In the early 1700s, a tiny, cash-strapped theological school called the Collegiate School of Connecticut was on the verge of financial collapse. It desperately needed money to construct its very 1st permanent building in New Haven.
The school's trustees reached out to a wealthy London merchant named Elihu Yale. Yale had spent nearly 30 yrs working for the East India Company at Fort St. George in Madras (now Chennai) looting India & eventually rising to become the Governor-President of the settlement.
While in India, Elihu Yale amassed an immense personal fortune through private trading: specifically in Golconda diamonds, high-grade textiles & spices & by participating in the Indian Ocean slave trade. He was eventually ousted from his post by the East India Company for rampant illegal profiteering & corruption.
In 1718, responding to the school's plea for help, Elihu Yale sent a massive cargo shipment from London to Boston. The shipment did not contain cash. It contained:
- 9 large bundles of exotic Indian textiles (including fine muslins, calicos & silks from Madras).
- 417 books.
- A portrait of King George I.
The school sold the Indian textiles & goods in Boston for the staggering sum of £800, which at the time, was enough money to completely fund the construction of their brand-new wooden college building. In pure gratitude for this South Asian windfall, the trustees officially renamed the entire institution Yale College.
Yale University would literally not exist w/o India. Its very name, its 1st major building & its foundational survival were directly paid for by wealth extracted from India.
- Rekha Patra was victim of Sandeshkhali mass gang rape by TMC men. She defeated TMC candidate by 5000+ votes.
- Ratna Debnath is mother of RG Kar hospital rape & murder victim. TMC attempted shield the culprits. Ratna defeated TMC candidate by 28,000+ votes
- Kalita Maji is a maid who worked at four different houses to sustain her life. She was harassed by TMC workers regularly for supporting BJP. She defeated TMC candidate by 12,000+ votes.
Democracy is alive and kicking in India. Anyone who disagrees is just a chatukar of politicians who lost today.
Get your facts straight Suhasini. It wasn't a simple breaking of fast. Here are the facts.
1. They forcibly hijacked a boat.
2. When boatman refused, they threatened to kill him and dump his body in the river.
3. They spread their food and shot the video with objectionable words.
4. Then afterwards started eating and kept on throwing bones in Ganga.
Which among above isn't a crime? They are charged with BNS sections of abduction and threatening to kill.
Today they were crying in court as they have realised that communal hatred has landed them in big trouble.
AB de Villiers drops a truth bomb on T20 openers. 🤯
"The powerplay rule should be removed because the fielding restrictions in the first six overs are unbelievably unfair to middle-order batters.
It is frustrating to have my IPL run totals compared to opening batters, who get to face significantly more deliveries while the fielding restrictions are in place.
When people say an opener is the 'best ever' because they have 8,000 runs, my reaction is, 'No, I'm better than him. He's just faced more balls'.
Almost all the Orange Cap winners are opening batters who build their stats in favorable conditions, which is just batting to win stuff. Opening the batting is the easiest thing in the world, especially in India, because of the short boundaries and great wickets".
So it seems that Iran has so far thrown 165 ballistic missiles, 2 'cruise' missiles and 541 drones against the UAE. And these were shot down by, reportedly, Patriot and THAAD missiles.
Assuming the Iranian ballistic missiles were Shahab-3, Emad or Ghadr missiles, and their 'cruise' missiles were the hypersonic Sejjil and Fattah-2s. Their drones were Shaheds. Reportedly the ballistic ones cost $250k to $5m and the hypersonic ones cost $500k to $5m. While the Shaheds apparently cost $35k each. So the attack may have roughly cost #Iran $200m in munition terms.
For the #UAE / #USA, reportedly, the Patriots cost about $4m each and the THAADs cost about $15m each. Even assuming there were no misses in the defence, and it was 1 for 1, the cost of munitions alone here may have been around $3bn to $5bn in a day. As someone said, on the attack, you can be wrong many times. On the defence, you cant be wrong even once hence the asymmetrical cost.
Enormous appreciation tweet for the #UAE for investing in the security of every resident and visitor here!
@theskindoctor13 Good in spirit but doesn't enforce accountability as its tax payers money at the end of the day. Had it been deducted from their pension funds then accountability could have been established
2029? No....2034 being discussed!
Newly Elected, BJP Nat. Working Pres. Nitin Nabin meets PM .@narendramodi Ji.
So much heartburn to 'someone' who wanted 'his' man in this Chair. So many plans foiled, So many dreams crushed.
Maharashtra will give 45/48 seats to Modi Ji in 2029 & UP 75/80.
The year is 1948. India has just become free and is trying to have a tryst with destiny. And in a country with endless possibilities, you are a 27-year-old man from an affluent family.
You have also studied in prestigious institutions like Loyola College and College of Engineering Guindy and have been given a scholarship from the Govt of India to go to the USA and study Dairy engineering.
You go to the USA and realize that studying metallurgy and nuclear engineering is more useful and interesting than studying techniques of extracting milk from cows. You follow your instinct and successfully complete your course.
You are now a nuclear engineer. And in a world that has just gone nuclear, the opportunities you have are limitless. The world is at your feet.
Then the Govt of India becomes a reverse Lannister calls in its debt. They want you to work for them for a limited period as an obligation to whatever they did for you.
You have no choice but to come back.
You hope you are sent to glamourous locations like Bombay or Madras where you can spend your obligatory time in comfort and luxury. You are an America Return Nuclear engineer after all.
But the Govt of India cares as much about your designations and qualifications as a Nokia 3310 cares about a drop. So, they play a cruel joke upon you.
They send you to a small decrepit town in Gujarat which doesn't even have electricity. Your accommodation is a rundown Garage and the only sign of life around you are the mosquitos, who are trying to taste your blood.
The town is called Anand. And the only Anand you have there is its name. Else it is all despair.
You, an affluent gentleman from south India, who doesn't speak a word of Gujarati, who has never lived in a village, are now stuck in a god foresaken village in the middle of nowhere. And You want to get out of this god forsaken place on the first chance you get.
Then something happens.
You start going around the town. You start speaking to people. You understand their way of life. You understand what they want. Without you realizing you start falling in love with the place. You want to do something for them.
And then you create a revolution.
A revolution that has changed the face and fate of India.
A revolution whose gifts we are still reaping 65 years after it started.
And You are the one who started it all.
You are Dr Verghese Kurien.
Operation Flood was, is and will be one of the greatest movements India has ever had.
We went from a country that used to import milk powder from New Zealand and other countries to becoming the largest milk producing country in the world, in 30 years.
It gave livelihoods to close to more than 100 million farmers over the years and has lifted more than 50 million people out of poverty and starvation. If you count the people emancipated by Operation flood, it would be the 30th largest country in the world, ahead of Spain, South Korea and Argentina.
Today, we move the global dairy market and it is singularly because of Dr Kurien.
And he didn't stop at dairy.
He realized that India was heavily dependent on Southeast Asia for its edible oil needs. So he got all the oilseeds growers together and started Dhara, India's own edible oil brand.
He so thoroughly disrupted the edible oil industry that for a brief period of time, he significantly reduced our dependance on palm oil.
Unfortunately, our babus intervened and as they usually do, destroyed it all. But that's the story for another day.
When Karnataka's Cocoa farmers went to him to seek salvation from Cadbury's oppression, he created Amul Chocolates and created a big dent in their market share. He also ensured Cadbury treated the farmers with a lot more respect and fairness, now that the farmers had option.
When Indira Gandhi complained about farmers not getting fair price for their vegetables, he started Safal, a vegetable selling co-operative under the NDDB umbrella and made it a success.
Now most of this is known.
But what we don't know more about was Dr Kurien the innovator.
Dr Kurien and his friend JJ Dalaya were the first in the world to synthesize buffalo milk and convert it to powder. This allowed us to store and supply milk during times of deficiencies.
He was the first to create condensed milk or as you call it, Milkmaid / Mithai Mate, from buffalo milk and ended Nestle's monopoly in this segment for good.
He was also the first to pack a dense substance as oil in a Tetrapak, something that their own Swedish engineer's thought was impossible. He made it possible.
I can keep going on and on.
In today's world, words like Legend, GOAT, superstar are thrown around very very loosely.
People who hit balls with a stick, give useless expressions on a giant screen and make cringy unwatchable 30 sec videos on some apps or crack some vulgarly unfunny jokes are given these epithets today.
So, what would you call a guy who saved India from hunger and starvation? What would you call a guy who prevented India from malnutrition and stunted growth? What would you call a guy who made a basic commodity like milk, accessible to a billion people?
We don't have words for that. Maybe we need to invent some.
One more very commonly misplaced word today is disruption.
Anything and everything are disruption now. The development of an app, delivering grocery or food in 10 minutes or writing an additional line of code are all what passes off as disruption today.
That is not disruption.
Disruption is where you create something that changes the lives of people forever. Disruption happens when what you create, rewards people for Generations.
Disruption is where you help poor farmers break the vicious circle of poverty and throw them 354 steps up the economic ladder
Disruption is not how you change how people do certain things; Disruption is when you change the people themselves.
Dr Kurien was India's first and the greatest disruptor.
Dr Kurien is India's true GOAT.
So, Happy Birthday Dr Kurien. India is grateful that we had you walking on our soil. Thank you!!
P:S: The attached image is that of the recreated Garage that Dr Kurien first stayed. Garages have a unique connection to the world of tech, as a lot of tech companies started from there and are worth some bajillion dollars today.
This is a Garage that lifted 60 million Indians out of poverty.
With all due respect to HP and Google, this is the greatest Garage of them all.
The reaction of Muslims after the Nowgam explosion is telling. Some of the loudest voices lecturing Hindus on sensitivity today are the same individuals who mocked the Delhi blast victims with laughing emojis and dismissed the ricin terror plot as if it were propaganda. Their sudden moral posturing is nothing but selective outrage driven by convenience.
Nobody has branded all Muslims terrorists. Nobody has blamed the entire community. Yet Muslims across India are pushing the narrative that every question on Islamist terrorism somehow amounts to a collective indictment. This is the classic Islamist playbook used globally by Muslims to shut down scrutiny of their violent actions.
The facts remain unchanged. The Delhi blast killed thirteen people. The ricin collection was real and aimed at mass poisoning Hindus. The explosives that caused the Nowgam tragedy did not appear on their own. They came from a terror pipeline maintained by Muslims themselves who made conscious choices. Calling this out is not bigotry. It is the minimum that any society concerned with its own safety must do.
What makes the hypocrisy even sharper is that some of the very people who routinely call JKP ‘Ikhwan in uniform’ whenever terrorists are neutralised are now suddenly crying over the Nowgam explosion. These are the same voices that defend men who join terror ranks and even demand public apologies when those terrorists are brought down. It is as if they do not remember that the very networks they shield have a long and bloody record of targeting JKP personnel and any Kashmiri who refuses to wage war against India. This is not the first time that homegrown terrorism has taken homegrown lives, yet every time it happens the outrage is calibrated not to confront radicalisation but to protect the ecosystem that feeds it.
The aim is simple. Use the bodies of those officials as a shield to silence any scrutiny of the very ideology that created this chain of events. Turn the focus away from radicalisation and onto the people asking questions. Manufacture a narrative where the victim of a terror plot must apologise while the ecosystem that produces radicals can pose as the aggrieved. IT WILL NOT WORK.
There is a difference between Muslims who see India as their country as much as any Hindu does and those who justify, minimise, celebrate or strategically obscure Islamist violence. Criticising the latter is not an attack on the former. It is a distinction that must be maintained clearly and firmly.
India’s fight is not with ordinary Muslims. India’s fight is with radicalisation and the networks that enable it. And this is not just India’s story. It is the story across the world. Wherever Muslim populations have migrated from conflict-ridden or radicalised societies into stable democracies, the same debates, the same anxieties and the same demands for accountability have emerged. Western democracies are also openly questioning the pressures created by Islamist networks within their borders. This pattern is global.
The public is no longer afraid of asking hard questions. Nor should they be. Terror plots in Delhi, ricin networks, indoctrination hubs across the country and the explosives that ended up in Nowgam all emerged from the same problem.
If questioning that problem triggers outrage, the outrage only confirms how necessary the questioning is.
The heart holds on longer than life understands.
Sanjeev Kumar loved Hema Malini, but she refused his proposal and married Dharmendra. The rejection broke him so deeply that he never married and remained alone until his death in 1985.
Sulakshana Pandit, who worked with Sanjeev Kumar in films, was in love with him. She proposed to him, but he told her he could never move on from Hema. So she too remained unmarried all her life. In her own words, she could never get over her feelings for Sanjeev Kumar.
Sulakshana Pandit passed away yesterday, on the same date Sanjeev Kumar had died in 1985. Two lives, connected by love that was never returned. A quiet, lifelong tragedy.
Om Shanti.
These two NRIs exposed the recent New Jersey Diwali celebration propaganda by @avidandiya and the anti-India hate narrative.
Avi Dandiya ko Chakka bhi bola 😭 must watch
Azerbaijan media personality, clearly saying that they unapologetically stand with Pakistan and don't care if it leads to economic loss by Indian tourists not coming.
Time for Indians to flock to Azerbaijan and post videos: "Yaha par sab achha hai, locals badi respect dete hain. Aur Indians ko bhi aana chahiye. Bade bade deshon mein chhoti chhoti issues hote rehte hain, koi baat nahi. Aap sab zaroor aaiye. Nafrat ko mat jeetne dijiye.