Agniva Chakrabarti

lawyer | former latchkey kid

[Ramin Nasibov @RaminNasibov]

Meanwhile in Tobleronistan

[MP Arizona☀️🏳️‍🌈💙🌵🐕🐕‍🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 @AzPetrich]

A trillionair, yet his name does not appear on a single school, university, library, museum wing, hospital, stadium, arena, airport, or endowed chairs. What a colossal waste of a human lifetime.

[Sukhada @appadappajappa]

😭❤️

[Harmeet Kaur K 🇮🇳 @iamharmeetK]

Congress leader and Senior Supreme Court Advocate @DrAMSinghvi very strong words on TMC political turmoil
"I am not one of those who think that there is no dissatisfaction, anger in those who have left the TMC. I am also not one of those who think that the BJP alone is the reason for them to leave. But let me make a few points crystal clear...
▪️Never before in the 75-80 years of Indian history has any party misused agencies, that includes past BJP Govts and non-Congress Govts, to even 1/10th the extent which this Govt has done.
▪️Secondly, in the last 75-80 years of Indian political history, no party has aggregated and misused as many monetary resources as this ruling party.
▪️Third, there is no doubt in my mind that there are categories of people. You cannot equate a Suvendu Adhikari with the others who have left. Suvendu Adhikari may have had serious differences but he had the guts to leave the party years ago. He fought on the ground, he carried a campaign, he won the elections, he became the CM. That is the democractic way of doing. You may not agree with him but you cannot criticise him for this. There is a second category of a very small number where people have left after 5th May 2026. But they have at least had the moral courage to resign their seats. The third category is the largest, they are not prepared to leave the office, they are not prepared to leave their greediness, they are not prepared to leave anything of the TMC which got them where they are.
So, what kind of category is this?
This is nothing but immoral.
▪️Fourthly, there is a huge complete, ridiculous conceptual distortion that anywhere any legislature party - if so called 2/3rd walk out and form a group then the anti-defection law doesn't apply. This is the most ridiculously wrong interpretation and is based on complete ignorance or deliberate non-understanding of the existing law which has been decided by the Supreme Court.
▪️Fifthly, pick up and read the Shiv Sena judgment of 2022. There is no concept of a 2/3rds simplicitor in the legislator party which will prevent the application of the 'dal badal' anti-defection law. They will be subject to disqualification.
However, in this country, the process is the punishment.
Everybody knows the law but I, as an existing TMC and Mamata Banerjee, will file a complaint against you that you have left. That complaint will go to the Speakers of the Assembly and Lok Sabha. Is it possible to contemplate that those Speakers who belong to the ruling party will allow my complaint? They will reject and those people will be recognised. I will go to court and the court will take 3-4 years.
▪️Lastly, I have been advocating for many years that you must repeal all this farce of the 10th Schedule. You must have a 2-line 10th Schedule which says that anybody who is elected on symbol x and party y and who does directly or indirectly any other anti-party activity and joins/support any other party must resign the post he holds and refight the elections..."

[Liam Nissan™ @theliamnissan]

Yup

[Roahan Mitra @rohansmitra]

North Kolkata MP Sudip Bandyopadhyay deserves a chapter of his own in the handbook of Bengal politics.

For aspiring politicians, his career is less a story of leadership and more a masterclass in political conservation—specifically, the conservation of his own position.

Most leaders are remembered as banyan trees under whose shade generations of workers grow. Sudip Babu’s critics might argue that he resembles a carefully trimmed bonsai: occupying space, drawing attention, but ensuring nothing substantial grows around him.

For decades, he has floated through Bengal politics like a luxury cruise ship in a city desperate for rescue boats—always visible, always important, but rarely arriving where ordinary workers need him most.

Others built organisations. Others nurtured young leaders. Others fought political battles. Sudip Babu perfected a different art: remaining at the centre of every photograph while somehow staying at the edge of every struggle.

If politics were cricket, he would be the batsman who never leaves the crease, never scores a century, never wins the match, but somehow remains not out for forty years.

His greatest talent may be turning political influence into a private savings account—carefully guarded, rarely invested, and never distributed widely enough to create future stakeholders.

Many politicians leave behind schools of thought. Some leave movements. Some leave institutions. Sudip Babu leaves behind a question mark.

For young politicians hoping to master the art of appearing indispensable while remaining mysteriously absent whenever difficult work needs doing, his career should be compulsory reading.

A political lighthouse that rarely guided ships to shore. A gatekeeper who confused the gate with the kingdom. A permanent tenant of power who somehow convinced everyone he owned the building.

That, perhaps, is the true genius of Sudip Bandyopadhyay’s political journey. #Kolkata #Bengal #MamataBanerjee #tmc #BhupenderYadav

[Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @NYCMayor]

Reason #1,000,000,000,000 why we should tax the rich.

[lean @artbypudge]

the right train won’t pass you by 🚃

[Arjun* @mxtaverse]

Abhijeet Dipke simply does not have the regime changing aura that peak 2011 muffler wearing cough syrup guzzling wagonR riding magsaysay awardee image management mastermind IIT-IRS Arvind Kejriwal had

[Kiran Manral @KiranManral]

In the TOI today

[Nirmalya Dutta @NonsensicalNemo]

https://t.co/09K9CiElYH

[Shubhendu @BBTheorist]

Now that Delhi Police has arrested the cook, they should also arrest the sweeper, the security guard, the receptionist and the liftman.
Arrest everyone but the corrupt MCD engineers, the inept fire dept officials and the extortionist local police personnel.

[Max Jeffery @MaxJeffery_]

I observed Willie Dalrymple for @spectator

[Swapan Dasgupta @swapan55]

I shed no tears for the TMC’s self-destruction. My only hope is that the political culture of the vandals doesn’t start contaminating the W.Bengal BJP. We in the BJP have to be always wary of false friends who are today cosying up to us because they need to wash away their past sins. The detox of Bengal cannot be left incomplete.

[Aditya Chauhan @sirfaditya]

Having to read Ria Chopra would be the second worst experience in Ruskin Bond’s life after Emergency

[Inverse Billore Index @InverseBillore]

Say no more.

[Smita Barooah @smitabarooah]

The quiet grief of adult friendship: One of the most beautiful articles I've read in a while. Hits hard
https://t.co/qXi6UBaTs3

[Nabaarun Barooah @BarooahNabaarun]

wtf Deng Xiaoping?

[Sougat Chakraborty @sougat18]

First of my bloodline to see Sagarika Ghose berating The Economist!