Open Thread – 4/1/2022 – Brown Pundits

In the last week of this month I will be posting a podcast I did with Francis Young, author of Pagans in the Early Modern Baltic: Sixteenth-Century Ethnographic Accounts of Baltic Paganism (at my Substack). Over the hour and a half we talked about many topics, but one thing that struck me listening to him describe the details of the beliefs and practices of Lithuanian pagans, practices that persisted as living traditions centuries after the official Christian conversion of the state in ~1400 AD (Young estimates that in the 1500’s 30-40% of the population were what was then termed “Old Lithuanians,” baptized into Christianity but rural people who were almost totally uncatechized and continued to practice their ancestral religion), is how redolent they are of the Vedic religion. Young has convinced me that it is likely that the original Baltic branch of Indo-Europeans flourished somewhat to the south of their current distribution, which may be an outlier relic. If that is correct, they were likely positioned just to the west of the Indo-Iranian ur-heimat of the Fatyanovo-Balonov culture. Linguistically many scholars argue that Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic are a natural ‘clade’ within Indo-European languages.

The Wikipedia entry on Lithuanian neo-paganism (Romuva) has a section titled “Relation with Hinduism”:

…But for Lithuania’s Romuva community, which traces its traditions back to ancient folklore, it is evidence of a connection to India, Hinduism and Sanskrit that has become a part of their Romuva identity, along with its pantheon of gods and fairly standard pagan rituals. Some believe that the connection between Hinduism and Romuva made Romuva to be more than a “primitive, shamanic religious tradition”…

…

Similarly Ašvieniai are divine twins in the Lithuanian mythology, counterparts of Vedic Ashvins. The Ašvieniai are represented as pulling a carriage of Saulė (the Sun) through the sky. Ašvieniai, depicted as žirgeliai or little horses, are common motifs on Lithuanian rooftops…

Romuva and Hindu groups have come together on numerous occasions to share prayers and participate in dialogue. These events have taken place in Lithuania, Atlantic City, New Jersey, Boston, Massachusetts, Epping, New Hampshire, and elsewhere.

Hindu priest presiding over Lithuanian Romuva ceremony

I had assumed that Lithuanian Catholicism derived its strength from the Counter-Reformation period (the last sacred snake groves were destroyed by priests in the 18th-century), but Young explained that the reality is that Catholicism and the Lithuanian national identity became associated only with the absorption of Lithuania into the Russian Empire, where the dominant religion was Eastern Orthodoxy. It was in the context of religious and ethnic marginalization in the 19th century that the two elements of modern Lithuanian identity finally began to become synergistic, and therefore heterodox peasants began to finally adhere more strictly to a Catholic identity.

241 thoughts on “Open Thread – 4/1/2022 – Brown Pundits”

  1. Is there any connection with the Romuva people and the Romani people? I have also read that the Yazidis of Iraq follow such Vedic rituals as well. Are these outposts of our Vedic faith or were they recipients of Vedic ideas through Romani migration? Interestingly, the latest research shows that the Romani share their origins with/originate from the Irula people of my home state, and that they migrated to NW India, before migrating to the Middle East and Europe. Tamils were the first pioneers of going West, and going East.

    1. Dr. Khan, it appears the conventional wisdom regarding the Punjabi origins of the Roma is very wrong. This is according to the latest research, which states that both the Y chromosome/haplogroups and mtDNA of the Roma originate from Southern Indian Tamil Tribal groups, and their autosomal DNA origins matches these groups as well.

      These four studies listed below show that the Roma originate from South India/Tamil Nadu as a tribal group (most likely the Irula today, other South Indian tribes have been proposed as the origin group as well, and the Irula are one of the closest matches so far) that migrated first to Central India (learned the language, and in turn received influences from Central Indian languages) and then to NW South Asia/Punjab, from where they went to the Middle East, Europe and Northern Africa. They picked up very little to no blood from local populations in South Asia after leaving Tamil Nadu, as the papers state that they only had ~15% West Asian ancestry upon leaving India. Their haplogroups are also Southern Indian origin:

      “Likely Indian origin of the European Roma population – genetic study by Dr. K. Thangarajan, CCMB, Hyderabad”.

      “Route map of the Roma migration from India” provided by the same author 

      “Ancestral modal Y-STR haplotype shared among Romani and south Indian populations. Gene.”

      “European Roma groups show complex West Eurasian admixture footprints and a common South Asian genetic origin”

      Quote from First two studies:
      “The study also provides a map which shows that the ultimate origin of the Doma-speakers and the Roma-speakers happen to be the Tamil state in India. It is understood, that about 24000 years BP, a group of hunter-gatherers from here started their journey towards the northwestern part of the subcontinent and settled there. Irulas ( meaning the dark-skinned people — Tamil iruL, meaning darkness) , a scheduled tribe of the Tamil state, still remain in the hunter-gatherer stage on the Nilagiri hills of the state and the Govt. of Tamil Nadu has introduced many welfare measures for their social and economic upliftment. The Irulas are genetically related to the Bronze Age Indus Valley people, another genetic study says.”

      Quote from fourth Study:
      “The West Eurasian-like source contributes around 65% to the admixture event. This component captures the recent West Eurasian admixture between the proto-Roma and West Eurasians during their diaspora from India to Europe, in other words, it does not include the AWE component present in South Asian populations (S1 Note, S6 Fig) estimated to be around 15% (S5B Table). Thus, most of the South Asian ancestry of the Roma is mainly shared with the group of individuals from Punjab with least West Eurasian component. The rest of South Asian surrogates identified in the minor source correspond to southeastern Dravidian-speaking populations (E-India, Irula clusters), which also exhibit low levels of West Eurasian ancestry. Altogether, these findings suggest that the most likely proxy for the South Asian origin of the proto-Roma, is the ancestral source here described as a mixture of present-day South Asian groups with a low West Eurasian signature.”

      Thus it appears that the Roma originate from a South Indian Tribal source that migrated within India, first settling in Central India, then Punjab, before leaving the subcontinent and migrating further West. They seem to have immense diversity today, with individuals ranging from 80-100% West Eurasian ancestry, clustering either with Europeans or Turkish or Caucasus people, Iranian people or Northern Africans. They also seemed to not have picked up any additional blood from NW Indians before leaving the subcontinent.

      Also, I have read that Tamil mtDNA was found in Sumerian skeleton samples, does this mean that the Sumerian civilization was a product of Indian and Mesopotamian peoples? Tamils have a lot to be proud of, and this is just the cherry on the cupcake.

  3. Pretty catastrophic scenes coming out of Sri Lanka. India is thankfully stepping up to help. There are now refugees coming. Previous Tamil refugees were put in ramshackle refugee camps and basically forgotten. MK Stalin has had a more pro-refugee stance and let’s hope that also reflects in how this new wave is treated.

    Sri Lanka is a typical example of what happens when rampant ethno-nationalism runs its logical course.

    2. Nothing to do with ethno -nationalism.

      Its all to do with US sanctions and our inability to buy Russian (or Iranian) heavy crude. The Sapugaskanda Refinery (closed) is built to refine heavy crude.

      So we are having fuel shortages and power cuts. India has not abided by sanctions and is importing Russian Heavy crude. So has fuel oil and diesel and is supplying Sri Lanka with some.

      I am not sure where you got the refugees as in many story. There were 6 Tamils, women and children who landed in Rameshwaran. They claimed bad economy and no jobs. All very suspicious interview. Cant get you tube link, youtube and facebook blocked in SL

      https://thewire.in/south-asia/six-sri-lankan-tamil-refugees-land-in-tn-to-escape-food-inflation-unemployment

      1. @sbarrkum
        Would be interested in any other on-the-ground observations of what’s unfolding in SL, as well as your take on the sequence of factors leading to the situation that you think are being deemphasized or omitted. For instance, I’ve heard overspending on infra being blamed or the ag policy. I think this has pretty big implications for wider South Asia in that lots of folks are seizing on this to discredit certain development models.

        1. Lanka is being hit by a perfect storm.
          a) The consequences of 2019 Easter bombing and loss of tourism for three years (20% FX)
          b) Economic shut down by a 1+ year lockdown because of Covid (30% FX, eg Garments)
          c) Loss of mid east remmitance for 2 years, as workers were sent back because of COVID fear. (30% FX)
          d) And now having to pay for refined fuels. Our only refinery built by the Iranians is to process Iranian crude or Russian crude.

          In my opinion, fuel shortages are the biggest problem. 10 hour power cuts in urban areas (no power cuts in my little village). Lines to get diesel, petrol, kerosene and LPG if available. Again not too bad in rural areas. i.e. use firwood. I just built an outdoor fireplace.

          Mid east workers started going back starting around Dec 2021. About 40 have left so far from the village.

          Tourism had picked up in March. I was getting about 2 visitors a week, about a USD 200 income. Pre easter bombing it was USD 600+. The rioting and power cuts are going to kill that goose.

          Industry, including garments. Dont have first hand info. Most industry have generators, but how does that work with diesel shortages.

          There are food shortages of imported items. Unhappily Sri Lankans including rural folk have got used to lifesyle of cheap imported goodies. eg price of Lentils a staple (imported from Australia) has doubled. Same with milk powder, imported from New Zealand.
          I dont think its going to be starvation, people will need to adapt and eat local stuff.

          So to the stupid Ethno-Nationalism opinion. My classmate and dear friend of 56+ years, a Jaffna Tamil living in Australia (left after 83 riots). He has 50 acres of paddy in the North near Kilinochi. He is making a killing, enough to fund travel to Sri Lanka, stay in hotels etc and still make a profit.
          It was the same in the 1970-77 economic crisis where Sri Lanka became a closed economy. The northern farmers were minting money. 2/3rds of the country is the Dry Zone of the North and East and is the rice basket of the country, fed by gigantic reservoirs built over 1500 years ago. Sri Lanka does not have a single natural lake.

          1. Honest question – why not just buy Russian or Iranian crude anyways? Like I get the morality of not wanting to support certain regimes, but if your people are struggling, why continue their misery to enact some foreign global policy of another nation state?

          2. Mohan
            Honest question – why not just buy Russian or Iranian crude anyways?

            Sanctions.
            We are blocked with trading with Iran and Russia and cannot use regular channels like SWIFT which is controlled by US (though a Belgium company)

            India and China have put into place other mechanism for Ruble Yuan/Rupee trade and are continuing to buy Russian and even Iranian.

            Thats why the world needs alternate payment systems and tradeable currencies not controlled by US/West.

        2. I’ve heard overspending on infra being blamed or the ag policy.

          The country was ravaged by civil war for 30 years. The North and East has been completely rebuilt and huge infra structure projects and upgrades. Not just rebuilt by beautified too.

          I was back in SL in 2010 just as the war ended. Ended up living on the border of Wilpattu. It was also the defacto border between LTTE and Govt control.
          It was desolate, no economy for the locals. Three shops, one blackened with soot tea shop (the kade) and two small grocery shops (sillara kada). The shops had very little not even Astra Margarine or ice cream. Sri Lanka has sachet of everything in affordable price/qty eg LKR 30, margarine/ice cream. Not available because those were luxuries that the local villagers could not afford.

          There was no proper road, from the nearby podunk town Puttalam 30km away. A spanking brand new carpeted road was built and was finished, 2014 or so. The moment the road was finished, the economy took off. There 25 shops now in the village. People were able resume agriculture. By 2016-17 there were 7 hotels catering to local and foreign tourists visiting Wilpattu and the Kala Oya. Some hotels on the high end, eg The Backwaters at USD90+/night

          Regards Ag policy. The push to go organic and stop use of pesticides and herbicides. That was because the govt did not have FX to import so made virtue out of necessity. It was a disaster, a country cannot go organic overnight.

          1. I just hope our “Dravidian stock” bros don’t get too ahead of ourselves and start making “greater Dravidanadu” demands 😂😂

      2. Nothing to do with ethno-nationalism.

        Have spoken to lots of Sri Lankans in recent days, as I frequent plenty of desi platforms and most of them disagree with you. Too many voters support the Rajapaksa clan out of ethno-religious nationalism. The easter bombings get them a huge tailwind.

        Another big problem were gigantic tax cuts which gutted the tax base, since this clan was closely supported by crony capitalists.

        I think most of the problems are homegrown, even if I concede that the US hardly helps matters either. At any rate, I’ve been writing about this impending crisis for well over a year on this platform. It was very easy to predict. These crises always follow the same pattern: consistent loss of hard currency, being dependent on dollars and having stupid leaders who understand nothing about economics. Similar as the situation is in Pakistan.

        1. Another big problem were gigantic tax cuts which gutted the tax base, since this clan was closely supported by crony capitalists.

          I dont know where you get your “facts”. There is no tax base, roughly about 160,000 people who pay income taxes and those whose taxes get deducted from wages (calle PAYEE). I dont pay taxes because it is a hassle.

          Not even real property taxes (called rates in SL). I pay roughly USD 30/year on 6 acre property. Not paid in 6 years because I am too lazy to go to the local office 10km away.

          Our tax base is mainly regressive, if you know what that means.

          a) Corporate taxes, Income taxes are only 18% of total tax revenue
          b) PAYEE taxpayer are 57%(2.3M), Individuals 38% (157K), Corporate 5% (18K).
          That means Individuals pay just 6.84 of the total Tax revenue.
          Corporates pay just a measly 1% of total taxes.

          Too many voters support the Rajapaksa clan out of ethno-religious nationalism. The easter bombings get them a huge tailwind.
          Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell a LTTE supporter reeking of sesame/gingelly oil, not an European.

          I guess you can call the Rajapkases Nationalist, just like Modi. The voters voted them in because they dont support devolution/separatism in any form.

          These protests are mainly by urban eg lawyers who are west oriented. They lost in last elections and hope to gain by mob rule what they could not achieve at the polls

    2. there is no evidence that customs like ‘sati’ in India were widely prevalent
      I like my widows like how the Christians like their Witches, Smoking Hot!

    1. Hi Dr. Khan, I agree with your conclusion, the papers I linked above show that within India, the origins of the Roma are from Southern India/Central India, from where they migrated to NW India. Once in NW India, they adopted the language/customs (some might have even mixed with certain Dalit individuals there) and then migrated further West. So their ultimate destination within India before leaving the subcontinent was in the NW. That is why their haplogroups and autosomal DNA shows matches to the Irula and other tribes of South India, in addition to Adivasi groups in Central and Eastern India. There is also linguistic evidence and additional historical evidence to support their Dravidian and Central Indian origins. I have seen certain NW Indians that look strikingly Tamil, including in places far north like Punjab, so I am not surprised to see research that shows the migration of a Southern tribe/highly AASI Southern strain like the Irula and others to the Punjab/NW. These groups unfortunately are treated like untouchables (something I hate to bring up) because of their alien appearance, something I am very aware of myself, having been taunted by fellow South Asians for being “too black”. For some strange reason (perhaps because of the diversity of AASI strains) many people with high AASI in the NW look different from Tamils/Dravidians with high AASI, and this only helps create more divisions among ourselves. And I dont just mean looking different in terms of skin color, but also facial features and build.

  6. bjp needs to have a policy, a very strict one. It took one fanatic idiot in the name of godse to set people back by 50 yrs, martyrdom of gandhi essentially erased all questions that needed to be asked. Of all people, he is one of the biggest villain internally for H’s. Need to make sure such people dont come again. They have to delegate culture issues to local bodies through religious autonomy in temples and education. We just need to maintain demography and dont pick any side for next 50 yrs. Just benefit by being neutral. And if one is forced to pick, it should be usa for economic reasons while simultaneously making sure there isnt new color revolutions or changes in demography. Increase manufacturing, increase technology. I am at once less paranoid and more paranoid going forward. If common sense holds and demography holds, we should be a super power in 50 yrs. But nothing is a given. One has to focus exclusively on a strategy of denying others victory and growth rather than focusing on maximizing own strength. If others dont grow and dont win. If they are denied this, then automatically, we shall be among the winners. we have missed this post maratha ascendency, we have missed it at time of post partition, this is another moment. Just dont screw up. Also, need to deal with uc idiots who go by terms like blackpilled or uc atrocity types etc. As for muslims, we just need a section of them to be introspective and give them some support. In the battle between west and east, it is the battle between fanatic supremacist expansionist faiths vs metacognition and the belief that man can cultivate virtue. so, focus on demography, economy, health, education, delegate autonomy to temples, schools so they become force multipliers. Take the path that seeks to Deny others victory and legitimacy, take care of fanatics, uc idiots, offer a hand to those muslims willing to introspect. No place for tiumphalism.

  7. https://www.koimoi.com/bollywood-news/the-kashmir-files-box-office-honestly-addressed-by-karan-johar-calls-it-probably-to-be-cost-to-profit-the-biggest-hit-of-indian-cinema/

    karan johar calls kashmir files not as a film but as a movement. Morality always matters. One cannot move away from that. Our faith does not recommend bigotry , so if one makes wrong moves, it will stand discredited among own people as with murder of gandhi. when people are coming together in right spirit. Their energies need to be directed in the right way.

    ” It is rightly said that the most difficult thing in chess is winning the won position” – Valdimir Kramnik

  8. Vamsee Juluri writes a piece capturing many of the diverse reactions from cinema going audiences after watching the Rajamouli movie RRR.

    https://openthemagazine.com/cover-story/the-temptations-of-tollywood/

    He captures many strands in this piece, specifically the Netflix vs Nativity moment happening in the Indian aesthetic consciousness. The Indian memory of rasa is ejecting the American intrusion into its cultural sphere with its choices at the screen. He writes further about the Telugu aesthetic that has a long and hoary tradition of epic storytelling for the masses.

    I think we posted earlier about how Indian audiences to the east of Nagpur are receding from Bollywood and gravitating towards Telugu cinema simply because of its portrayal of everyday culture and choices that they are familiar with.

  9. No trust motion dismissed on unbelievably flimsy grounds. Then NA dissolved. Pak-Nationalist be like, ‘Wah!! masterstroke’ 😂

    ###

    American foreign services are a retarded people. Folks shit on them and they just keep on taking it without retaliation. Imran Khan is naming-shaming the US without proof and without any fear.

    1. Imran Khan’s move is a complete masterstroke because the opposition is now in a lose lose situation. They wanted elections for the last two years to oust the current government, when that was not happening, they wanted to oust the PM via vote of no-confidence, so that they can come into government, reverse all the previous reforms, use their government to buy off whoever they can to win the next election.

      The problem for them is that not only they had to rely on horse trading which dented their credibility, but all of these parties who hated each other came together to join hands. There is absolutely nothing in common between secular Bilawal and Taliban supporting Fazlur Rehman, MQM voters and PMLN voters hate PPP and Zardari, and vice versa. Yet they all came together to oust the PM in exchange for few months in government.

      IK has played the ace card: ‘Amreeki saazish’ – which has a lot of traction in Pakistan. And this was no doubt because US diplomats gave him that card on a platter.. USA has been threatening every other country that is neutral to oppose Russia and it’s likely they did the same here. IK has used this and opposition’s lack of credibility very wisely to seize the narrative. And now even today, he seized the narrative by not allowing the vote to go through and he called for elections on his own terms. Opposition cannot claim they don’t want elections after wanting elections for 3 years up until last month. And they don’t want to go into an election right now when they have all made a spectacle of unity with each other- when now they have to trash each other campaigning.

      Whether this move is constitutional or not will be debated later, but IK gave the people a spectacle and people love spectacles. In every move, he is controlling the narrative. It’s quite obvious to me that public opinion has turned in his favor and if elections are held now, PTI will win majority.

      1. “Imran Khan’s move is a complete masterstroke because…”

        Whatever makes folks happy. Reminds me of this:

        https://twitter.com/XilleIlahi/status/1350388157376819200

        ‘The really funny thing about Pakistani political Twitter is how nobody ever loses an argument. You can be totally roasted, humiliated and burned by someone and your supporters will still come and say haha well done, kuttay wali kar di uss ki, winning as always sir etc etc’

        ###

        What are the reforms you mention in “reverse all the previous reforms” ?

        ###

        Can IK win without Army/ISI backing?

        ###

        If Imran wins, wouldn’t it mean Army (somewhat) loses?

        ###

        Pakistani commitment to the constitution has always been iffy. Not that big a deal. Pakistani judges are drama queens so not clear yet.

        ###

        Anti-Americanism will mean losing $$$, I posted in last open thread about why the road connectivity to China sucks.

        1. >”What are the reforms you mention in “reverse all the previous reforms” ?

          Reversing EVMs, abolishing OSP voting rights, defund or sabotage recently funded health card initiative in Punjab, and many others. But I think the biggest thing the opposition would have done is fixing price of the rupee using (forex reserves that PTI government tried very hard to build up in the past 3 years), to provide a short term (6 month to 1 year) inflation relief to the people. That would have helped them to win the next elections, after which they would have gone to IMF again after the win to stabilize the economy, and then we are back to square one for five more years which no reserves, more loans, more debt servicing costs etc etc.

          >Can IK win without Army/ISI backing?

          Army is somewhat neutral.. top generals may even be anti IK now and pro Shahbaz.. however I think majority of middle and lower ranks are supportive of IK. A lot of beureucrats may also be anti-IK because IK is ruffling a lot of feathers.. What’s funny is that opposition journalists like Najam Sethi are now singing praises of the top army leadership .. so it kinda establishes that they were never really anti-establishment, they were anti IK and pro status quo (everyone got bank accounts and properties in the west)

          In a free election, I think *at this point*, IK will win majority. Whether there would be free elections, remains to be seen as I am not sure if army/ISI will intervene against him. All I know is, IK has gotten a lot of public support and he is a very very stubborn man who is not going to give up lest he is assassinated.

          1. Dar-economis 101: manipulate currency with forex.

            ###

            “IK will win majority. Whether … army/ISI will intervene against him.”

            Won’t they see if he wins wouldn’t he be brimming with hubris and might become more assertive?

            ###

            At the end of the day, Pakistan army is the primary anti-India party. Politicians and the population are ultimately without principles and can be handled. Enforcing accountability and weakening the relative and absolute power of the Pakistan army is in India’s national interest.

            ###

            EVMs are a no brainer. Who will manufacture them in Pakistan? I read some engineering colleges are designing them. In India the public sector Bharat Electronics manufactures them.

            OSP voting, dual-citizenship all this crap is a shit idea.

            Write something about the sehat card and why is it a big deal?

            ###

          2. ‘In a free election, I think *at this point*, IK will win majority. Whether there would be free elections, remains to be seen as I am not sure if army/ISI will intervene against him.’

            I wouldn’t bet on that. PTI organization is skin-deep in Punjab still, and one needs an organization to translate ‘narratives’ into votes. The only way i see PTI winning a majority is if Imran Khan remains the care taker PM. Or if army, at the last minute, feels he is well worth a shot again. If either of the situation don’t exist than it will be hard for him to even replicate last election performance.

  10. >Won’t they see if he wins wouldn’t he be brimming with hubris and might become more assertive?

    I am quite sure they are vary of that. This is why they will be very uneasy right now. When Bajwa made that statement against Russia and in favor of the USA, a lot of PTI supporters were raging against him so much that both information minister and IK himself had to come out and tell them to stop it. Don’t think he wants this battle at this point which seems wise.

    In the future however, I think this is just the quarterfinal, which happens to be against the opposition. Semi final and finals will be played against different teams, they are yet to come. (If IK wins, that is)

    # OSP vote will be massively in favor of PTI so it’s natural the opposition wants to nix it.

    # No idea about EVM plans, Election commission had to institute them but not sure if they can, since they are so inept. At this point everything is up in the air.

    # The Sehat card basically provides free health insurance to everyone in the province, first rolled out in KP and now being rolled out in Punjab and I think there is a nominal/limited program on the federal level as well. Upto Rs 1 million per family (this is Punjab’s limit), can be used for free medical treatment..
    Obviously this was quite successful in KPK when introduced in 2016 which was one of the reasons why PTI retained it’s votebank there in 2018, along with police reforms.. same is now being rolled out in Punjab.

  11. If you look at seat by seat analysis, PTI was second largest party in Punjab and many seats PML won was a very close contest. This is all without PTI organization.. Also, agreed that if elections were 3 months ago, PMLN would have come out on top in Punjab, but today the entire situation is very different, and PMLN is on the backfoot. They wanted elections too but later this year after some time in the government, now they are forced into it because they know the people on the ground are buying the conspiracy narrative. Last time, the sympathy factor in Punjab was with Nawaz Sharif, this time it will be with Imran Khan.

    Sindh will more or less be the same with PPP winning from rural and PTI winning from Karachi, except MQM will be wiped out now because they had an unusually powerful position and jumped to the opposition benches just this week.. now they are neither here nor their.

    1. 2 differences with ur analysis

      Last time out the “agriculture dept” was in full force and lot of “azad umidwar”. Now unless caretaker PM khan can tilt the playing field, to his side, I doubt PTI can come up with the numbers. The 2nd largest party in Punjab was due to the afore mentioned reasons. That’s why he would like to stay caretaker PM. Plus no labaik this time round to cut PML N votes

      On Karachi too I feel PPP-MQM-jamat alliance could upstage PTI considering they have a bigger alliance.

      But then we have to wait and see.

      1. The independent candidates who win their seat almost always join with the largest party after every election, this is a trend. If in 2018, PMLN and PPP would have managed to make a coalition government, the independents would have joined up with them. But establishment wanted PTI government so the independents went with them. Many of these turned coats now that umpire became neutral. We will see if things change a month from now at this point PML is clearly on the backfoot.

        In Sindh, MQM is was pretty much eliminated today. Watch Farooq Sattar speech today. Mqm leadership is hiding their faces because they just scored a big own goal. Most Muhajir vote had defected to PTI and whatever was left in 2018 will now either defect to PTI as well or go to PSP. They joined with the hated PPP (against the sentiment of their voters) for promise of some ministries and that failed badly. Their supporters are livid.

        Similarly, JI is made irrelevant on national level as PTI has usurped their Islamist role. They will continue to do local council level politics but until PTI is there, JI is not powerful.

        A wildcard in both Punjab and Sindh is TLP. They take away voters from PMLN and PTI, and they had problems with both PMLN and PTI governments. It remains to be seen what their role will be, how will they campaign, who will they target etc.. I think with the Amreeki Saazish card, IK may pull off some their voters but too early to say.

  12. Russians on retreat from Kiev. Tankies will give this their spin but to me it is clear Russians will not win this war they way they intended. They will take territory but this Russian army is no match NATO or maybe even China.

    A proper opposition Air Force did not even enter the fray. Russian army is shitting bricks against just NATO man portable weapons.

    ###

    Most prediction Major Amin makes are wrong. Said India will fuck with Pakistan post Balakot, said NA/Tajiks will fuck Taliban, said Russian army will annihilate this fake country of prostitutes. He says things which folks want to here.

    Whatever little he gets right is just chance.

    ###

    1. @bhimrao

      ……against just NATO man portable weapons

      Gameboys – Weapons shiny, NATO cooool
      Tactical – Kettle (Kotyel) and Gnezdo (Nest) tactics are not working effectively. What can be the reason?
      Strategic – Russian deterrence is still strong enough to keep NATO warplanes parked inside their hangers.

  13. Imran Khan has very interesting life. It would be if like Tom Brady were the son of a rich industrialist, went Harvard, behaved much more openly promiscuously, became president, and portrayed himself to be a Christian zealot over time.

    I think Christiano Ronaldo is another good comparison.

  15. Indigo’s Gangwal has given 100 Cr for IIT K med school. Kgp already built one. Mindtree folks gave 425 Cr for one in IISc.

    What is brewing?

    Are these folks foreseeing some opportunities? I myself paid lakhs last year for hospital beds I am guessing India is building a sizeable class of folks (with hard cash or insurance) who can sustain a medical devices/discovery ecosystem.

    May this be ISB/IIM moment in Indian medicine.

    1. I know folks who’ve been working on medical device startups in conjunction with AIIMS etc. The problem always is that funding runs out + talent is lopsided (1 IIT founder + 2/3 lackeys)

      The other big problem is data. Even Google has failed to penetrate the medtech space in India. IIRC they had a project going on for some computer vision based diagnostics that they had to shelve.

      If IITs can attract some money and provide their talent with an opportunity to work on real medical data. There’s scope for a lot of interesting products to emerge.

      2. https://www.voxelgrids.com/

        They made the first indigenous MRI machine. Funded by the Tata Trust.

        Arjun Arunachalam is such an inspiration. To me this is technologically the foremost medical device startup in the country.

      3. Bhai Google sab bakchodi hai. The leadership is (rightly) focused on core product/expectation. The employees are in it only for the money. It is hard to be driven when the stakes are low.

        Expecting American tech companies to build Indian businesses is foolish. Indians have to look at the world with their own eyes, the way it is, and wrestle with it. Instead of trying to figure the world via the painting of a photo of another painting inspired by a video.

        Google-woogle sab bakchodi hai.

  16. Biggest opponent of IK isn’t the feckless opposition (who takes the snotty and silverspoon-fed brat Bhutto seriously?) but the COAS himself, who has clearly aligned himself closer with the West.

    Bajwa’s own brother owns a number of restaurants in the USA and I wouldn’t be surprised if subtle and perhaps not so subtle threats were given to his brother that if Pakistan didn’t start playing ball then the economic interests of his family could be threatened.

    A major reason why the UK struggled so much to sanction the Russian oligarchs during the early phases of this conflict is that corrupting foreign elites is a key tool of power that they use. The same is true for the USA. The Barzani clan (kurds) own huge property in California and that can always be used as leverage in any Iraqi political crisis, or to call in favours.

    I think China’s unwillingness to accept immigration is a weakness in this regard, because foreign elites want to send their family members abroad and invest in other countries, possibly even live there if things go south in their home countries. Look at ex-PMs of Pakistan buying up London property. In that sense, the West will always have the upper hand against China in South Asia or the Middle-East.

    IK is different in that he doesn’t seem to care about that life anymore and most of his family members aren’t in politics.
    In that sense, he reminds me of Modi, which makes him harder to bribe and destabilise. His recent praise of India’s foreign policy as “independent” should be seen in this light.

    The key question now is how large a part of the Pakistani elite is aligned with COAS and how many can IK count on. We’re about to find out, and it starts with the supreme court.

    1. Don’t Imran Khan’s sons live in London with their mother?

      Anti-American sentiment is quite high in Pakistan. Imran is opportunistically leveraging it to maintain political power.

      Modi is a very different, as he is non-elite but his entire career has been political activism. The Indian elite really dislike him (chai-wala).

      1. Imran Khan has more enviable life for common man and elite. He is more conventionally handsome by leaps and bounds. He has success in more domains. He lived classic life of luxary, success, and hedonism in his youth, while coming off as a martyr in his old age. It’s a better story to most people, one where “fun” is still had, while eventually turning toward a noble path.

        Modi’s is shrouded in mystery but largely monk like. It is just focus on a model of constant work and slow/steady rise through the system. It is one of immense constant discipline and sacrifice everything for the nation and core belief system from the start. Whether people agree with the end goal or methods, that’s different. But Modi’s goal in life has always been to dedicate himself to India.

  17. The political turmoil in Pakistan and the wheeling-dealing suggests that democracy is taking roots there. And that the army is not all powerful.

    Democracy lovers everywhere should rejoice at this.

    I wish our neighbours all the best in figuring out the next phase of their national journey.

  18. Parag Agarwal welcomes Elon Musk to the Twitter Board

    https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1511320953598357505

    Although this was a foregone conclusion since we now know that Elon has a higher holding in Twitter than some founders. But Parag acquitted himself well in this non-adversarial fashion. Shades of brown showing!

    Comparing Elon and Bezos – the latter went and bought himself the Washington Post (old school media) while the former has taken on an absolutist free speech stance and has now put his money in his object of criticism!

    The Washington Post may have fetched Bezos some leverage in the political swamp. But Elon has won over some stoics today!

  19. https://caravanmagazine.in/security/ukarine-crisis-west-needs-understand-india-democratic-decline-russia-china

    ‘The Modi government finds itself on the same page as China on the issues of human rights, climate change, the treatment of religious minorities and freedom of expression.

    This has put Washington in a tough spot. To contrast India with China, the US harps on the euphemism of “shared values” to rationalise its partnership with India. But what are these shared values? Whether it is democracy, freedom of expression, religious freedom or the treatment of minorities, India’s record of such values under Modi has been abysmally poor. But the Biden administration continues to look away even as democracy erodes in India.’

    1. Enemies from within. Leftist propagandists.

      PhD in logical fallacies with specialization in false equivalence from JNU

      Not even ISI could write a better piece.

      1. The author served in the Indian army. This is the level of indoctrination you are dealing with

  21. I think Pakistan has produced a bona fide political leader in a long time in Imran Khan. Similar 2 Narsimha Rao, who initially was mocked and underestimated, while he pulling a fast one one the whole country and his own party. Imran has pushed the behemoth army general and its apparatus to the back foot. Kudos 2 that.

    Irrespective of what the future holds, i think he will come across as someone who succeeded to push the army back, albeit by lighting fire to his own country. Perhaps that was the only way possible. The last political leader to have achieved the same success was Nawaz Shariff, (Bhutto and his kid-lings don’t count) who broke away from the army , could still hold on to his political capital, while his other (landed, feudal, business) compatriots were reduced to single constituency leaders.

    2. Saurav – PakArmy is not threatened by Nawaz Sharif that much, they only hate him because of his pro-India stance.. Also Nawaz Sharif does not have any appeal outside of Punjab. Imran Khan is more like Zulfiqar Bhutto, both had national appeal and could draw huge crowds in all provinces, both also had tried to push for an international agenda, did not take dictation from US, and Bhutto eventually went against the army that installed him, and sooner or later Imran Khan will too.

      @Bhimrao, that $3billion was a loan repayment. However the reserves will definitely start to decline rapidly the longer this political turmoil goes. ..

  22. Fundstrat released an OSINT based estimated equipment loss for both sides.

    https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/151150786647733863

    This set of numbers are rather alarming – at this pace, Ukrainians will be reduced to a pure anti-tank/MANPADS force with no other equipment. One criticism is that the denominator is not “committed force levels” but combined all theater numbers which under-signifies Russian losses.

    1. Imran has popular momentum. Voting will be different this time. He played opposition like a fiddle.

    1. @thewarlock
      I noticed you were commenting on the skin color thread… what is your opinion on the lack of representation of Black-skinned South Asians? You mentioned how we need a three part system of skin color (all shades of brown) for South Asians, but you neglected the vast multitudes of people across South Asia that have varied shades of Black skin, be it lighter shades of black or the darkest shades of Black. Dont you think that until we get representation for the truly darkest people we arent really getting authentic representation at all?

      I mean we not only have much darker skin than brown people, we also have very different facial features. Priyanka and Bipasha and Bridgerton dont represent us in any way. In fact, I would say Brown people is an offensive term that excludes South Asians that are much darker and are thus made to feel like they are lesser. When I mean very dark skinned, I mean people like the women at 10:20-11:20 in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM85zVt6xCU

      1. True. We need more representation of tropical features black skin S Asians.
        But it will happen in steps. When it is pushed too aggressively via some sort of hardcore fiat, it just leads to resentment and more tribalism, thus hurting the already not as powerful once again. I think education of historic mistreatment is key while at the same time pushing individual liberty, freedom of expression, and market values.

        Things are changing. For some time, even the moderately dark S Asians you now see in media were considered too dark and only the most fair were considered at all. I think inclusion of these medium brown people at the highest levels is a small victory in and of itself. More work needs to be done. But I am an optimist. If people realize the deep seated discrimination and work to view people as individuals, prioritizing meritocracy and pushing people to be the best versions of themselves, I think we can approach the asymptote of egalitarianism over time.

        But this will be slow. Aggressive rioting and overthrow and feel-good leftist and tribal politics, the kind of the communist Black Lives Matter group (their hypocritical leaders just bought $6 million dollar home) will he temping. But the key is a message of liberty and unity in liberty.

        We also must be kind and fair to our E Asian appearance Indian brethren. They are also badly mistreated and misrepresented. Look at the abomination of Priyanka Chopra playing the inspirational Mary Kom. It would be an understatement to call it a travesty of the highest order.

        1. @thewarlock
          I agree brother, I was about to mention something similar — I feel that the folks on the sidelines of the South Asian community, both the darkest and downtrodden ASI shifted appearances/ones throughout the country, and the overlooked NE/SE Asian looking folks in the Northern and Eastern portions of the country are invisible in the South Asian world of media and politics. This is despite the fact that these East Asian looking folks also have an equal share in our civilization, heritage, culture, history, genes (NE folks have Indus Valley West Eurasian + AASI genes just like the rest of us) and even appearances (Bengalis and East Indians and some Northern Indians and Nepalis overlap with NE folks in looks). They are as much Indian and South Asian as anyone else, genetically and culturally/physically.

          In fact, many of these East Asian looking South Asians are neglected by the Indian government, and are living in poor conditions, mostly in tribal communities, with little to no upliftment and advancement. They are also often the victims of racism, with many South Asians in the North/West treating them like intruders and outcasts, as if they are “less Indian” simply because of their East Asian features. Never mind the fact that hundreds of millions of South Asians possess these same features, both among tribals and among mainstream populations, all throughout India/Nepal/Bangaldesh/Pakistan/Afganistan, not to mention East Asian genes that also exist across many communities in South Asia.

          It is a shame that we are such a close minded society that we prefer to ignore the existence of hundreds of millions of our own brothers/people, living right under our nose, within our borders. I dont know how inclusive South Asia will be in the future, but right now, things are in bad shape. Priyanka playing Mary Kom is an absurd joke, one that shows just how backward our society is. Its normal to exclude both the darkest folks and the most East Asian looking folks from society. Most South Asians act like we dont exist. Its all only for “Brown” and Beige folks. Everyone else is unwelcome and simply a nuisance. Ironically, many East Asians in USA do not want to be associated with other South Asians either, going to many lengths to state that we are not truly Asian, something that is nothing more than colorism couched in feigned ignorance. It is why I am curious to learn about the true essence of AASI — if it is truly a purely East Eurasian component like any other SE Asian component — then our identity as Asians is a fact and not under debate. My reading so far indicates this too.

  26. The Dollar Devours the Euro

    That makes the New Cold War against China an implicit opening act of what threatens to be a long-drawn-out World War III. The U.S. strategy is to pry away China’s most likely economic allies, especially Russia, Central Asia, South Asia and East Asia. The question was, where to start the carve-up and isolation.

    Russia was seen as presenting the greatest opportunity to begin isolating, both from China and from the NATO Eurozone. A sequence of increasingly severe – and hopefully fatal – sanctions against Russia was drawn up to block NATO from trading with it. All that was needed to ignite the geopolitical earthquake was a casus belli.

    That was arranged easily enough. The escalating New Cold War could have been launched in the Near East – over resistance to America’s grabbing of Iraqi oil fields, or against Iran and countries helping it survive economically, or in East Africa. Plans for coups, color revolutions and regime change have been drawn up for all these areas, and America’s African army has been built up especially fast over the past year or two. But Ukraine has been subjected to a U.S.-backed civil war for eight years, since the 2014 Maidan coup, and offered the chance for the greatest first victory in this confrontation against China, Russia and their allies.

    So the Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions were shelled with increasing intensity, and when Russia still refrained from responding, plans reportedly were drawn up for a great showdown to commence in late February – beginning with a blitzkrieg Western Ukrainian attack organized by U.S. advisors and armed by NATO.

    The full-blown version of the New Cold War triggered by the “Ukraine War” risks turning into the opening salvo of World War III, and is likely to last at least a decade, perhaps two, as the U.S. extends the fight between neoliberalism and socialism to encompass a worldwide conflict. Apart from the U.S. economic conquest of Europe, its strategists are seeking to lock in African, South American and Asian countries along similar lines to what has been planned for Europe.
    What is in this for the Global South countries being squeezed – not merely as “collateral damage” to the deep shortages and soaring prices for energy and food, but as the very objective of U.S. strategy as it inaugurates the great splitting of the world economy in two? India has already told U.S. diplomats that its economy is naturally connected with those of Russia and China. Pakistan finds the same calculus at work.

    From the U.S. vantage point, all that needs to be answered is, “What’s in it for the local politicians and client oligarchies that we reward for delivering their countries?”
    https://thesaker.is/the-dollar-devours-the-euro/

  27. on pakistan:
    i) if army is leaning towards the american position, i.e Ukraine in particular and equipment supplies in general, where will this leave the chinese? we were under the impression that army and political elite were tilted towards china.
    ii) is imran’s ranting occasional praise of india open up things for india?

    1. Having achieved its aim in Afghanistan, Pak army wanted someone who can ‘soft land’ their relationship with the west / US, so that the go back to normal relationship. Remove them from FATF, concessions in World Bank, keep them in European trade pacts, service their weapons and perhaps some aid. Plus gulf countries have been also backing off, due to Imran’s pro Turkey stance.

      But Immy was having none of it, in lieu of ‘independent foreign policy’. The Chinese relationship has reached its full course, and now they want their ROI. That’s the reason Army has held its nose and decided to back the opposition.

  28. I think Imran is good for Pakistan because he is standing up to army. But he is also good for India. Yeah he rants about ummah, islamism, and Kashmir all day. But he doesn’t come off as some sort of warmonger. He is just the physical embodiment of the radical islamo-leftist alliance. He may have too much outward expression of zealotry and misplaced economic values but he is far less bellicose than the usual crowd.

    I still think he will come out on top in this episode. Even if he doesn’t, opposition victory will be short lived. Next election he will be back with a stronger majority. Only way to get rid of him is to kill him. Like Modi, he is just way too popular broadly, and his base is just too die-hard.

      1. Not really. They had PTI members ready to vote, if they didn’t have enough. This is so they can keep their seats. US Congressional votes can sometimes look similarly close but don’t actually reflect popularity. Within the parliament, the majority wanted Khan out. But enough people in the opposition were there to save the political capital of defectors.

        In the end, Khan will be back, unless he is killed off by the army. He has too much popular support. A mass movement is behind him. Even if that is only a plurality and not majority, his followers are too impassioned for him not to win. This alliance of convenience among the opposition won’t last. Anyway, this episode has demonstrated what we have always known. The military is the kingmaker. Imran may challenge that even more in the future. But that is what it is right now. Sharif will do their bidding.

  29. GHQ will try to suppress him and not let him back, IK has gotten bigger than them. For anyone doubting, ISPR tweeted a video of a missile test today, it got 45 thousand comments within a few hours and if anyone can read Urdu comments, 98% of the comments below it are just spewing venom against the army chief and top brass.

    https://twitter.com/OfficialDGISPR/status/1512710884518359042

    So big changes coming through in NAB, Election Commission will be tampered with and everything will be done to rig the elections next year against PTI. I don’t think Imran Khan is running to London so they will have to literally kill him to stop him.

    1. I hope the best for him. The other leadership sucks. He actually cares about the nation. Yes he has a bit of a God-complex. But most good leaders do. Yeah assassination attempts will be numerous

    2. “IK has gotten bigger than them.”

      All this has happened many times in the past. Bajwa is an overconfident fool so this time may be different.

      Imran leashing Bajwa would be good for India. Pak army is an orders of magnitude bigger impediment to Indian hegemony than Imran.

      ###

      “spewing venom against the army chief and top brass.”

      Again, this is nothing new, this is regular bakchodi that Pakistanis do. Whoever loses in Pakistan does some version of it. The difference is that folks from PML/PPP are not cheering for the army this time like the PTI folks used to do.

      ###

      “Imran Khan is running to London”

      Sharif was sort of exiled against his wishes.

      ###

      The PPP-PML alliance is unnatural and will be bad for both of them if Imran gets to fight a fair elections.

      ###

      Folks like Najam Sethi were not fine with rigging but are fine with horse trading. Subhanallah! Pakistani morality.

  30. 1) Sharif ran away to London after making a fake health excuse and that it was life threatening..it’s been 2 years almost.. but his platelets will now be on their way to recovery by Monday and he might even be back next week.

    2) Najam Sethi has a personal agenda against IK. He’s a brown saahib. There are many in Pakistan (and I’m sure many in India as well). Well now you will see Najam Sethi and his like sing the praises of the ‘establishment’.. new government will not be ”selected” but ”elected” despite being a disparate group of islamists, seculars, feudals with no ideology, and clearly running away from elections called last week. PMLN PM Shahbaaz with their 85 seats will be labelled ”elected” by these journalists but IK with 155 seats was labelled ”selected”.

    3) I have been saying since day 1, not sure why Indian media portrayed IK as some sort of anti Indian personality. He is quite anti-Modi but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that he was anti-India. Even with Modi, he wanted Modi government to win in 2019 because he thought a stronger Modi govt could have the mandate to achieve some permanent solution on Kashmir. (https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/imran-khan-narendra-modi-pakistan-2019-general-election-1498121-2019-04-10). Obviously this was undone after Aug 5 2019.

    1. I quite agree with u on (3). I think both Pakistan and Indian media exaggerate the anti India/Pakistan bias of respective leaders. Modi doesnt really care that much on Pakistan, and would rather have a status quo relationship. I feel that’s true of Imran as well.

      But both have their Achilles heel . For Modi its stand against Pakistan/muslim nationalism. When it was called out in Pulwama attach, he was ‘forced’ to do ‘something’. Which resulted in Balakot.

      Imran/Pakistan has the same Achilles heel wrt to Kashmir. When it was called out after events of Aug 2019, they had to do ‘something’ which resulted in the whole Hitler/Nazis/RSS outburst and all.

      All these are theatrics to assuage domestic audience rather than concreate foreign policy action.

  31. Pakistan should probably not piss of the West too much. For all the talk of China-Pakistan cooperation, its economy is still largely dependent on US and Europe. Pakistan exported twice as much to the US as to China. Trade with the Islamic world is limited to importing oil from the Middle East.

    https://oec.world/en/profile/country/pak

  34. Any T1 diabetic brownbros here? Was on the verge of complete collapse while returning from my ancestral village in the Himalayas to Delhi, got my blood work done here, and turns out my pancreas have been pretty much f*ckd up, dont know since when as the severe symptoms only showed up sometime by the end of last month. Glucose levels at the initial tests turned out to be 550 mg/dl, so that was scary. No history of any such diagnosis on both paternal and maternal sides. Doc told me that a couple hundreds of extra sugar might possibly have led to a cardiac arrest or a coma, albeit my body would go unconscious much earlier than that.

    Stay safe guys!

    1. Also, the fact that I’m just 24 has made it very difficult for my parents to come to terms with, especially mom as you’d expect(doc has been trying to console them by citing examples of much younger people who are taking insulin besides me)
      At this point, I’m just praying that sugar levels fall enough to transition from syringes to pills quick(and also worried about how this new health situation i find myself in affects my running, anyone has experienc wid this?)

      1. Counterintuitively, Type I DM is less genetic than Type II DM, as seen in twin-twin correspondence studies. There is a genetic component though. Current hypothesis is that a virus infects the body and the immune system in response goes a bit haywire and starts to attack cells that look like that virus (molecular mimicry). A result of this type of friendly fire can be pancreatic beta cells.

        You will likely have a honeymoon period off of insulin but will likely require insulin again. If you keep your A1c below 7, get routine blood work for kidneys, and get routine eye checks- you can have a normal life.

        You are at higher risk of hypoglycemia and also dehydration when doing distance running. Take care to drink enough water and also do frequent glucose checks to ensure you are not getting hypoglycemic. Hypoglycemia is far more acutely dangerous than hyperglycemia. But the latter is of course non-ideal too. You will have instances in your life, such as during periods of infections like the flu that wouldn’t really cause much harm to regular people, triggering your body to enter a state of acid build up in the blood. The mechanisms for this are a bit complex. But essentially in high stress states, insulin requirements go up and the body’s ability to produce sufficient insulin isn’t there in a Type I Diabetic. To get you through these episodes, you may require hospitalization.

        If you keep your A1c down, eat well (diabetic diet, keep saturated fats under control, more plant based, drink enough water) and exercise (cardio+strength training moderate amounts), you can have an essentially regular life.

        Look into getting a good endocrinologist. If you can afford it, look into getting an insulin pump under the supervision of good endocrinologist. This is just basic stuff. You have to go to doctors regularly for good advice.

        Basically, this is not a lifestyle disease. This is an autoimmune disease more so. Be sure to get your thyroid checked too. Look out for vitiligo in life. These are also associated.

        You will face a lot of ignorance. Type II DM is more common. It is especially prevalent in S Asians due to low-lean mass on average, high body fat percentage, and some epigenetic factors related to recent famines, all in the context of less physical labor on average, especially in urban areas (modernization), and worse diets (particularly fast-food Western ones). But Type II DM is a different entity. It is a disease more of insulin resistance than insulin production (this paradigm is overly simplistic but is the basic idea). Indians are familiar with this type. While it is quite genetic, there is an environmental component to it. It can be mitigated with healthy lifestyle.

        There is no known way to mitigate Type I DM. Think of it like a disease like lupus. It is a condition where the body attacks itself. It isn’t entirely understood how it happens. It is no “fault” of your own, at least that modern science knows of. We are just in some ways fortunate to live in the era after the discovery of synthetic insulin. Because of it, you can, if you are responsible, have a mostly normal life, all other things held equal.

        Take care brotha

        1. Thanks warlock bhai for the detailed response!
          Yes my A1c levels are quite high atm at ~9, will keep that in check.
          And yeah i’m left with no option but to embrace this and treat it as a new normal for my body:)

  35. A cousin of mine had diabetes diagnosed very early in youth and was on insulin. one of the doctors in Bangalore treated him and he is on pills. No need to worry. He is physically active, has 2 children….

      1. It is good pitch to China as well to favor him. All startegy. His support view current government like they did Shah of Iran in 1970s

  37. imran’s people have pinched rahul’s ‘chowkidar chor hai’ slogan and is being used against the army!!.

    1. This confirms my suspicion that the memetic space of South Asia is saturated with Indian pop culture to the extent that India’s neighbours aren’t even able to generate memes or slogans of their own.

      I noticed this in SL as well, the Tamils would watch Indian (Tamil) movies and TV shows to the extent that they’re effortlessly able to understand Indian Tamil speakers (but the reverse isn’t true, SL Tamil is it’s own separate kettle of fish..), while the Sinhala prefer to watch Hindi shows (dubbed). I even came across a Sinhala man on a bus who was basically monolingual but said that his daughter was able to speak Hindi from the shows that she watched..! Indian soft power is in a league of it’s own…

      1. This is quite incorrect, have you seen Pakistani memespace? It’s quite original and IMO way more sophisticated and humorous that the Indian memespace.

      2. I agree with u both. Pakistani Punjabi memescape is original and funny. I see it as something akin to Indian Punjabi memespace, which is the cultural marker for Bollywood as well. But outside of Punjabi memespace, i feel Indian pop culture has enough influence on either side of the Border.

        I too have a Sri Lankan story. A Sinhalese colleague invited me for dinner, and her wife was watching Hindi (and not the dubbed) version of Indian show ‘Naagin’, which was apparently her favorite show. Suffice to say i never went back again.

  38. Well, good riddance to Imran Khan, possibly the biggest idiot to be elected prime minister in the history of Pakistan and easily the biggest disappointment after the Bhuttos. He will maintain his power base in KPK due to being a Pathan and anti-Americanism being very popular thete. But Punjab at least will be distinctly cooler towards him after 3.5 years of drift, poor governance and incompetence by his provincial chief minister Usman Buzdar.

    Unbelievable he was being groomed for power since 2011 and had so little clue as to how to run a government.

      1. Shahbaz Gill should be an easy first target, he can’t gather a crowd of ten folks on his own.

      2. Imran Khan is fast acquiring the type of power throughout Pakistan that Altaf Hussain acquired in Karachi in 1980’s. Fortunately for his opponents, he is quite the pacifist (unlike Altaf) that shuns violence, and he has not organized his party like an army that MQM did. But this is probably because establishment supported him so he didn’t need violence or organization before. Now that support is gone, we will see his pacifism tested when his workers will be beaten up, jailed, tortured for going against the status quo. And the status quo are absolute thugs when they have power.

          1. Bajwa might be the most incompetent political leader of all army generals of Pakistan

        2. He has a following among the youth in the cities, not much in villages and rural areas. And he is going to be 71 by the time of the next elections in 2023 with no successor to take over the party. The idea his party could start street violence is laughable, they have no experience of that and will turn tail at the first lathi charge.

          Khan is doing his first major rally in safe ground in Peshawar, unless he can muster huge crowds in Lahore and other major cities of Punjab, he is not going to make headway. He and his party have never had the screws put to them like PPP and PML-N have had for years at a time and still survived. Bajwa at the Commanders Conference yesterday was extremely pissed off by the Mir Jafar çomments he has been making.

          In his mind Imran Khan failed to deliver on his promise of good governance and interfered in army appointments to try and get his guy Faiz Hameed to stay on at the ISI and thus forced a highly public stand-off. That was compounded by IK openly discussing replacing Bajwa as COAS before his retirement date and now accusing him of being a Western agent in a bid to stave off the vote of no-confidence. So you can guess he is not in a mood to go easy on him.
          For the first time the US, establishment, MQM, PPP, PML-N and JUI-F are on the same side. And they have a lot of support in the country even if they are lacking in Twitter followers, celebrity endorsements and people in the diaspora going on marches for them.

          Also the new PM is Shehbaz Sharif who has a well-earned reputation for getting shit done. That is why even the Chinese preferred him to Imran Khan. There is going to be a big perceived change in the performance of the federal government and Punjab provincial government over the next six months. By which time if PTI have quit their national assembly seats, they will have become much less visible and reliant on rallies and media appearances which Bajwa’s military is willing to let them have.

          2. The notion that ‘PTI cannot commit street violence’ just because it has no experience to, is a ridiculous notion. Did TLP – which is a new party – need experience to riot throughout the country? No. You don’t need any experience to clash, you just need massive support and the leader willing to give the signal. Luckily for everyone, Imran Khan is never going to be indulging in violence (although who knows what future may hold).

            As for your assessment, which in my opinion is completely off the mark. Perhaps you should check out the huge number of people that came out on Sunday night in almost every city of Pakistan. Not just Lahore or Karachi but in every city, even in Larkana and Hyderabad where PTI had no significant votebank in 2018. You (like most of PDM media) do not understand the ground reality now. Bajwa is being cursed by everyone online/offline, including those within the armed forces for orchestrating this regime change. This is why he is damage control mode. This is why he didn’t even go to meet Shahbaz just yet.

            This government is not going to last 3 months. First day MQM threw a tantrum, now PPP is refusing to accept any ministries (Zardari knows it’s a zombie government so doesn’t want to be involved heavily). Already you got MNA’s losing their cool and beating people up. Nobody believes this is gonna last much. But I guess they do know deep down, the speed at which Shahbaz is trying to eliminate the evidence against him in his court cases, it seems like he knows he doesn’t have much time.

            You will see the support IK has this month. Opposition cannot even muster a fraction of the numbers. Elections today will give PTI and outright majority quite easily. The more things are delayed, the bigger the loss for PDM will be.

          3. TLP is committed to violence, the middle class folk supporting PTI are not. They only hope an army faction dethrones Bajwa and opts to put Imran Khan back in charge. Which the army will never do as it means giving him unlimited power.

            None of my family and friends in Lahore – including those who are hardcore PTI supporters – thought much of the numbers showing up in Liberty Chowk. There is just not much enthusiasm for Imran Khan given how well Shehbaz Sharif’s tenures as CM went and how ineffective Buzdar was. For Karachi and Sindh it may be different as I don’t think anyone is happy with PPP’s governance. PPP itself is not keen to push for elections as it is more or less happy with its position and is only likely to lose seats. The new Cabinet will be announced by tomorrow so we will see of what you say bears out.

            What you are seeing on the streets is a lot of youth anger and only in the bigger cities. The rural areas don’t give a shit about PTI. How long that anger is sustained and how much of it translates into votes is yet to be seen. Seeing as how Imran Khan used state machinery to go after every opposition politician and spent the last nine years roundly abusing them, they are going to be highly motivated to work together to keep him out. As will the military. How many of the current PTI MNAs stick with him is also open to question. Whatever his public support, if he has lost the loyalty of political heavyweights that will not help him.

    1. The finance ministry said creditors, including foreign governments that had lent to the South Asian nation, were free to capitalise any interest payments due to them from Tuesday afternoon or opt for payback in Sri Lankan rupees.
      —–

      Probably taking a leaf off Russia’s playbook, i.e. pay in Rubles its international Bond holders. Sri Lanka: Because of sanctions we will pay you in Rupees.

      Incidentally I assume you know we cant sell tea, rubber and other stuff to Russia and Iran. Neither can we import Iran or Russian crude for our Sapugaskanda Refinery built by Iran.

      Meanwhile, India has picked up our trade with Russian and Iran as it does not abide by US sanctions.

      Interesting times with all this sanctions business. Will this considered a default for Credit Default Swaps (CDS). Than so should Russia’s offer to pay Rubles.

      https://www.dailymirror.lk/top_story/Sri-Lanka-temporarily-suspends-foreign-debt-payments/155-235037

    2. The Sri Lankan case is due to their own incompetence, and hubris.

      ###

      The Russian case is truly horrifying. Americans have sort of stolen Russian money. This will have long standing implications and will be hasten the decline of America and the west.

      “Russia cannot access roughly $315 billion of its foreign currency reserves as a result of Western sanctions imposed following its invasion of Ukraine. Until last week, the United States allowed Russia to use some of its frozen assets to pay back certain investors in dollars. But the US Treasury has since blocked the country from accessing its reserves at American banks, part of its effort to ramp up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and further diminish his war chest.”

      https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/11/investing/russia-default-sp/index.html

  41. looks like steve sailer lost some of his sheen by supporting the u s position on ukraine. his fan base appears angry at him.

  42. How true are Amy Wax’s claims about the Indians/South Asians and East Asians in medicine? She repeats the accusations she made on the Glenn Loury program. I can’t pass judgment on her claims because it is not a world with which I am familiar. The Indian Americans I know are middle class, small business owners and middle management types. They cherish America for the opportunities America has given them, which they would never have had in India.

    Penn Law professor Amy Wax tells Tucker Carlson that “Blacks” and other “non-western” groups harbor “resentment, shame, and envy” against western people for their “outsized achievements and contributions.”

    https://www.unz.com/isteve/amy-wax-and-james-baldwin-on-the-rage-of-the-disesteemed/

    1. She seemed to be talking about ultra-woke Brahmin academics complaining about white privilege and pushing DIE not solid Patels owning hotels, gas stations etc.

    2. Seems correct, particularly for the second generation but even among recent immigrants. Even Razib has noted, how overrepresented Indians are among the woke crowd. But the larger issue is not unique to Indians or Americans. I think minorities worldwide resent the majority particularly if they are wealthier, more educated than the majority. Dangerous attitude to have in the long run though.

  43. Amy Wax is just a racist hag and I’m tired of people doing excuses for her. Also fuck Tucker for bringing her on the show. He professes innocence and neutrality when he knows damn well what she is about to say, and then she does. He silently agrees but lets her take the hit.

  44. What rural areas are you talking about? Lahore is not a rural area. Outside of Lahore and perhaps the GT/Majha belt, Shahbaz is not popular at all. South Punjab is PTI, NW Punjab is PTI, KPK is PTI, Karachi (and now Hyderabad) is PTI. This is majority of the seats.

    Infact now SS is PM, you will see him fail and lose any popularity left. Petrol prices were already heavily subsidized, SS cannot lower them. OGRA wants Rs 35/l increase in petrol this week, and SS has no answer to that. He also increased prices of sugar today by Rs 9/kg (to reward Jahangeer Tareen group and their sugar mills for supporting him). And Bajwa is already in hiding, having second thoughts about what he has done and how to course correct, because he is facing a massive backlash from not only the public but also from within the army.

    #

    PPP appears reluctant to join the cabinet

    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2352139/ppp-appears-reluctant-to-join-federal-cabinet

    That should tell you how much confidence Zardari has in this coalition.

    1. Like I said, we will see how it plays out and how much support PTI is able to garner. I know from family friends that the Mazaris from south Punjab and upper Sindh are likely to abandon them also.

      1. I am not a fan of any of the parties, I grew up during the political merry-go-round of the 90s in Lahore. Imran Khan is easily the most dense prime minister we have had. He has not been helped by rock-headed followers who are like a cult indulging in chauvinistic pagan worship of a Dear Leader. You would think a party appealing to the middle class would try to emphasise governance, accountability and competence.

        1. chauvinistic **pagan** worship of a Dear Leader

          Isn’t it **Muhammedan** worship of a Dear Leader?

          1. It is a cult focused on worship of Imran Khan. Islam is something of an afterthought.

          2. Guy needs to visit interior Sindh to understand what a cult really is.. that’s all there is to be said…

          4. My small complain is that folks attribute their group’s failings to ‘pagans’ (codeword for Hindus). Sikhs, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, including the pathetic brown ones, all do it but Musalmaans really excel despite having cults like Muhammad-ism, Khomeini-ism, Bhutto-ism, …

            There is nothing pagan about leader-worship. Religions based around one (or many in case of Sikhs, Jains) founder who cannot be criticized in-group are the real cults of hero-worship.

          5. I was not referring to Hinduism which is a major world religion with an ancient history which my ancestors likely practiced, but the weird cult that has sprung up around Imran Khan in the last few years.

  46. reg: taj mahal— earlier when reading p n oak’s books where in he says that it was tejo mahal, i felt that it was a lunatic fringe argument.
    it now turns out to be raja mansingh/jai singh’s haveli which was ‘gifted’ to shah jahan for taj mahal. surely in such hindu havelies there will be a small mandir.
    after all lots of these things were hidden from common people. i wonder why the rajputs were silent?
    https://www.dailyo.in/politics/taj-mahal-hindu-temple-raja-jai-singh-haveli-shah-jahan-mumtaz-mahal-mughals/story/1/20209.html

  47. Na jane yeh kaun sa nasha karta hai… yaar mera secularism se wafa karta hai…

    https://theprint.in/opinion/imran-has-damaged-the-idea-of-pakistan-dont-expect-it-to-turn-into-a-normal-country-soon/913091/

    “The truth is, at no point did the All-India Muslim League or its president Mahomed Ali Jinnah invoke Medina or speak of a theocratic State of any kind. The entire idea of Pakistan had to do with a Hindu-Muslim counterpoise on secular issues such as representation, jobs, and so forth. Religion was just not the point. This is the only narrative that explains the enthusiasm for the ‘Pakistan idea’ among modern Muslims in the 1940s and the almost universal disenchantment with it of the Muslim clerics.”

    1. Rare thread on pakdefence bashing Pakistan army, this is new. These are ultranationalist keyboard warriors.

      @thewarlock
      Consider this jewel in this thread from a Pakistani living in UK:

      “It did the next best thing it cleared bangla of millions of Hindus through various means, it ensured the freedom of Bangladesh
      We still hate Hindus more then anyone else here so this will keep us against our real enemy, but army is now pushing against massive public anger”

      Zehriley-Zehriley…

        1. >Rare thread on pakdefence bashing Pakistan army, this is new.

          I said this on Saturday that public sentiment changed massively against the army (before IK was even thrown out). Now this is just playing out, hard to even deny.. when defence.pk lunatics are speaking against the army generals, it’s clear as day.

          Perhaps I should open a Youtube channel and become a political analyst. At least it would be better than the chooran people like Najam Sethi or Hamid Mir are selling (who have suddenly become pro establishment now).

          1. They are no Team-BHP but 10X better than any Indian defense forum. In India the best we had are the comment sections of http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/?m=1

            ###

            Indian TV news anchors : Pakistani TV news anchors is like Sasural Simar ka : Zindagi Gulzaar hai, there is no comparison. Indians news anchors are usually clumsy, gawdy, easy to spot. Many Pakistani TV news anchors are truly polished, insidious and dangerous.

  50. https://mobile.twitter.com/omarali50/status/1514402588258537475

    Thread by Omar Ali dada, Ali Minai, some Jinnah-Muhammad lumber-one musalmaans.

    > TNT discussions are boring. Everything has been said 10,000 times.
    > Musalmaan Pakistani Punjabi and Ashraf Mujahir guys always start out thinking their half assed arguments make their case solid. idk why don’t they foresee the counter points and if they do why don’t they prepare.
    > 😂Always some version of :
    ‘Hindu bad, Musalmaan (sometimes Buddhist/Sikh/Christian) good. Me tall, mah woman koochie white as snow, mah nunu like a pink calabash. We reformers, we civilized, mah faith mos-logical. Sob-Sob emotional drama about imagined qualities of pedo Muhammad and Aurangjeb, Look at Taj Mahal, at Granada, more sob-sob. Fuk you Dindus, Hindu do sati, Hindu do caste, Hindu name from Persian. Booo! Hindu come from Aryan invaders. Booooo!!! Aktually one day all dalit will become XYZ (Buddhist/Sikh/Musalmaan/Christian). But aiktually my great grand father Pirzada/Peter from Shiraz/Leeds who was a Kashif/Officer. But aiktually Akbar could have killed …, Rani Jodha’s booobus, but aiktually Angrej favored Hindu fearing Musalmaan 150 IQ, but aiktually ‘ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity’, but aiktually Congress Bania, but aiktually circumstances/time-period/narrative/nazariya/…, but no I am a Quranist/Ghamidi-ist, but you should also love cultural islam, see twirling dervishes, see (bakchodi) calligraphy in persian, see (kitch) Islamic architecture, see mah lawn fashion, mah arabi jewelery wearing khatoon reading (mediocre) poetry of Iqbal. Me not lyk Bhumihar shitting on train tracks in Arah.’

  51. Partition is the best thing that has happened to Hindus. Not sure why you guys continue to talk about it as if it was bad. In Pakistan, these types of discussions are long dead amongst majority of population and seems to be only limited to diaspora heavy tweeters that have a liberal/secular bent, that are reeling with an identity crisis still. Most Pakistanis are not concerned about India that much outside Kashmir, nor do they have any significant hate for India. Bollywood used to be widely watched but it’s now diminished as alternative forms of local and international media entertainment is widely available. All in all, as Z.A. Bhutto said, ”idhar hum, udhar tum!’ (although he meant that for Bangladesh). Bangladesh is completely gone from day-to-day Pakistani memory, India would also diminish in a similar way from Pakistan’s narrative if PakArmy was not trying to stir up paranoia about it every now and then. Our Indus gang is already trying hard to craft a new independent narrative..

    1. @Qureishi
      Minai, Omar, and the other two guys are all Pakistanis. Indians have this phase from 15-25 when they discover Pakistan and rant on twitter. Some new points I could think of:

      “Partition is the best thing that has happened to Hindus.”

      Hindus (naively) dream of one day dominating the world like the Chinis.

      Long answer:

      Indians (and ex-Indians) are obsessed with ancestry because in their heads ancestry is strongly correlated potential and thus outcomes. A Brahmin even though doing some menial clerical job feels some day his progeny would compose a Sutra of Mathematics worthy of the Fields medal. To get this kind of confidence every group in India (including Brahmin/Jain/Rajput/wannabe-Rajput/Kodagus/Maratha/Ahir/Muslims) with the exception of Baniyas want to be seen as ‘not just Indian’ even if they have to imagine things.

      The whole point of ‘not being ordinary’ is that they want to be handed achievements/dominance in the future. Indians don’t want to work towards it, they wished they had the winds of fortune behind their sails as they became a great power. They wail because the existence of Pakistan by definition means India will never be a match to China and the US.

      ###

      “Not sure why you guys continue to talk about it as if it was bad. In Pakistan, these types of discussions are long dead amongst majority of population and seems to be only limited to diaspora heavy tweeters that have a liberal/secular bent, that are reeling with an identity crisis still.”

      Pakistanis wail a lot too.

      Pakistan has zero chance of ever becoming special, it will remain somewhere in the middle of India and Afghanistan in everything. It isn’t like India’s case where ‘itti si baat pe rank one miss ho gayi (missed first rank due to a small folly.) ‘ Pakistan is not even in the same league so it doesn’t see what Indians see. All this ‘geo strategic location’, ‘gateway of Central Asia : See-Paik’ is Pakistani speak for ‘we were born special, our place in the world is guaranteed’.

      “Most Pakistanis are not … gone from day-to-day Pakistani memory”

      I think this is overwhelmingly the case in India too. Pakistanis think Modi/BJP is driving hysteria but it is not true and the falling rate of communal riots is proof.

      “Our Indus gang is already trying hard to craft a new independent narrative.”

      Ghamidis/Quranists of Pak nationalism

    2. ….most Pakistanis are not concerned about India that much outside Kashmir, nor do they have any significant hate for India.

      Fine example of cognitive dissonance right there. Every aspect of the Pakistani political and cultural mindmap is shaped by the deep gravity well known as India. Sometimes it is submerged, sometimes it is not.

      One example I can think of immediately –

      The “othering” of Punjabi is a direct consequence of Partition – Hindus identified with Hindi, Sikhs with Punjabi and Muslims with Urdu. This dynamic is now deeply esconsced in Pakistan. Punjabi sub-nationalism is deeply buried to prevent a cultural resurgence of sub-continental ethos.

      1. Punjabi is still very widely spoken in Pakistani Punjab and has the highest number of people who speak it as a first language. The use of Urdu was promoted and Punjabi willingly sidelined as part of the project to create a Pakistani nationalism. Being the most populous province in Pakistan, Punjab has more power than if it was a separate nation and would be weaker and more vulnerable if it was going it alone. The other provinces bring enough to the table that Pakistani nationalism does not feel like an undue burden. Sindh provides access to the sea and Karachi, Baluchistan has substantial natural resources and Khyber Pakhtunkha is a key buffer against Afghanistan. If Punjab was shackled to a huge, poor and populous state like Bihar that would obviously mean Punjabi nationalism would gain adherents.

        1. @Ali Choudhury

          I think you are reinforcing my point. Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan. But Punjabi is not the dominant mode of production/vehicle for cultural production. Which stems from historical baggage and self-censorship. Similar linguistic example is Moldovan/Romanian.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcuFBbW4aDo

          In this video, the woman at 2.08 identifies herself as a “Urdu speaking Jat” even though her “parent’s language is Punjabi”. I think the level to which Pakistani society has embedded itself into the Indian matrix is deep and normalised. Which is why I had to react to S Qureishi’s statement.

          2. Urdu is more suited to cultural production than Punjabi in any case, it has much more of a pedigree in that respect. Punjabi is what you use for loud and sustained bouts of profanity.

      2. Urdu now is a Pakistani language, more than it is an Indian language. Most Pakistanis don’t even think Urdu is Indian anymore (since Indians use the word Hindi and now emphasize de-Persianization of the Hindi language). Most Indian Hindus would renounce Urdu as well, it’s script is not in wide use in India.

        So how in the world does ”Every aspect of the Pakistani political and cultural mindmap shaped by the deep gravity well known as India.”

        I don’t see how Punjabis speaking Urdu are gravitating towards India. Actually the opposite, the Punjabis who speak Punjabi are slightly more likely to be sympathetic to India (more precisely sympathetic to the Indian Sikhs).

        And I am not sure how identifying as Jat is accepting an ”Indian matrix”, not sure if only Indians are Jatt.

        1. @ S Qureishi

          While you are busy “claiming” stuff as your own (which you can btw!), don’t forget that Urdu is an Indo-Aryan (or) Indo-European language.

          Every time a Pakistani thinks in Urdu, they are only operating within the Indian continuum. A language has memetic power. Just because you write in nastaleeq, it does not become a new language. Its only a Prakrit.

          And yes…..every time a Pakistani refers to himself/herself as a Jat, Rajput or Arain (hope that guy reads this), they are bowing to the mother ship with reverence.

          1. @Ugra,

            By that ridiculous logic, you are Pakistani since you call yourself a name that came into being after a river that lies solely in Pakistan.. even though you as a South ”Indian” has as much to do with this region (Pakistan) as someone living in Ukraine.

            Use your mind, and look at it from other people’s POV. While there is no doubt the history this region is quite linked, I would say Pakistan’s cultural history is more linked with Punjab and to an extent with the North Indian Gangetic plain, than they have with any other region in India.. I would say 70-80% of Indian population would be considered quite foreign in modern Pakistan, as foreign as Bangladeshis or Burmese are considered.. and most people here do not consider themselves culturally part of India.

          2. Well, no one in the country is pretending Pakistani culture and society was completely self-generated.

          3. Ugra is doing exactly what I mentioned in my comment (regarding partition) in this thread. It is Indian obsession with low effort dominance. Indians wished their hegemony gets accepted as it is in the present without anything changing on the ground. Others with vested interests resent it. Because India lacks the courage (Morarji refusing to bomb Kahuta), or the ability (ass whooping in Sri Lanka, Abhinandan) other folks FORCE India to accept status quo as equals

            “I would say 70-80% of Indian population would be considered quite foreign in modern Pakistan, as foreign as Bangladeshis or Burmese are considered.. and most people here do not consider themselves culturally part of India.”

            70-80% number is obviously wrong. Not that it matters here.

            North Koreans can think that they are leprechauns, Ukrainians can think they are Vikings, Malays can think they are Arabs does it change the truth that <100 years ago Pakistanis were part of British INDIA, not British South Asia.

            Pakistanis can jump all hoops they want but Urdu is an Indian language. Pakistanis won't agree and I really don't care to make them change their pov, just letting them know that Indians (who are far more numerous and ever more richer) disagree with them.

            Punjabis are like Black South Africans speaking English, Mojahirs are like the white descendants of colonialist/expat English people. Does South African poetry and state patronage make English a South African Language? I could come up with better examples if at least the principal argument is agreed upon.

          4. @ S Qureishi

            We have digressed far from our original topic.

            All I am saying is that Pakistani Punjabis have abandoned Punjabi for Urdu stemming from reasons that are entirely related to India. Because culture is fundamentally linked to language, this is also a form of cultural navigation.

            And Urdu at its core is a “Prakrit”, in fact a “Dramatic Prakrit” – something that is directly evolved to meet literary forms and innovation. And this Dramatic Prakrit is directly a cousin of Classical Sanskrit.

            Ali Choudhury indirectly attested my line of thought when he said Punjabi is a lesser fit for cultural production when compared to Urdu.

            So here is the crux of my argument – Indian Punjabis (whether Sikh or Hindu) are culturally further from Middle India while using Punjabi as their lingua franca. Paradoxically – Pakistanis after adopting Urdu, are closer to Middle India in sensibilities and aesthetics.

          5. “force India” is important. Indians may not like it but at the moment Pakistan, SL, Nepal, even Bhutan are India’s EQUALS.

            Sri Lankans are the sly-est of the lot, transitioning between ass-licking and fingering as their condition allows. Resent them, disrespect them, but they are all India’s equals, they can and they will act like one. If India has other ideas it is welcome to try (and IMO guaranteed fail).

            No free lunches. They will do things as they see fit not because of India’s benevolence, it is them standing up to India despite India’s size. Pakistanis have WON their tongue in fields of battle and they will use it to say whatever they want. And just like Russia can’t bend Ukraine, so can’t India force Pakistan.

          6. Bhimrao,

            There is no parallel example to really point towards when discussing the issue of Urdu/Hindi. If Indians think Urdu is an ”Indian” language, then they need to actually own it – not only the language but all the cultural baggage that comes with it. You can’t really disown the script, you can’t expunge the persian vocabulary, and not just in the language but the entire cultural mileu in which this happened – i.e. you can’t go on eliminating muslim influence on the region, you can’t go on calling mughals and nawabs as entirely foreigners (even the later ones) but then come back and try to convince everyone that Urdu (and old Hindi) (which is literally a product of mughal culture mixing with local) is Indian. Many Hindu nats don’t even consider the Indian Muslims who speak Urdu as truly Indian. Language belongs to those who speak it, those who own it, those who teach it to their children. At this point, Urdu is pretty much Pakistani. If Punjabis are learning Urdu, people in India who used to speak Maithili, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi, Awadhi etc now learn Hindi and speak Hindi and consider their language Hindi. The language Urdu is quite linked with Pakistan now since it was the basis of the Pakistan movement. there is no parallel example one can point to compare here.

            – As for Pakistan being part of British India, you are right. This is actually the biggest commonality in the two countries: languages are an English inheritances, both legal systems are an English inheritance, education system is an English inheritance, and both armed forces are an English inheritance. I would say even the languages Urdu/Hindi blew up because of English inheritance (the brits made it official language everywhere).. Before the British, I very much doubt that there was any mass conceptual consciousness of being part of one big nation state. 95% of the population of the region was not even literate and mostly rural. The Mughal period would be more akin to the Roman rule over Europe.. central authority but no local awareness about being one nation.

          7. Other points I will address later. Abhi not in the mood.

            ” no local awareness about being one nation.”

            This is not true. Most Hindu ceremonies (including ones in Nepal) distinctly address India as Jambudvipa/Bharatvarsha. Most foreigners address Indians (including Madrassis) as one people. There are tons of counterarguments.

            Muslims say it or many disingenuous reasons. Pakistanis say it because they realise something odd about breaking your motherland (like Quranists realize something odd about Muhammad asking his followers to cum into Arab slave girls) but can’t say it due to shame.

            A related thought experiment: If India disintegrates Hundreds of millions of Hindus will wail for centuries to come. If Pakistan disintegrates (no rump left) no Muslim will remember it.

          8. Ugra,

            You are right that Urdu links Pakistan to India culturally (but only north India where Hindi is spoken). This is however gradually changing as Urdu in Pakistan is becoming more Arabicized while Hindi (and Urdu) in India is becoming more Sanskritized. 70 years of seperate evolution already shows a massive divergence, and this will continue to happen in the next few decades to the point where this language will split to become 2 almost unintelligible langauges, lest for shared English vocabulary. At thispoint, this is just a link – India has not been a ”cultural gravity” for urdu speakers in Pakistan since at least the 1980’s – it’s actually the other way round if you are talking about Urdu only.

            Lastly, Punjabi would have been classified as Hindi in India if it weren’t for the Sikhs. And I am quite sure Punjabi will eventually be incorporated into Urdu in Pakistan in the future. Punjabi in of itself is not a developed language, and there are several competing dialects within Pakistan, speakers of which are looking to assert their own ethnic identity. The status of Punjabi comes because Punjab is relatively big, and had it’s own recent empire (Sikh Empire). If it wasn’t a holy language for the Sikhs, it would have gone the same way other North Indian languages have gone.

  52. I had a question to both Qureshi and Ali Bhai.

    Bajwa is retiring in Nov. What happens if next COAS happens to be a Shariff sympathizer, and ‘influences’ the election?

    The more i think, i feel opposition getting to choose the next COAS was the determining factor of Imran’s ouster and not having early election (an election which had Imran won, could have got his COAS selected) . So not a bad move to have no confidence vote for the opposition.

    1. Saurav: You are right on the money. This is one of the biggest reasons why they brought forth the no-confidence motion. Otherwise it’s just a bad political move from every angle, because they would have made the next government anyway if things took their usual course as elections were slated to happen next year anyway and incumbency/inflation factor would have played against the sitting govt.

    2. The only thing i can’t get my head around, is what does Bajwa gain by all this. The only thing i can come up with is, that the army does not want any politician ( regardless of however pliable) to become too big. They would rather have all political parties be on a similar scale.

  53. IK was openly discussing replacing Bajwa and wanted his own guy Faiz Hameed in as COAS. He forced a highly public stand-off last October on army appointments. So he was increasingly trying to claim more power from the army. Khan was also widely known to have taken power in 2018 thanks to the army engineering it. His government was widely seen by those who are not his partisans to be doing a poor job especially in Punjab. More economic pain would have resulted in anger being directed at the army for installing him. So they pulled the plug now rather than wait longer till next year which is an election year and before the next COAS is due to be selected. Also convenient to do now as everyone has less energy and desire to protest during Ramadan.

  54. New IMF paper out on extreme poverty reduction in India, again unnecessary editorializing in western and indian publications so I will avoid linking directly.

    This top comment on this reddit thread explains the reality on how this happened…

    https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/tya3t7/india_has_almost_wiped_out_extreme_poverty/

    Basically National ID + Banking scheme allowed for direct transfers to poor cutting out corrupt middle men.

    Meanwhile WaPo wordcel takes unnecessary potshot at modi in a book review on corruption

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/why-power-attracts-the-wrong-kind-of-people/2021/11/17/21057ca0-3da5-11ec-8ee9-4f14a26749d1_story.html

  56. The Russian cruiser Moskova, FLAGSHIP of Russian Black Sea Fleet sunk by Ukrainian missile attack!!!

    This was a beast at 12,500 tons!!! A whole tier above destroyers, 500+ sailors needed to run it.

    For the uninformed, India’s leading surface combatants the Vishakhapatnam class is 7,500 tons each.

    Russians are being hammered. This is beyond embarrassing, this is humiliation. Big loss.

  57. I think economically and culturally the divergence between India and Pakistan is stronger in urban areas than in rural areas. We can see this using some data.

    Today, urban India has only 20% of couples living with parents of the husband. These number are in line with those seen in East Asia (China – 12%, Vietnam – 20%). Urban Pakistan is far more joint family oriented, with 35% of couples living with the husband’s parents. Contrast these numbers with Egypt, another Islamic country, where only 1.5% of couples live with the husband’s parents.

    In the villages, the story is different. Indian and Pakistani numbers on joint family living are much closer. The economies are similar.

    The absorption of industrial and post industrial modernism in the two countries has been totally divergent.

  58. @Bhimrao
    “…other folks FORCE India to accept status quo as equals”

    The scourge of great power thinking again. In most cases when countries have gone down that road it spells ruin for them, as an isolated and increasingly impoverished Russia will discover in the coming decades and as an impoverished Pakistan that has focused all its efforts on ‘strategic depth’ in Afg and Kashmir has found the hard way.

    Keep your head down, get rich quickly, cultivate soft power and earn the respect of the world – a much better roadmap than bullying your smaller neighbours.

    1. “ Keep your head down, get rich quickly, cultivate soft power and earn the respect of the world –“

      Agree. I would argue that the latter two is not even needed. Soft power is overrated while getting respect is the function of first two items.

    2. @Siddharth

      ….Keep your head down, get rich quickly, cultivate soft power and earn the respect of the world – a much better roadmap….

      LOL. Where should one park the earned respect – FD or equity?

      India has annexed by force or strategy the following regions since Independence – Goa, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh – these regions constitute a combined area equivalent to the countries of Belgium and Netherlands.

      India has also warred with and defeated other belligerents in its region and has redrawn maps, in the process creating new countries (Bangladesh) whose land area exceeds Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia combined.

      Additionally India extracts tribute in the form of security concessions throughout its sphere of influence (Bhutan, Sri Lanka).

        1. That was part of the Unionizing struggle – a big story in itself. The succeeding actions are the outcome of a determined state.

    1. Natural borders from mountains/jungles creating splits? Papua New Guinea’s language diversity is somewhat a result of these conditions.

    2. @Sid
      Pure conjecture, but I’ve wondered whether during the early middle ages, a strong state and the canonization of Kannada and Telugu oral traditions forced a mass assimilation of Deccan dialects. Add to that the transition to Marathi in the regions between the Krishna and Godavari basins. Consider the existence of large urban centres and shifting settlement due the drought, plague and famine, i could see less scope for the core Deccan to preserve isolates.

  62. I looked at some of the salaries being offered at India offices of Big Tech companies.

    It’s just insane. Kids with two years of software development experience getting INR 60-70 lakhs.

    Makes me wonder if there’s even any point in working at an early stage startup when a lot of these folks will probably make more than me even if I get a successful exit.

    Also, makes me wonder how the brightest minds are all working on making you click on ads or buying stuff you don’t need.

    Surely there are more worthwhile problems to work on?

    It’s interesting how the free market works. Perhaps the Chinese have the right idea in decimating their own tech industry.

    We’re still not at a stage where we can do that and most people would just be grateful for the high quality jobs and some money coming into the country.

    At some point, we’ll have to think hard on how we’re allocating our human capital. Not the time yet.

    1. Expected value for big tech jobs is higher than startups. If you get a big exit at a startup then ofc it changes the calculus a bit, but I think currently big tech careers are OP.

      I think ad tech engineers actually add more real value than some other highly compensated jobs for eg. hedge funds / high finance (a lot of which is zero sum or negative sum).

      Or politically driven rent extraction games (certain types of “consulting”, much of government contracts bidding, mining etc).

      1. Re: startup vs Big Tech jobs – salaries have risen 2-5x just in the last 2 years.
        Granted startup valuations did too but now with more moderate interest rates that’ll slow down. Salaries, though are stickier.
        This might have an effect on new enterprise creation in the next few years.

        Re: AdTech vs finance – I agree.
        But I was trying to compare against hard problems like building energy storage, new forms of computation, medical research etc.
        There’s this old theory that you can get away with paying lower in more ‘meaningful’ jobs because part of the compensation is in the satisfaction of doing the work. Maybe, maybe not.

        Re: consulting – yes, that’s rent seeking
        Re: mining – no, I think miners create actual value by extracting useful materials out of the earth. There is an externality in the form of environmental impact but that is something for the state to worry about and regulate against.

        1. I meant mining contracts are awarded on a politically driven basis / often the bidding is very corruption prone.

          This stuff is a naturally occurring “non-renewable” resource. And fundamentally different from software which is born of human ingenuity. Imo.

          The actually mining process itself does add value as you say.

        2. I am talking about the allocation of mining rights not the mining process itself.

          If is fundamentally about extracting a natural resource that is held by the human commons not about creating new things via human ingenuity.

          So the rights to mine land are where there are a lot of shenanigans.

    2. @Prats

      Related thoughts:

      1) I know folks from normal UPTU colleges who are making 70 lpa at Razorpay with 4 years of experience at paytm. Most these guys spent a lot of time on Leetcode. Some of them do some year long online data science online bootcamps that cost ~2 lakh and really polish scripting skills of the candidate.
      2) Unlike my own placement days, the open source scene throughout the world is deteriorating. Indians are the lousiest of Open Source contributors. 20 Y.O. chutiya guys in their tens of thousands commit some silly changes on GitHub to appear cool. This is like those stupid American premeds who run after ECs and shadowing to pad their CVs.
      3) In absence of real (not farji) Open Source projects folks focus singularly on Leetcode, HackerRank,GeeksforGeeks,… This prepares folks very well for I interviews and tests but does not inculcate a love for writing large bodies of useful code. This is incurable and nothing can solve this problem. Maybe it is not even a problem.

      Will write on the ‘Engineering’ vs ‘Tech enabled advertising’ later in the day.

      1. I don’t begrudge those folks making money. But there’s going to be some consequences to this – Fewer folks starting businesses. Or at least fewer than might have. This is something the US has been suffering from.

        I have this theory that the communist utopia will not come about because of revolution. It will come because in the future everyone will work for Amazon.

    3. “I looked at some of the salaries being offered at India offices of Big Tech companies. It’s just insane. Kids with two years of software development experience getting INR 60-70 lakhs.”

      In the Bay Area a top tier MS + 2 years, or a fresh PhD fetches you 300-370K in salary+stocks at Google.

      ###

      “Makes me wonder if there’s even any point in working at an early stage startup when a lot of these folks will probably make more than me even if I get a successful exit.”

      The money is clearly with FAANG. But in my case I work where I work because I know in my bones that this company and only this company is going to solve this big problem. I am betting that the experience, the training, the connections would be worth the price. Stocks+ Comp will be much short of Google to ~1.5X better in the best case scenario.

      The problem with say Google is that I don’t see how will it prepare me for my next step other than prestige (which is only in the eyes of useless spectators anyways) and money.

      ###

      “Also, makes me wonder how the brightest minds are all working on making you click on ads or buying stuff you don’t need.
      Surely there are more worthwhile problems to work on?”

      Exploiting markets is the most sacred function of every company. There are no other holier ritual in any industry (outside of life-death scenarios). Holiness is directly proportional to the money people are willing to pay.

      ###

      “It’s interesting how the free market works. Perhaps the Chinese have the right idea in decimating their own tech industry.

      We’re still not at a stage where we can do that and most people would just be grateful for the high quality jobs and some money coming into the country.”

      We are too far behind. Let the masses make their own decisions. Indians are a wise people.

      “At some point, we’ll have to think hard on how we’re allocating our human capital. Not the time yet.”

      I don’t think any intervention should ever be made. Indian bureaucrats and politicians are not smart enough to tell us what is economically right or wrong. No government meddling, let things take their course.

      ###

    4. ‘Is it worth it?’

      The abstract answer is one has to really know the game one is playing and try to optimize for that. All human games are stochastic with poorly-known underlying statistics. Dumbness, confusion or lack of real understanding is not worthy of any reward. Decisions change depending upon the tuning used for exploration/exploitation, time horizon, probabilities, starting conditions…

      Not a very useful answer but the best that I have.

      1. U young folks are so idealistic. Solving world problems and all. It’s good. Reminds me of my 20s.

  63. The government has approved a PLI scheme for textile manufacturing. 61 companies with a total outlay of INR 19k crore.

    One of the criticisms of the PLI schemes till now has been that they are focused on high tech, low employment sectors like semiconductors and batteries.

    Will this address the job creation problem? Realistically what sorts of numbers can we see?

    Any good analysis on this?

    1. I think the jury is out on the success of PLI scheme.

      That with hullabaloo it does not turn out to be another free-trade-zone ( or whatever it was called) of the UPA dispensation , or the whole public-private partnership fracas. Concept wise these were also good, but had no impact. India trade deficit with China is on highest level while we are doing PLI schemes.

      Plus Arvind subramaniyam ( ex CEA), has criticized the concept of a PLI scheme itself. He argues India needs more trade deals and less “ atma – nirbharta “.

      1. Plus Arvind subramaniyam ( ex CEA), has criticized the concept of a PLI scheme itself. He argues India needs more trade deals and less “ atma – nirbharta “.

        I think his problem is not with PLI schemes per se but with the fact that
        1. These are essentially meant for domestic consumption and not for export a la Bangladesh textile model so will always have a limited market size

        2. Not in labour intensive industries

        He might even be right from a purely economic perspective but there might be some geostrategic sense to having semiconductor or cell manufacturing capacity within the country.
        I tend to think of PLIs as a VC sort of spray and pray model. You put money into a bunch of high tech industries. If you can get world class in even one of them then it can have massive positive consequences.

        Keeping that aside. With textiles, it would be different. This IS a labour intensive industry. Hence, I am curious to know what this could lead to.

    2. @Prats

      The textile industry is the second highest labour generator after agriculture in India. It was historically the highest forex earner for India since the time of Pliny the Second in the first century.

      Finally the focus of this PLI is on MMF (man-made fibres) like polyester and nylon. The reason behind the meteoric rise of the Ambanis (Only Vimal) who mastered the backward integration from MMF to oilwell like no-one else.

      The success of a PLI is linked to the sector. PLI, as a standalone mechanism, can never be evaluated. PLI in the mining sector will be a theoretical failure as capital costs are not prohibitive to investment and operational cycles.

      The textile sector pays non-economic rent to bad labour laws, complicated equipment import regulations and capital lending caps by banks In other words, a perfect fit for the PLI scheme. If the textile PLI replicates the stupendous success of the mobile PLI, we will best both Vietnam and Bangladesh.

      Caution – Economists diss the PLI schemes because they are originally the brainchild of trade experts as opposed to SEZ ś which was theirs.

      India’s PLI scheme is simple, elegant, easy to understand, easy to implement and above all easy to track. I read a beautiful line about the simplicity of the Indian PLI scheme (one of its kind in the world). Nature is pleased with simplicity. and nature is no dummy – Isaac Newton.

      For your reading pleasure –

      https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/productionlinked-incentives-a-well-designed-scheme-11618245189412.html

  64. regarding bengal- i feel b j p will have to be satisfied with the caste base it has built. the threat of violence by t m c will make it impossible for others to get votes. on the rebound, the left front may start getting some seats, which is in a way good. t m c will be ruling for a long time to come.

    1. The bjp base is very temporary and soon it will be back to being a non entity.

      Non/ less hindu regions don’t have the soil for the BJP to grow, or even sustain.

  65. RE: tech salaries in India

    A lot of these salaries are driven by foreign VC money. Tech is really an island within an island. Because of the rise of VFH, salaries are slowly starting to get equalised across the world. Not quite there yet but everyone in India knows and understands that lots of these programmers could easily emigrate to the West and do the same work. That pushes up salaries far higher.

    Problem is that it sets unreasonable expectations for others. I would also assume that gini inequality in India, which was already very high before Covid-19, is now probably close to South African levels, certainly above that of Brazil.
    That’s an issue for social stability, then again perhaps the caste system passifies people?

    Re: PLI in textiles. It all depends whether it is export-oriented or not. My impression is that it will be. From that sense, it’s a good thing. I think Arvind Subramanian’s broader critique is accurate: too much risk in giving all this power to a few mega-oligarchs (“two As”). But that is a political question more so than economic one, at the end of the day.

    The latest lockdown in Shanghai has exposed CCP as being clueless. They still haven’t internalised that Covid is here to stay. Modi made a mistake by his massive lockdown early on but later adapted and learned from his error. China is doing the opposite: they had huge success early on but failed to understand that the circumstances are different. Trying to eradicate Covid (which is what their strategy is implicitly about) is a fool’s errand.

    That means they are less reliable going forward, as foreign business have to take into account random and seemingly endless lockdowns from now on whereas India will not do that. As a result, India’s relative attractiveness has risen.

    Finally, these past few years should also be a lesson to everyone who was a debbie downer in 2020 during the depths of the Covid recession, discounting India for all eternity. Now it looks better than most countries, warts and all.

    India disappoints the optimists but confounds the pessimists. It will muddle along at a leisurely pace.

    1. On the China 0 covid thing I have had some ppl telling me it is because the CCP has data that their local vaccines aren’t as effective as the western ones. So need to maintain 0 covid till new ones can be developed/ administered.

      I have no idea how true that is.

  66. New Pakistani cabinet has been formed with representation from all parties who opposed Imran Khan. There were doubts that PPP would join but they have opted to be part of the government also.

  67. reg bangladesh:
    i was searching ritu raj ( male lead singer of bulbuli on coke bangla) and found that this brother pritwi raj had passed away recently. further search revealed that pritwi raj was given an islamic burial. was he born a muslim?
    secondly, the female lead singer of bulbuli is sanzida mehmood nandita. are such mixed names common in bangladesh? we don’t see them in india.

  68. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IOLqvQiLXypl8O-O_8rwBuB3ZbwUvN29/view?usp=sharing
    Even genetics cannot bring Indians closer.Steppe is all what matters(atleast in North).Swami vivekanand said that only cow can bring hindu together.They shared Brownpundit’s link.
    A jaat girl mocked rajput and then verbal fight over looks ,genetics started among bhumihar, jaat, rajputs. Who have more coloured eyes ,who are more light skined,who have more steppe ancestry,bank balance.Jaats take pride in pakistan being a jaat dominated land and their army chief is jaat too.And we thought only jnu and muslims have a place for pakistan in their heart.Unionist rajputs are in the list too.

    1. I don’t really ever meet people in real life who think this stupidly. These people seem like a minority crowd of online loons. Yes, there is some bias in real life. But this type of nuttiness isn’t all that prevalent.

      And lol, these people would be very upset at the diaspora desis in 2nd gen. Forget other parts of India. They date everyone, as people should. These tribal clowns have no place in an ever integrating world, one where individual freedom trumps these absurd fidelities to endogamous practices, based entirely on preserving proportions of ancestry falsely believed to be “superior.”

      1. tejasvi was getting into all controversies and was in danger of being burnt badly. it appears that the b j p management has realised this and there appears some hand holding. has got some brownie points in coperative bank cases. he has not waded into hijab, halal, azan controversy.
        if he gets a second term, he will be better…

        1. I actually had the opposite view of Tejaswi when he was elected. That he will either be a Rajya-sabha esqu leader like Sitharaman or Jaishankar, who cant a muncipality on his own. Or be a Venky Naidu like, who gives ‘constitutional speech’, vey mellowed down.

          Something along the lines of S-Indian politicians. Who lack the fire of N-Indian Hindutva leaders. But he has surprised me. And since he speaks Hindi, and come from Bangalore, he does check the right boxes (Hindu+economy) which Modi once did. A bright future.

    2. @saurab It is understandable that SI don’t see ram as God.Or even as an Anti Dravida.
      we donot have Ayyappa ,murugan temples in North.Hinduism have blurred boundary and it’s our mistake that we distributed Hinduism tag to everyone .Those who never heard of Vedas are Hindus too In India

      2. “ it’s our mistake that we distributed Hinduism tag to everyone .Those who never heard of Vedas are Hindus too In India“.

        Finally, someone who gets it.

      3. “Hindu” label was coined by Persians to describe the people that lived across the “Sindhu” River. We are correctly using “Hindu” as it was originally intended. “Hindu” is not a synonymy of “Aryan”.

        This Vedic Supremacy bullshit is nothing more than a thinly veiled Ethno-Nationalist gatekeeping of UC N-Indians.

        This “Non-Hindu Region” shit started with Dalit-Dravidian Groups claiming to be separate from Hinduism, in reality Hinduism spread in SI by absorbing Dravidian Cultures, not by enforcing Vedic/Aryan Supremacy.

          1. Yes, but it doesn’t matter because Sanskrit Speakers(AKA Aryans) already assimilated into India’s Cultures&Peoples by that point.

        2. @enigma
          If it was for “people” who lived on this side of sindhu river.Then why use it for Forest dwellers living far away from sindhu region? many of them dont even speak Aryan language.
          Second,they used to disturb your yajna still they are hindu for you.Idts that we are using it right.You are too fond to call youself by the name persians gave you,Dont you have your own identity?Is there any other word even exist?what about Arya?But if you use it then clearly SI are not arya. South Indians are clear in this matter that they are dravidian by language by culture by genes(can say loosely)
          And the audacity to say that they are hindus and we are not enforcing vedic supremacy .C’mon you are giving them the identity imposed on you.
          Laxman yadav(an ambedkarite )said.When shiv dayal chaurasia(a social reformer from up-Bh)made a hindu organization in ~1928 and invited brahmins to join.Brahmins declined the invitation by saying that they are not hindus they are arya.Then chaurasia said ,we are not hindu from now either.(IDk if they were influenced by contempory aryan theory or what).

          South indians neither are aryan speakers nor they lived in that region.Still they are Hindu .Just becasue those who were hindus(acc to persians)contacted with them and synthesized.And in the process SI became hindu not the otherway round.I think it is right to call it a sink or umbrella for subcontinent’s inovations but if the original meaning was something else .Then the word is inappropriate too.

          And lastly. We are using Hindu term completely in religious sense now .I wonder if yogi ji’s hindu yuva wahini have persians’s hindus.

          1. It makes no sense that persians intended word hindu for SI or tribals. who lived somewhere else with different language and culture and looked different.

    3. Jothimani is yet another Congress member who sees merit in “climbing” by the use of rhetoric to please the party boss (de facto) Rahul Gandhi.

      Ever since RaGa moved his constituency to Kerala (typical of UP’ites to take a train to South India), Congress men and women are taking the “secular” tone in their speeches.

      Dinamalar published a toon showing all the important figures in TN politics showing Lord Ram’s name (Periyar, MGR lol).

      Koenraad Elst recently commented on Twitter that he considers even the Jarawas and the Onge as Hindu because of their broadly pantheistic approach (animists) to religion.

      And finally our own Saurav has been selling “More Hindu” stickers for Rs 5 each. Sasta Einstein! He thinks Hinduism is just Islam with its holy books (Vedas) and of course, Mecca, which is supposed to be UP!! What else is new?

      1. Nothing much. The sooner you comprehend the changes, the better it will be ur ethnicities. But to each his own

      2. @ugra Hinduism has no monopoly over Animism.I know a good vedantic teacher ,He says ,There should be some fundamental principles/philosophy/beliefs by which we can say who is a hindu and who is not.If everyone is hindu and everything is Hinduism then hinduism is actually void.
        Or Accept That Hinduism is a umbrella term for Indic religions (as Many do )Or you can go RSS way ,i.e Even muslims are hindus.
        Many including jrk Cm says that they(St)are not hindus and they are demanding for Tribal religion column.80-20 nhi ho paega na fir.

        1. @ Shiva Ji

          Anyone and everyone can create their local/global definition of Hinduism. The Jharkand CM, your vedantic teacher, the RSS are all building sand castles on the beach. We are having the religious equivalent of the “gender-fluidity” debate in the West.

          Sikhs are reaping the full benefits (sarcasm intended) of the decision to create their own separate corporate identity in the 1970s. Political instability, monoculture, drug addiction, debt spirals and now Kejriwal’s freebies – the ocean will eventually wash away the castles – for the next generation to create a fresh set of castles.

          Hinduism is the “idea sink” of all innovations in the subcontinent.

          1. The current Jharkhand CM might not take kindly to u referring to him as Hindu, though.

    4. You’re just searching up random Ambetkarite/Periyarist dipshits to reaffirm your Confirmation bias about Tamils. I could do that too. If that woman represents Tamils, then Kaniya Kumar represents Hindi Belt and Romila Thapar represents the average Punjabi lol

      1. … or on the contrary I could argue that being a elected parliamentarian she represents more of Tamil voice than someone commenting on a web blog

        BTW I welcome anyone from UP to say that they don’t believe Ram is a god. The consequence of what happens after might not be pretty, though.

        1. … I could argue that being an elected parliamentarian she represents more of Tamil voice…

          By those standards, Mulayam and Mayawati have been chief ministers of UP – one of those had dozens of Kar Sevaks shot and even boast about halting the Mandir successfully.

          …and here you are pretending to lose your head over some insignificant MP making debate points to some xyz host. LOL man!

          I have seen you pull this trick several times in the past. Drag in some random twitter statement and claim some groundbreaking insight.

          1. As I have said, anyone ( mulayam ) can say and do what he wants. And the repercussion for that is for us to see, politically. Not just him, his son is facing them as well. So much so that he has to make up slavishly, but still no one gives a damn.

            https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/lucknow/up-akhilesh-govt-will-build-ram-temple-faster-says-sp-leader-ram-gopal-yadav/articleshow/89312612.cms

            As the saying goes. The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children. And after all it’s UP. Not Dravida nadu.

        2. “As I have said, anyone ( mulayam ) can say and do what he wants. And the repercussion for that is for us to see, politically. Not just him, his son is facing them as well”
          Can i have some fries&coke with those double standards? Apparently the 3 time CM and his 1 time CM Son openly being Hinduphobic&Pro-Ummah doesn’t represent the average views of a UPwala but a 3rd rate politician from a party that was routed out of TN in 1967 somehow represents the average Tamilian’s view.

  74. Netflix is falling, Meta down too.

    What I say next is wisdom of hindsight (and therefore useless).

    Of FAANGs, Apple actually makes some real tech innovations, it is overhyped but it atleast makes something hard, Amazon is a conglomerate that does OR very well, brought cloud computing to everyone, is the largest robotics company in the world,… it is not just a company. Google is the only real super power in tech, makes products that entire countries can’t make even if they tried, in it’s own league altogether. Honorary mention: MS has entrenched itself into everything much like Oracle, not innovative in the 21st century way but well-run and efficient.

    Of these Meta and Netflix were always outliers, who got in the club only because of their revenues and salaries. Now the chaff is being separated from the wheat.

    1. The problem with both Meta and Netflix is as Steve Ballmer used to say about Google back in the day – they are one trick ponies.

      Google, though ended up successfully innovating on multiple fronts later. Also inorganically grew itself with the acquisition of Android and YouTube.

      Meta could still make something of itself if it finds a way to diversify its earnings away purely from ads. They are experimenting a lot on VR. Netflix similarly might go big into games.

      I don’t like either of these companies, though and barely use any of their products (except WhatsApp which one has to).

    2. 5 Companies that will dominate the next 5 years in tech:
      1) Tesla
      2) Nvidia
      3) Google
      4) Microsoft
      5) Amazon

      Apple is also a one trick pony like FB and Netflix with majority of profits coming from the iPhone.

    3. Apple has the M1, there is a window for a few years where if it wants, it can hurt Intel and AMD.

      ###

      IMO Tesla is overhyped. One day it’s stock will reflect reality.

      ###

  75. It’s the other way round with Tesla. Reality is now starting to catch up to the hype. IMO, Tesla is still under hyped. They have their hands in many cookie jars simultaneously and now they have started printing cash. By early as 2025, they will be the largest company by market cap.

  76. Tesla is one of the few non-Chinese EV makers that are serious about vertical integration. Most other traditional automakers are going to be struggling for survival.

  77. More trouble in Gaza.

    Why don’t Israelis go after Iran? Now Israel-Amreeka-Arab are solidly on one side, Russia is weaker than ever, Iran is still not nuclear. Are all of them being ruled by cock-less Morarji Desai?

  78. Israel-Usa-Arab alliance is only at the government level. It is not deep.

    Israel is a geographically small country and Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Syria can cause a lot of damage. To reciprocate, Israel needs KSA but we haven’t gotten to a point where KSA is providing bases to Israel to attack Iran, Saudi itself has a huge Shia minority in its eastern oil rich region that can revolt, and they can’t even handle Yemen.

    So for Israelis, it’s back to harassing Palestinians.. gotta test those weapons somewhere

    1. ” Iranian proxies in can cause a lot of damage. ”

      Not really.

      Maybe acceptable levels of chaos is good.

      “providing bases to Israel to attack Iran”

      Bases are so last century, hard to maintain, too glitzy and overt.

      “So for Israelis, it’s back to harassing Palestinians.. gotta test those weapons somewhere”

      Israeli exploits speak for themselves.

      ###

      I don’t see how continuing to take shit from Iran helps these folks? These guys are taking the indecisive Indian route (vis-a-vis Pakistan) and will suffer.

      Or maybe the intensity of conflict is acceptably low.

      ###

      1. Israel cannot get embroiled with Iran, it has no capability to wage war on Iran, while Iran can and more certainly wage war on Israel via it’s proxies if directly attacked. Without the direct help of GCC countries, it cannot take on Iran at all.
        The most it can do is bomb some nuclear facilities or sabotage Iranian nuclear assets.

        >These guys are taking the indecisive Indian route (vis-a-vis Pakistan) and will suffer.

        They don’t have the capability to be decisive, neither does India. And when nukes come into the equation, perhaps permanently so. Most wars these days dont end like Azerbaijan-Armenia.

        1. “no capability to wage war on Iran”
          Proper war is anyways too costly, the ‘war’ Iran wages in Gaza is embarrassing on standards of states. But why can’t Arabs/Israel/Amreeka fuel some ethnic, religious tension in Iran?

          ‘decisive’
          India could not have won decisively against Pakistan even if nukes were not in the picture. Ukraine<Pakistan<India<Russia, If Russia couldn't take Ukraine what hope does India have.

          'the equation, perhaps permanently so'
          Modi realized another inequality though, self damage in surgical strikes < damage via terror attack.

          1. @bhimrao
            I don’t think its as simple as ukraine<pakistan<india<russia. Resourcefulness and will-to-fight matters. These slavs seem to have a lot of it and per capita GDP figures are not great proxies for it. I don't doubt that that india/pak are creating good trained soldiers, but the general population, which will mount the resistance, doesn't seem soldierly or resourceful at all. For whoever takes the initiative first, it will be easy conquering.

          2. We can never be sure about a blitzkrieg. Anecdotes are just that, anecdotes.

            Putin was calling them a fake country, Major Amin and other farji analysts like him were calling Ukrainians a country of prostitutes, Kadyrov’s bearded battalions were hoping to emulate Muhammad in raping slave girls. And yet here we are…

            In our case we will never know the truth. But all this martial, less-martial cannot be relied upon when stakes are high.

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