The Third Slip: Issue 78 - BJP walks into a bar chart
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that is gaining popularity faster than the price of fuel these days. Please note, we’re gaining popularity faster than the price of fuel, not faster than the price of fuel is gaining. Confusing? Well, we could draw you a bar chart. Hehehe.
This is issue 78. 7-8 (Seven-Eight) as we all know from that age-old nursery rhyme is the cue to ‘lay them straight’ the sticks we picked up with 5-6 (Five-Six). Incidentally, 56 inches happens to be the length of this issue if printed out on paper. No, we have not fact-checked that last statement. But, what are you going to do because we made a dubious claim involving numbers? Vote us to power in the next election?
What’s making the head scrunch into lines...
Bar Bar Dekho: When you’re a party that came to power promising ache din and claiming that rising petrol prices and falling currency were due to the incumbent government’s inefficiencies only to be caught in an inextricably tight spot, what do you do? Why, hire an MBA to make a confusing bar chart of course. But this time, despite cherry-picking data and attempting to paint a favourable picture, the joke ended up being on them with most people wondering WTF the chart was even about.
Several memes were spawned, but in a week where India ended upon the losing side to a fairly stark scoreline in England, this underappreciated Tweet is our favourite.
From what’s in front of bars to what’s behind bars…
Arrested Development: What happens when your party pulls out of an alliance with the NDA, and suggests that it is willing to form a local alliance in Telangana with the other prominent national party? You get arrested for some case from 2010 for a protest, all on a sudden, as Chandrababu Naidu and his mates found out. Oh, and if you are a thorn in the side of the government even after they throw you out of service, you get implicated and thrown in jail for a 22 year old case like former Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt. But wait, we are not for a moment suggesting that correlation implies causation. That inference is left as an exercise for the reader.
But, surely not all birds are caged, some take flight...
The kink of good times: India has a proud history of being a great host to everyone, and this week Vijay Mallya - a man who took lots of money from the state banks (read: taxpayers), didn’t pay his employees for months and is now living lavishly in the UK revealed that he was treated graciously by the Finance Minister. Apparently, the CBI had diluted a lookout notice on him about 6 weeks after issuing it - despite lawyers telling the SBI to move court to stop him. Also, in a week in which Raghuram Rajan said he’d warned the UPA government about NPAs from 2006-2008, the CBI is probing the UPA angle into the faulty loans. Makes sense, UPA + NDA = NPA.
Let justice be done though the heavens fall...
The Arrest is History: The great thing about our country is that even if you’re falsely accused, framed, and put in jail. You’ll get justice. Eventually. In 24 years perhaps. The Supreme Court finally exonerated Nambi Narayanan, a former ISRO chairman who was charged with allegations of being a spy, and awarded him a compensation of Rs 50 lakh.
Numb and number: In (almost) Aadhaar news, Google China (“We can be a little evil if profits are involved”) will link your searches to phone numbers. Censored terms include: “human rights”, “student protest” and “Nobel prize”. That’s not the only thing China seems to be borrowing from India: They’re detaining Muslims for (wait for it) ‘transformation’ - so much so that even the Trump administration is rebuking them. This is like Douglas Jardine admonishing someone for bowling too aggressively.
Comic Belief: Anti Rational
We will see you in quote
Continuing our experiment from last week - here are some almost-quotes
Conversion of Paul The Apostle: “Yes yes I’ll talk. Just don’t throw me in 10 years of jail please” - Paul Manafort, the disgraced former campaign manager who, true to the title of this section could, well...
Dangerous torrents of hot air: “The real victim from the Puerto Rico hurricane that killed 3000? Me, of course” - Trump, who feels his t-shirt throwing stunts weren’t appreciated enough, while totally ignoring the actual hurricane in the country right now.
Captain Longnose: “One thing about Trump definitely is huuuuuge - his lie count” - Washington Post
Electile diss-function: “LOL I could beat Trump in an election, and I made my money, didn’t get it all from Daddy” - JP Morgan’s new CEO has some serious sass.
Vote bank bunkum: “This Hindutva thing seems to be working, might as well try it ourselves.” - Congress, who have been making very BJPesque promises on the road of late
Too cool for school: “Don’t beg for funds, ask alumni to contribute” - The Union HRD Minister to schools. Yes, he actually said that.
Feeling depressed? Wait till the next section, but before that for no reason at all here’s a GIF of Zlatan scoring his 500th goal this week. What a man.
Bullet Points to our brain
Yup, Yemen’s still screwed. A Saudi led offensive is imminent in a city where 3,00,000 people live.
So’s Kashmir. Very much so. In case you were wondering.
A CBSE topper was gangraped in Haryana. Numb.
Who says things aren’t getting better for Blacks in the US? Now, police could come and kill you wrongly, in the comfort of your own home.
A potential US Supreme Court judge (whose unnecessarily conservative ways could shape policy for decades) has been accused of um, not being very nice to women. Among other things.
Fewer countries are recognizing Taiwan, bowing to Chinese pressure.
Hope
Counter-Terrorists Win: ISIS has almost been wiped out of Iraq & Syria. It’s not been won over a game of stone paper scissors: It took 4 years and 29000 strikes to reach this point.
Opening up borders and hearts: “We’re friends again!” - Ethiopia and Eritrea, between whom a border reopened.
Putting the last in plastic: A large… something was built by a non-profit and is out at sea aiming to trap 150000 lb of plastic in a year.
Tech & Business
When life gives you Lehmans: Happy subprimecrisisversary, everyone! Nothing’s changed, except millennials are more careful about everything. Also, it kinda led to Trump being in the White House.
iWash: Some new iPhones came along, as well as a Watch that can record your ECG.
Amazon Layer: Jeff Bezos finally commits money to philanthropy - $2b to put a roof over heads, and to create preschools!
Sub for Prime Crisis?: Speaking of which, he might face some competition from WalMart, who’ve relaunched Jet, promising 3-hour deliveries. And of course, there’s Flipkart in India.
TTS Financial Advice (A column you never thought you’d see, one of us still travels by local train)
Don’t invest in cryptocurrency. Why? The most valuable one right now is Dogecoin. A crypto that was started as a joke. Bitcoin, Ethereum and ‘serious’ others are plummeting.
Er, huh?
Cave-at Venditor?: There is now a replica of the cave those Thai footballing kids were stuck in.
What’s the opposite of fast food?: The pre-lunch session of a test match between India A and Australia A had to be extended by half an hour - because the food van was stuck in Bangalore traffic.
LinkedOut
We wrote last week about the terrible way in which allegations of rape against a Bishop are being handled by the Catholic Church in Kerala. Here’s a read from the US on its Catholic Church and the horrific sex abuse scandal.
Parking is not a public right. Sorry, Indian ego.
Surely BJP’s census push (or releasing arrested Dalits) has nothing to do with the fact that the elections are coming. (Oh hello there, Mr OBC, how can we pretend to help you today?)
Amit Varma writes about why we should focus on the process and not the results in the context of India’s test series loss. Related, recommended book - Thinking in bets: Making smarter decisions when you don’t have all the facts.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to follow us on a social media platform where half of us is regular, you can find us on Twitter (Chuck | Tony). If you’d like to make up a random claim that involves numbers, we’d love to hear it. Or anything else you want to tell us - email us! Also, if you haven’t subscribed already please do. And share The Third Slip with your friends of a similar persuasion, or enemies who will hate this. Whatever, share. Until next week, may you remember something you did from 10 years ago and realise how much more kick-ass you are now. Bye!