes away at 87.

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

@kmr_dilip @ProsaicView @threadreaderappunroll

[FIAPO @FIAPOIndia]

FIAPO is participating in the upcoming TCS World 10K Marathon to raise funds for our legal work in protecting captive elephants and advocating for their rehabilitation. Donate by scanning the QR Code or accessing this link - https://t.co/Uv42T1K3X5! Spread the word!

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

@manaman_chhina @bsdhanoa Also, tone deaf to rename a fort that had a trench named the Maratha Ditch to prevent Maratha Bargi raiders. That ditch marked the outer limit of the city as well many moons ago.

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

@BhaJaPod @kunalpurohit @AbbasMomin Since you guys mentioned it, there’s a low res version of Dev Benegal’s English August here: https://t.co/y7skKd9RXy

[Sanitary Panels @sanitarypanels]

“As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable. For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the (Washington) Post” - the brilliant @AnnTelnaes 🖌️

[वरुण 🇮🇳 @varungrover]

Standup Comedy thrived in India post 2004. Dr. Manmohan Singh was the key because:

1. The generation and social class that benefited from liberalisation of the 90s grew up to be the voice of the confident new India - demanding accountability and seeing sense of humor as an essential trait of social discourse.

2. Another result of liberalisation - mobile internet became a reality for a huge section of the middle/upper middle classes, giving new, uncensored platforms for a new form of art/humor.

3. His government - like all governments - was flawed, creating enough relatable material to go viral. And they did push back - like introducing the draconian IT Act Sec 66A late in the day.

But unlike many other governments of past and future - MMS didn’t practice brutal censorship or punitive action against humour/satire. The entire social media opposed the IT Act or the various acts of alleged corruption/inefficiency without being labelled anti-national or getting r*pe threats.

The artists - not just professional standup comedians but big film stars also - felt safe sharing jokes about the govt policies/PM/ministers.

A sense of freedom is the biggest incentive artists crave for - and the MMS govt provided that above anything else.

Thanks Dr. Saab.

[Andy Mukherjee @andymukherjee70]

Farewell, Dr. Singh. It will be a shame, if by choosing to replace rational analysis with empty slogans, and genuine reforms with nationalistic chest-thumping, India lets down the memory of its quiet internationalist. My @opinion piece, free to read: https://t.co/6lPGXNqQhQ

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

@SachinKalbag Feel your loss, Sachin. Take care.

[Vijay Ramachandran @vijayram]

On Gandhi Jayanti, a heartfelt pledge to India, Indians and the Constitution by Maj Gen S G Vombatkere (retd)…

[Teesta Setalvad @TeestaSetalvad]

Some incarecrations are a travesty of justice, all that is good. #UmarKhalid1400daysinJail #ReleaseAllPoliticalPrisoners there is also Gulfishan Mahesh Meeran Idisha Adviasi Actiists J & K...how free are we really? @banojyotsna

[newslaundry @newslaundry]

“If journalists are left to face penalties in lakhs of rupees in damages, will it not have a chilling effect on free and fair reporting?” wrote the Mumbai Press Club on X today, asking the Hindu to “not abandon” journalist Rahul Pandita in a 2014 defamation suit.

https://t.co/3zutWxCmai