The Third Slip: Issue 68 - Job data wohi seconder
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip, the weekly newsletter that promises to not be like your annoying superfit friend. You know, the one friend who suggests you become fit again by trying yoga and you’re like that can’t be too hard but then 30 seconds into it you go into the first chaturanga after months of no exercise and you see the last 165 beers you drank fizzing before your eyes and you immediately plonk on the floor, uninstall the app, and grab a cold one from the fridge while googling “Why dad bods are sexy now” because what goes better with alcohol than some confirmation bias?
No, we are better than that friend. We know that yoga is not for yougaiz. What we need is a quick fix for our bad habits and terrible media options. And by issue 68 of this newsletter, all our cards are on the table - we promise to call a spade a spade, our hearts are in the right places, we are like diamonds that are basically worthless but extremely overrated through relentless marketing, so why won’t you subscribe and join our club? Our strongest suit is a made to measure charcoal grey bad humour couched in an endearing self-deprecating tone so that you feel compelled to validate us all the time. Oh, also, we cover some news...
At home
Data is the new snake oil: Remember the pre-election promise of job creation (1 crore new jobs per year) which was one of the platforms on which the current government was elected? So what do you do when you fail to deliver once you’re in power and get called out for it? Step 1, discontinue the survey on employment in 2016. Step 2, blame the lack of data on jobs as the real issue because maybe if you squint and look at it this way, we’ve created tons of jobs? What. A. Masterstroke.
What’s for lynch?: Turd rice. 7 men convicted of lynching Alimuddin Ansari walked out on bail this week and were garlanded and welcomed by union minister Jayant Sinha at his residence. Funnily enough, this picture caused an internal tussle in the BJP because, wait for it, the local MLA said the minister was unfairly taking credit for getting the men released and that he did all the work. Amaze.
TTS Bonus Facepalm Experiment: Have you stepped away from your carefully curated Twitter timeline and had a conversation with a fairly representative, heterogeneous WhatsApp group of say, your college mates, or office colleagues recently? Yes, yes we know you stopped having those debates about 3 years ago for mental peace, but for once just try it again and see how steadfast in support of this clan of clowns the group remains, and how creatively they can justify anything. Including this.
LGibility Criteria: The long-continuing sitcom in Delhi where an elected government is being disrupted by a bureaucratic power struggle released two new episodes this week with the Supreme Court saying Bro, LG please fall in line and help the AAP government na? And then LG replying with Whatever, I’ll do what I want. Meanwhile, Kejriwal is like Is this the real life, is this just fantasy… anywhere the Arvind blows doesn’t really matter to anyone. Life’s Good.
Mudta Punjab: The Punjab government is considering (completely arbitrary) strict measures to crack down on its drug problem - including the death penalty for drug peddling (LOL WTF bro?) and mandatory dope test for all government employees. Apparently, that’s how they roll. Hash tag.
Con-dissenting: Hey hey, look: JNU, after being arm-twisted by the government, took action against Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar (y’know, those folks who made ‘anti-national’ a thing).
Bullet Points:
That bullet train? It’s going to cost 1.1 lakh crores and 80k trees. In the meantime, an overbridge over one of Mumbai’s busiest local train stations collapsed. Priorities.
The Modi government has increased the Minimum Support Price it pays farmers, which has nothing to do with the fact that there are elections next year. Surely.
The PM said he hid economic data for India’s own good. Well, thank goodness for that. His government also never defended Sushma Swaraj who was the victim of sexist trolling.
The BJP also objected to an anti-corruption law, which seems a little bit like a Colombian cocaine lord saying that the laws against drugs are a tad harsh.
Another week, another…
Attack in Afghanistan | Report of deadly fake Whatsapp news in India.
Hang in there
Mexing it up: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, referred to as AMLO, a career leftist has won the elections in Mexico on his third attempt. He’s been voted in to sigh “bring change”, but TBH anything that’s not on the right at this point is welcome. AMLOoking forward to this.
Trans-formative: A transgender woman won the Miss Universe Spain title for the first time since the rules were changed to allow them in 2012. And in Kerala, the Higher Education Department has sanctioned two additional seats for admission of transgender students in all courses in universities and affiliated arts and science colleges in the state.
The US
Bullish in a China Shop: Trump is enforcing his trade war against China - which will hurt many people, but mostly just his own. This is the global trade equivalent of a doctor just removing both lungs of a patient saying “That’ll teach them cancer cells a lesson!”
Paisa de, NA TO.: Trump is also pissed and asking rest of NATO to spend more on defence. Or else! While somewhere, Vlad Putin strokes a white cat and says, “Most excellent” in exactly the accent you had in your head.
Scott-Free: You might remember Scott Pruitt - the turd who heads the Environmental Protection Agency - who doesn’t believe in climate change, but has siphoned off lots of money for personal use (including a $43,000 phone booth - beat that, Dr Who). Well, he’s resigned after there were just way too many scandals to ignore.
Around the world
Succour world cup: While the world is riveted to the World Cup, another soccer team has captured the world’s attention - a bunch of Thai teenagers and their coach got trapped in a cave and massive rescue efforts are on to evacuate them - even Musk has offered help.
Rain rain go away… to Pakistan: It’s not just India - Lahore is pretty badly submerged thanks to the monsoons.
Dane hai toh Dane, varna katle: Denmark’s new laws make it mandatory for immigrant kids to undergo training in ‘Danish values’. Wait, wasn’t Scandinavia supposed to be awesome_liberal_max?
Hello World: Look at this gorgeous birthing of a planet!
Business & Tech
Drone-acharya: Intense competition is making China pwn it with respect to drone deliveries.
A Rose by any other spelling: In India, Eros wants to beat Netflix.
Shell-lack: BSE is going to delist 222 companies that have shady ‘shell-company’ origins.
Flipping off the wall: Not everyone is looking forward to Flipkart-Walmart: Especially 700k workers / farmers.
Infinite random universe: A Reddit community dedicated to Thanos will randomly ban half its users!
World Cup
A feather in the Jap: Last week, we spoke about how Japanese fans clean up after themselves in stadiums. This week, we learned the team itself tidied up the locker room and left a Thank You note in Russian (something that has, by itself, never happened before). Goals.
LinkedOut
A fascinating read about how Amazon India is delivering packages in Leh.
Nobody in Trump’s ancestral village in Germany wants to admit the connection.
About the millennial generation, and us being tired. All the time.
It took the likes of Trevor Noah to come around and make me realise why origin stories are especially important for people who don’t come from privilege. You’ve surely read Romelu Lukaku’s story on The Players’ Tribune, and here is Raheem Sterling’s.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to troll us via anonymous handles on Twitter, you can find us on @notytony and @chuck_gopal. If you’d like to send us love notes, our inboxes are always open, send email. In case you haven’t subscribed yet, please do so that you can archive our next issue. Also, tell your friends about us because, to paraphrase a Malayalam movie dialogue, life can’t just be about happiness no? That’s it for this week. Until next time, may the person you are going to meet always be worth the wait, but also freakishly punctual. Bye!