Goa Writer + Born-again Bombayite https://xitter.cf/t.co/i3QaRQX18g
Goa
Joined March 2009
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I found this incredibly frustrating, @pbmehta. You tell her that exams and votes are the ‘two pillars of individual agency.’ And that gives Polgreen the rope on which to hang her big India story as one of frustrated aspirations and political democracy.
Yet the fundamental problem generating the exams and votes pillars of the failed politico-economic order is totally ignored. The NYTimes reader never learns about the jobs crisis that is responsible for the narrow ladder (exams) and the clientelism of Indian politics (votes).
25 million people applied for 90 thousand positions in the Indian railways. More than half a million applied for 583 positions to enforce alcohol regulations. 26 percent of 15-24 year olds are neither in school or working. India’s female labor force participation is 35 percent. Only 12 percent of working age adults are employed in the formal sector. The bulk of the populace is underemployed in low-productivity informal sector activities like hawking vegetables on the street.
This is a crisis of gargantuan proportions. The desperate pressure on the kids to score well in exams and the deep clientelism of Indian politics are both *causally downstream* of this jobs crisis.
Why has the Indian economy failed to produce jobs for its people so systematically and comprehensively? This is the fundamental problem of the Indian republic. Everything else pales in comparison. nytimes.com/2026/10/26/opini…
Vivek Menezes retweeted
The mandate was ambitious, with a grand promise to transform Panaji into a modern urban city through a ₹1,100 crore Smart City Mission. Instead, Panaji today stands as a masterclass in urban misdirection and traffic chaos, and a case study on how hundreds of crores of public money appear to have dissolved into crumbling concrete, missing files and broken promises. Read this and more in @timesofindia @TOIGoaNews
Vivek Menezes retweeted
"The short, surreal political life of @VivekGRamaswamy is nearly over, but carries useful lessons for the Indian diaspora, as well as the future of American politics..."
my Sunday @oheraldogoa Op/Ed: heraldgoa.in/edit/make-vivek…
Vivek Menezes retweeted
"One big takeaway from @VivekGRamaswamy's disastrous tryst with the MAGA looney bin is that it does not work to try and pretend you blend in as one of them..."
my Sunday @oheraldogoa Op/Ed: heraldgoa.in/edit/make-vivek…
Vivek Menezes retweeted
On one of the last days of grad school, when we were partying/drinking, an Indian-origin American classmate in the US - an avowed Republican, was told by another right-wing student (white) that he needed to go back where he came from! He was shocked 🤷♀️ but let it slide, cos drunk
"The short, surreal political life of @VivekGRamaswamy is nearly over, but carries useful lessons for the Indian diaspora, as well as the future of American politics..."
my Sunday @oheraldogoa Op/Ed: heraldgoa.in/edit/make-vivek…
"One big takeaway from @VivekGRamaswamy's disastrous tryst with the MAGA looney bin is that it does not work to try and pretend you blend in as one of them..."
my Sunday @oheraldogoa Op/Ed: heraldgoa.in/edit/make-vivek…
Vivek Menezes retweeted
At this year’s @litlivemumbai , I shall be in conversation with Naresh Fernandes, the brilliant editor of @scroll_in . The session is titled “Gandhi Matters”, and will be held at the NCPA’s Experimental Theatre, 24th October, 630 pm onwards.
@tajmahalfoxtrot
Vivek Menezes retweeted
The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
Vivek Menezes retweeted
Kerala a regional beacon of light on world map of library density. Fascinating how deep roots of human capital development shine through almost anywhere you look.
Vivek Menezes retweeted
Why do candidates like Abdul El-Sayed and Zohran Mamdani have to keep proving they’re not a collection of stereotypes? @realmoamer dives into the Islamophobia running rampant in American politics
fascinating stuff here
Happy to share that my research article on the maternal genetic landscape of Konkani population is now published in @HeredityJournal. I have summarised it on my blog. There is a shareable full paper link at the end. popgenworld.blogspot.com/202…
the unique Konkani genetic landscape "is the product of a grand historical convergence: Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer roots, post-LGM climate recoveries, prehistoric migrations across the trans-Indo-Iranian coastal corridor, and centuries of structured social traditions..."
Happy to share that my research article on the maternal genetic landscape of Konkani population is now published in @HeredityJournal. I have summarised it on my blog. There is a shareable full paper link at the end. popgenworld.blogspot.com/202…
