The Third Slip - Issue 23: Make Law Not War
The Third Slip - Issue 23: Make Law Not War
Hello and welcome to Issue 23 of The Third Slip. What a week it’s been! Just when we thought we had settled on our tone of voice as “Apocalyptic Cheer”, this happens and we’re so glad that it did - An American President called Pakistan a state that sponsors terrorism, Trump risked losing his eyesight by staring at an eclipse, and even an inspired spell by Mahamarakkala Kurukulasooriya Patabendige Akila Dananjaya Perera didn’t get India to lose to Sri Lanka. But firmly helming the top order(s) this week are lawyers and the Supreme Court.
Private Rights For Everyone!
Let's be honest, the last time the word “Supreme” excited us, it was probably on a pizza menu. But not this week. In a unanimous 9:0 judgment, the Supreme Court laid the smackdown on a whole host of issues in a supreme pizza piece of legislation. We are reproducing the entire 547-page judgment below so you can read it in its entirety. Who are we kidding? You’re so lazy that you get your news from two amateurs through a badly-explained weekly newsletter that you don’t even read till the end, even when there are easter eggs in the sign-off. So, here’s the gist…
The court observed that the right to privacy is a fundamental right for every citizen of India, overturning a 63-year-old ruling. This has far reaching consequences on many aspects - recognising sexual orientation as a private matter thereby paving the way to decriminalising gay sex, observing that the right to privacy implies a right to eat what you want to, and therefore an implication on the beef ban. The judgment also emphasised the value of dissent and tolerance in a functioning democracy.
Looking the Aadhar way
All of this came about because of Aadhaar, of course, and the government arguing against the citizens of India having a right to privacy. But, their core competence is in rewriting history so now Ravi Shankar Prasad has claimed that the government was actually for Right To Privacy. This is kind of like Liverpool fans saying 'we actually wanted to lose this season, next season is always our season'. In any case, this ruling will have implications on limiting Aadhaar in a more meaningful way.
In more happy court news
The lack, of Talaq. A major victory for women’s rights as the SC struck down a legal provision saying men could instantly divorce their wives.
MSG deemed bad
Monosodium Glutamate also known as Ajinomoto is a flavouring agent that enhances the taste. But is it healthy for you? No wait, this is what happens when one of us makes the notes and the other guy writes about it. Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, a self-proclaimed Godman who for some inexplicable reason has a fuckton of followers, was convicted this week by a special CBI court on rape charges.
And in a metaphorical pinch to prove that this week is not a dream, the aforementioned followers went on a rampage in Haryana leaving at least 36 people dead. When the Oxford Dictionary lists the synonym for “fuckton of followers” as “vote bank to be pandered to” you have to deal with nonsense like a BJP MP saying - sorry to use the technical term - Stupid Shit such as “One person has complained of rape against Ram Rahim. Crores others believe he is God. Who do you think is right?”. The court came down hard on the central and state governments for ignoring a situation that they knew was going to happen. The court also slammed the CM and PM for not doing their job and termed it “a political surrender to allure vote bank”. Has anyone checked if we can return Ache Din to Amazon and exchange it for regular din where no one dies unnecessarily instead?
Train accident
To paraphrase John Oliver, maintenance is not sexy, announcing new things is. So when we have a PM who’s not particularly given to reticence, clearly, announcing bullet trains takes precedence to maintaining existing ones. This leads to tragedies like the recent UP derailment.
WTF why is this even a thing?
Until now, we thought that the highest point that your joke can reach is when random people send it back to you on WhatsApp 5 days later as “new joke on the market”. It turns out we were wrong. In a bizarre turn of events, the ASI has had to tell the court that Taj Mahal is, in fact, Taj Mahal and not a temple called Tejo Mahalaya. We’re next expecting a team of scientists to shortly have to tell the court “No, the cow is not actually our mother”. Gotta love the fake news era.
Please Note
Samsung’s vice-chairman, Lee Jae-Yong, has started a 5-year jail sentence following bribery charges, the same scandal that led to the impeachment of ex-Prez Park Geun-Hye. Imagine that, a country where a corrupt business head and politician both get their comeuppance. Imagine that. Anyway, away from all this, the Note 8 - the successor to the darling of airline messaging around the world - has released to rave reviews, the biggest pro of which seems to be ‘no apparent ability to spontaneously combust’.
Science
Some eclipse and all happened in the US. And Donald Trump looked at it directly without glasses. Kinda helps if you can’t become any blinder. Also, in an effort to explain science to millennials, the moon blocked the sun on Twitter. Yeah, really.
A strange week where Trump didn’t do anything bad
Yeah, it’s… Weird. Finally, a US president had the balls to threaten Pakistan, added more troops to Afghanistan to obliterate ISIS saying a hasty retreat would create a vacuum (was the now-fired Steve Bannon the bad guy all along?), there are sanctions imposed on Venezuela to teach a runaway potential dictator a lesson, and the sanctions on China and Russia seem to be taking effect: North Korea is willing to talk. Jeez. What’s happening to the world?
Oh, and Trump threatened to shut down the government if Congress (his own party, by the way!) didn’t approve the ‘Mexico wall’ leading to copious amounts of popcorn being ordered by Democrats.
Related: Talk about low standards
(From the NY Times): “Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson complimented the government in Pyongyang for going more than two weeks without shooting any missiles or blowing up any nuclear bombs.”
The funny pages: Brexit
If you need a break from gloom and doom everywhere, check out what’s happening in the UK, where the Brexit is the comic relief of international politics. Headache after goof up (including erroneously telling lots of EU citizens to bugger off) happens. Poor Theresa May - don’t forget she was pro-remain before she got this gig!
Bijnej
Who can take on the mighty Amazon? How about a tag-team of Google + Walmart? This is like a brown-paper WWE cage fight. Exciting.
LinkedOut
Are you the kind of person to whom networking means playing counter strike on LAN? Well, good news. Turns out networking is overrated.
A trans man and trans woman couple from Kerala who are set to marry. Meet Aarava and Sukanyeah
Why we watch cricket despite its many oddities.
A freak century from Shahid Afridi rounded up this week - here’s Jarrod Kimber's piece.
That’s it for this strange week. Do you have anything to tell us? Would you generally like to stalk us? You can find us on Twitter (Tony | Chuck). You can also email us. We would love to hear from you - on your thoughts about how we’re doing, stories that we should cover, the apposite name for our tone of voice, or anything else you really want to get off your chest. Except for cholesterol. Did you read till the end expecting an easter egg? Oh you poor thing, here take a finisher medal. Till next week, bye!
