The Third Slip: Issue 71 - Supply Chai Management
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that never hits the newsstand but also never shies away from taking a news stand. We believe that it’s more important to be able to stand at ease than to force someone to stand to attention. We are not even going to chide you on losing your attention already, a mere 62 words into this issue because, let’s face it, attention deficiency is the only rational anthem of our times.
We’ve hit an important milestone this week - with 501* subscribers we have equalled Brian Lara’s unsurmountable record, and if you consider each issue to be an over we’ve done it at an impressive strike rate of 119.29 (higher than Lara’s strike rate of 117.33). But hey, we aren’t mallus if our strike rate isn’t way above average. If you still have our attention, maybe we’ll take you through some news…
At Home
Teatalitarian: Chai is important - even if you’re a cop transporting a mob victim to hospital and your break might cause him to die on the way (Makes sense, after all chai pe charcha is what leads you to the highest office in the country). Perhaps the fact that they hit him also helped. But the cops were not fully heartless - they did arrange for the dear cows who were in no danger to be safely transported to a shelter. Don’t count on the law helping - this came 2 days after the Supreme Court asked for a law to be instituted for preventing lynchings.
Class is temporary, form of hate is permanent: We’re usually a bit harsh on this government and claim that they have not achieved anything significant. We’re wrong - this government has been extremely successful over the last 4 years in democratising and mainstreaming bigotry and hate.Maybe, they’ve realised that the fate of a dairy farmer in UP is too far removed from our reality to hit us hard anymore. And so, here’s the good news, they’re coming for you middle-class folks too. Umar Khalid was not allowed to submit his PhD thesis, even after a court has explicitly asked the university to comply.And Kunal Kamra was not allowed to perform at a venue because someone who is not even interested in the show claimed his content is "anti-national". Who knows, maybe soon this newsletter will go TTS up as well.
Lynch Pin: We have often accused the BJP of being callous towards lynchings, and this week we’ve been shown the errors of our ways. But, they’re trying really hard to put an end to it you guys. This week in parliament, speaker Sumitra Mahajan channeled her inner Marie Antoinette to tell us about lynchings “Ho raha hai toh kya karein?”. After all, as Home Minister Rajnath Singh clarified, the fault clearly lies with the trend set by lynchings in 1984. So it’s okay. Humbled.
Purchasing Power Party: Taking a page out of Donald Trump’s ‘The Art of The Deal’, the ruling party secured the best possible one in the Rafale Deal. How do we know this? Well, they told us it’s the best deal, a beautiful deal, couldn’t get better. And plus also, the government promised transparency with respect to all defence deals. True to form, they did - it’s just that they creatively used Fresnel’s Equations in the case of the Rafale Deal. Hey, 0.02% transparent is still… Transparent, no. Stop being pedantic, you Congressi.
Bandh Baaja Bharat: Two things Mumbai needs to learn from Kerala: 1) How to make kickass food, 2) How to organise a proper strike. Marathas protested in Mumbai this week, wanting reservations. Mumbai carried on like nothing happened. The CM said ok. Everyone is happy till the next lot decides they want reservation.
Surveyal of the fittest: Meanwhile elsewhere… (We have not been able to identify the original source of the image below, please write in if you know where it first appeared)
Derailed: If you were one of the 3 people who used the Mumbai Monorail (Bhakti Park shoutout), please be aware that it might shut down soon (if it doesn’t all collapse first).
Small is powerful, small is a revolution because 0 is a circle which is a revolution oh god stop this headline: Is everyone happy now that sanitary pads are going to be GSTed at 0% than 12%? Good. We were all excited to, till a reader of this newsletter, Nishkal, wrote in to tell us that the actual price will not be going down by much (or might even rise) because… Economics.
What’s the holy word in 2018? ORM: Digital marketing folks - UIDAI wants to do Online Reputation Management for Aadhaar. Expect a pitch!
Party Animals: Bullet Points
Here’s what the leaders of the party we elected to run this nation for Ache Din said this week… Hurray!
“Every Hindu should have at least 5 kids”
“Rising Muslim population is responsible for rapes”
“Our wives will divorce us if we hug Rahul Gandhi”
“Lynchings are highlighted too much” - CM of India’s most populous state.
“Gauri Lankesh was 2nd on the list, Girish Karnad was 1st” - a diary from the killers (not a party member but close enough)
Intermission: The hope section, sponsored by Scandinavia
Children know climate change is there. Men have plans in place to do something about it by 2030. Legends reach these goals by 2018.
Sweden is like that annoying class topper who finishes assignments two weeks before it’s due and then reminds the teacher about it. Lame losers.
Around the world...
Jeffrey Archer-esque Novel Plots For The Week (sorted by levels)
The Silly One: Putin gifted Trump a football and of course it was bugged.
The Fun One: Trump’s personal lawyer turned in a tape of L’Orange telling him to pay someone he bonked to stay quiet (no, not the pornstar. This is another one!). And predictably, he wants to decimate Iran.
The Predictable One: Trump pissed off all his allies by starting trade wars. Then his country started getting rogered because of said trade war (hello $12b in farmer aid). So… tariff renegotiation. Also, fun side plot: Mueller is now investigating Trump’s tweets to see if they amount of obstruction of justice.
The one that could be a Wodehouse plot: The guy who destroyed Trump’s Hollywood Star in 2016 is going to bail out the new vandal :D
We interrupt this unequivocally dark newsletter to needlessly bring you some hope...
Who da man?: The next Dr. Who will be a woman (Jodie Whittaker) - just look at those fan reactions!
Metal Stimulation: Nothing will delight you more than knowing there’s a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor who now does death metal videos.
Vijdan your horizons: Vijdan Saleem, a Radio Mirchi jockey, has a dating advice show. In
Kashmir!
This won’t fly: The one time you should applaud an white woman asking for a Muslim to be removed from a plane. A Swedish student refused to take her seat, till an Afghan passenger who was about to be deported was deplaned.
Mars Bars?: Mars might have water! Which means it might have life! Which means… Who cares.
Putting the Aus in Awesome: Australian people protested a policy that turned away asylum seekers!
Dismantlepiece: North Korea is dismantling a nuke site! (Oh, it’s one they no longer needed. But still).
Regular program returns...
Islamabad to worse?: As @krtgrphr pointed out to us, ESPNCricinfo ran an epic line this week “Having made a good fist of the most difficult job in Pakistan, Imran Khan is all but set for a crack at the second-most difficult post in the country - that of its Prime Minister.” Woohoo! A former World Cup winning captain is the new PM of Pakistan meaning progressive… Oh, he won on anti-India rhetoric? And there are Okay. Sigh.
Pay me-diya:Uganda has a social media tax of $0.05 per day for use of 60 apps, in a bid to clamp down on, er, gossip. A potential TTS app, on the other hand, will pay you to use it.
Opting out of the race: Disgusted with the racism meted out by Germany’s football president, Mesut Ozil (who is Muslim and has Turkish roots) quit the national team.
Muck EU: Missing Steve Bannon? You know, White Supremacist Magazine’s shampoo model of the year? He’s now trying to muck up the EU.
Tech
Billions of blue blistering nickel bars: Facebook revealed it’s going to cost a lot more to fix all its problems, and profits will slow down. So investors who care only about money freaked out and the share price went down by 20% - wiping off $120b in value. One hundred and twenty billion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of Bangladesh. Oman, Sri Lanka and Croatia!
Ad to cart: Meanwhile, Amazon’s fastest growing segment is… ad sales.
China in a bull’s shop: China said yes to Facebook and then quickly unfriended.
You-tube: By the way, Musk-sponsored Hyperloop contests are still happening.
What’s upsetting the Apple cart?: The iPhone’s not going to take off in India in a hurry. Great read as to why.
Burger off: The FDA has no problems with this veggie ‘meat’ burger. Win.
LinkedOut
The crumbling first world order means the BRICS are perfectly poised to take over.
WeChat is the most powerful app in the world and it’s squandering its lead.
Skateboarding girls in India - breaking tradition, building confidence.
A lovely profile on Hima Das: The girl who chases time.
This week in comedy, the TRAI chief dared anyone to show how Aadhaar was unsafe and his personal details were outed in about 30 minutes time. As apprehensions about Aadhaar continue, here’s how Andhra Pradesh built India’s first police state using Aadhaar.
Why several Indians are choosing not to have kids: Not because of the headache of parenting, but because this is the right thing to do, given the state of the planet.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to get our Aadhaar card numbers by using our Twitter handles, you can find us on @notytony and @chuck_gopal. Do you have something to share with us? Do write in over email. We love reading everything you send us. Also, we have a new record holder for maximum number of subscribers signed up with a single tweet - 15. Thanks @udupendra. But, we’re sure you can beat that. Go on, try it. Until next week, may you have friends who encourage you to stand up and speak, so that you wage and win life’s little battles. Bye!