Playing the Name Game
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Sanity Break #1
This is your mission if you are foolish enough to accept it: Teach a famous rap star how to cook Indian food! That’s what a bunch of Indian chefs will be doing in an upcoming Discovery-plus show called ‘’—Luda being Ludacris—which drops on February 25. has more on the show.
Headlines that matter
NEW RULES FOR VACCINES Starting March 1, the vaccine for people aged above 60—and the 45-plus with chronic health disorders. You can get it for free at a government hospital, but will have to pay if you opt to go private. The price hasn’t been determined yet, but it will be available at nearly 20,000 private hospitals. AIIMS chief Randeep Guleria why it’s important to get vaccinated—and flags more changes coming up in phase 2, including walk-in centres. One reason to get the jab: Rising numbers. Maharashtra’s an alarming 8,807 new cases on Wednesday. A nationwide survey suggests that one big reason is increasing complacency: “Mask compliance was 35% in large metros or tier-1 cities, but fell to 29% in tier-2 cities, and to 19% in tier-3 locations and rural districts.” has more on the results. In other pandemic-related news: * Here’s some very good news: shows that Johnson & Johnson's vaccine is safe and effective—varying from 72% in the United States to 64% in South Africa where variants are an issue. The best bit: J&J required only one shot. * The Oxford vaccine was supposed to offer hope to poorer countries—with AstraZeneca and its Indian partner Serum Institute promising to keep it affordable. The reality: less affluent nations are struggling to secure the vaccine—and they’re being forced to pay a higher price. Example: Bangladesh is paying $4 per dose via the Serum Institute of India—compared to the EU price of $3.50. explains this pricing gap. * US researchers are worried about and here’s why: “But the real surprise came when doctors measured the infant’s viral load. It was 51,418 times the median of other pediatric patients. And when they sequenced the virus in the baby recently, they found a variant they hadn’t seen before.” The good news: The baby has recovered. TIGER WOODS UNDERGOES SURGERY The golfer—who was in a horrific car accident—underwent a lengthy surgery to repair "significant orthopaedic injuries to his right lower extremity." Doctors say Woods had multiple "open fractures" to his lower right leg. They have put in a rod in his tibia and inserted screws and pins in his foot and ankle. has more details on his accident, and whether he can ever play professional golf again. TWO HIGH PROFILE #METOO ALLEGATIONS One: Iconic designer Alexander Wang is facing multiple allegations of sexual assault. A student claims that Wang got him drunk at a nightclub and then attacked him in public: > "All of a sudden he unzipped my trousers, put his hands in my pants and started grabbing my penis in front of a bunch of > people..I completely froze...He then said: 'I want to take you home with me." The latest accusation—similar in description to one levelled in 2017—comes amid reports that a high-profile lawyer is representing 11 men with misconduct allegations against the designer. has more. Two: French actor Gerard Depardieu has been charged with rape and sexual assault in connection with a 2018 case. He is accused of raping an actress in her 20s at his Paris home in August 2018. An initial investigation was dropped in 2019 due to lack of evidence—but was reopened last summer. has more details. BAD NEWS ABOUT ANIMALS Inbred tigers: A new study which sequenced whole genomes from 65 individual tigers reveals that habitat loss is leading to inbreeding—which can threaten their survival. has more. Stranded cattle: Two livestock ships from Spain left before Christmas to deliver their cargo. But they were refused entry by a number of countries—including Turkey and Libya. The reason: suspected outbreaks of the bovine disease bluetongue onboard the ships. And now they are stranded at sea. Animal activists say that many animals are likely already dead and any still alive would be “suffering a real hell.” has this sad story. A BIZARRE CASE OF ‘BLACKFACE’ South Korean brand Bad Blood using Photoshop to make a ! This bizarre case of ‘blackface’ sparked outrage, and the company finally issued : > “Our intention, as always, was to highlight our clothes by using an Instagram’s filter. By increasing the contrast between our > clothes and that of the model, we unfortunately thought our clothes would look even better.” In happier fashion news: Deepika Padukone will become the first female celebrity to become the face of Levi’s in India. () FOUR AMAZING THINGS TO BEHOLD Frozen falls: The United States is witnessing freezing temperatures due to an exceptionally bitter winter. The upside: This stunning sight of a half-frozen Niagara Falls as temperature -14°Celsius on Tuesday. Exploding volcano: Mount Etna in Sicily has been extra-active over the past week—with spectacular eruptions that reached a peak on Monday when the volcano’s lava fountains soared to 1,500 metres. ! Also: check out this excellent of photos. A wooly sheep: This very sad sheep from a forest in Australia—where he was wandering unshorn for a very long time. He’s feeling much better now after being —which is half the weight of an adult kangaroo. And he has a name: Baarack! A golden biryani: A Dubai restaurant called Bombay Borough is now serving a special biryani served on a golden platter—and adorned with 23-carat gold leaves. : 1,000 dirhams or Rs 19,705.85! According the restaurant’s : > “This heavenly plate consists of Gold Leaf kababs- The Kashmiri lamb seekh kababs, old Delhi Lamb chops, Rajput chicken kababs, > Mughlai koftas, and malai chicken roast served on a bed of saffron-infused biryani, complimented by a wide selection of our > exquisite sauces, curries, and raitas.” Well, it certainly looks amazing! DINE WITH DATA: ALL ABOUT SPLASHLEARN 🃏 Editor's Note: Here is DWD’s weekly installment of one cool, innovative or just plain quirky startup from around the world. Company: Splashlearn 🃏 About: Learn while playing games. Sounds ideal, and is a reality, thanks to Splashlearn. More than 40M kids from preschool to 5th grade learn Math and Reading from the games that the company develops. 🎯 The product sets a daily learning goal for each kid , and curates activities in order to achieve those goals. Even the progress can be tracked directly by the parent, helping them keep a keen eye on their child. The company announced a $18M Series C on 9th Feb, with plans to double their Gurgaon based workforce from 250 to 500 within the year. Food For Thought: Like most ed-tech companies, SL had a great 2020. Adoption rose by 300%, and they added 10M more students. According to their website, the product is now used in 1 out of 3 US Schools! 🤯 DWD Take: Gaming is gradually crossing the bridge from being a waste of time to a potentially beneficial activity. Industries like e-commerce, banking, and education are picking up on cues from gaming to add a layer of fun to their products. We're here for this! ✅ Link: About DWD: sends you a short summary on one new startup every day, delivered straight to your Whatsapp Inbox!
Sanity Break #2
Insanity break alert: The Twitter handle of shared this, this, this… ok, just watch it already. Fair warning: The accompanying tweet said: “People who violate traffic laws should be forced to watch on loop for 8 hours non-stop.” And yes, we secretly hate you 😂
Feel Good Place
You’ve been pranked! Have you ever heard an otter ‘talk’? No? Ha! When you know you have a gambling habit…
Reading Habit
READING HABIT BOOK EDITOR’S NOTE is writer, teacher, illustrator and a great lover of cats. Her ‘’ was a New York Times’ bestseller, and her most recent foray ‘’ won the Neev book award 2020. And she loves reading books almost as much as she loves writing them. Full disclosure: She’s a close friend and splainer supporter! THE BOOK ADDICT’S QUIZ What is your most powerful childhood memory of a book? My grandmother’s copy of William Makepeace Thackeray’s ‘’. She gave it to me years later. Also, her copy of an ancient, illustrated version of Edward Lear’s , and her copy of Don Marquis’ ‘’. She would tell me stories, read me out portions of these books—and the way she did it would just light up my world. She was a brilliant storyteller. Now that she’s gone, I have her copies of these books—but I have to say, it’s just not the same without her. She made these words and characters come alive in a way that fired up my imagination. <Now, that’s an amazing grandparent—the kind that makes parents look bad:)> What line of literature or poetry can you quote ad nauseam? Brownie points if you can tell us when and where you quoted it most recently. “I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled”—again, that’s what my grandmother always would say to me. Years later, I realized it was from TS Eliot’s ‘’ which is one of the most brilliant poems ever. I also remember this from that poem: Let us go then you and I When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table Let us go through certain half-deserted streets. . . I think I might have messed it up in remembering it line for line, but the last time I recited it was with one of my cousins, I think on a beach in Kerala, pre-pandemic. <Of course, all cat lovers love TS Eliot.> An author you adored as a child but haven’t thought about in years? . Goscinny & Uderzo, the creators of . <We get Blyton, but Asterix? Not even Obelix or Vitalstatistix? We are sad on their behalf.> Which book would you gift to your new best friend, and which to your worst enemy? New best friend: Susanna Clarke’s ‘’. Or ‘’ by Carlos Fuentes. Worst enemy: ‘’. Or ‘’. Maybe Julia Quinn’s . With all the pages with the sex scenes ripped out. And there’s a Mills & Boon title, ‘’, which features two people who have had sex when drugged by a cult to produce a sort of alpha-baby—a eugenics plot. But there’s lots of romance and steamy passion interspersed through this plot. Maybe that would also be a nice thing to gift an enemy, minus the sex scenes. Or another romance title: ‘’. (Yes, I have read far too many of these books than I would like to admit.) <TBH, sounds like it would be more fun to be your enemy… Also: Why is ‘Covert Conception’ not a Netflix series already?> I would love to see a movie/series adaptation of __ starring __ as __ I would love to see a movie/series adaptation of ‘’ starring MYSELF as Flora Poste (forgive the narcissism, but no one else can do it like I could do it. Basically, this novel is my life.) < has nothing on you, dear Sam!> A book review that was better than the book? Hmm. I think reviews of Ian McEwan’s ‘’, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘’, were both better than the books. Every review of Thomas Piketty’s ‘’. I think Piketty has done brilliant work, but it has been easier to read the reviews. So maybe that’s not entirely accurate, since we wouldn’t have the reviews without the book. So I take that back. (But at this point, may I do a huge shout-out to the most brilliant and under-rated economics book of all time, Branko Milanović’s ‘’?) <This is a polite way of saying that no one reads Piketty—just his reviews, which is both wise and a big time-saver. Also: ‘Never Let Me Go’? Take that back!> Which book do you pretend to have read? Many. I’ve lost count. Usually books that are somewhat famous/or in the press at the time, and so I pretend to have read them. But one that I think everyone assumes I’ve read, but I haven’t in fact, is ‘’. Also, I did once pretend to have read ‘’. <Also: Piketty.> What is the first “forbidden” book you read in secret? Recently, ‘’. I don’t read this genre, but this book was surprising and insightful, I loved it. At age 14. My father caught me reading Arthur Miller’s ‘’, and said “What! You shouldn’t be reading Henry Miller!” Whereupon he realized that he had misread the name—and that it was Arthur, not Henry. But it was too late. This had aroused my curiosity. I promptly went to the library and started reading Henry Miller’s ‘’. It was titillating but not my cup of tea. <Lol! Of course! Is there a greater sin than a creative writer of fiction reading a bestseller self-help book on productivity? We think not!> What’s one of the funniest books you’ve ever read? Something other than the usual suspects like Wodehouse, Adams, Durrell et al? ‘’ by Stella Gibbons. This is a great read for single, party girls who are broke; since it features a single, party girl who is broke. I too have been a broke, single girl who loves (loves, loves) partying, and had to stop partying (on account of broke-ness) and try to be more serious, and this book captured the special, hilarious, wonderful delight of that experience. If Flora Poste was alive in today’s world, she would be loving the gig economy. <Or she’d be the modern-day Carrie Bradshaw, except smarter and funnier> Send us a photo of your tsundoku pile. <100/100. 50 points deducted for hiding your stash of M&Bs> Note: Reading Habit is curated by our books editor Anushree Kaushal. Want to send along recommendations, feedback or just say hi? Email her at You’ve been pranked! Have you ever heard an otter ‘talk’? No? Ha! When you know you have a gambling habit…
