The Third Slip: Issue 200 - Republic Day Charade

by Chuck & Tony

Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip, the fortnightly newsletter that’s like Virat Kohli - we both thought our short break would have a massive impact, but much to our surprise the world kept turning without any visible signs of “missing us”. But, whether you like it or not, we will continue to make news for a long while yet. Don’t try to jinx us. 

This is issue 200. 2-0-0, of course, is India’s record in Australia under Ajinkya Rahane. Matches won = 2 - Matches Lost = 0 - Chance anyone gave the team of achieving such a result = “Are you freaking kidding me? You really want me to answer that mathematically? Fine. 0”. In that spirit, let’s dive into the news for the last two weeks with the hope that unlikely heroes will emerge from unexpected places, because boy, we need them real bad. On with the news, but first...

GOAT - Greatest Of All Teams.

Not gonna lie, we just witnessed the greatest test series of our lifetime draw  (make that win) to an insane conclusion this week. We started this series not believing the script, and went on to be crazier by the minute. On the last day and the last session, we didn’t even know the language of this drama. It’s impossible to sum up the series, but here are a few links to help document this

• Jarrod Kimber, in his inimitable style, has a quick recap video of what really happened 

• Ravichandran Ashwin has a promising career ahead of him after cricket. He takes us through the series with fielding coach R Sridhar for a behind the scenes look: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

• There wasn’t one hero this series, there were about a dozen of them: Here are a few stories -  Pujara | Vihari | The Summer of Siraj | Washington Sundar | Rishabh Pant| Ravi Shastri

• To round it off, Osman Samiuddin talks about this new likeable India, take a quick look at how India managed to put such a side together with all the injuries - how they’re made, and Greg Chappell on why India may dominate for a long time to come.

Okay, back to real life now Ugh...

Joe jeeta (listen, it was either this or ‘Biden his time’ again)

Finally. No really, finally. The world is celebrating the departure of Trump as much as the arrival of Biden. The inauguration felt as much about relief than optimism for the future, much like when you’re drowning your first hope is for a lifebelt first and jetski to shore later. Poignantly, the T word was not mentioned even once through the ceremony - it didn’t need to be.

A lot ofr vf good is happening. After a speech that was extraordinary just because it was normal (!), Biden wasted no time - getting the US to rejoin the WHO, Paris Climate Agreement, getting the fight against Covid up to 11, and reversing a whole bunch of other things Trump did (including taking down a portrait of the now second-worst American president of all time, Andrew Jackson). Given the US’ position in the world, this will have an outsized impact everywhere. He’s on the phone to make up with allies and doing lots of foreign policy things, including trying to get the Iran nuke deal back on track and stopping support for the Saudis’ murderous ways in Yemen. As for India? Time will tell. While he’s unlikely to be JNU-level antinational, don’t expect him to remain quiet on all Modi does. All in all, the Biden doctrine promises sanity. That will do for now.

If you want to feel even better with a pinch of schadenfreude, have a look at his predecessor on his disgraced way out. He’s been impeached a second time, and by the next TTS, might even be charged by the Senate now that his old pals are turning their back on him. He has many legal battles ahead, corporations are cutting off funding, even his beloved QAnon followers realised they were all fooled, his pals at FOX are slowly changing their turn, his old business is worse than before, his new Mar-A-Lago neighbours don’t want him (might not matter as he might spend a bit of time behind bars). But remember, the damage he did is going to be around for a long time: The Trump-inspired far-right extremism is legitimised and everywhere, not just the US.

Oh, and that Bernie meme is everywhere, but for one of your authors (guess who) the best place was metal album covers. And here is an excellent profile of Biden and his political journey & destiny. Our other author’s favourite was…

Kerala Tourism @KeralaTourism

Wear your warm woollen mittens and enjoy the cool crisp Munnar weather! #changeofair #keralatourism #BernieSanders

Sons of the soil vs soiled sons: The latest from the farmer agitation

Add to the long list of achievements of the Punjabis: They’re getting this government to back down. This week, they even rejected a proposal for the farm law implementation to be deferred by 18 months, and plan to continue the 26th January tractor rally saying no to the government’s Republic Day Charade. Dang, those anti-nationals! But credit where it’s due - this government promised unity, and they delivered - they managed to unite Haryana and Punjab farmers. Why has all this happened though? Shekhar Gupta’s offers an excellent viewpoint. “Understanding subtleties isn’t exactly the Modi-Shah BJP’s strong point”.

A small counterpoint to this: An appeal to farmers to not be obstinate and throw this moment away.

Virus news

Can’t spell tripe without TRP: Arnab was caught pants down in leaked WhatsApp chats. Like a person who has had to reinstall their kitchen sink during lockdown will tell you - leaks are bad, and the trash that comes out of a leak is worse, like Arnab. Congress is saying it’s a breach of official secrets act. 

• Gods must be crazy: There’s an outrage about some mediocre series called Tandav for disrespecting Hindu gods, and recently against Mirzapur for portraying UP as a terrible place to live (according to Saba Naqvi, they’re right - things are worse). Meanwhile Munawar continues to be arrested for jokes he didn’t even make. Bihar wants to criminalise ‘offensive comments’ against the government. Meanwhile, In a win for interfaith marriages (especially, yknow, that combo), publication of notices is only optional, meaning less scope for harassment. And Dragon Fruit has been renamed Kamalam because it looks like a lotus it seems. Yours in exasperation, jai mathrubhoomi! 

The other virus

• Jab we met: As India undertakes its most ambitious jab project, here’s everything you need to know about the covid vaccinerollout.  As expected, there are glitches, and people are not showing up, and of course, an app named CoWin has failed multiple times. Cofailwhale.jpg. Meanwhile, while we should have waited for you know, data and stuff, Covaxin seems okay and so do the Chinese vaccines. In between all this, there was a fire at the Serum institute causing over 1000 crores in damage, and multiple deaths but apparently the vaccine is safe.Phew.

• One thing is clear - politics and vaccinations make for very uncomfortable bedfellows. Meanwhile, Israel is doing well with vaccinations but won’t give it to Palestinians. India, as with many things, has great export quality stuff while dodgy stuff for domestic consumption, and is driving  vaccine diplomacy sending to neighbours. And, there’s a new outbreak in China and its vaccines are not doing great.

Other things happening around the world

• Pompeo & Glory: One good thing the Trump administration did on its way out - declaring China's actions against Uighurs as "genocide."

• Real life Terminal Man: A bro lived in Chicago’s airport for 3 months before someone found out. 

• Single finger salute to the two-finger test: Physical “virginity tests” in rape cases have finally been outlawed by a Pakistani court.

• Weeded out: Amsterdam might ban foreigners from buying marijuana in its famed coffee shops. What next, only locals can enter Vegas casinos? Hash tag lame.

• Ham unhanded: As one of the more obscure yet hilarious fallouts of Brexit, Dutch officials are confiscating ham sandwiches from UK drivers because import of personal meat / dairy products is not allowed anymore.

• A dissident escaped Hong Kong by being invited for a fake climate change conference

• Virtue Signalling: Elon Musk encouraged people to use Signal. The stock price of a completely unrelated Signal shot up by 11000%. If aliens needed a microcosm of what the planet was about, this is it.

• Bulls in the China shop: Virus? What virus? Their currency is killing it, their economy is back to pre-covid levels, a rebranding campaign for Wuhan is on, and their scientists, probably bored of Covid, have figured out some gene therapy that could delay aging!

Tech it & go

• This Sundar is washing a ton: Google’s investigating another AI ethicist after the controversial firing of another one last year - not a good look at all for Sundar (who was also accused of not paying attention to diversity enough).

• Thank you for coming to my encrypted talk: So much controversy over Whatsapp (who ironically probably has better security but why let that get in the way of a good outrage na). Actually, they have been sharing your data for years, actually.

• Newsless: Google will pay news outlets in France for using snippets. Australia is pushing for a more aggressive version of this, which might mean the search engine will leave Down Under.

• Too lazy to link out here: There’s way too much in the “Big Tech - Trump - alt-right rise” and “Biden - clamping down - antitrust” areas happening these days. Join the dots. We’ll report back when something substantial happens. 

• A tale of two billionaire Jacks: One shut off the US president, the other was almost knocked off by the Chinese one.

LinkedOut: Some great reads we came across this fortnight

• Thomas Friedman on the end of Trump, and on giving Biden a chance.

• This excellent long-read by Blume Venture’s Sajith Pai on the evolution of the Indian startup ecosystem, which he calls Indus Valley.

• A beautiful, honest write-up about Munawar Faruqui, the comedian who was arrested for jokes he never cracked. (And another piece to make you sadder - on mass radicalisation in India)

• A technological dawn is coming around the world.

• A game designer analyses QAnon and why it ‘worked’. Excellent analysis.

• PB Mehta on the Indian Supreme Court’s gradual slipping into judicial barbarism.

• On creativity freefalling during a Zoom-filled pandemic, and how you can rescue it. Great read.

• A profile of Dr. V Shanta, a lifelong crusader for cancer care, who passed away this week.

• Nidhi Razdan on how she was phished. It’s scary.

• Also scary: An Uighur talks about her time in a retraining camp. Gosh.

• A few tips on using your smartphone less.

• And a good read on ‘clock time’ vs ‘event time’ - for those of you for whom productivity is a 2021 goal.

• And another related read on how advertising changed the priority of news channels from reporting to anything that sells.

• The gig economy is just white people (re)discovering servants. Ouch!

• This interesting article on India’s artisanal fountain pen market.

• Iran’s foreign minister on what the Biden administration should do with Iran.

• Once more, can we all just applaud mRNA technology? Dang.

And that’s almost all for this week, and for the year! Next week, we'll have a slightly different issue with some words from us and a collection of some great links from the year. Say hello to the authors on Instagram (Chuck | Tony), Twitter (Chuck | Tony), or by replying to this email. Until next week, may you rediscover a boarding pass that doubled up as a bookmark that reminds you of that trip that will always make you smile.