The Third Slip: Issue 69 - National Jiographic
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter which is the official sponsor of the Croatian football team, because for some reason against all expert predictions, both of us seem to just keep on going. Our gameplay may not always be consistent, sometimes we leave it to the last minute, and even end up with penalties, but apparently, in the final analysis, we are effective.
This is issue 69, 69 as you all know is a banana peel of painfully obvious jokes that we shall neatly sidestep while ending up in front of an oncoming truck with its whole life flashing before our eyes. This week, we indulge in the greatest experiment of them all and find out the answer to the question - do people even bother reading a newsletter that’s send out during the Wimbledon and World Cup finals? Probably not. Just like every other week. But hey, go Croatia!
On with the news…
At Home
Putting the demo in democracy: Finally, 158 years after the law was made, the Supreme Court is set to strike down section 377 which deals with unnatural sexual acts consensual sex between adults. This after the government said “Hey, we are too afraid to alienate our voter base. You guys only decide” to the SC. This is great on so many levels - 1) the draconian law goes away and 2) democracy wins. This is the right time to tell that uncle of yours who says “You know what India really needs? A dictator - that will teach us some discipline”. No uncle, you are not only ignorant but also dangerous. What we need is a lot more rational thinking and waaaaaayyyy less interference from our rulers government. Also this week, the Indian Psychiatric Society said that homosexuality is not an illness in a position paper. Well, duh.
Equality in e-quality: In another win for democracy and equality this week, the Department of Telecommunications adopted the net neutrality principle. Meaning your ISP can’t discriminate bandwidth/speed as per the site you visit. This is essential to give even newer players in the internet innovation space a fair chance. What’s in it for me you ask? They can’t throttle porn you guys! We all win!
Scared Games: <This entire section on ‘sab chutiye hai’ needed to be removed after the leaders of Congress first filed a petition against the Netflix show Sacred Games for referring to Rajiv Gandhi in bad light, but then Rahul Gandhi clarified that freedom of speech is more important and asked the petitioners to STFU while also taking a swipe the incumbents. *Shock* *Horror*. We finally have an answer to the question - How many Rahul Gandhi jokes does it take to change a lightbulb?>
Grows Domestic Product: In more please don’t fix things that aren’t broken news, India became the sixth largest economy edging out France. After several quarters of slow down thanks to demonetisation #BoldMove and other such experiments, the economy has rebounded (Credit where it’s due, the tax reforms have contributed to the growth in some measure). However, GDP growth doesn’t mean much in a country of 1.3 billion people because the majority of the people remains in poverty and there is an ever-widening rich-poor gap.
Jio mere lal: They say greenfield, you should see red. This week, the HRD chose just 6 colleges as institutes of eminence including one Jio institute which is a figment of imagination because their application for its creation seemed promising. There’s nothing sinister here of course, you know how brands pick contest winners who just happen to be influencers with large followings because they actually, legitimately won? Nice to see them moving from management of quotes to management quotas.
Amcheap Mumbai: The city has had a terrible week of rains and most people were working from home. We know who's not working: the BMC. The richest civic body in the country spent 18% of its allocated budget. One must applaud their penny saved penny earned approach.
Court Gesture: The Supreme Court is going to live stream proceedings. While we're not sure if "SC and Chill" will become a thing, this is a great step towards transparency.
International
Cave-at-emptier: Remember the Thai football team that was stuck in a cave for a 17 days? They’ve all been rescued this week and FIFA even invited them to be guests of honour at the world cup finals.
Blast from the plast-ic: From Thai news to thaili news now, a terrorist group in East Africa has, er, banned plastic bags out of respect for the environment. Damn, that awkward moment when Somali terrorists have a better environmental policy than the President of the USA.
Where there’s a pill theresa may: Surely Brexit could not get funnier, you thought. Oh, here's Boris Johnson resigning basically thinking Theresa May is weak (please remember she voted personally to Remain) . While he is the most public face for Brexit advocacy, you might know him better as the guy John Oliver described as BamBam from The Flintstones, and the owner of the most effective hair tribute to his idol, Trump.
Trump Watch
Face the music: Trump was in UK this week and the smart people of the nation made sure Green Day's seminal album, American Idiot, is climbing up the UK charts. What wouldn't we give to see the dude it was originally made for, back in the White House? His press office says, that he got a warm welcome in the UK. And downright boiling it was, with protests all over London. Bonus did you know! Trump actually gifted Kim a CD with Elton John's 'Rocket Man' on it!
Moscowl: And what's more, towards the end of the week, Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russians for hacking the 2016 Elections. This comes, conveniently, a day before Trump meets Putin in Moscow. Oooops.
Debtroit: Meanwhile, America continues winning - Companies can't be bothered by tariffs, they have products to sell. So Tesla is just going to start making cars in China. And China might just pull out of the massive investments they have in... Michigan.
Biz
Monitoring the situation: PC sales are growing for the first time in 6 years, aided by the 'refresh cycle'.
Phoning it in: Samsung opened the world's largest phone factory in the world, guess where? No idea? Noida!
Mine your own business: And this week in how Trump's trade war could screw America over: China has all the rare earths that are vital to smartphones and pretty much all the other junk that's connected to the Internet.
Leta bhi hai aur data bhi: The RBI is rolling back a directive that mandated foreign financial companies to store data locally, leading to said financial companies suddenly calling India progressive, friendly for business etc. We swear, if it weren't for that massive population of ours...
LinkedOut
We won't stop talking about Nanette. Here's a brilliant review, from an Indian point of view.
The amazing story of how the world came together to rescue the trapped Thai football team.
The story of Croatia at and outside of the world cup is a fabulous one. As they take on France in the final tonight - here’s Ivan Rakitic telling a story.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to add to our follower count on Twitter after that crazy bot purge (please na?) you can reach us on @chuck_gopal and @notytony.What did you think of that crazy comeback from Novak Djokovic to complete the third improbable resurrection? Or that amusing piece of news that you came across? Or just a general rant about your views on this newsletter? Tell us over email. Until next week, may you always come back stronger than ever after people have written you off. Bye!