Weekly Note 29 | The Madras Legislative Council, Archives, Coconuts, Siblings and running

We let ourselves be carried by a full stomach’s tug. It was a cheery sunday morning after breakfast in Ulsoor. Like a broad piece of paper in the wind, we swayed through a few streets of Indiranagar, two friends of mine and me. We came across this fallen tree or what looks like 4 or 5 trees that have blended their lives together. This phenomenon is apparently called inosculation by botanists, or as this blog puts it - love trees. I’ve seen many trees fallen and trunkless in this monsoon. Their fates parched of a future by our love - concrete. This week, Aman and Vivek’s work with the Censor Board Certifactes, brought Vivek to archiving Censor Certificates on Archive.org. This prompted me to suggest that we archive Lok Sabha records outside of the state owned site. This was a few reasons: They are vulnerable sitting within silos, and can often disappear when administrations change or modify digital locations. They sit in silos and are not available as indexed material to search and find, and thus do not contribute to public knowledge easily. Old LS debates pre 70’s are not reliably available…This prompted Vivek to start archiving both the LS recordsand began looking at Vidhan Sabhas (State Assemblies). Starting with Karnataka, Kerala and theKarnataka State Archives. This prompted me to look at the TN legislative Assembly records. Did you know that TN has a unicamarel parliament? There is noupper sabha…no RS, no legislative council. You can see this happening here: at my profile. Vivek says that the Archive.org API can be better documented, upload speeds appear slow and collections can only be created by Admin. ...

July 19, 2025 · adhavan