Rashmi

[Subhashini Chandramani @Neelavanam]

Some of you know me through my art and gardening column. I am also a co-founder of a Bangalore food tech startup.

We are starting a pilot. Please retweet this for good karma!

About The Pilot

RedTile is a single-person food system that slow cooks tasty healthy meals with zero daily planning or cooking hassle.

We’re looking for 30 young people in Bangalore to use it for about 6 weeks.

You’ll get:
•⁠ ⁠A RedTile unit for 6 weeks
•⁠ ⁠Food packs to start — Poha, Upma, Kashmiri Pulao & more
•⁠ ⁠Full support from our team

All we ask: honest, practical feedback on how it fits your routine.

Interested? Fill this form out:
https://t.co/uC5etAd9qe

We’ll reach out if it’s a fit!

RedTile: https://t.co/2O6fPO4BIg

[P. Sainath @PSainath_org]

Even by the standards of a country ranking 157 of 180 nations in the World Press Freedom Index, the reaction of the authorities to the ‘Cockroach Janata Party’ is beyond extraordinary. The public response to that imaginative prank should have signalled to them a deep discontent, even distress, among young people. Instead, as The Indian Express reported, it was framed as jeopardising the country’s ‘national security’ and ‘posing a threat to the sovereignty of India.’ Decades ago, the Malaysian lawyer and poet Cecil Rajendra wrote this brilliant poem that captures the idiocy of it better than any pompous editorialising could (not that our ‘mainstream’ media would dare do even that much).

[G S Madhusudan @gsmadhusudan]

Major Cat FPV epidemic alert

There is a new Cat Parvo strain that is going around that is affecting even vaccinated cats in S India. High mortality rate. New wild strain, possibly mutated from Canine parvo virus. No vaccine is effective. Have asked the vet univ to isolate the strain and hopefully the vaccines will be updated soon.
The only saving grace is that only kittens seem to be affected. I have not seen any cars older than 2-3 getting affected.

But till then take the usual parvo precaution. It is a nasty virus that is immune to most disinfectants and survives for months on soil and surfaces.

So if you are in S India and have a lethargic cat, get an FPV test asap, it just costs Rs 750. also get a CBC, WBC would have dropped like a stone. Because of that the immune system has pretty much shut down. Talk to your vet about strong antibiotics. Amox does not help, every bacteria seems to have developed a resistance to it. liver supplements seem to help.

Need more info, drop me a DM.
@AparnaKarthi
@MundoliSeema
@ShubhaDutta11

[Dilip Kumar @kmr_dilip]

The first step to fixing Indian sports is putting sportspeople in charge of sports federations. Out of 63 vice presidents across major sports federations only 6 have a sporting background. We allocated ~4480 crore annually to sports yet local stadiums remain dilapidated and athletes struggle financially. We’ve to replace self nomination and insider voting with athlete led elections. Olympians and athletes who've represented India should have the right to elect federation members and choose people who actually understand what it takes to compete at the highest level.
If we want better outcomes, we’ve to put decision making in the hands of people who’ve lived the sport. Else we’ll always keep debating medals instead of building a system that produces them.

[Nathalie Ventilation @VentiloAngel]

1/Great question — and not widely understood
If you want a simple rule:
Use positive pressure to protect a vulnerable person
Use negative pressure to isolate a contagious person
This is what hospitals do — and you can approximate it at home.
👇🧵

[Akanksha Mehta @AjeebAurat]

Friends, please follow @RejectTransBill - its the X account we, as a large group of queer trans community folks & activists, have made for mobilising against the horrifying Trans Bill
#RejectTransBill2026 #NoGoingBack

Follow, share, amplify!!

[Rashmi @thewatcherbee]

#GNU Terry Pratchett.

Thank you for the many new (yet so familiar) worlds that you shared with us.

So much universe, and so little time

[Pinarayi Vijayan @pinarayivijayan]

The passing of 10-month-old Alin Sherin Abraham in a road accident at Kottayam has deeply saddened us all. In the midst of unimaginable pain, her parents, Arun Abraham and Sherin Ann John, chose to donate her organs. By becoming Kerala’s youngest organ donor, little Alin has granted a new lease of life to five others, a monumental act of compassion that reflects the true spirit of Kerala. 

I extend my deepest condolences to the family. I also salute the dedicated health professionals, police and support teams whose swift coordination made the transplants possible. We will bid farewell to Alin Sherin Abraham with official honours.

[Martín Iturriaga 🐦 🔥 ✝️ 🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇲🇽🌮 @MartinIturriBi]

@KerstinKoepl And the last of the old master carpenters keeps pleading his case that it’s not a rabbit joint, but rather a rabbet joint! Deaf ears all around

[Aadit Palicha @aadit_palicha]

Seeing a lot of customer love for our new Hot Wheels selection lately! It’s another clear positive signal for our assortment expansion playbook over the last 2 years.

P.S. to r/hotwheelsindia - I’m a fan of Hot Wheels too :)

[Karthik 🇮🇳 @beastoftraal]

This beautifully designed gift box from Akshayakalpa is a rare example of a modern brand behaving like a custodian of heritage and reminding us that heritage isn’t necessarily preserved in museums, but frequently made use of, in our kitchens!

In India, rice isn’t merely a commodity, though it is often treated as one, for practical purposes. Rice in India is "annam", something we do not waste, step over, or take lightly. It carries memory, region, season, and most importantly, ritual. And Akshayakalpa's gift idea understands that.

The gift pack offers continuity: nine traditional rice varieties, named, contextualised, and treated with the respect they deserve. What makes this gift compelling is not merely the curation of nine traditional rice varieties, but the framing of them as living agricultural knowledge. That is a wonderful way to offer reverence to our culture.

I had recently gifted this to a couple celebrating their 52nd wedding anniversary. If you find an appropriate occasion and a receptive person(s) for this gift, please do consider this over other conventional gifts. It is available on the Akshayakalpa app.

#branding #packaging #culture #heritage #creativity

[Ankit Sawant @SatanAtWink]

She's the hero Bangalore deserves, & also the one it needs right now.

She’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a dark knight against the society uncles who are going to learn the hard way what happens when they over reach their non-existent owner powers

[Daak @DaakVaak]

A call for help from this small business! 🙏🏼

[Aham Bhumika @Ahambhumika]

These beautiful creations are possible with hands only. Hand embroidered by heart and hands .

[Paarug Sethi @paarugsethi]

ejipura flyover and sony signal. halloween 2025.

[Rajath @FoolzWizdom]

Why new vaccines?

A friend who was a brilliant science topper, working for a tech giant in the US was visiting his home town in South Canara. He was married to an ayurvedic doctor. They both were swept away by the #Antivaxx movement and had declined most vaccines. Their tween fell ill with fever. Couple of days into illness he became seriously ill. His brain was wrecked by pneumococcal meningitis, he was in life support for a long period of time but parents had to let him go, there was no hope of life sustaining neurological recovery.
Last month I cleared a file )as part of an expert committee for the Govt) for a 2 year old to  qualify for cochlear implant. She had survived but had completely lost her hearing.

Pneumococcal vaccine is fairly ‘new’ vaccine in the Govt schedule. Although there were safe and effective vaccine which was offered in private (had been part of IAP Schedule for long time) it took time to get the Govt  to agree to fund it for universal coverage.

There is a reason that more vaccines than just polio have come into routine immunisation. They save lives and prevent life altering disabilities.

Why should every child get all the vaccines, and on time?

25 years ago, working in Vanivilas hospital as a resident we would still see a child with paralytic polio and we knew the child would be a 'cripple'.

A newborn with Neonatal tetanus would become rigid as aplank and we hoped the agony ended in death soon.

Several ifnats would get admitted with Pertussis -coughing bouts were so severe that they would becomes breathless at the end of it, very tiny ones succumbed and older ones were left malnourished and debilitated.

We would have an occasional case of diphtheria where a toddler would have a neck swollen into a 'bull neck' and the thick moss like grey slough in his throat would choke him to death.

We would have a dozen or more kids with ‘Black Measles’ - severe form of measles where the child would bleed from everywhere. In others measles would dail down immunity and allow gnawing lung infections to kill and a few others would go blind.

We already had effective vaccines for the above but the coverage was not universal. The efforts in getting to near disease eradication have been one of the greatest success stories in India.

Vaccine preventable infections - have evolved to be highly infectious and remain in circulation. Some vaccines like oral polio (non disease causing variant) with universal coverage take the disease causing one out of circulation + provide immunity. Many others, after a critical 80% or more of the population is immunised stop being in circulation because of herd immunity.

Vaccines are safe and NOT linked to autism

#vaccines save lives, they have robust safety data - not in small studies , but data that comes from millions of doses, in multiple populations and over years.

Newer vaccines and combined vaccines in early childhood are safe and effective. You would not want your child meet these infectious agents unvaccinated and come to harm.

Universal Immunisation is also one of the greatest public health measures - we cannot have an army where just because of some beliefs a lot many of your soldiers do not bear weapons or lack the strength and training to fight.

#Autism has shown an increasing trend, large and validated population based studies have ruled out role of vaccines. The evidence points towards genetic susceptibility, intrauterine environment, increased awareness and better diagnosis. It remains an area of intense research, scientific community has not crossed its hands and sitting back.

Vaccinate!
It is easy to be carried away when a tech honcho or a hollywood star picks up an #antivaxxer cause, overtly or by throwing in 'evidence'. Their eminence in one field seem to lend them credibility, however your child does not deserve you doing that and putting them to harm. The society does not deserve that we bring back these deadly infections that haunted us in the not so distant past.

#Vaccines are safe and save lives.

[Ritesh Banglani @banglani]

Since nobody else has done it, here's my definitive ranking of Bangalore rains.
<thread>

[कृஷ்ண G शेषाத்ri @hormndoc]

Good folks of Chennai and the south. A friends mother walked out of her home in Pune and is missing. Some indication that she is here in Chennai - south india. No history of dementia but may have been confused. Pls spread this word around. Her name is Vasanthi Phadke (have son's permission to post)@chennaipolice_ . The second pic is the last pic we have of her

[Pradeep E @epradeep98]

For 50 years, the villages Kollukudipatti and Vettangudipatti have celebrated cracker-free Diwali once they noticed firecrackers noise cracking birds' eggs. This has now slowly spread to neighbouring ten more villages.

[Nikhil Chitale @nikhilchitale]

A Note on the Dairy Industry in India

The conversation around plant-based milk is growing louder. Almond milk, oat milk, soy milk - all presented as clean alternatives. But here’s what often gets lost: India’s dairy industry is not just about milk. It’s about people, culture, economy, and survival.

India is the largest producer and consumer of dairy in the world, contributing over 23% of global milk production. The Indian dairy sector supports over 80 million rural households, with more than 70% of dairy farmers being women. It is the single largest agricultural commodity in India, contributing to 5% of the national GDP.

This is not a niche industry. This is the backbone of rural India.

Most Indian dairy farms are small-scale and decentralized-not large industrial complexes. The average herd size is 2 to 3 cattle per household. These animals are not exploited; they are part of a symbiotic rural economy where milk, dung, and even urine are utilized fully -for food, fuel, fertilizer, and tradition.

Let’s talk sustainability:
Indian cows and buffaloes are fed largely on agricultural by-products, not imported feed. Their existence complements farming, not competes with it. This is integrated agriculture at its finest, practiced long before modern sustainability frameworks were ever written.

Sure, plant-based alternatives are welcome-for choice, for health, for novelty. But don’t call them “better” by default.
Almond milk production uses massive amounts of water.
Soy and oat cultivation often rely on monocultures and imported raw material.
Processing, fortification, packaging, and global transport all leave a footprint.

Let’s be clear:
•The dairy industry employs millions.
•It nourishes over a billion people every single day.
•It repurposes waste and supports ecosystems.
•It is deeply rooted in Indian culture, religion, and economy.

You want to innovate? Innovate.
You want to build something new? Build it.
But don’t undermine a sector that is sustainable, circular, inclusive, and intelligent-just because the marketing optics are shinier elsewhere.

Happy Diwali everyone!

@DairyChitale