The Third Slip: Issue 80 - Quotable Courts
Hello, Slippers! Welcome to The Third Slip - the weekly newsletter that’s like a candle in a veritable hurricane of depressing and dark news. We spread light-hearted humour to a precious few (you, chosen subscribers, you!), wax eloquent on issues that we barely comprehend, and much like a candle that uses a piece of string in the centre, our sense of humour is wick-ed.
This is issue 80, in a week in which the Supreme Court dispensed with enough snappy judgements to make your elderly relative at a family function look like an amateur. The 10 major judgements came about this week because CJI Dipak Misra is set to retire on October 2nd and in a fitting tribute to these stalwart judges we have written most of this issue at the last possible minute in the week. This is true of all preceding 79 issues as well, but they’ve not been given away as tributes - if you’d like to apply for a tribute from a past issue write to us.
On with the news…
Judicial India
Supremo Court
Where can we get our ‘Supreme Court 4 lyf’ tattoos? The highest court in the land has been dropping progressive judgements like Buckethead (guitarist, not the Lord) drops albums. And where it previously shied away, saying legislation was not under its purview, the court has recently stepped in and said any idiots you elect have no spine or political will to make/change laws that matter, but we’re in 2018 so here we go...
Marital Arts: A few weeks ago, the SC said gay sex is ok, we’re not in the 14th century any more thanks. This week, it struck down adultery as a crime - basically saying women have agency and are not the property of men (as per law, they were until now. Yup.). This pissed off some people who don’t realise there’s ‘adult’ in ‘adultery’.
Temple Run: The courts also said that women of all ages can enter Sabarimala, establishing that there’s no room for exclusionary practices and women have rights too, promptly pissing off some religious nutjobs.
Stream Engine: Also, in a significant step new development like the invention of the steam engine, the SC allowed for live streaming of court proceedings quoting ‘Sunlight is the best disinfectant’. Meanwhile, HUL executives were seen scratching their heads wondering how they could change the word ‘disinfectant’ to ‘detergent’.
Pol Position: Sadly though, much like Tendulkar throwing his wicket away at 175, the SC didn’t take Team Progressive past the winning line. Proving yet again that where the incumbent government has a stake, the judgments somehow manage to fall in line with the politicians’ position. And so, the SC didn’t strike down Aadhaar fully. It did say private companies can no longer demand it, which pissed the NITI CEO off, so that’s something. But Arun Jaitley promptly said ‘relax bro, this and all we’ll make laws about so you can continue’. Also in line with the government stance, the SC extended the house arrest of the activists in the Bhima Koregaon case and refused to constitute an SIT. This verdict was passed with a 2-1 majority, with Justice Chandrachud putting forth a spirited dissent. But, it did tell parliament to pass a law publicizing party members’ criminal pasts. So all in all, well played, Supreme Court. Thank you!
Extra-judicial India
UPing the ante: The police in UP shot and killed a man driving a car because he did not stop when asked to. Yup. What do you mean, why? This is what happens when you vote goons to power. Meanwhile, Yogiji clarified that this specific instance was not an encounter, unlike all the other instances which don’t grab the headlines because, you know, it’s usually a Muslim or a Dalit who gets killed and what’s new about that?
Hugs of Hindostan: Last week you might remember French ex-president Francoise Hollande basically said, “Yup, the Modi government asked us to work with someone with no experience in building planes rather than a public company that’s been doing it for decades”. While poor Rahul Gandhi is trying to kick up a fuss saying let’s serve these fries with some Hollandaise sauce, nobody else in the opposition really cares. The BJP sees a nexus between Rahul and Hollande - one could argue said nexus being “Hugged by Modi”.
Award Wapsi: PM Modi (along with Emmanuel Macron) received the UN’s Champions of Earth award for his leadership of the International Solar Alliance and pledge to eliminate single-use plastic by 2022. Also winning the award, but for things actually achieved, was the Cochin International Airport Limited for powering an airport fully through sustainable solar energy. Moving on from Nedumbassery to dumbassery, BJP’s Tamil Nadu chief claimed she had nominated PM Modi for the Nobel Peace Prize. While this is obviously BS, if at all it happens, Modi will emulate another non-deserving leader of a country to win the prize. What? We mean Obama, not genocide-accused Aung Saan Suu Kyi. Chumma don’t put words in our mouth, okay? Hmph!
Putting the bullet in bullet train: Oops, Japan doesn’t want to fund the bullet train anymore, because you know farmers in Gujarat have rights too. I mean, if we were to stop every activity based on the premise of getting us rich lead better lives at the expense of those poor people how will we ever develop? Tch Tch.
Going back to zero: Engineering courses will soon say the Wright brothers didn’t invent the plane and that batteries existed in the Vedic age. As if engineering colleges didn’t already turn out degree holders with a warped understanding of the world.
Chargin’ chagrin: Someone was removed from a flight because he walked into the cockpit to charge his phone! What a legend!
The States of Affairs
As much as we try to start the week saying “Only less than 10% on the US this time on TTS”... The US just keeps delivering like an overzealous Amazon employee. So let’s do this quickly.
Press-i-dent: Trump addressed the UN General Assembly and said his administration has done better than any other in the US, and the crowd erupted into spontaneous laughter. Ouch. First time you can call a crowd tough for laughing. Then he said China is interfering in elections (while ignoring Russia, who continues to), said globalism is a sucks and said he’s now BFFs with the dude he made fun of last year, North Korea’s Kim.
KavaNo: Oh and his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh turned out to be a sex offender (and a very good actor!). He might still get nominated, though the person who holds the pivotal vote said he’ll decide only after the FBI does, forcing Trump to facepalm. Important because the said nominee is super conservative, and could shape SC judgements for decades to come. See the beginning of this newsletter to see why a progressive Supreme Court is generally a good idea, as is having a judge who’s not a rapist. Christian evangelicals are ok even if he’s guilty - coz abortion is evil bro!
Bros before hoes: Meanwhile, A Democrat got his opponents’ siblings to trash him in an ad. Next Thanksgiving is going to be awkward.
Around the world
Judges say the darndest things: Bill Cosby’s looking at 3-10 years in prison.
Riot de Janerio: Someone who’s pro-torture, homophobic, misogynistic and racist might become President… Of Brazil. Looks like all nations have been reading the same self-help book.
Spare the Rodrigo...: Philippines’ firebrand president Rodrigo Duterte was defending himself against another charge and said, “My only sin is the extrajudicial killings.”. This is like you saying “Listen mom running that meth lab leading is the only mistake I ever made” when asked if you were chewing gum.
When it rains…: Poor Indonesia was hit by a tsunami and earthquakes.
Tech-tonic Plate
I would like to add you to my next slide: You might remember Microsoft bought LinkedIn. Everyone’s worst dreams are coming true - the social network will be integrated into Office. What fun, making PPTs with people who you have no clue about (actually, not that different from real life).
Unfriending Facebook: Launching a new Oculus was the only good thing that happened this week. The big F is pissing its subsidiaries off - enough for Instagram’s founders to quit, and Whatsapp’s ex-founder to say why he quit (spoiler: same reason - ads ads everywhere). Additionally, a hacker said he’d live stream himself hacking Zuck’s page, there are reports that being a content moderator at the company is horrifying… And oh yeah, 50m users were involved in a data breach. Rough week by any standards - puts your company’s coffee machine breaking down in perspective.
Google’s Score: They seem to be increasingly ok with doing business in China - a former CEO sees a world with ‘two internets’. The country in the meantime is clamping down on everything - from 4000 ‘harmful’ websites to Christianity, to anything spelling ‘independence’ in Hong Kong. Also, how long has Google been around? Did you guess 20 years? Score! Even though woke people are increasingly looking at alternatives because relentless capitalism means a shifting of score-competency to greed.
Musk-kill ho gaya: We now have an official estimate of the most expensive tweet ever - $40 million for Elon Musk’s ‘going private at $420 per share’ tweet (Amusingly, Musk claims he arrived at $419 through math and rounded up to $420 because of the marijuana reference. What a man!). He now steps down as Tesla’s chairman along with the monetary fine to settle with the SEC which was suing him for the said tweet.
You get the picture: This week in peak capitalism-tech: Take a picture of a physical product using Snapchat and buy directly from Amazon.
Wah wah WA: Whatsapp now has a grievance officer for Indian complaints. Expect the first lot to be “my son did not reply to my good morning message”
LinkedOut
Did you know about the Bhim Army? Nope, not a bunch of UPI activists - but the Dalits’ most ‘extremist’ political group yet.
Two female contestants on a Vietnamese dating show ended up hooking up. Vietnam, which is super-accepting of LGBTs, said: “yeah, so?”
Why Harvard Busines School case studies are a bad idea. Poor Mr. Gupta!
The once-thriving Bin Laden empire is now in tatters.
We’ll end how we started: A nice read on India’s Supreme Court’s flair for drama.
That’s it for this week. If you’d like to follow our nonsensical thoughts outside of this newsletter, you can find us on Twitter (Chuck | Tony). If you’d like to keep this candle burning, provide some oxygen by subscribing and sending us your thoughts. Until next week, may you stumble upon a book that you fall in love with. Bye!
