Issue 5: Medium cut karo, right side thoda zyaada.

The scary rise of morons, Trump buffoonery, Indian outrage, climate change doom, a new phone… Basically, nothing new.

Bhaiyya, aage se right.
You probably know by now that the world is increasingly getting insular. Heck, even Australia and New Zealand - beacons of happy-go-lucky - are clamping down on immigration. The epicenter of this whole thing now, of course, is Europe. If you don’t know political terminology, just remember: when you see the words ‘far-right party winning’, just hope that the context is Zomato rating the nightlife of the club on the East side of the road. The alternative is a bunch of xenophobic, narrow-minded buffoons who leverage people’s gullibility for their own gains. While The Netherlands dodged that bullet, something more important happens this weekend - France go to the polls in a contest that’s so tight it’s begging for Ravi Shastri’s commentary. TL;DR: If the far-right Marine Le Pen (who’s not so much a Euroskeptic as much as a GetthefuckoutofEuro), wins the elections, it could be a body blow for the EU since France was a founding member. No matter who wins there, Putin will be happy - and that’s a line that’s right up there on the Oh Shit! scale, along with ‘Bangkok is banning street food’ and ‘Ed Sherean released a new album’. Stay indoors.

Here’s some left to balance all that right out
Cheerful news from Venezuela - they’re moving closer to a one-man rule after doing to the legislature what water does to salt - dissolve it (not at all clever, we know). Despite being oil-rich, the country is in turmoil (with its currency starting to be Zimbabwe-esque, an adjective you don’t ever want to be associated with except if talking about the quality of wicketkeeper-batsmen), Caracas has the title of being the most dangerous city in the world… All of which make you do that thinking emoji wondering how on Earth it made this list.

Erdogains
Turkey’s public basically voted to give the President, Recep Erdogan, more power. The main worry is that giving 18 constitutional amendments to a man increasingly liking the sound of his own voice might be a little bit like accidentally giving your mobile number to PolicyBazaar. It probably sounds like a good, and possibly required, idea on paper - but it’s going to come back and bite you in the behind, and keep you up. While some have said that there’s no need to worry, something happened recently that should make the most optimistic liberals a tad worried: A Donald Trump endorsement.

Pyongyikes!
If there was one country that swiftly oscillates between being the world’s court jester and sending shivers up its spine, it’s North Korea. Sadly, the latter was on display this week, with them saying (with no scope for ambiguity) that it’d be all-out war if Trump meddled in their country (something that clearly riles them). In news that might be slightly related, there’s increasing demand for nuclear bunkers. Meanwhile, we’re assuming ‘North Korea Wikitravel’ is not a particularly hot Google search right now. Trump himself might be a tad busy writing ‘I’m sorry’ letters to Putin.

Meanwhile, back home…
You probably already know this, but Sonu Nigam got the country’s most publicized haircut (and looks like he’s ready for a follow-up). Also, Narendra Modi stopped a speech during an aazan, leading to the only time Hindu fundamentalists cheered a Muslim prayer (aw!). Hilariously, it seems the biggest danger in India now is not saying something inflammatory, but sharing the name of someone who does (Exhibit B). So, Deepak Tijori and Tony Abbott - please stay quiet for a while.

Elsewhere, President Mukherjee ensured a step forward for the United Republic of South India by saying it’s ok to shove Hindi down everyone’s throats (if you’re South Indian and not feeling particularly separatist today, please remember what 8th standard CBSE Hindi was like. You’re welcome, sign up here). Actually, now might not be a good time to use ‘united’ and ‘South India’ in the same sentence - the AIADMK is increasingly starting to resemble a jigsaw puzzle time lapse video in reverse.

Also, this gets the award for Headline of the Week.

Some good news came with the fact that Vijay Mallya was arrested (but got bail before you say extra sev). Even if justice-thirsty Indian tweeters get to see the King of Bad Loans brought to his knees, the problem is much bigger - Indian banks have more trouble getting corporate bigshots to pay up than an SBI customer has getting through to customer care.

What we should have been outraging about this week, instead
Mandatory sex determination for women in Maharashtra. So that those who have girls can be tracked so the babies are not aborted. It’s an idea so bad that you’d think no sane person could have thought it up, and you’d be right - it was an all-male panel.

And while Indian politicians have never been accused of bothering the admissions office at MENSA too much - this Tamil Nadu Minister took the cake by believing he could save water by just roofing a dam with 10 lakhs worth of thermocol. It’s probably a good thing Turkey and Syria are in deep shit right now, can you imagine what John Oliver would do if this happened on a slow news week?

A change in climate, alright
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Canada isn’t exactly the cuddly teddy bear of the world Buzzfeed keeps thinking it is. PM Justin Trudeau has said (about the Alberta tar sands) ‘No country would find 173bn barrels of oil in the ground and just leave them there.’ in the same manner that a stoned college kid might look at a pack of Doritos. This line got him a standing ovation from oilmen - and that reaction comes from that collection of douchebags, you just wish that asteroid didn’t actually just miss, and end the misery altogether. And perhaps even the TN genius from the previous section might not have been able to stop this river from vanishing.

Oh well, at least Apple’s decided to be good - they promised to not mine the earth anymore. Said their head of environment policy, “We’re actually doing something we rarely do, which is announce a goal before we’ve completely figured out how to do it” - hence showing that the Trump way of doing things might have a positive side!

hyUK, hyUK, hyUK.
For a Bschooler, “Marketing is my passion” can quickly change when shown a finance consultancy’s offered CTC. Similarly, “Holding elections before 2020 will be an unnecessary distraction” can quickly change to “How quickly can we hold polls?” when faced with Brexit implementation. While there is the minor chance it might backfire, it seems a fairly certain thing for Theresa May, provided she can get noise-cancelling earphones to block Scotland’s whining out.

It is your F8 only
Facebook’s annual developer conference happened and this year and while there’s tons to talk about: the TL;DR is - bots are going to be more important, AR will be yuuuge, and we’re finally seeing why Mark forked out all that cash for the Oculus a few years ago. Also, I want. We ain’t done with Facebook! Just like how we now think of calling as the most basic function of a smartphone, and search as a small part of what Google does, in a few years, ‘making fransip’ might be a small thing about Facebook - they’re working on technology that lets you hear with your skin (take that, audiophiles) and type with your brain.

More in tech
The Samsung Galaxy S8 can be summed up in one word: yum. While it has many awesome features, its most important one will be its inability to spontaneously combust. Also, web ads will become less annoying - mostly because people with power are starting to do something about it (wait, an ad blocker by Google?!).

In tech comedy this week, a heavily-funded, useless $400 juicer (that connects to the internet!) was outperformed by… Human hands. We knew that VC money had moved from a bubble to a squeeze, but we didn’t think this was what it meant. Move over, connected garbage can, this abomination is the new symbol of all that can go wrong when you try to put the internet everywhere.

Wow of the week
If you needed any more proof that Serena Williams is amazing, news broke that she was pregnant while winning the Australian Open! Let that make you think about skipping a meeting because of ‘loose motion’. Meanwhile, let us also remind you that this is the same sport where - and no jokes are needed for this - loud sex noises interrupted a tennis match.

And finally, this
Remember while in engineering college you bullshitted through your viva just hoping you’d be let off? Or in BSchool when you made up slide after slide of regurgitated internet pfaff hoping to just get by? The judicial version of that happened this week - when the SC threw out a case because it couldn’t understand it, there was just too much jargon. Best.

So be good and see you next week, alt right… Er, all right?