Shiny Das

Encourages having coffee and opinions
IG: @chompakoli
Views my own.

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

Beware of booking any flight tickets via @makemytrip. Book directly with the airlines. MMT has circular loops of virtual agents and does not process refunds for weeks on end. Just the standard templated response.

[MakeMyTrip Care @makemytripcare]

@shiny_d We are here to help you in the best possible way. We request you to please provide the detail related to your concern in DM along with your contact details and booking ID. - Roshni https://t.co/jq6HypVoAf

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

@makemytripcare @makemytripcare I sent you guys a DM and received no response. Meanwhile your virtual assistant keeps saying the same sentence.

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

@makemytrip has a virtual assistant who on chat connects you to a call with another virtual assistant and nobody actually resolves the problem. Taking paying customers for a ride.

[Kaushik Basu @kaushikcbasu]

The embarrassment caused by Galgotias University at Delhi’s AI meet is what happens when people instead of spending time doing science, maths, literature, spend their time showing that 5000 years ago their ancestors did science, maths, literature.

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

Thanks to the wedding season, I had to open Maa's aalmari. Sarees and thoughts tumbled out. Give it a read?https://t.co/7OLpacaXM2
Illustrations by Chandrima Chatterjee (@notesonbrush on IG)

[Achyut Chetan @achyutchetan]

When Amartya Sen won the Nobel for Economics, many of his ideas, and less technical essays, started coming down from the high academic world to common readers. After casually flipping through them, a friend of mine, an IITian, and hence considered brilliant by everyone (including himself), told me that there is nothing great about his work, and anyone could do all that development thinking: a bit of probability, elementary mathematics, a lot of rhetoric, choice, equality and other everyday words. In other words, even a low-ranking engineering graduate from a mediocre Engineering College (In 1998, there were no world rankings of institutions, but in 2011, IIT Kanpur was ranked somewhere below 250 in the world), could presume that he was intellectually superior to a Nobel Prize winner in a social science discipline.

Through some strange twists, the Francesca Orsini affair has sparked a war of disciplines––more accurately, an assault on the humanities and social sciences––on social media and other platforms. It's a caricature of what CP Snow had once called the battle between "The Two Cultures". For it to be a genuine war, we need the best practitioners of both 'cultures' speaking to each other, understanding one another, and THEN critiquing each other. In an age of superspecialization, that seems hardly possible, and that is quite understandable.

I have no way of proving it, but I know it by intuition, that the best in any field will not berate the best in another field, even if their own ideas lead to very different conclusions. While we celebrate Dante's Ptolemaic geocentric world in his great epic, we do not say Copernicus and Gallileo, and the whole of modern science is a mere superstition. Tagore and J C Bose were friends, but Bose never wanted to write a lyric, and Tagore never wanted to do science. There were many challenges to Freud, including some from his own disciples, but Einstein never questioned Freud's intellect. So when a science or commerce guy criticises top humanities and social science scholars, you know how mediocre they are in their own fields; and the vice-versa.

[Javed Akhtar @Javedakhtarjadu]

Dear Mr Kanwal Sibal , the history and the ancient literature of old civilisations like India , Egypt , Greece , china don’t belong to only the respective countries because they are the heritage of human race at large . Actually being unnecessary suspicious of a respected scholar of foreign origin is a sign of inferiority complex . What is ultimately ironic is that you have condemned this foreigner in a foreign language .

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

Rahul Dravid

[Rishi Bagree @rishibagree]

Without specifying your age, who was the first cricketer you admired?

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

Just realized that @airtelindia DTH does not offer AL Jazeera anymore. Even as a paid option. Great going.

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

What an ....

[Amish Tripathi @authoramish]

I have no views on this scholar Francesca Orsini. Had never heard of her. But those of us from a rooted background, who speak Hindi at home, read Hindi books as well, can only roll our eyes at this rather bizarre claim that 'few have shaped our understanding' of Hindi literary culture like a British SOAS Prof! 🙄

[Shiny Das @shiny_d]

"I don't have 'initiatives'. I have one of the G7." is the best line in Diplomat, season 3. I could watch the whole season just for that one line. #diplomat #netflix

[Jakob Reimann @Jakob_Reimann]

Francesca Albanese's @FranceskAlbs greatest hobby: shredding stupid Western journalists to pieces.

[Sulaiman Ahmed @ShaykhSulaiman]

SAY IT LOUDER

[jay @tensorfied_]

this is the guy everyone saw burn and melt alive on a hospital bed with an IV attached to him. remember these people are more than just numbers. they had a life, a family, dreams just like us.

[Rituparna Chatterjee @MasalaBai]

Come at me with the not all men argument I dare you. 10 MONTH OLD. Who is calling for the resignation of the Gujarat CM? Who is protesting on the streets of Gujarat for this baby? Rape after rape, but no one will fix this country. Rot in hell.

[Megha Kaveri (She/Her) @meghakaveri]

The advice to “quit if you feel stressed or overworked at work” comes from privilege. Not everybody has the luxury to think of non-revenue generating months while looking for another job. Putting the onus on the individual for a systemic issue is not right at all.

[Doctor @DipshikhaGhosh]

Found a doctor on a WhatsApp group for justice for Abhaya. He had molested me and others in our first year of MBBS during a viva exam where he was an examiner. Here he is, seeking justice for another victim after having molested us. Pretending to be some amazing benevolent man by donating things to the protesting doctors. The irony.

I called him out to be immediately met with disbelief from other doctors who have known him for years, as usual. This is how they live amongst us. Wolf in sheep’s clothing. I will not remain silent. I will not look the other way. I will not contribute to the problem.

The time for molesters is up. It’s time to face your truth. I will not carry your shame and guilt. You do it, loser. Shame on you.

[Angshuman Choudhury @angshuman_ch]

This should be taught across social science + architecture disciplines worldover as a case study of memoricide-through-renovation. The simplicity of the original setting was itself a historical artefact. It memorialised the pain. The makeover has disrupted that continuity.

[cockroach 🪳 ka parivar 🇮🇳 @Malavtweets]

Men are terrified of women getting ahead. They are particularly scared that women will find out that "work" isn't the big thing they have been making it out to be to belittle the backbreaking household labor women do and that men are the actual freeloaders.