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Pakistan’s recent star turn is the diplomatic equivalent of Cabo Verde winning the World Cup. [My take]
Sadanand Dhume
66.1K posts
Sadanand Dhume
@dhume
CFR Senior Fellow, WSJ Columnist. Author of My Friend the Fanatic.
- Jibes about Modi’s English are tiresome and juvenile. Like many Indians in public life he understands English perfectly well. He does not speak it with the fluency of a native speaker, but so what? English is Modi’s third or fourth language after Gujarati, Hindi and (possibly)Starmer seems to be having a charged discussion with Modi but does Modi understand any of it? I guess he was intelligent enough this time to prevent himself from laughing out loud, done when he has no clue. Do Indians deserve to watch this clown show?
- Just listened to a Twitter Spaces interaction where more than 150k people tuned in to listen to Imran Khan. PTI’s social media game seems streets ahead of its rivals, though how much this matters in elections is an open question.
- You don’t have to be an Imran Khan supporter to acknowledge the glaringly obvious fact that he won the people’s mandate fair and square. Hard to respect any commentator or journalist who can’t acknowledge this upfront. #PakistanElection #PakistanElection2024
- I’m on a bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. The guy next to me is sipping an iced coffee from Starbucks and watching a video of Milan Fashion Week on his iPhone—with the volume off. It’s dark outside. The only sounds are of the speeding Shinkansen, though occasionally I catch the
- If you’re in India, please let me know if you can see this tweet. Thanks.
- There’s nothing wrong with a Muslim man marrying a Hindu woman. There’s also nothing wrong with a Muslim woman marrying a Hindu man. If your first instinct is to call the cops on someone promoting interfaith marriage, then you’re not a liberal. You’re probably a religious bigot.
- .@Malala deserved to be applauded when she took bullets for speaking up for girls’ education in Pakistan. She deserves to be applauded for speaking up for human rights in Kashmir. The color of her passport is irrelevant.
- What do Rihanna, Greta Thunberg and Meena Harris have in common? All of them are wrong about India’s farm laws. [My take] #farmersprotest
- The Indian Supreme Court may jail or fine the lawyer @pbhushan1 for this tweet. If it does so it will: 1. Prove his point. 2. Become a laughing stock around the world.
- 1. Nobody mocked Covaxin. They asked why it was hastily cleared without completing trials. 2. BJP should care less about India getting “its own” vaccine, more about vaccinating people quickly. Lives matter more than posturing. 3. Vaccine shortage, not hesitancy, is the problem.India was among the first to get its own vaccine. Opposition mocked it, promoted vaccine hesitancy. Now after the second surge, everyone wants the jab. But there is only so much production capacity. Vaccine isn’t jam that anyone can produce. So we have to schedule and prioritise.
- If @RahulGandhi had @SachinPilot’s political skills—poise, ambition, hard work, verbal ability and personal warmth—Congress would not be on the skids today. For how long can any party survive by putting lipstick on a pig?
- Both true: 1. Modi’s response to Pulwama attack is much stronger than Manmohan Singh’s to 2008 Mumbai attacks. 2. India’s restraint in 2008 helps it sell its post-Pulwama response. On the world stage, MMS earned India moral capital that Modi is now spending. #IndiaStrikesPakistan
- BJP in 2013: Weak rupee = weak leader. BJP in 2018: You need to understand the complex interplay of Federal Reserve policies and emerging market currency risk profiles while appreciating expanded export opportunities provided by changes in global interest rate regimes. #RupeeAt70
