Sumit Anand

Glad to have served as a consultant to @ambedkar_center and @indians_seattle on analysing and drafting this landmark ordinance with Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s office. This is history in the making; will create a wave of impact and set a precedent.

Congress MP Shahsi Tharoor supported regressive religious belief and rituals over gender equality. What's his moral position of calling others anti-women?

Happy Birthday Baba 💙

STORY | Over 2.04 crore voters deleted from UP rolls after SIR; final electorate at 13.39 crore More than 2.04 crore voters have been removed from Uttar Pradesh's electoral rolls following the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, with deletions largely concentrated in urban centres and a higher proportion involving women voters. Over 84 lakh new voters were added, taking the final electorate to 13,39,84,792, according to data released by the Election Commission of India (ECI). READ: ptinews.com/story/national…

A man casually walking on the track during a race! Is this the standard of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) domestic events? Are we event serious about it? 🤦‍♂️

At this rate, next they will say - take down of published content not good enough, need a regime where only that content is published which is pre-approved by government.

Election in Maharahstra is 3 years away but politics won’t stop Almost entire stack of UBT Loksabha MPS reportedly want to shift to Eknath Shinde. But then Shinde’s will become 7+9=16 MP one of the most powerful group in Delhi. He could leverage that to get CM chair back Fadanavis doesn’t want that. Hence the delay.

Special Report | Baramati मध्ये पुन्हा Pawar Vs More लढत रंगणार | Sharad Pawar | Congress VS NCP #SpecialReport #SunetraPawar #Baramati #SharadPawar #NDTVMarathi

I want to clarify something about this article @apar1984 and I wrote: An infrastructure for mass censorship is already in place, in India, and the new rules expand it. We're seeing mass censorship of accounts and posts on X, Instagram and Facebook, because of this infrastructure. This infrastructure: 1. Operates with speed: - blocking of posts has to be executed in 3 hours (govt is considering 1 hour), which means there's no scope for challenging them. This is the shortest takedown timeline in the world. Every order is an emergency order. - When platforms get 100 at a time, which happens, they act first, think never, and censor always. Impact: If someone was censored and can't understand why, this is why. No one has time to think. 2. Scale...Scope has expanded uncontested: - The reasons for which speech and posts can be taken down keeps expanding. New rules expand government powers to tweets like this one. - News websites and platforms are covered under IT Rules (illegally) - Streaming platforms are covered under the IT Rules (illegally) Impact: more types of speech is already being censored...satire, journalism, or political criticism 3. Operates without challenge, in two ways: - When you get 160 takedown orders a day (as X disclosed to a court) how many will you challenge? - Platforms don't want to react because they can lose market access in India. They're faced with unrelenting pressure from regulators, and basically choosing which hill to die on. Us being censored is not their problem. - Rules are changing frequently: 7 amendments to IT Rules since Feb 2021. By the time courts nullify one rule (and they don't always do this), new rules come up. How often will people go to court? 4. Ordering takedowns has been decentralised: - The (illegal) Sahyog portal, which is used for takedowns, is a hotline from government bodies to platforms. Thirty-three states, seven central agencies, and seventy-two companies are onboarded. 5. There is no transparency hence no accountability: - Users receive no notice. censorship orders are not provided on request. - blocking orders and the meetings of the committee that reviews them are protected by secrecy. - RTI's are not responded to. - Consultation responses are not public. 6. Government is seeking personal data of social media users using Sections 70B, 69 and 75 of the IT Act. This will lead to self censorship. 7. Lawmaking process has collapsed: - The new IT Rules consultations have a 15 day deadline. - Implementation timeline for the last one was 10 days. - Rules are being made where there used to be laws government by Parliament. The new rules mirror provisions from the Broadcast Bill which was withdrawn in 2024. Parliament is being bypassed. As we wrote: when the IT Secretary reportedly says that platforms should have started preparing to implement based on consultation drafts, it appears that outcomes are predetermined. Consultations appear to be a farce. MEITY, DoT and MIB are not accountable to anyone but the government for rules that are not in line with laws, and go against a key free speech verdict we got in 2015. That's why this is an infrastructure for censorship. It is in place, it is operational, and it is expanding. This is not just about the new rules. This is why we're sounding the alarm about: people need to know what is going on, and the Supreme Court needs to take this up. They are the court of last resort, meant to preserve constitutionality. P.s: Please keep a copy of this tweet, in case it gets censored. Or just tweet it and tag us... how many will they censor?

We all know why he bought that.

STORY | Budget Session of Parliament to reconvene on April 16, likely for three days The Budget Session of Parliament will reconvene on April 16 after a brief recess to pass bills to increase the number of Lok Sabha seats from 543 to 816 so that the women's reservation law can be implemented at the earliest, in what is expected to be the latest flashpoint between the government and the opposition amid the poll season. READ: ptinews.com/story/national…

200 Dalit workers, lured to New Jersey, USA on a "religious visa," were forced to work as bonded laborers on this marble BAPS temple. Forced to work without protection, some got a lung disease and died. This is a form of trasnational 'modern slavery'. theguardian.com/us-news/2026/a…

Someone cooked @airtelindia so bad 🤣🤣 They bought Airtelblack.com domain to write how shitty their service is 🔥🔥🔥

dua lipa

The systematic and structured socialisation of children into exclusionary ideological frameworks that legitimises labelling, institutional criminalisation and discrimination of and extrajudicial and authoritarian actions against the so-called lower castes and minorities.

India is formalising Apartheid, town by town through executive orders, laws and violence.

Or, keep him in check and make him listen to them by putting him on a blackmail leash.

Don’t be surprised by the posts on Modi’s villainy. It is an attack coordinated by the RSS. What’s true and not true is another debate; सच के आसपास वाला झूठ पकड़ना मुश्किल होता है. Modi-Shah have not been listening to the RSS; wants Modi gone and replaced.

I still remember the visible disgust and on his face and the repulsing glance he shared with the other politician when he realised what I was talking about.

I was in a meeting for a possible alliance and seat-sharing. I had brought up socialisation of electoral politics and representation of LGBTQI+. A politician, whose own party has a dedicated LBTQ cell, was completely lost. Another politician had to text him the meaning. ++