Badshah of Balderdash

Every time I wish to tweet something, I read whatever I compose, ask myself if it is absolutely necessary, and then delete it. It’s a lot more fun to observe people here.

Bachupally flyover works without safety precautions @HiHyderabad @KomatireddyKVR @CommissionrGHMC @revanth_anumula @KTRBRS @kp_vivekanand @aam_abhi

#StoryAlert: When something carries India's name, we feel proud. But what if it turns out to be a disease? Well, that is an embarrassment. And the embarrassment is Trichophyton indotineae. A new fungal infection has spread from India to Germany, the United States, New Zealand, and beyond. Scientists named it Trichophyton indotineae. The “indo” in the name is not a compliment. The reason traces back to a small, cheap tube of cream, sold without a prescription at pharmacies across India. Inside: a powerful steroid, an antifungal, and an antibiotic. All in one tube. The steroid shuts down the skin’s immune response. The itch stops. The patient feels cured. The fungus stays, and starts to adapt. Over months of repeated use, it mutates. It learns to survive the very drug designed to kill it. A drug-resistant species is born. And it now carries India’s name wherever it travels. Read the full story here thesouthfirst.com/health/trichop…

@nimishdubey @alawyerwrites @fredfertang @CraigNelsy @WG_RumblePants @indranil9 @ushrit2020 To BELIEVE at times when we were underdogs, to steer a team to the finals against the formidable Windies then, and THEN continue to motivate self and team defending a meagre total - every over - Kapil is a towering example of positivity and courage!

“That’s out and thank you for a wonderful match.” Umpires are supposed to be neutral and Dickie Bird certainly was, but even he could not but smile as he raised his finger to give Michael Holding out leg before to Mohinder Amarnath, handing India the World Cup on 25 June, 1983. A distraught Joel Garner watches. India’s control of the game in the final session was a masterclass in strangulation. The West Indies had gone in to tea at 76-5 in 25 overs, needing another 108 to win. With Bacchus and Dujon at the crease and the very handy Marshall and Roberts still to come, they were still favourites to win as the asking rate was barely 3 an hour. Kapil Dev however marshalled the field and bowling brilliantly, so much so that not a single four was conceded in the 27 overs bowled after tea. Dujon did hit a six, but apart from that runs came in a trickle, and l towards the end, the asking rate actually became an issue. Binny did not open the bowling but came in late with a brilliant spell of 10-1-23-1, and then there was Mohinder with 7-0-12-3. When Holding was last out, West Indies needed 41 at almost five an over, so badly had the most attacking in the world been starved of runs that day at Lord’s. In his book “That’s out,” Dickie Bird remembers Kapil Dev telling him at the end of every over after tea, as the umpires changed ends “We have got them now.” They did indeed. #cricket #WorldCup #1983worldcup #India #KapilDev #Nostalgia @Raja_Sw @anandkumarn @VatsMusings @tds122 @Koushik_laribee

Limitar los pechos femeninos a lo sexval es banalizarlos. Sobre todo históricamente. En otras épocas han sido símbolo de fertilidad, maternidad e incluso de poder político. Y el gesto de mostrarlos, relacionado con esto último, tenía un nombre...

@beastoftraal There are all kinds of packages. Some do it for free too. The one lakh, if it were for the 10-14 days, is extremely reasonable. Whereas, I’ve seen so much spend till the 2nd day itself as well. If social welfare can appeal to people, why not the slide rule packages?

Heard a relative in Coimbatore tell me yesterday: his father passed away last year and he had to do the last rites. He had called the Vaathiyaar who asked him if he wanted 'normal package' (Rs. 1 lakh) or 'Director Shankar package' (the Vaathiyaar's exact words; meaning, extra grand, inlcuding extended donations of cow, gold, etc., at Rs. 3 lakhs). He chose 'normal'.

@nimishdubey I distinctly recall reading this page as a kid. That photograph of his gesture as he ran for his 10,000th run remains etched in my memory!

Please look at this page from The Hindu newspaper in 1987. This was the sports page Cricket was already very popular in India with the World Cup set to take place later in the year, A Pakistan vs India Test series was on, Sunil Gavaskar set a monumental new record And yet @the_hindu found space for coverage of the Ranji Trophy, a chess tournament, sailing, and did not let an achievement by Shivlal Yadav get overshadowed. There are photographs of chess players too. This is how the media covered sport in the 1980s. Just happy to have been there. #Cricket #Newspaper #media #TheHindu @swarraj @Raja_Sw @alawyerwrites @WG_RumblePants @anandkumarn @VatsMusings @fredfertang @ushrit2020 @indranil9 @Koushik_laribee

@himsini Teacher, haven’t seen your posts in my TL for a while. Had to visit your handle to understand. Sincere condolences. 🙏🏽

The clown that he was. 😂❤️ (This came up because someone randomly liked it!!)

Revenge in Middle Eastern cultures (both Sunni and Shiite) is deeply embedded. By assassinating Iran’s supreme leader, Trump and Netanyahu have made their regime-change military mission more complicated and challenging. Ayatollah Khamenei’s killing has created a volatile moment that taps directly into Shiite concepts of martyrdom and resistance. In Shiite political culture, the killing of a supreme leader by foreign forces is immediately filtered through the Ashura narrative — the martyrdom of Imam Hussein at Karbala. What might otherwise have been a leadership decapitation is thus recast as sacred sacrifice. By declaring 40 days of national mourning and framing Khamenei’s death as shahadat (martyrdom), the regime invokes the principle of mazloumiat — the virtue of being the oppressed party. Mourning becomes mobilization. The blood of the martyr demands justice. Tehran is seeking to transform public grief into a binding “blood debt.” Dissent can now be branded complicity with the killers of the supreme leader. This dynamic complicates any hope of rapid regime collapse. Rather than weakening the system, decapitation risks militarizing it. After Khamenei’s death, Iran could drift toward a more explicit military theocracy. Regime change depends on delegitimizing the ruling order in the eyes of its own people. But by unleashing the revenge factor, Trump and Netanyahu have shortsightedly handed Tehran a unifying grievance powerful enough to override internal fractures. Instead of accelerating collapse, the strike risks consolidating the regime. The outcome in Iran, however, will ultimately hinge on which force proves stronger: the regime’s weaponization of martyrdom or the public’s exhaustion of ideological rule.

I am a diplomatic aide in the Sultanate of Oman's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My job is logistics. When two countries that cannot speak to each other need to speak to each other, I book the rooms. I prepare the briefing materials. I make sure the water glasses are the right distance apart. You would be surprised how much of diplomacy is water glasses. Too close and it feels informal. Too far and it feels like a tribunal. I have a chart. We had a very good month. Since January, Oman has been mediating indirect talks between the United States and Iran on Iran's nuclear program. The talks were held in Muscat and in Geneva. The Americans would sit in one room. The Iranians would sit in another room. I would walk between them. My Fitbit says I averaged fourteen thousand steps on negotiation days. The hallway between the two rooms at the Royal Opera House conference center is forty-seven meters. I walked it two hundred and twelve times in February. This is good for my cardiovascular health. It was less good for my knees. Both are in the service of peace. By mid-February, we had something. Iran agreed to zero stockpiling of enriched uranium. Not reduced stockpiling. Zero. They agreed to down-blend existing stockpiles to the lowest possible level. They agreed to convert them into irreversible fuel. They agreed to full IAEA verification with potential US inspector access. They agreed, in the Foreign Minister's phrase, to "never, ever" possess nuclear material for a bomb. I have worked in diplomacy for seven years. I have never seen a country agree to this many things this quickly. I made a spreadsheet of the concessions. It had fourteen rows. I color-coded it. Green for confirmed. Yellow for pending. By February 21 the spreadsheet was entirely green. I printed it. It is on my desk in Muscat. It is still green. That phrase took eleven days. "Never, ever." The Iranians initially offered "not seek to." The Americans wanted "will not under any circumstances." We landed on "never, ever" at 2:14 AM on a Tuesday in Muscat. I typed the final version myself. I used Times New Roman because Geneva prefers it. The document was fourteen pages. I was proud of every comma. Here is what they said, in the order they said it. February 24: "We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity." — The Foreign Minister, private briefing to Gulf Cooperation Council ambassadors. I prepared the slide deck. Slide 14 was the implementation timeline. Slide 15 was the signing ceremony logistics. I had reserved the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Room XX. It seats four hundred. We discussed pen brands for the signing. The Iranians preferred Montblanc. The Americans had no preference. I ordered twelve Montblanc Meisterstucks at six hundred and thirty dollars each. They arrive on Tuesday. February 27, 8:30 AM EST: "The deal is within our reach." — The Foreign Minister, CBS Face the Nation. He sat across from Margaret Brennan. He said broad political terms could be agreed "tomorrow" with ninety days for technical implementation in Vienna. He said, and I wrote this line for the briefing card he carried in his breast pocket: "If we just allow diplomacy the space it needs." He praised the American envoys by name. Steve Witkoff. Jared Kushner. He said both had been constructive. I watched from the Four Seasons Georgetown. The minibar had cashews. I ate the cashews. They were nineteen dollars. The most expensive cashew I have ever eaten. But it was a good morning and we were within our reach. February 27, 2:00 PM EST: Meeting with Vice President Vance, Washington. The Foreign Minister presented our progress. Zero stockpiling. Full verification. Irreversible conversion. "Never, ever." The Vice President used the word "encouraging." His aide took notes on an iPad. The aide did not make eye contact for the last nine minutes of the meeting. I noticed this. Noticing things is the only part of my job that is not water glasses. February 27, 4:00 PM EST: "Not happy with the pace." — President Trump, to reporters. Not happy with the pace. We had achieved zero stockpiling. Full IAEA verification. Irreversible fuel conversion. Inspector access. And the phrase "never, ever," which took eleven days and cost me two hundred and twelve trips down a forty-seven-meter hallway. Every American president since Carter has failed to get Iran to agree to this. Forty-five years. Not happy with the pace. February 27, 9:47 PM EST: The Foreign Minister's flight departs Dulles for Muscat. I am in the seat behind him. He is reviewing Slide 14 on his laptop. The implementation timeline. Vienna technical sessions. The signing ceremony. The pens. I fall asleep over the Atlantic. I dream about water glasses. February 28, 6:00 AM GST: I wake up to push notifications. February 28: "The United States has begun major combat operations in Iran." — President Trump. Operation Epic Fury. Coordinated airstrikes. The United States and Israel. Tehran. Isfahan. Qom. Karaj. Kermanshah. Nuclear facilities. IRGC bases. Sites near the Supreme Leader's office. Israel called their half Operation Roaring Lion. Someone in both governments spent time choosing these names. Epic Fury. Roaring Lion. I spent eleven days on "never, ever." They spent it on branding. The President said Iran had "rejected American calls to halt its nuclear weapons production." Rejected. Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling. Iran had agreed to full verification. Iran had agreed to "never, ever." Iran had agreed to everything in a fourteen-page document that I typed in Times New Roman. The President said they rejected it. I do not know which document the President was reading. I know which one I typed. February 28, 18:45 UTC: Iran internet connectivity: four percent. — NetBlocks, confirmed by Cloudflare. Ninety-six percent of a country went dark. You cannot negotiate with a country at four percent connectivity. You cannot negotiate with a country that is being struck. You cannot negotiate. This is not a political opinion. This is a logistics assessment. February 28: The governor of Minab reported forty girls killed at an elementary school. I do not have logistics for that. There is no slide for that. The water glass chart does not cover that. February 28: Lockheed Martin: up. Northrop Grumman: up. RTX: up. Dow futures: down six hundred and twenty-two points. Gold: five thousand two hundred and ninety-six dollars. An analyst at AInvest published a note titled "Iran Strikes: Tactical Plays." The note recommended positions in oil, defense stocks, and gold. The most expensive cashew I have ever eaten was nineteen dollars. The most expensive pen I have ever ordered was six hundred and thirty dollars. The math suggests I have been working in the wrong industry. Defense stocks do not require water glasses. Defense stocks do not require eleven days. Defense stocks require one morning. February 28: Israel closed its airspace and its schools. Iran launched retaliatory missiles toward US bases in the Gulf. The Supreme Leader promised a "crushing response." Israel's defense minister declared a permanent state of emergency. Everyone is using words I recognize in an order I do not. I recognize "permanent." I recognize "emergency." I do not recognize them next to each other. In diplomacy, nothing is permanent and everything is an emergency. In war it is the reverse. February 28: The Foreign Minister has not made a public statement. The briefing card is still in his breast pocket. It still says "within our reach."

Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Jupiter above the Sydney Opera House.

#Tamil #Brahmins and their contribution to education in #TamilNadu P.S.Higher Secondary School is a 119 years old iconic institution in Mylapore, Chennai. The school was started on 13th January,1905, owing its origin to the munificence of Pennathur Subramania Iyer, Attorney-at-Law and a farsighted philanthropist of Mylapore, who had bequeathed his entire property in 1899 for the founding of P.S.Charities with the object of providing national education that would inspire our youth with high ideals of patriotism and reverence for our ancient national culture. FOUNDER: Brahmasri Pennathur Subramania Iyer, (1830-1901) In 1916, P.S. High School (North) was founded to serve the education needs of the underprivileged children. It functioned as a middle school till 1962 and as a high school thereafter. It functioned as a government-aided school under the P.S. Educational Society (Pennathur Subramania Iyer educational society), and celebrated its centenary in 2016. In 2018, the school was merged with the P.S. Higher Secondary School (Mylapore). In 2003, a primary school was started and, in 2007, it was renamed as S.R.Kalyanaraman Memorial P.S. Nursery Primary School as required by our institutional donor, Kalyana Krishna Charitable Trust. Classes up to VIII Standard were introduced in 2018-19, and the school was renamed as S.R. Kalyanaraman Memorial P.S. Matriculation School Lady Sivaswami Iyer Girls Higher Secondary School in Mylapore, Chennai, is one of the oldest and most prominent girls’ schools in South India. Though It began in 1869 as the Vizianagaram Maharajah’s Hindu Girls School, founded by Sri Gajapathi Raja Vijayarama III of Vizianagaram in 1904 became the Mylapore Girls School with financial support from the noted lawyer and public figure V. Krishnaswami Aiyar, who helped consolidate its finances and infrastructure. In 1946, the institution was formally renamed Lady Sivaswami Iyer Girls Higher Secondary School in memory of Sir P.S. Sivaswami Iyer and his wife, whose contributions saved and sustained the school. On his death in 1946, he bequeathed the bulk of his estate to it as well Sister R. S. Subbalakshmi Iyer was a social reformer and educationist in India. In 1920, Sister set up a school for the children of the fisherfolk who lived near the beach. The Kuppam School as it was called began in Ice House. It was renamed the Lady Willingdon High School after the then Governor’s wife and in 1922 it moved into premises next door where it still functions from. Sister, in 1927, established the Sarada Vidyalaya in neighbouring Venkatarangam Pillai Street. In 1938, this was handed over to the Ramakrishna Mission, which shifted the school to Mambalam and later T Nagar. Sister was to found several educational institutions all over Madras Presidency. Her last creation was Vidya Mandir School, Mylapore, in 1956

@labstamil It is a fact that he skews matters against the shaivites. Not that he’s some great person to emulate or be bothered about. He’s a confused fellow.

Same "Iyengar" Kamal insulted Govindarajar in Dasavatharam & joked about "Azhagiyasingar". Made a mocking song "Hari Hari, Sori Sori" in Uttama Villain. Did a playboy role in Panchathanthiram as Ram CM. Why needlessly flare sectarian divides?

In 1905, a young woman in Kerala was dragged into a trial for adultery. The system was built to break her. Instead, she brought the system down with her. It became, and remains, one of the most extraordinary episodes in Kerala’s social history. Thread. 1/21

Why should a poor prescription ding a good brand of oral rehydration system? As opposed to other supposed ORS brands being bandied and loaded with sugar, Electral is a good alternative. Poor positioning. Rather than the brand here, call out the quack you encountered!

@Krishank_BRS Aside from the political equations, an IAS officer with unparalleled educational and professional track record and success, what has the point of his caste got to do with this argument? Pointless incorporation of such dimensions to an argument trivializes the matter

IAS Arvind Kumar ... In 2002 Collector of Khammam under Shri Chandrababu Naidu. After Shri YSR garu became CM in 2004, IAS Arvind Kumar was appointed as Collector of Hyderabad. His services towards Telangana State and particularly Hyderabad are lauded by citizens. An alumni of St. Stephen's and IIM Ahmedabad has rose to the level of Chief Secretary rank... For bringing a International Motor Sport Formula E to Hyderabad, which gave revenue to the City, which uplifted the Brand Hyderabad with International Stars visiting the event, where there is no case ,no corruption but a official bank to bank transaction where the money is still with the organisers, Is it a Crime to bring Formula E Race to Hyderabad ?? The Congress Government is harassing a Schedule Caste IAS Arvind Kumar . They are pressurising him hard to turn approver and name then Municipal Minister Mr.KTR. CM Revanth abused then DGP Mahender Reddy garu but later gifted him nominated post even after retirement. But in case of IAS Arvind Kumar, CM Revanth is adamant to send him to Jail. Only because he is a Schedule Caste and no lobby comes in support of him ❓

@outofofficedaku Now the fast immigration facility available in indan international airports (FTITTP) should help save a few pages getting lost to stamping. Enrolment is easy and completes in a few days.

To avoid such I always have small post it stuck to the page where the entry stamp is affixed in case I am exiting the country or the page which has a space for one more stamp at time of entry. Most immigration officers including India smile and adhere happily.

@chennaicorp @The_Karthik @TheLeelaHotels Best companies build driver management centres to coach drivers for defensive driving, health checks esp. eye checks, sleep deprivation etc and of course, a drivers’ lounge. For a corporate house that large, it shouldn’t be difficult. Surprising the corporation doesn’t insist.

@The_Karthik @TheLeelaHotels Vanakkam #Chennaiite This issue has been rectified in the given location. Thanks for writing to us.

Dear @TheLeelaHotels, your hotel in Chennai is in the lovely neighborhood of MRC nagar which has some of the best foot paths in the city. Ever since drivers who come to pick your guests started parking here, this has become the longest public toilet in the city. 1/2 @chennaicorp

@ShashiTharoor The entire ideology of communism itself is antediluvian.

It is a lamentable irony that today’s "Bharat Bandh" is, in reality, merely another "Kerala Bandh." While the rest of India has evolved beyond such coercive disruptions, Kerala remains uniquely held hostage by this organized tyranny of the minority over the unorganized majority. My stand has been consistent since I entered politics: I support the right to protest, but not the right to obstruct. No Indian has the constitutional right to impede the free movement of another. We have driven industry away with our militant unionism; now, by clinging to these antediluvian methods of "muscle power" that forcefully confine citizens as prisoners in their own homes, and oblige shopkeepers to down their shutters, we are ensuring our state remains unwelcoming to youth and enterprise. It is high time we outgrew this self-destructive habit. We can always replace it with constructive dissent. I have long argued, even when my own party is involved, that the right to strike does not include the right to enforce a shutdown on others. To paralyze a state, disrupting daily life, commerce, and movement, is an assault on the liberty of the common citizen. Kerala’s reputation has suffered enough from militant unionism that extends beyond factory floors to our very streets and homes. We cannot aspire to be a modern, investor-friendly destination while adhering to outdated forms of agitation that the rest of the world — and indeed, the rest of India — has discarded. Let us respect the right to dissent, but let us also fiercely defend the right to disagree and the freedom to work and travel. Protest should be a moral statement, not a physical blockade. #BharatBandToday

An anagram walks into a pub and orders: top row gins, dark ales, and a banana rum. #anagram

A must read! I see the landscape changing vastly over the next 5 years! Great service by the good @theliverdoc and team to the Indian public. A great relief for many!