Manitka's Menagerie

This video by the BBC India bureau is pretty distressing and summarises the issue quite effectively: supplies, infrastructure, vaccines.

A crowdsourced list of fundraisers to donate (<FF> for campaigns that accept foreign funds, I'm also matching donations upto Rs 20000, DM)

If you have time this weekend: volunteer to collect information of the status of beds

Unfortunately, money will not solve all of India's problems. This is the activism I'd encourage you to pursue if you're not Indian:

1. The United States refuses to lift a export raw material ban on vaccine products even temporarily. Note that India exported 60 million doses of Astra Zeneca abroad before this crisis.

2. Angela Merkel threatens future retaliation against India for focusing on domestic vaccines.

3. There's also a WTO bill that would waive patent monopolies *temporarily* in addressing COVID

I call all of this genocidal colonialism by another name. Please organise. India is the producer of vaccines and pharma that is intended to go to middle and low income countries, as long as the crisis continues here, it will have knock on effects in South America and Africa. The virus mutating through 1 billion people will get deadlier and find you too, so it's probably in your self interest.

Campaign #PeoplesVaccine to support the WTO bill

Countrywise:

If you live in the US: find your reps here & email them, alternatively (thanks @ataratah) Text "SIGN PKSLVL" to the RESISTBOT (50409) to get on the petition and send a letter to your reps to lift the embargo. It's super quick and you don't have to be eloquent or talk to a single human!

If you live in Australia: find your reps here & email them

If you live in Canada: find your reps here & email them

If you live in the UK: petition to sign (on 500/10000 signatures)

If you are a citizen of the EU: (thanks @kureha-fujishima) Sign this initiative before 1/05/2021, more details here

"Gender revealers" used 40X the amount of recommended explosive and could have destroyed a tank.

Tweet 1 | Tweet 2

Explosion that rattled several New Hampshire towns believed to be from gender reveal party

In related news, STOP DOING GENDER REVEAL PARTIES.

Let the kids reveal their gender TO YOU when they're ready, not the other way around.

But the only place I’ve had someone physically try to remove me from a bathroom was in London.

Some random middle aged woman thought that she had the right to put her hands on me simply because I don’t match her ideas of what femininity is, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened in a place where transphobia is running rampant. Of all the weird stuff that’s happened to me in pretty conservative parts of the US, they simply are not as emboldened here as they currently are in the UK; but don’t think for a moment that they don’t intend to get there.

Trans people are reason enough to fight these bigots. It’s a good enough reason. Trans people deserve respect, dignity, compassion, and protection. But if you think they’ll be satisfied with only pushing trans people back into the closet, you’re utterly deluded. They want absolute conformity, simple as that, and they’re increasing their push here too.