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Delhi, India
Joined March 2007
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Out at the protest today?
If you're marching on 10 October, photograph the placards — and send them to Democracy by Design, a free, volunteer-run archive of Indian protest posters.
👉 democracybydesign.in/submit
Why it's worth doing
A placard is made by one person the night before, carried for three hours, and thrown away. News photographs keep the crowd — almost nobody keeps what was actually written on the paper. This archive does, in the maker's own handwriting and their own words, so that what people said on the street is still readable years from now, by anyone, for free.
• Ten photos at a time, any size or format — straight off your phone is fine
• Faces in the crowd are covered automatically before anything goes up
• Credit yourself by name, or stay anonymous
• Took them yourself or were sent them — both welcome
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
From 8 years of silence to 18 days of frenetic activity. It took an intervention by the Supreme Court for the government to finally cap trade margins on 137 cancer drugs. @ameershahul writes
frontline.thehindu.com/the-n…
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧?
𝐊𝐞𝐧-𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐚 𝐑𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭: 𝐅𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬, 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬. ₹𝟒𝟒,𝟔𝟎𝟓 𝐂𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝟐𝟖-𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐅𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐬' '𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐚 𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐲𝐚𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐡𝐚'!
#KenBetwaLinkProject #SaveConstitution #ChitaAndolan #TribalRights
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
Delhi's air turns twice each winter, and only the first turn gets the headlines.
The first PM2.5 peak arrives with the stubble burning season and pushes the weekly average past 250 µg/m³—the 'severe' threshold on India's air quality index. That peak has been the subject of many TV debates. The reason it recurs is duller than the debates. A long-duration paddy variety leaves a farmer about 20 days to clear the field before wheat has to go in. Whether it burns depends on what else is available to them in those 20 days, and at what cost. Our work across Punjab and Haryana has been around these questions and behaviours. A survey of 1,500 farmers across 12 Haryana districts, and another on monitoring burning from space, is out later this week. Both are about where help is still needed.
The second peak follows weeks later: winter biomass burning. Through the coldest weeks, wood, dung cakes, crop waste and whatever else is to hand are burnt for warmth—on construction sites, at guard posts in gated housing colonies, in homes in informal settlements with no affordable alternative. Thousands of small fires rather than one large source, which is what makes it hard to see and harder to govern.
The rest of the year is the relatively cleaner stretch. Through the monsoon, weekly averages fall to around 27 µg/m³, inside the national 24-hour standard of 60, and about a tenth of what the city breathes at its November peak.
Delhi has just had its October: the month everyone photographs, when the saptaparni comes into flower and the whole city smells of it. On this chart and outside our windows, that month is the end of the cleaner stretch, with the line already climbing.
In a jugalbandi, two musicians play different instruments in the same composition. Neither leads, neither follows. This winter we will be talking about both halves of the answer: what a citizen can do, and what the state must. Stay with us.
Check out our work on Clean Air: ceew.in/publications?field_f…
The Special Intensive Revision has left 13.39 crore names off the draft rolls in 31 states, 14.1 of every 100 electors. The drafts now hold 84.5% of adults. offtheroll.in tracks it state by state, district by district and seat by seat, from each Chief Electoral Officer's own figures.
Added today: The Hindu found that 61,059 Form 7 deletion requests in Karnataka were filed by the registration officers themselves, none giving a reason, and more than 53,000 of them in the last week before the deadline. Uttar Pradesh's Chief Electoral Officer has ordered a re-check of every form computer assistants entered since April. The Supreme Court has issued notice on deletions in Maharashtra and will hear the plea on 5 November.
New on the site: compare up to four seats in a state, print a one-page brief of any constituency, embed the charts, follow What's New by feed, add hearings and final-roll dates to your calendar, and sign up for an email when your state's final roll is out. Every figure is sourced and every data file is free to download.
offtheroll.in
India's first National Household Travel Survey (NSO, 5 Oct) finds 61.9% of male workers make a daily trip to work, against 41.9% of female workers. The survey counts a trip only if it is longer than 1 km, so work done at home or nearby leaves no record. mospi.gov.in/uploads/latestR…
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
SIR: Over 61,000 Form-7, one third of the total, were filed in the names of EROs/AEROs in Karnataka, with none citing a reason for seeking deletion
More than 53,000 such forms were filed in just the last week of the window for the disposal of notices, which ended on Oct 22
In at least 26 constituencies, ERO/AEROs filed more Form-7 than voters or third parties
Read: thehindu.com/news/national/k…
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
This is her lawyer's car. The right-wing mob outside the Mandir Marg police station was not allowing Neha to enter the gate. So her lawyer was kind enough to safely bring Neha in his car, into the police station. Don't bother asking why the police encouraged this mob though.
Neha Bora is a communist fraud and a failed student who doesn't have a job and only participates in protests, yet she is roaming around in a luxury car worth ₹60–70 lakh.
Hey @Grok, what's her source of income? 🤔
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
Election Commission’s software has made a massive blunder. It’s translating Hindi/Urdu names by treating them as if they were English.
For example, the name was Muhammad Iqbal Beg, but the software turned it into “Mohammad Iqbal Bheek Mangte Hain”.
Another example: A woman’s name was Phool Kali Devi, and the software changed it to “Murkh Kali Devi” .
Absolute chaos, what’s going on?
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
Ok, Prof. Ambani, fair enough. But please clarify this:
“Jo mein khata hoon, woh gai khata hai” — does this mean you eat fodder or your cows eat ‘fafda’? Just curious!
Anant Ambani says he is taking care of 9 Lakh cows, and out those 9 Lakh cows, 7 Lakh cows are very old, and He has hundreds of Cow Ambulances to pick injured cows from across 8 states.
Now liberals will come and say in India Cows are given more importance than Humans
Why can't Ambani adopt 9 Lakh poor childern instead of 9 Lakh cows...
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
🚨MASSIVE BREAKING : Indian Express Just drop HYDROGEN BOMB on Traitor Gyanesh & dictator MODI🔥
(MUST Read & Share)
A voter named Ramhit Yadav went into Gyanesh Kumar's software.
What came out was "Ram ne Yadav ko maara".
This is the voter list of India's most populous state. 💀
→ UP Legislative Council polls: 5 graduate and 6 teacher seats, 14.81 lakh voters.
→ For the first time, online registration was used for these rolls.
→ The software was supposed to just write English names in Hindi script.
→ Instead, it TRANSLATED them. "Ram hit Yadav" became "Ram ne Yadav ko maara".
→ Other entries include "Ram ne Sharma ko maara", "Takkar Marna" and "Moorkh Kali Devi".
→ In one entry, the father's name is written as "B.Com".
→ 158 such entries were left in the final rolls and caught just before polling.
→ UP CEO's own words: "software-related errors and human negligence".
→ There was an edit option to fix this. Nobody checked.
Now connect the dots.
The same system wants to "clean" crores of names in SIR.
It couldn't tell a man's name from a sentence.
It couldn't tell a father from a degree.
And it is this machinery that decides whose vote stays and whose gets cut.
Bro, imagine.
You fill your name online. Your father's name.
On polling day, the list says your father is "B.Com".
The officer looks at you like you're the fraud.
And the system that did this? It's asking for "explanations".
That's not Digital India.
That's Google Translate democracy.
Gyanesh, if your software can't read a name, how is it deciding who is a voter?
Modi, all this "digital" talk, and the result is "Ram ne Yadav ko maara"? 🔥🔥🔥
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
The BJP is so rattled by the INDIA alliance’s 12 October March, under Rahul Ji’s leadership, that it is getting people to convince us to postpone the 1 November Dilli Chalo March.
But let's be clear: the march will happen.
Students, farmers, workers, women and young people - everyone who cares about democracy will come together to raise their voice against Vote Chori.
As for Delhi’s traders, whom the BJP is trying to use as a political tool, they will not only join the march but also benefit from the increased footfall and business it brings to the city.
1 November is not a democratic disruption. It is a pre-emptive celebration of the imminent downfall of the Modi era. And it will be a grand success.
हमारा वोट चुराया जा रहा है और ये हम किसी हाल में चुपचाप नहीं सहेंगे।
मतदाता सूचियों से नाम काटे गए। नियम-कानून तोड़े गए। और सवाल पूछने वालों पर लाठियां चलीं।
अब जवाब देश देगा।
1 नवंबर - चलो दिल्ली।
वोट बचाओ - देश बचाओ जन मार्च और महारैली।
छात्र, किसान, मज़दूर, महिलाएं, नौजवान और व्यापारी - जिस-जिस को लोकतंत्र की फ़िक्र है, वो ज़रूर आए।
वोट आपका है। लड़ाई भी आपकी है।
📍 रामलीला मैदान, नई दिल्ली
PS: BJP और उसके साथियों का दिल से धन्यवाद, जो इस कार्यक्रम का इतना ज़ोर-शोर से प्रचार कर रहे हैं और इसे ज़्यादा से ज़्यादा लोगों तक पहुंचा रहे हैं।
बस अगले 7 दिन भी यही जोश और लगन बनाए रखिए!
#ChaloDilli
#RamlilaMarch
India's 2023-24 consumption survey puts average rural spending at ₹4,122 per person a month. With free rations and other welfare items valued in, it is ₹4,247. Free hospital care and fee waivers are left out of both figures. pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.…
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
IITM’s @moesgoi new lab findings show vehicles contributed 25% of PM 2.5 on Oct 24, while secondary organic aerosols contributed 18.4%. These invisible particles form when gases react in the atmosphere.
As parents, we don’t just see smog, we see it through our children with their coughs & breathing disorders each day. We sure enough need real time data, & source wise accountability but more importantly enforcement on the ground. Knowing the pollution mix is the first step. Acting on it is the real test.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/… via @priyangiTOI @timesofindia
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
I want to thank everyone for engaging with and amplifying this post here and on Instagram (where it went above 1M views) about my junior, Dr Randall Sequeira, a tribal medicine doctor who was jailed for serving adivasi communities in forsaken hills of Odisha and battling corporates looking to destroy the environment.
instagram.com/p/DeuOATzgQIq/…
As a result of our efforts, Dr. Randall was able to speak to his mother over phone from the jail.
I got to know that, the first thing this doctor of the hills, told his mother was "Sorry".
This is mind numbing.
He is apologizing for doing what was right and getting punished for it.
He is apologizing for standing up to destructive powers and apologizing for it.
He is apologizing for making preventative care the norm instead of therapeutic damage control.
What has this country become in the last decade or so?
Doctors have to apologise for serving the underserved.
Public safety advocates have to apologise for trying to save the environment.
Healthcare activists have to apologise for standing up for primary care.
Youth has to apologise for demanding impartiality and quality of life.
On my post, there was a sudden increase in quotes (concentrated on 23 October 2026, around 18:28–19:22 IST), a tightly clustered set of posts that shared a highly uniform style, argument structure, and framing and consisted of accounts that were predominantly:
- Indian, with heavy nationalist/Hindu cultural markers.
- Blue-verified in many cases, with follower counts typically in the low tens of thousands.
- Bios frequently feature: “Proud Indian,” “Nationalist,” “Sanatani,” “Jai Jai Shri Ram” / “जय श्री राम,” Indian flag emojis, “राष्ट्रहित सर्वोपरि,” “कट्टर राष्ट्रवादी,” “Sanatan Dharma,” “Radhey Radhey,” or similar. Examples: @Shrish_1987, @Shankarsingh992, @imRohit_IND, @ShagunX_, @PJha_666.
- Not primarily medical, environmental, or activist accounts, but general political/social media commentators or supporters aligned with pro-government/nationalist narratives.
These accounts are largely supportive of mining corporates Adani and Vedanta and pro-Govt. None of them provided any clear rebuttals.
Nationalism means being proud of the country and not being proud of becoming lapdogs of the government.
In a better world, a doctor wouldn't be jailed for standing up for rights of the underserved and treating them with compassion and empathy.
Idiots claiming Dr. Randall was converting tribals into Christians are thinking and responding from their pelvises, not brains. Religion is the last refuge of scoundrels. And India is full of them. It's a fcking shame.
Medicine is also about environmental health and social justice. It's not just diagnosis and treatment.
The government must release the good doctor and stop criminalizing healthcare activism because it doesn't feed and bulk their greedy interests.
My dear friends, please, I hope to demand your absolute attention to this matter:
In 2018, my junior from St. John’s Medical College, Bengaluru, Dr. Randall Sequeira (middle in the pic), trekked up a steep, bauxite-rich plateau in Odisha to hold a monsoon health camp in the indigenous Kutiya Kondh village of Kutrumali.
In a piece he wrote then titled "Kutrumali’s Demons," Randall described sleeping under a dripping school roof in freezing fog, borrowing utensils from a local health worker to cook khichdi, and waking up at 6 AM to a line of tribal mothers. He wrote with heartbreak about treating malnourished toddlers with protruding bellies and visible ribs, listening to stories of stillbirths and chronic fevers, while noticing the shiny new solar lights installed by a mining conglomerate eyeing the aluminium ore beneath the villagers' feet.
Comparing his small medical team to hobbits sheltering in the night, Randall worried about the outside forces coming for that fragile village.
Randall stayed with the tribal/ adivasi community to serve them. After St. John’s and an MD in Internal Medicine from SMS Jaipur, he gave up every comfort of urban medicine to live in Kalahandi, recognizing that clinical prescriptions are meaningless when indigenous communities are stripped of their forests, water, and dignity.
On the night of October 16, Odisha police picked up Dr. Randall Sequeira and Dalit activist Laxman Naik at 11 PM from his home in Bhawanipatna. A gentle physician who has spent years trekking up hills to save tribal children is now locked in Rayagada sub-jail under frivolous but draconian charges (attempt to murder, dacoity), simply for standing with Adivasis peaceful protesting the mining of their sacred hills in Sijimali and Kutrumali.
thewire.in/rights/randall-se…
Odisha Govt. said it will cut down forests to connect tribal villages. But it was a way to bypass green laws and fast track London based Vedanta’s, and Adani's mining plans. Local organisations estimate that around 45 villages depend on these hills and would be affected.
reporters-collective.in/trc/…
The state has answered with repression rather than dialogue. In the last three years, at least 43 police cases have been filed and over a hundred Adivasis and Dalits, both women and men, have been incarcerated in Odisha jails. For example, from In March and april 2026, 8, 2026, to April 8, 2026, within one month, 24 people were sent to jail, 217 were made accused, and the number of “others” total 1,140. An activist who was not named in the original FIRs, but has since been implicated in about 12 cases, so that bail in one case is followed by arrest in another. This pattern of capture and releases have been used to crush rational dissent.
Dr. Randall understood that being a good doctor means understanding that prescriptions cannot compensate for the denial of land rights, that surgery cannot undo displacement and that no medical can substitute for the basic infrastructure a government has failed to provide.
thehindu.com/sci-tech/health…
To my fellow medical fraternity, and every citizen with a conscience: a kind physician who embodies the highest ethics of our profession is being criminalized to clear the way for bauxite mining. Please do not let his voice be buried in a sub-jail.
Amplify this, demand due process, and demand the immediate release. Please sign in this form to show solidarity: forms.gle/o2Rj2Uu3tXaoWu9dA
If anyone can help out in this situation please reach out to Medico Friend Circle - mfcindia.org/
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
Gen Z across the country is taking to the streets.
In Delhi, it is for education. In Arunachal Pradesh, it is to protect the forests, rivers and ecosystems that the Adi people have depended on for centuries.
From Delhi to Arunachal, the response has been the same: repression. In a chilling reminder of student protests in Delhi, tear gas has been fired at peaceful protesters in Arunachal Pradesh.
The Adi people are a religious and cultural minority whose beliefs and traditions are deeply rooted in the Siang River and adjoining forests they are protesting to protect against the proposed 11,000 MW dam in the Upper Siang region.
Since @AmitShah is busy on thank you calls to Delhi Police, will Minister of Minority Affairs @KirenRijiju kindly explain what he is doing to protect the minority rights of the Adi people in his home state?
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
SCOOP: The Censor Board has had a data breach exposing hundreds of documents from the e-Cinepramaan portal. Application dockets were uploaded in bulk on the Internet Archive by a user with a display ID that of Prasoon Joshi's name in Russian.thehindu.com/sci-tech/techno…
Varna|ورنہ|বর্ণ|வர்ணா retweeted
Wholeheartedly agree. I have only seen @theliverdoc from the medical fraternity tweeting about Dr Sequeira's arrest. Are other medical practitioners such fencesitters that they will not speak up for one of their own?
I’m just venting, so please don’t take offence.
I sincerely appreciate @INCIndia, @saptagiriulaka, @theliverdoc, and the locals for standing by Dr. Randall Sequeria and making every possible effort to help him when it mattered most. Thanks to @surheeta maam for offering legal help.
What is the use of these so-called doctors’ associations if they cannot take a stand for a medicine specialist who sacrificed his comfort to serve the tribals of Sijilami & Kutrumali, Odisha, raise their concerns, and stand by them? He was arrested and slapped with arbitrary charges simply for taking a stand!
This is what the so-called unity of doctors looks like. Is it any wonder that doctors are beaten across the country and so many are denied justice?
I will never forget how no doctors’ association stood by a senior doctor when the system harassed him for fulfilling his fundamental duty as a doctor, not merely engaging in politics. And yes he is still behind bars.
Pic- @IndianExpress & @theliverdoc .
@RahulGandhi
A new NITI Aayog study would raise the rate India uses to value future benefits in public projects from 8% to 9.5%. At that rate, ₹100 of benefit 25 years away counts as about ₹10 today. I wrote about what this means for health and education programmes. xitter.cf/Varna/article/21141884…
