NM Salih

Communication pro Was @IndiaToday @DeccanChronicle. Loves all digital, media, reading &writing. Opinions own

[Stanly Johny @johnstanly]

Pundits have written at length about the unpredictability of the trump administration. Actually there is total predictability when it comes to Washington's policies towards the rest. America seeks to coerce both allies and partners into accepting its punishing trade terms; it wants to stymie the rise of emerging powers, including #India; it is ready for a new balance of power equation with #China; the only ally it wants to accommodate is #Israel (because Israel is a domestic issue in the US rather than a mere foreign policy issue). If you get the framework, trump's unpredictability is entirely predictable.

India should realise that the second phase of the U.S.-India partnership, started in the early 1990s, is over. We would be making a mistake if we think that the current rupture is just a trump phenomenon and that once he is out of office we would get back to the 2005 momentum. No, the changes the structural. We should get out of the American illusion and start standing up to the pressure, threats, coersion and insults.

[B. Kolappan @kolappan]

The first one is a digitally altered page being wrongly presented as the front page of The Hindu on June 6, 1967. The second is the actual page released that day. This is what social media is capable of; it can even alter the front page of India's national English daily.

[Nirupama Menon Rao 🇮🇳 @NMenonRao]

The world is being reordered by those who act and those who define. If India wishes to be counted among the latter, it must ensure that its silence does not speak louder than its convictions.

We are living through a moment when the rules of the international system are being rewritten in real time. Assassinations of leaders, the killing of civilians, open assertions of force—these are no longer aberrations but instruments. In such a world, silence is not neutrality. It is read, interpreted, and often misread as consent.

India has long claimed a distinctive space in global affairs—not as an appendage to power, but as a voice shaped by its own civilisational experience and its history of speaking for sovereignty, restraint, and balance. That voice mattered because it was consistent, even when inconvenient. Strategic autonomy cannot mean adjusting our language to the hierarchy of power.

Restraint has its place. Calibration is necessary. But when fundamental questions arise—about sovereignty, about the limits of force, about the protection of civilians—India cannot afford to be silent.

A moral compass is not an ornament of foreign policy. It is its direction. Without it, realism drifts into accommodation, and autonomy into ambiguity.

This war has damaged India’s interests in almost every practical sense. It has raised costs, narrowed diplomatic room, stressed shipping, complicated Chabahar, and injected fresh instability into a region vital to India’s economy and external strategy. Even if New Delhi can cushion the blow, it cannot plausibly claim that the blow itself serves India.

The deeper question is whether India is willing to say so with sufficient clarity.

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Wonderful to see. The old India still survives...

[Iran in India @Iran_in_India]

Following repeated requests from charitable and benevolent members among our Indian brothers and sisters to provide humanitarian assistance to Iranian compatriots affected by the ongoing war, the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in New Delhi hereby announces the following bank account number for the deposit of intended cash donations.

Bank Account Name: Embassy of Iran
Bank Account Number: 11084232535
IFS Code: SBIN0000691

If you wish, you may also send the screenshot or payment receipt via WhatsApp to: [phone].

[Saral Patel @SaralPatel]

Just last month, LoP @RahulGandhi Ji exposed the compromised Modi government.

“Our energy security is gone. Now the US will decide from where we will purchase oil and they will monitor it.”

Now it is happening, as the compromised PM has sold our sovereignty.

[Ounka @OunkaOnX]

Reza Pahlavi fell for a prank call from Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus, who pretended to be German officials - with one identifying himself as "Adolf" and dressed to resemble Adolf Hitler

[Stanly Johny @johnstanly]

The Prime Minister of Spine.

[Nitin Sethi @nit_set]

Modi gov't has 'temporarily suspended' the forced feeding of Fortified Rice to 80 cr poor Indians.

Context:
In May 2023 my @reporters_co colleague @shreegireesh unearthed the scam called Modi govt's Fortified Rice Scheme.

Based on spurious science and failed pilot projects, against warnings by its own experts, Modi gov't had pressed ahead to force feed fortified rice to all of 80 crore poor in India. The orders to do so had come from the top.

There were foreign business interests backing the scheme. They stood to earn thousands of crores annually from this move. Modi gov't, which otherwise makes such a hue and cry over 'foreign interests', had played into their hands to force the poor in India to consume something untested.

Across the country, Shreegireesh found, the poor were complaining of this 'plastic rice' making it to their plates.

He brought out a complete set of internal gov't documents to demolish the governments propaganda around the scheme. And showed who the real beneficiaries of the scheme were - Corporates backed by dubious NGOs working for the corporate interests.

Now, the government has 'temporarily suspended' the scheme claiming its now learnt that fortified rice is not doing any good.

We still don't know the real reasons why it has done so. We will dig those out too.

Shreegireesh's reports and evidence was used in the courts.

It was picked up, plagiarised, copy pasted and replicated by others in media, sometimes with and sometimes without due credit.

Our reports were shortlisted for the world's biggest award for investigative journalism, the Fetisov award.

We were grateful for the straight and the backhanded compliments. But, most of all, we were happy that our work had put the truth out bluntly and with hard evidence.

I write this to explain, why investigative journalism is central to keeping those in power accountable. It is the essential form of journalism. It is effective, even if the wheels take time to turn.

We don't know why yet the government has finally stopped the distribution of the spurious artificial rice grain. We are glad it has.

Such journalism requires immense courage and resources. When you support it, you empower yourselves as citizens, to defend your rights and that of the poorest who have the least ability t hold the powerful to account.

Democracies need public-funded journalism to be better democracies.

Read Shreegireesh's work, if you had missed it then.

https://t.co/hLSoEgxj1W

[Siddharth @svaradarajan]

My repost of the original cartoon posted by The Wire on the made-up medal the Israelis palmed off on Modi has also been deleted as a threat to national security!

So I am uploading it once again and would urge everyone to download and do the same!

Use the link in my next message to download!

[Hartosh Singh Bal @HartoshSinghBal]

modi is a joke

[Rajdeep Sardesai @sardesairajdeep]

To those ‘celebrating’ the killing of Ali Khamenei in this country on TV and social media, the idea of celebrating the killing of a foreign head of state is fraught — morally, diplomatically and strategically. A mature democracy can criticise regimes. It should be cautious about celebrating death. Not to forget 10,000 students live in Iran, lakhs of Indians across the Gulf. 🙏

[Pratik Sinha @free_thinker]

This year, it definitely feels that Hindutva attacks on Christian places have intensified. Attacks on Indian Muslims and on their religiosity now appear to be an everyday occurrence. Rapists are getting bail, activists are in jail, infrastructure is crumbling, unemployment is rampant, the air in major Indian cities is literally poisonous, the judiciary is largely ineffective, democratic institutions like the ECI are now extensions of the government, investigative agencies have become primary tools for curbing dissent, mainstream journalism has become unbearable, social media is flooded with monetised hate speech, and citizens are buried in propaganda.

[NM Salih @nmsalih]

@mrsinha Made in Karnataka 😉
https://t.co/yjaR2D3kNo

[👑Che_ಕೃಷ್ಣ🇮🇳💛❤️ @ChekrishnaCk]

VOLVO Buses are made in Bengaluru 💛❤️

Volvo buses were first introduced in Bengaluru by KSRTC and later in other cities.

India Runs on Karnataka 💛❤️

[Mohammed Zubair @zoo_bear]

No. 1 in Fake News!
https://t.co/2sqcNGOGyY

[Rajdeep Sardesai @sardesairajdeep]

The image of the day comes from parliament: Dr Manmohan Singh who turns 91 next month sitting silently listening to the furious debate while on a wheelchair . Whichever side of the political divide you happen to be, there is much that the rising middle class owes to the Rao-Singh reforms of 1991. An innate decency in his public (and private) interactions was his trademark. History ought to judge him more kindly.

[Rohini Singh @rohini_sgh]

We now live in times where fake news and hate spreaders are legitimised as big leaders and indulged by smiling anchors, like the one moderating the event, instead of being called out for their lies and bigotry.

[NM Salih @nmsalih]

Malayala Manorama started using Scribus! a big surprise !#barcampkerala #bck2023

[NM Salih @nmsalih]

Attending #bck2023