Deena

@IntEngineering | Ex @NewIndianXpress @timesofindia

[MM  @adgirlMM]

Here's the NY Times article everyone is talking about. A gift from me to you. 👀 https://t.co/cS2ZbncmFh

[Nidheesh M K @mknid]

There’s a lot of punditry being thrown at me for calling out Desi Studios and the way they plagiarised my story on Jayanandan. Don’t gatekeep facts. Don’t be a crybaby. Duniya is changing, why don’t you move on. You get the drift. Here's a 🧵useful to anyone who thinks that story, the one Desi Studios lifted sentence by sentence, wrote itself.

[Nidheesh M K @mknid]

https://t.co/sr2BW0ZjTb

[Malay Krishna @Malay4Product]

You probably have no idea who Salim Kumar is, but every Indian should read all about him today.

Salim Kumar was a Malayalam actor who passed away on Saturday night in Kochi at the age of 56. If you don't watch Malayalam cinema, strap in because his story is one of the most remarkable careers Indian cinema has produced, and it deserves to travel beyond Kerala.

He came from nothing. Born in North Paravur, a small town in Ernakulam, into a family that struggled with money. Government school. Graduated from Maharajas College.

So, no film connections, no family wealth, no shortcuts.

He started as a mimicry artist with Kalabhavan, a performance troupe in Kochi that has been the launchpad for dozens of Malayalam actors. Stage shows, comedy routines, television spots.

He was funny in a way that was impossible to ignore, the kind of performer who could make a room laugh in an instant.

His first film was Ishtamanu Nooru Vattam in 1997, a small role nobody remembers. For years he played supporting parts & background comedy.

Then the 2000s happened. His role as Mattancherry Mammathu in Satyameva Jayathe gave him his first real recognition, and after that the comedy roles started coming fast.

Pulival Kalyanam. Thuruppugulan. Kunjikkoonan. Marykkundoru Kunjaadu. If you grew up in Kerala in the 2000s, his face was in half the films you watched. He became the comedian audiences showed up for, the one whose scenes people replayed and quoted at family gatherings.

What separated him from most comedians was precision. He did not rely on volume or slapstick. He used his face, his body, his pauses.

He could get a laugh from the way he blinked. Directors started writing characters specifically for him, because they knew he would take whatever was on the page and make it three times funnier than they imagined.

For over a decade, he was the biggest comic face in Malayalam cinema.

Then came 2010 and a film called Adaminte Makan Abu.

A quiet, small-budget film directed by Salim Ahamed. The story follows an aging Muslim couple in a Kerala village whose only dream in life is to go on Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

They save every rupee. Things keep falling apart. The film is about their dignity, their patience, and their faith through one disappointment after another.

Salim Kumar played Abu. The man who owns nothing except his wife and his belief, and holds onto both with everything he has.

There is no comedy in the role. No punchlines, no funny faces, no playing to the gallery. It is the complete opposite of everything audiences had ever seen him do.

The entire performance is built on stillness, restraint, and pain carried quietly behind the eyes.

He won the National Film Award for Best Actor for it. That is the highest acting honour in Indian cinema. The film was also selected as India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards (Oscars) that year.

In one role, Salim Kumar went from "the funny guy from Malayalam films" to one of the most respected actors in Indian cinema.

He simply disappeared so completely into a character that you forgot you were watching a comedian at all.

He followed it with more serious work. Achanurangatha Veedu, which won him the Kerala State Award. Traffic, still considered one of the finest ensemble films in Malayalam cinema. Perumazhakkalam.

Each time, he proved the National Award was not a fluke. The man had range that most actors who only do drama cannot match.

Unfortunately, Salim Kumar suffered from liver cirrhosis, a condition he said was hereditary in his family and not related to alcohol. His brother had the same illness. He underwent a liver transplant a few years ago. He tried naturopathy. He talked about all of it openly, without shame, without self-pity.

He kept working between treatments. He kept being funny. He kept showing up, even when his body was failing him.

He was also fearlessly outspoken about politics and social issues, which in any film industry can cost you work. He did not care. He said what he believed and lived with the consequences.

He passed away Saturday night at a hospital in Kochi. He was 56. The Kerala government bore the funeral expenses and gave him police honours.

The Chief Minister paid homage personally. Mammootty, one of the biggest names in Indian cinema, mourned him publicly. Thousands of people lined up at the North Paravur Town Hall on Sunday to say goodbye.

350 films in three decades. A National Award for Best Actor. An Oscar entry. A career that started from mimicry stages and ended at the very top of Indian cinema.

The reason most of India does not know his name is because Malayalam cinema, despite being one of the best film industries in the country, still does not get the national attention it deserves.

Actors like Salim Kumar live and work in a language bubble, and their stories rarely cross over the way a Bollywood career would.

This is a loss for everyone who never got to watch him. A man who came from poverty, made millions laugh, then proved he could make them cry just as hard, and fought his own hardest battle with utmost dignity.

If you watch one film after reading this, make it Adaminte Makan Abu. It is a masterpiece.

[Thomas Fazi @battleforeurope]

Crazy that this is getting barely any coverage. This year’s European Press Prize was just awarded to an investigative report by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant. It is entitled “What the Wounds Tell” and in it the journalists Maud Effting and Willem Feenstra document the cases of 114 children in Gaza under the age of 15 who were struck by a single bullet to the head or chest. Almost all of them died or were left severely disabled. They chose to document only the cases of boys and girls under the age of 15 (though often much younger: aged 3, 4 or 7) because these are children who can be immediately identified as such. “A single bullet in these parts of the body is a clear indication that these children were deliberately targeted“, the two journalists write.

This is the article: https://t.co/YkZrpqBWBQ

[Sarthak Sidhant @sidhant_sarthak]

CBSE has systematically rewritten its rulebook to favor Coempt Eduteck.

check out the blog.

[Stanly Johny @johnstanly]

What happens when you don't have strategic autonomy

The monarchies in the Persian Gulf did everything they could possibly do to keep the Americans happy over the decades. They all host American bases. They all buy American weapons. Most of them are hypersensitive not to upset the Israelis, whether they have direct relations or not. The bed rock of the Gulf-US partnership is that the US would provide security while the rich monarchies would sell oil (during the Cold War) and make investments. Yet, during the war on Iran, they got no protection from the US. Rather, the US bases turned out to be the magnates that drew Iranian missiles and drones. Iran has taken control of the Hormuz Strait, effectively curtailing the Gulf monarchies' access out of the Persian Gulf. And trump is not ordering them to normalise relations with Israel if he signs a deal with Iran, reopening the Strait. Worse, trump even threatens to "blow up" Oman, an ally.

That's why I say the war has destroyed the Persian Gulf security architecture. And the US stands diminished in the region.

[Domhnall (Cogito) @CogitoEdu]

"You can be openly gay in 1 city a short drive from the mass graves of the children we slaughtered by the tens of thousands"

[Nidheesh M K @mknid]

Kerala woke up with ED at the gates of Pinarayi Vijayan's house today. The raids stem from a 37-page court order delivered ystdy. CMRL, a titanium and mineral-sands giant long known in Kerala for its big political donations, had asked the High Court to quash the ED's money-laundering case. The court refused. A 🧵 on the case and how it got here.

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

Twelve professors and faculty members write about how A.I. is changing their work. Attitudes range from cautious optimism to abject despair.
https://t.co/v1bG1JlWjI

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing an essay, writing a eulogy, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing for 5,000 years.

[:) @gnanodayam]

This is a conversation India needs to have as well. We currently view these massive mega projects purely as investments, often ignoring the toll on local resources

[Korah Abraham @thekorahabraham]

The reason why I remain sceptical of most of these instant 'Gen Z movements' is that they often emerge in the heat of the moment as spaces for people to collectively and rightfully vent their very real frustration, disappointment and anger at the establishment. And there's nothing wrong with that. The larger question is whether these movements can evolve beyond viral, online movements and turn it into something more sustained, organised and politically transformative for the youth in the long run. Otherwise it feels just like another online signature campaign trend.

[Parvathi Benu @ParBen24]

I don't know if this is a Kerala thing, but @vdsatheesan , the MLA of our constituency since 2001 was always invited to all the weddings in the area. He'd make it a point to attend most of these and hence, as a kidz I didn't know that being an MLA was a big deal.

[Nidheesh M K @mknid]

V D Satheesan was never the obvious choice for Kerala’s next chief minister, except to the voters.

There is a photograph in my head from the Kerala Literature Festival in 2024, of Satheesan standing in the corner of a tent at Kozhikode beach, asking me about a Bulgarian novelist. Read more: https://t.co/wK4oZpf4Dg

[Rajaneesh @vilakudy]

Random observations:

Yes, Congress has made the best choice in VD Satheeesan.

Only VDS could have predicted 100+ seats for UDF. Wait, he even drew up a list of Congress with 65 MLAs before polls. And that too happened!

KC Venugopal lost his name, fame and clout. Had he not jumped into the 'circus' ring, he could have acted like a Super CM-like power. Big time goof-up.

Shafi Parambil, arguably the most popular leader in Kerala now, took a major image- beating for having chosen to side with KC. Even in Malabar/North Kerala.

Mathew Kuzhalnadan, too, did the ultimate harakiri.

Not just Shafi this applies to young leaders PC Vishnunath and AP Anil Kumar.

Bravely, K Muraleedharan batted for VDS, irrespective of the loss it could have on his political career.

Finally, VDS will be a leader/CM in Pinarayi mould. Left will have a tough time ahead.

#Kerala

[Jacob Titus @jacob__titus]

In 1935, Penguin sent 21-year-old designer Edward Young to London Zoo.

His sketches became one of publishing’s most enduring marks

[Dhanya Rajendran @dhanyarajendran]

Beyond anti-incumbency: What Kerala’s verdict says about the LDF

(In my opinion, this is our best analysis story this election)

By @lakshmibindu95

https://t.co/n2yhDMAixF

[Andy Greenberg (@agreenberg at the other places) @a_greenberg]

Researchers at security firm RedAccess found more than 5,000 vibe-coded apps, created with AI tools from Lovable, Replit, Base44 and Netlify, with essentially no security, accessible on the open web. About 40% exposed sensitive personal or corporate data. https://t.co/8b8Kv3Jphn

[Will Knight @willknight]

The illustration on this story is quite funny, but the study itself has quite big implications I think. The point is that there might be better ways to design AI systems so that they don’t simply do everything for us. @bakkermichiel of MIT describes it an important piece of the AI alignment puzzle. https://t.co/ow8lDamnzP