dubash retweeted
Because of this woman, I spent two years in jail simply for posting a meme. And now, she has the audacity to preach about freedom of speech. She clearly needs a lesson in Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Indian Constitution. When she was Chief Minister, students, social media users, vloggers, and YouTubers were sent to jail for daring to speak out. Now that the people of West Bengal have rejected her, she suddenly wants to lecture everyone about democracy and freedom of speech. The hypocrisy is unbelievable.
The freedom of speech and expression is being taken away from lakhs of citizens across the country.
This BJP government does not care about Article 14, Article 19 and Article 21 of our great Constitution. This government wants to deprive all citizens, including elected representatives, of their right to express themselves freely.
We extend our support to students, youth, social media users, vloggers, YouTubers, and independent digital platforms. We demand that they must be allowed to express themselves freely. Full strength to them as we, all together, fight this dangerous trend of censorship.
Instead of indulging in atrocities against citizens on social media, this government should focus on taking care of the North East along with ensuring the safety and security of all people across the country.
dubash retweeted
A Maratha king's court in Thanjavur kept painted records of diseased eyes, including a corneal ulcer drawn before and after treatment.
The king was Serfoji II, a Bhonsle who ruled from 1798 to 1832. He ran a hospital called Dhanvantari Mahal, where Siddha, Ayurveda and Unani medicines were made.
In March 2004, a team from Sankara Nethralaya in Chennai went through the eye records in the Sarasvati Mahal Library, Thanjavur. They reported 44 patient case sheets, 6 in Modi script and 38 in English, plus 18 drawings.
Patients were between 5 and 60 years old. The English sheets use the words of an eye clinic: lid, conjunctiva, cornea, lens, lens capsule, posterior chamber.
One entry is dated 9 September 1827. A 4 year old man had a cataract 6 months old. A needle was passed into his eye and the cloudy lens pressed down below the pupil. Part of the outer layer came loose and stayed in the pupil. The sheet notes much pain, then the treatment given, then the lens slowly absorbing and the man improving.
Diagnosis, treatment, a complication and the result are all on 1 record, and some cases have a painted picture of the eye as well. Outcomes were written as "improved" or "same", and patients were paid Rs 2 when they left.
The authors think the operation was probably couching. They also say Serfoji is "said" to have been skilled at cataract surgery, but the sheets don't show who held the needle.
Sources: J. Biswas, V. Badrinath, S.S. Badrinath, "Ophthalmic contributions of Raja Serfoji II (1798-1832)", Indian Journal of Ophthalmology 60(4):297-300, 2012.
Photo 1: A painted pair of eyes with handwritten annotations. The source identifies the condition as leucoma, a white opacity of the cornea.
Photo 2: The paper's record counts: 44 patient records, six in Modi script, 38 in English and 18 drawings. The March 2004 library visit is also highlighted.
Photo 3: Patient ages, anatomical terminology, recorded vision outcomes of "improved" or "same", and the Rs 2 inam on discharge.
Photo 4: The dated case in the post: 9 September 1827, a 45-year-old cataract patient. The highlighted passage describes the procedure and the lens fragment remaining in the pupil. The following lines record pain, treatment and improvement.
Image Source: Biswas, Badrinath & Badrinath, Indian Journal of Ophthalmology 60:297-300 (2012), Sarasvati Mahal Library collection. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
dubash retweeted
This book is really damning for Kushner. It claims the UAE paid Kushner $50 million to get Rex Tillerson fired as Secretary of State.
dubash retweeted
> Be Kylian Mbappe
> Most famous contemporary soccer star
> Friend asks me what meme about me I like
> Say "I like myself as the chinese dictator"
> Entire country melts down in anger
> How dare you call a dictator a dictator?
> We'll show you we're not authoritarians
> Bans the league and cancels all partnerships in china
> Makes the league issue groveling apologies
> triggers streisand effect.exe
dubash retweeted
Google has specifically prevented its AI tool from telling users who won the 2020 presidential election, even though it happily tells us that Trump won in 2016 and 2024. This sort of political intervention into LLM responses is deeply problematic. (h/t to Charles Mann)
dubash retweeted
As a neurosurgeon, let me tell you how frightening this injury actually is - an occipital compound depressed skull fracture treated with a WIDE craniotomy (outer staple line).
What's scary isn't the fracture; it's what's adjacent to the damaged skull. The axe blows (that tree-branch scar at the center) hit right over the posterior superior sagittal sinus, a large vein that runs lengthwise between the 2 cerebral hemispheres and carries blood from the brain to the heart.
Penetrating injuries to the sinus can carry upwards of a 40% morbidity/mortality - partially because a transection of the sinus can be difficult to repair and can result in extreme blood loss, venous air embolism, or thrombosis - all of which can be fatal.
There's scary, and then there's the "you go to elevate the fracture and risk unroofing the sinus, losing 2 liters of blood in a minute" scary.
The surgeons likely had their hands full and did an amazing job. Divine providence called many heroes into service that day. Damn fine work.
धन्यवाद
dubash retweeted
For those who refuse to read the articles about this case. She had a babysitter coming in the mornings to check in, make lunches, get them off to school, and prep dinner for them. All the 14 year old had to do was help them get inside after school. Microwave dinner. Get kids in bed and text mom updates. This was a work trip and they threatened to fire her if she did not go. The father has abuse charges and the police handed him their kids on top of arresting her.
A 50-year-old woman was arrested after getting off a plane after authorities said she left her four children home alone for four days while she traveled to Las Vegas for work: bit.ly/3UlVZeA
dubash retweeted
Socioeconomic status was key indicator of voting in Israel's elections.
Among Jewish voters, in the lowest socio-economic cluster, Netanyahu's coalition won North Korean levels of support. In the top cluster, 81% voted for the Change Bloc.
via @YediotAhronot
dubash retweeted
All this paperwork madness is justified in the name of arbitrary requirements for preserving national security (degrading and debasing this cause so that when it is actually genuine, nobody believes it), preventing money laundering or “round tripping” or some other rubbish.
The biggest culprit here is @RBI - no economist speaks about it because they all desire Deputy Governor or Governor post. All the rot is allowed to carry on with the blessings of intellectuals.
Nail on the head...NRIs want to invest but Kyc at entry and Tax procedures when withdrawing are killing inflows @FinMinIndia @PMOIndia
dubash retweeted
>Bro became an IAS officer
>To remove poverty from India
>Bought 40 luxury villas
All with a salary of Rs 1,30,000 per month. Power of discipline investment
dubash retweeted
Pensions and salaries take ~44-53% of India's defence budget in recent years (pensions alone ~22%). Removing them leaves effective modernisation/ops spend at roughly 1% of GDP.
Without Agnipath the pension bill's nominal growth would have stayed higher longer (historically 8-11%+ annually from rising pensioner numbers, OROP and DA). The scheme caps most new entrants to 4 years with no pension, slowing the long-term rise and freeing resources for capital acquisition.
dubash retweeted
🇺🇸🇻🇪 | Trump sobre Venezuela: "Se convertirá en un país próspero, y quién sabe, tal vez pronto se convierta en el estado 51. Es posible. Hagámoslo el estado número 51. Y en lugar de un presidente, tendremos elecciones para gobernador. ¿Qué les parece?".
dubash retweeted
And the best part is, Alam Lohar's legacy not only lives through his son Arif but also passed along to his grandsons, When Arif's three sons perform along side their father it gives goosebumps..
Its a different energy altogether.
dubash retweeted
Asians are now 43% of Harvard’s incoming class.
Not even counting the 15% of students who are international admits.
White numbers not reported, they seem to have stayed constant or gone down.
Merit is back. Nativists will have to start a new movement to bring back DEI.
dubash retweeted
The Civil Rights Act had a 59% approval rating. I know it's fun to pretend that the correct stance was always unpopular so you can pretend your enemies will be the bad guys of future period pieces but the majority of the country was actually convinced on this.
“The Matthew Yglesias of 1963 would have been telling [JFK and LBJ] don’t touch this civil rights bill. It’s unpopular.”
I thought this was one of the more fascinating and important exchanges with @mattyglesias, where I challenged him on how far politicians should defer to polls on huge moral issues, and he pushed back on my analogy.
Full interview: zeteo.com/p/matt-yglesias-me…
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Mehdi conflates bill approval with protest approval. "This civil rights bill" was popular in '63. It had +16 approval (54-38) by Aug. '63 & +30 (61-31) in Jan. '64 before its June passage. Desegregation was generally popular w/ >+30 support for SCOTUS anti-segregation rulings
news.gallup.com/poll/3427/most…
dubash retweeted
LTCG removal for listed equities alone for all investors including Indian residents will be a big blow for domestic venture capital and private equity as well as other real economy assets like InvITs, REITs and real estate: once again, investors will rationally decide not to invest in venture funds, startups and other real assets. They will prefer financial assets which have zero tax.
Please think rationally - do you want people to invest in tomorrow’s Zomato, Ather Energy, Paytm and others (including many startups that won’t be home runs, but will create many jobs and drive capital investment), or do you want people to invest with zero tax into Britannia Industries, Tata Power, Reliance and other established companies.
This distorted taxation was especially a challenge for strategic, deep tech sectors where foreign investors anyways don’t invest (foreign pensions, endowments and others are usually barred from investing in defence tech and critical tech).
Don’t crib tomorrow then, why doesn’t India have venture capital investing in hard tech or why don’t Indian startups innovate more.
A few years of volatility and flat returns has entire jamaat of stock market “investors” crying buckets. Grow up, if you can’t stomach this level of turbulence, stick to bank fixed deposits.
Dear FM @nsitharaman, if LTCG & STT are removed, the stock market will soar, FIIs will return, rupee will strengthen & the value of 80 listed PSUs will rise. Please do it.
dubash retweeted
Also, you can read our investigation here:
1. indianexpress.com/article/ex…
2. indianexpress.com/article/ex…
3. indianexpress.com/article/ex…
4. indianexpress.com/article/ex…
5. indianexpress.com/article/ex…
(9/10)
