The Third Slip: Issue 183 - Like a broken record
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that’s like the IPL. It’s dominated by unfit men in their 30s who you’ve never heard of, it has lots of action packed into a very short period of time, it goes against all the established rules of the game, it’s a welcome distraction that makes you feel occupied and you forget about an instalment of it as soon as it’s over.
This is issue 183. 183 would have been called the Captain’s Knock if tambola went beyond 100. (Thankfully, there’s not enough Rasna, Samosas, and toothpicks in the world to keep it going that long). 183, of course, is the highest ODI score made by Saurav Ganguly, MS Dhoni, and Virat Kohli. It’s also the total that India had to defend in its inaugural World Cup win in 1983. A truly record breaking number if you will. Just like the news...
Data bye bye: In a week in which Umar Khalid was randomly arrested under the ridiculously unaccountable UAPA, the Delhi police claimed they have 11 lakh pages of data to confront him with. Meanwhile, the government said it does not have any data records on migrant worker deaths and job losses due to the Covid lockdown, and therefore compensation could not be provided. (But an RTI revealed they did have it after all.) The government also has no data on the frontline warriors - the healthcare staff who succumbed to Covid. But they can tell you how many people banged plates and lit candles. Please add “Satirist” to the list of jobs that are no longer viable. Here’s a thread that lists all things the government doesn’t have data on. Meta no data?
Sounding like a broken record
Illustration by Harini Kannan
Job hit hit job: Meanwhile, Dear Leader was celebrated as The Lord of the Records on his birthday, those records include rapidly mounting dislikes and a demographic dividend that’s devolved into a demographic disaster. Frustrated youth (and bored libtards of course) trended #NationalUnemploymentDay in English and Hindi. Best hashtag. Just to prove them wrong, one youth showed that he was not jobless by expressing his support to the Mod of All Things by chanting “Modiji” for 24 hours. As Keynes once said, “In the long irony, we’re all dead.”
Modicum of shame: Sir also won an Ig Nobel award for his horrible handling of the pandemic. Stand by for bhakts and mainstream media to turn this satirical shaming award into a Nobel prize and praising him for it. Coming soon to a Whatsapp group near you.
Agreeculture: 3 bills related to agriculture were bulldozed through parliament even as the opposition protested and asked for a proper vote. The house had none of it, and passed a voice vote without even listening to the actual votes themselves. Just another day in the world’s greatest democracy. Absolute shame. While there’s already a fair bit of criticism and even an ally leaving the NDA, we’re going to wait before fully passing judgement - agri-reform in the country is long overdue and it’s unlikely a solution is going to come without pain somewhere. In fact there are already a lot of good things. Did we just say “good policy, government”? It’s been a funny week.
Sudarshan, chuck ra!: After Sudarshan TV (huh) ran some horrific programming vilifying Muslims who cleared exams and got into government positions, the Supreme Court stepped in to say minorities cannot be targeted. About bloody time.
LGBTKyun: The Center’s letting everyone know parliament is back - by opposing same-sex marriage on day 1 itself.
Innova to be found: Toyota won’t expand in India because taxes are too high. You please go away if you want. Our ease of doing business ranks say otherwise.
UP and at ‘em: The UP government formed a ‘special police force’ and naturally any sane person would have thought that rearranged to ‘kill minorities lolz’. Though some former cops who’re critical of Yogiji have told us not to worry, it’s hard not to do so when investigating ‘love jihad’ is literally on their agenda.
Mughal, eh? Awesome: We were supposed to get a Mughal museum. Guess what happened. (sigh)
World News
It’s all rights: For starters, the United Nations accused the Venezuelan government of crimes against humanity. We didn’t know the UN could do stuff like that. Then, the badasses at the EU are mulling a new law to take on human rights abusers - they probably need a distraction now that Brexit is back. And the badass within the badass, Germany, is championing migrants again, after a fire broke out in a Greek refugee camp.
Carbon abating: Amazon is ploughing money into climate-oriented startups (who cares if it’s just PR, we’ll take anything) and another company is figuring out a cool way of putting seaweed on the ocean floor to make carbon credits, rather than planting trees.
You herd it here first: While the actual storm (New Orleans) and actual fires (California) are tragic enough, it’s the metaphorical ones that are causing more pain, especially as the elections draw near. Indeed, the US reputation abroad is in tatters, and most Americans just want things to go back to some sense of normalcy. Trump’s handling of the virus and his lies are so bad, they’ve even managed to get a scathing editorial in the normally staid journal, Science. After all, this is the man who has assured the country that “herd mentality” will help stop the virus.
No justice in a ruth-less world: Feminist icon, justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away. Sigh! Meanwhile, China’s gleefully harvesting social media data of prominent Americans & military. Trump promises a female replacement within a week (for the former, of course)
Agreement form is temporary, lack of class is permanent: And when you need a geopolitical laugh, there’s only one place to turn to. You guessed it - Brexit! This week, Boris Johnson ripped apart the agreement he himself had made. Much like how the BJP supports everything it opposed when in opposition, except Johnson goes a step further - he made those plans as PM. Like colonist, like colonized, eh? (Add US elections to the mix and you have a proper khichdi coming up)
Headline of the week: We thought we understood US politics reasonably well, but this confounds us: A metalhead satanist transperson won a Republican sheriff nomination.
Virus
Shot in the dark: Well, the good news for India is Russia is sending us some of their vaccine. The bad news is we don’t know if it will work. Here’s when we’ll find out the difference between a disease vaccine and a marketing strategy presentation. And you thought there was no practical application for your MBA learning. In other news, Novavax plans to double its Covid-19 vaccine production in India. And the US CDC says to expect any level of normalcy by mid next year, earliest.
Technologeewhizz
It’s been a frantic week, tech-wise.
Larry rally rally Larry: First up, GPU titans Nvidia acquired ARM, a British Softbank-backed microchip maker. It’s kinda significant. But come on. The tech deal we’re all really worried about is Larry Ellison’s Oracle acquiring TikTok. Except… they’re just a “trusted tech partner”. TL;DR: nothing changes, except a show and dance around cloud hosting (we think). Trump thinks he won, but in reality, China won.
VR Like that only: Meanwhile, Facebook’s betting even more heavily on VR, releasing some new devices and stuff. If there was ever a metaphor for putting stuff over our heads and transporting us to another world while ignoring whistleblowers saying they have blood on their hands while new light is thrown on Facebook’s BJP-propping in India… This is it. What a (oculus) rift with reality! But hey, celebs stopped using the platform for one day… That’ll show Zuck! Yeah!
आपले Store: Apple announced some bundles which is just going to intensify all that anti-trust noise. But most people in India are facepalming over that Apple Store design.
LinkedOut
This wonderful piece of writing on The Ken’s The Nutgraf newsletter talking about how Apple pipped Nokia in India. Reads like a thriller, this.
Economic rights > political rights. If you’re very pro-capitalism, give this one a miss. But then, you wouldn’t be a TTS subscriber then, would you?
Peacefully protesting is now a crime?
GenZ is eroding the power of misinformation. Who would have thought we are the useless old fart generation? Sigh!
Even though Germany handled the crisis well economically, it might have some negative long-term impact.
The Covid impact on office is now well known. How about the “office economy”?
Smaller weddings: The virus has one silver (or, well, less golden) lining for ceremony-weary youngsters in India
That’s all for this week. If you’d like, you can get in touch: Instagram (Chuck | Tony), Twitter (Chuck | Tony), email. And again, if you REALLY like us and can afford to, consider supporting us on UPI, Instamojo or Patreon. Until next week, may your accidental pick in the fantasy league take 3 wickets and score 30 runs. Bye!