Hafta letters: Bad corporate culture, swearing on Hafta, India’s youth and future

I saw NL’s video on the protest in support of Nasrallah. I felt very odd as many Muslims looked up to Nasrallah and called him innocent.

Groups like Hezbollah and Iran’s axis of resistance use violence in the name of god. This is worse than America that uses violence for geopolitical and capitalist means.

The ayatollah derives his power from divinity. Modi just made one reference that he has godly power and it sounded so idiotic but the ayatollah has been doing this since 1979.

It is unfortunate that Iran and its axis have managed to find sympathy among Indian Muslims specifically the Shia community.

Iran has nothing but political Islam to offer for Indian Muslims, any support towards such groups should be condemned.

T-800

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As a student at Delhi University, I witness firsthand how the veneer of youthful idealism often crumbles over petty squabbles. It’s not uncommon to see people beating each other up over the smallest disagreements, and what’s worse, at the end of every farewell or function, the inevitable chants of “Jai Shri Ram” echo through the air like some grim punctuation mark. This isn’t the spirit of unity or intellectual growth we were promised; it’s a sad reflection of where we are as a nation. Manisha’s observation about Bangladesh feels uncomfortably close to home. The expectation that youth, by virtue of their age, should possess a progressive mindset is a romantic fantasy. If anything, the young seem to be more inclined to emotional extremism, easily swayed by rhetoric. The reality is that fanaticism doesn’t discriminate by age, and the rising tide of intolerance we see in India today reveals just how far we’ve drifted from critical thinking and intellectual inquiry.

Noaman Khan

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Congratulations NL and Srinivasan Jain for the reports from Israel!

I have been following the investigative reporting of NY Times on labour conditions in Maharashtra sugar mills:

1) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/11/world/europe/india-sugar-worker-abuse-maharashtra-politicians.html

2) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/24/world/asia/india-sugar-cane-fields-child-labor-hysterectomies.html

It is disappointing to see no coverage of this in Indian media. Can NL collaborate with PARI or have journalists like P Sainath on the Hafta panel to shed light on this and similar agrarian issues?

Swetha Godavarthi 

***

Excellent reporting by Sreenivasan Jain from Israel and Gaza (episode 506)! In the US, the only thing between The Fat Orange Pimp (FOP) and the presidency is us – the people! Hopefully Jain will also talk with coalitions, community organisers, political leaders opposing FOP in Jain's US election report. As always, thank you Newslaundry!

Rakesh

***

I subscribed to NL during the elections because it helped make sense of a bizarre few months in Indian politics. This was after years of not subscribing because every time I read NL. all I could think about was that this was the place that had birthed and given credence to Anand Ranganathan. 

Now I greatly appreciate that NL is so self-aware and accepting of criticism so I was deeply disappointed by your article on Ratan Tata. It’s fine to praise him but to say without any qualifier that he lived a very austere life and all his money went to NGOs without putting any stats or any links to any reports outlining these things is just PR. Since Anand loves playing devil’s advocate and bringing up points that are not covered elsewhere, what new perspectives did his obit provide that hadn’t been covered elsewhere and Tata press releases? 

Anyway love the work you do but this kind of aggressive centrism always gets my goat. Exactly what Ranganathan used to do.

Aakash

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It is disheartening to note that the reason for not predicting the Haryana polls right is due to deep-rooted caste politics and not attributed to EVM. When votes are not tallied with VVPATS they are definitely suspect. No democracy is using EVMs like we do in the world. These points also need to be forthrightly conveyed.

Somanath

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Hi Team NL, 

You guys discussed protein at the end of the previous podcast. I would like to point you or anybody interested to an article in The Hindu titled “The many myths about protein deficiency in India” by Anura Kurpad and Harshpal Singh Sachdev published on October 13, the day after your Hafta podcast. It’s an interesting read about the myths around protein especially in infants and people who work out. Hope it is helpful to you and your subscribers. Great work. Thank you.

Chetan

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Hello and greetings of Bijoya Dashami to the entire team.

Had a small request. For urban office goers/business people, could you have a separate section on the app/website catering to mental health space, spirituality (not religion), or ergonomics? This will help us since we would be getting articles from credible sources and will help in website engagement as well.

Kunal

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Letter 1

Hey all, as a corporate employee myself, wanted to weigh in on the working hours debate that has been in discussion recently. The work that we put in is not high stakes and is catering to made-up emergencies which makes it very difficult for an employee to digest the reasoning of the hours that we put in and the tradeoff with our personal lives.

Also the environment in which all of this is happening matters a lot, I think the fatigue is coming in more from the unempathetic environment and micromanagement. If employees are trusted with their tasks and only judged on the outcome rather than the hours spent in office or the bootlicking competitions or their availability on weekends (even if there are no urgent tasks), I believe much of this added stress will die down.

Letter 2

I had more to say, so continuing my letter here :)

With the recent TCS case where an employee was fired because she spoke about harassment online and also the HSBC case, I think if we have the resources or connections, we should do a story on what action has been taken in harassment cases reported in corporates. 

Because from what I have seen in various companies (that includes the big corporates known for their “great culture”), I believe the case is heard and acted upon keeping the power dynamics in mind. If a person bringing in business for the company is accused of something, they are being retained with a slap on a wrist or a warning which results in the complainant still sharing the office space with them and finally in the complainant’s resignation because changing workplace is easier than fighting through this. This is just an idea in case you come across people who have been through this.

Love the work you all put in ❣️ thank you!

Jyotsna

***

Hey, this is my third letter, hope this gets read.

INC got a deserved defeat at Haryana elections. They forgot what worked in the last campaigns. RaGa wasn’t seen with his pocket constitution. INC thought they could win by supporting the powerful castes in this election and it backfired.

My last letter was about the Supreme Court’s sub categorisation judgement and comments contradicting reality. They repeated “empirical data” but made judgement with no data. If I’m doing something wrong in sending the letter, please let me know.

Vishnu

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Hi NL team, the recent escalation in the already soured India-Canada relations has reached bizarre levels. While I believe that the Indian foreign ministry’s hand has been fairly poor in handling Canada in recent years, this time the Canadian side’s allegation of Indian agents colluding with the Bishnoi gang against Canadian citizens is next-level absurd (straight out of Bollywood). 

Now, the discomfort of the Indian government with the pro-Khalistan elements in Canadian polity is understandable, yet I don't think our recent policy of completely antagonising this historically friendly and soft state (with sizable Indian diaspora) serves any long term purpose. The whole situation since July 2022 required an intricate hand of diplomacy but alas, the right honourable External Affairs Minister is more concerned with providing YouTube shorts-worthy content and punchy one-liners. In fact that appears to be our general foreign policy outlook since 2019.

Vatsal

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I have contributed to a few NL Senas. As I only listen to Hafta, I don’t get to consume a lot of the reportage. It is great that you talk a little bit about it in Hafta, especially the discussion with Sreenivasan Jain.

One of the things about Daily Dose was that it was put out towards the second half of the day, and most is usually known by the time it goes live. Would be great if the NL Sena reportage can be shared in something like Daily Dose. 

Great job!

Anonymous

***

Letter 1

Dear NL Team,

First, I would like to say that the Hafta has just about the right amount of “fucks” in the episode. It makes the show not only realistic but keeps it honest. If you need to add an R rating for language, so be it. 

Secondly, if we have not learnt anything “NEW” from Vasu’s visit, it’s better we don’t get sucked in covering only one well-published war zone among the many that are taking place around the world. 

Letter 2

Hello,

This is my second feedback. Hopefully it will be included in the podcast. I want to know the schedule for Vasu in the US. Is he visiting Houston? 

Thank you for having Sanjay Kumar. It was insightful to know the nuances behind the scenes in post-election polling. I have always wondered where analysts get the data about which caste/community voted for which candidate/party if voting is a closed ballot exercise. Is it all guesswork based on voting percentages or just based on exit survey data?

Letter 3

I’ve been a subscriber of NL for two or three years and it’s my go-to source for authentic news. Thank you for being so awesome. This is my first letter in response to episode 505 about working conditions. 

I disagree with Abhinandan’s statement that working conditions in the US are as bad as India. Having worked in both countries, there’s a clear difference. While people in the US do work long hours, the work-life balance is much better. In India, employees may spend 10-12 hours at work but only truly work for 6-8 hours. In the US, there’s less time wasted, and people often work fewer hours (8-9) but more efficiently. Once off work, most can enjoy personal time without harassment from bosses. 

Also, I don’t understand why full Hafta episodes include repeated subscription requests, given that they’re only available to subscribers. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus these appeals on Chota Hafta only, which is freely available on YouTube and free podcasts?

Amit Airon

***

Damn, Abhi,

Are you guys so naive? Is it this easy to fool you guys?

Last Hafta, you were taking stats from Kamala’s website. Seriously!?! You are serious news folks, no? I mean of course she’ll want to show herself lagging just a little to make people give hope that she can win, but at the same time make them come out and actually vote for her.

Here, a guy whose major news source before NL was Dhruv Rathee, can suggest you go and look up this poll by Reuters. It’s not a matter of left and right, a friend of mine from the US once told me a joke:

You know how to tell a politician is lying? You can see their lips moving.

On a side note, keep the Hafta banter going. I tune in every week despite my approaching exams. Every week I say “not this week” but I end up watching at least some parts. 

Shivam Tyagi

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Letter 1

I want to write on the topic of “plagiarism done by Dr Radhakrishnan”. I have found that these allegations are mostly circulated by people in the left-progressive circles, especially Ambedkarites. And I also see that no one in the mainstream writes on this. That is why this allegation refuses to die down. Anand also did not address this properly in the last Hafta. 

In this mail I will paraphrase what is said in the biographies on Radhakrishnan, namely Radhakrishnan: A Religious Biography and Radhakrishnan: His Life and Ideas. 

First, Jadunath Sinha, in an article in Modern Review in 1929 accused Radhakrishnan of plagiarising passages from his thesis published in 1925. Radhakrishnan responded by saying that both he and Sinha used the same texts and hence similarities in their translations was unavoidable. Moreover, Radhakrishnan had been lecturing on the subject circulating notes of his book 1922, three years before Sinha thesis publication.  

The fact that Radhakrishnan was lecturing and distributing notes was corroborated by his colleagues but their responses were not published by the Modern Review editor. Radhakrishnan's publisher also confirmed that publication of Radhakrishnan's book was delayed by three years. But his response was also not published. 

It is speculated that many academics and the editor of Modern Review were unhappy that Radhakrishnan, a Tamilian, held a prestigious chair at the University of Calcutta, and not a Bengali. After a series of suing and countersuing, the matter was settled out of court and all allegations against Radhakrishnan published in Modern Review were retracted. I am not claiming that either party was the bad guy, but such a nuanced episode is presented in such a black and white manner by left-progressive people sickens me to the core. This is their version of WhatsApp university. 

AK

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Going through your recent coverage on the conditions of Kashmiri life under Delhi's control, is it fair to make a comparison between the Indian rule of Kashmir and British rule of India? I know that my fellow Indians will be outraged at even my insinuation that the Indian government is acting like the British Raj. 

Would you be interested in doing a financial analysis of the Indian government’s spending on security in Kashmir? So maybe, if not the moral stain it is causing to our society, they will understand the huge financial drain this is causing us without producing any results.

How long can we continue spending billions of $ on continuing what is now essentially a police state? If we're not winning the hearts and minds of Kashmiris, there is no end to this. I am not making any anti-national seditious statements. This is what Dr Ambedkar advocated for in his election manifesto of the Scheduled Castes Federation – “Kashmir to be partitioned – the Muslim area to go to Pakistan (subject to the wishes of the Kashmiris living in the Valley) and the non-Muslim area consisting of Jammu and Ladakh to come to India”.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/bjp-says-ambedkar-opposed-article-370-proof-shows-the-opposite/cid/1702839

Karthik

***

I watched Basant Kumar’s Smart City video story. Kudos to the reportage! 

Our area is in Delhi but the condition for roads here has not changed since the last 25 yrs and the condition is the worst . One can face a slipped disc if one treads a bit carelessly on it. We have seen all sorts of governments in power here (be it BJP, AAP, Congress), the quality of materials used for roads is so bad that they literally chip off within four days. 

In our area, some piece of land was allotted for a hospital when I was in school. Before Covid, not a single piece of brick was laid for the hospital and after Covid, there is some work that has been done but not yet completed. Currently work is stagnant.

After so much technological advancement and money that the government put in infrastructure, it is deplorable to see still asking for roads and hospitals.

In the Hafta 503, there was discussion on what is toxic culture. I am a PhD student from IIT. Supervisors verbally heckle their students if asked for a holiday on national holidays and they sometimes grant the day off but mostly ask us to come a little late to the lab. If they grant two days off because you are homesick or unwell, you are unnecessarily scolded for a month if anything goes wrong in your work or get unsuccessful results. 

We have raised these issues with higher authority but the dilemma is people in authority endorse this issue. This is like an open secret.  

What are your views on this?

Anonymous

***

Hello NL team, this is Harjot. 

I am a BTech engineering student from a Tier 3 college in UP and a consistent listener of Hafta for a while now. I want to thank you for all the journalism that you do and also for the student subscription. I genuinely appreciate it. 

I want to share some incidents. Quite a few times, in my college, there'll be crowds of students (mostly men) chanting “Jai Shree Ram” very aggressively, unprovoked, inside the campus which I find quite scary. 

Also, funny thing, but also sad if you think about it, the whole route to my college was filled with Bhagwa flags and they got removed during G20, and now they are back again. 

More disturbingly, there are students AND faculty in my college who believe things like 1 dollar = 26 rupees along with many other such “facts”; and there was a particularly insane incident where a teacher came to teach a technical subject but just rattled off about how we were a great country once and also spewed things like why sati was a good practice (this was during election season). And a lot of students in my class agreed. 

Even if I leave my college, I see a trend of being proud of one’s religion and displaying it aggressively and commonly and portraying it as the greatest thing ever, not only from boomers, but also from very young people, people who can fact check stuff very easily if they want. Why do you think, despite it being very easy to counter such fake “facts”, that there are a lot of young people especially, who choose to move towards religious conservatism instead of being open-minded?

PS: Sorry for obliterating the word limit.

Harjot 

***

Letter 1

Regarding Joyojeet's comments on Kamala about how her agenda isn't very clear and how she is trying to pander to everyone, I would like to highlight how American politics has been consistently shifting towards the right. 

Medicare is not on the agenda anymore which was a hot topic during 2016 and 2020 or, as the panel mentioned, her changed stance on fracking. Republicans constantly shift the policy to the right, and Democrats have done little to move it back to the centre. We are at the point where even Democrats are saying the same anti-immigration talking points that Republicans used to say 10 years ago, and a bill to release funds to Ukraine and Israel also ends up including a section for stronger borders.

As for women's rights, while I agree that a Republican presidency would be disastrous when it comes to abortion rights, both Obama and Biden had promised to codify Roe Vs Wade, failed to do so, and eventually it got overturned. 

Letter 2

Regarding the west's coverage of Israel/Palestine, I agree with Jayashree that there is a definitive bias in how certain events are reported based on who is the victim and the perpetrator. 9/11 would never have been described as a “tactical genius” move. Every western media outlet has the same jargon, Israelis get “murdered” and Palestinians simply “die”. Looking forward to NL's report from Israel, love you guys, waiting for Hafta and Charcha is the highlight of my Saturday afternoon. Sorry for exceeding the word limit again, I really tried to keep it short.

Joe

***

In a recent case, a Dalit boy missed admission to IIT because the server crashed three minutes before the deadline. His family needed time to borrow money for fees since they are BPL. The CJI made a multi-step judgement to check if something can be done.

In the case of sub-cat, the judgement was absolute when there is little to no data. The case contradicts the Supreme Court on the creamy layer, second-generation, privileged SC/ST hogging seats. There are way more cases. Reserved seats are empty because of lack of qualified candidates or they’re “not found suitable” even if qualified. 

The CJI said efficiency shouldn’t be affected by reservation. There was a study on Railways that proved efficiency isn’t affected. The SC on sub-cat is uninformed and disingenuous. It ignored casteism, facts and reason. Reservation is for representation, not poverty alleviation. Few jobs from reservation won’t solve the poverty of 20 percent of Indians. There are suicides due to caste discrimination, from students to IPS officers. But SC says casteism is over.

Vishnu

***

Letter 1

Hi NL team,  

I listen to Hafta avidly and find the conversations very enriching.

However, was dismayed by Hafta 503. The panel's opinions on EY employee dying and private sector work culture lacked perspective. Bringing up the plight of the unorganised sector when the point of discussion is MNC workers feels like a form of what-aboutery. 

Yes, gig workers and military personnel have it way worse, and their issues should be discussed separately. The previous generation had it tougher in a nascent economy, but that doesn't justify the present oppression too. 

Speaking from personal experience, we have no protection from government, our bosses claim that we have “flexibility” but that quickly turns into working till 11 pm and on weekends – leading to deteriorating mental (to the point of severe clinical depression and even suicide). 

Letter 2

Women bear the worst brunt of it, because most of us are also primary caregivers. Men may still afford to slog for long hours because they're freer from household responsibility, resulting in women being underpaid or not getting well-deserved promotions. 

WFH has been snatched, simply because state governments collude with companies to have butts in seats and jack up real estate (For perspective, Bangalore residents are forced to pay more than Rs 60,000 per month as rent for a mere 2BHK). This should even be an election issue, because we commute for four hours a day on very poorly constructed roads even after paying heavy taxes.

I was even hoping that independent media like Newslaundry would investigate why so many companies took a u-turn and retracted their WFH policies when it is a free benefit that employees can be provided with. Is it because of tax breaks or just politicians?

Anonymous

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Letter 1

I think the view of NL Hafta on the Israel conflict misses the grey areas. Wars, especially urban warfare, are brutal affairs. My problem with Israel is not the way they are conducting the war. They are tactically brilliant but have no long term solutions. Netanyahu is a good warlord but not a statesman. He's been a hindrance to a solution for almost three decades. Israel should have formally taken control of the administration as an occupying army and even invited foreign peacekeepers to help during a transition period to find a permanent solution.

Also the (left) criticism on Israel: While I understand, it ignores the brutal conflicts that have the brutal civil war under Assad or the fact that Gaza was ruled by Hamas or the malignant influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon or even Iran's regime. I agree that the way Israel treats Palestinians even prior to this conflict in open prisons should never be accepted but also, at same time, Israel is not targeting people who are offering them roses.

Letter 2

My other thing is on Modi's discovery that decisions should be data-driven. It got me thinking that I have never seen an Indian politician ever make a presentation on their systematic approach to decision making. Typically in an organisation this would involve:

1) Identifying the problem

2) Analysing the problem

3) Solutions to the problem

4) Resources required to implement the solution

5) What their expectations on the upside are if the solution is implemented

6) Potential risks and mitigation

Essentially beyond rhetoric, I have never seen an Indian politician say “I have a plan” and seek votes on that basis. I believe this would be a good way for the opposition to differentiate themselves, like how they would deal with a particular problem compared to the government.

Kishan

***

Letter 1

Miscellaneous feedback from the last week's Hafta. Arabs are listed as white in US census and still discriminated against. So US refuses to collect any data about US Arab population to benefit them in state schemes unlike other minorities. Laila lalami's Conditional Citizen book has very interesting insights on this, how the early fair complexioned Arabs were acceptable to the US white but soon after when brown complexioned Arabs started to migrate how USA changed their migration policies to stop their migration. In related discussion there is also hesitation to associate northern African nations suach as Morocco and Egypt as Africans due to their comparatively lighter complexion.

Letter 2

Vijay Prashad's Karma of Brown Folk debunks the narrative of Indian Americans being a model minority who is rich and affluent. The majority of Indians in the USA are actually blue collared workers. And regarding the discussion about Indian lobby in US politics, the book calls out that despite remarkable examples set by Indian Americans such as the Ghadar movement in early 20th century or the more recent New York Taxi Union strikes, Indians have mostly wanted to stay away from grassroots politics in US, while reaping benefits from civil rights movements led by others. The biggest reason being that most Indian migrants believe they would someday return back to India so as long as they are in the US, whatever happens outside their house is best treated by being indifferent to it.  

Letter 3

In response to Abhinandan's remark about Indian youth being fragile etc. I am in my early 30s. As long as I was in college (2013 when Modi's murderer image being polished) , I believed that youth will change everything wrong in India. As soon as I left college, also when social media was picking up, and started seeing how conservative(or bigoted) my fellow age group was (based on their Facebook activities). It was a heart breaking realization how conservative Indian youth was. Now I am a believer that relying on "Young Generation" is not a magic pill. Bigotry in older generation will reap bigotry in the younger generation. This is also true world wide. From the settlers in west bank,  to the cow vigilantes in India, to the privileged racist American Indians, there are innumerable young people who are no better than previous generation.

Letter 4

In response to Abhinandan's comment on how he checks his glucose levels every afternoon. I consider myself an "aware and educated" person, am 33 year old, educated and living in the US now. My mother is diabetic. Unfortunately, I did not know how harmful our common eating practices are. For example, our obsession with chai and biscuit, our obsession with "mithai" especially when guests come home, our exposure to sugar levels. I think we need a lot more awareness on how these eating habits are considered "harmless" and "customary", and how certain or most branding of products is deceitful and peddles sugar in the name of healthy products. 

Jugraj

***

This sounds quite trivial a point to make so please forgive me for making it but on one of the recent podcasts in response to someone saying that NL should have independent bookstore links, Manisha claimed “I love Amazon”. 

I get it was a throwaway comment and I use Amazon as much as the next guy but these billionaires who run warehouses where workers have to use diapers because they aren't allowed toilet breaks are celebrated enough all over the place. Everywhere you look, some new business dude has become a thought leader and is on a podcast talking about their views on everything under the sun. So please at least in one of the independent places we have, can we not continue doing that?

Just another quibble with Abhinandan's point that young people can't be leaders because they've seen the world. I agree with this thought but let's not kid ourselves that our “correct aged” politicians are doing a great job because of their experience.

Aakash

***

Hi team, writing this on the Gandhi Jayanti. 

I feel in today's time Gandhi's reputation in India is at a lower ebb, the liberal side is busy cancelling him for his various beliefs and acts and well not much to say about the right wing anyway. Personally I feel it is a great disservice to the man that his writings, philosophy, etc are taken with little to no context to discredit him. 

If people try and read him or several of the works written around him I think there is much to learn for every generation. While I do admit much of the disillusionment is also an after product of the overdeification by Congress after his death. Also, some of his experiments such as the ones with celibacy are deeply problematic. Yet, I would say there is still a lot to take away from his life.  Seeing a reasonable crowd and a lot of foreigners at Gandhi Smriti on my recent visit also made me think that perhaps Gandhi will live on, no matter how much Godse trends on twitter today.

Vatsal 

***

In the last podcast Abhinandan referred to the debate between Mehdi Hassan and Eylon Levi. I saw that debate myself afterwards.

In my view, debates are not as good a medium as podcasts for such discussions and with people clapping and shouting like cheerleaders, debates have become a wrestling contest nowadays.

Mehdi has written a book about never losing a debate, made it a game, winning is all that matters. He also played psychological tricks in this debate. Like a particular family he kept referring to, there is a mental bias where the first casualty will register deep pain whereas next 1,000 will not pain in the same proportion and will only register as a number. Media outlets also exploit this bias.

Further, I advise you to watch the debate between Mehdi and Richard Dawkins, your high opinion about Mehdi will rationalise.

Mehdi and Levi both made genuine and absurd comments but in matters like these, there is no real winner.

Dheeraj

***

I hesitate to contribute to the Palestine NL Sena project. Firstly, the access to the just-released Part 1 is ‘restricted’ because the video is hosted on YouTube and I refuse to log into it. I pay to subscribe to you and not google. It's unjust to expect me to surrender my data just because of Big Daddy Google's whims. 

I am wary of many of your webforms and videos hosted on Google/Amazon/Microsoft when their data thuggery is well known. They should be hosted independent of monopolistic mega-corporations and only additionally uploaded to these platforms if it helps your reach. 

Secondly, please reconsider branding the situation in Palestine as #IsraelGazaWar. When Pakistan attacks our country, it is not #PakPunjabWar or #PakKashmirWar. Just as an attack on any part of India is an attack on all of us, Palestine deserves to have its territorial integrity honoured too, not subject to the terminology vomited out by the Zionist entity. Happy to contribute if you consider fixing these issues. 

Parit24

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