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Thursday April 1 2021

Tiger, Burning Bright...

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Sanity Break #1

Why did cross the road? Quite honestly, she’s probably asking herself that same damn question. Also: Parenthood, a cross-species calamity.

Sanity Break #1

Headlines that matter

JAIR BOLSONARO IS IN TROUBLE The Brazilian president’s government is falling apart! He sacked at least five members of the cabinet in one week—including the foreign and defence minister. He’s changed his health minister five times since the beginning of the pandemic. But now all hell has truly broken loose: the three chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force have simultaneously resigned in protest! Meanwhile, 43% of Brazilians blame Bolsonaro for the poor handling of the pandemic. And they’re not wrong. Brazil is #2 in both the total number of Covid cases and deaths. ()   THE GREAT PANDEMIC: A QUICK UPDATE * Totally unsurprisingly, Rishikesh and Haridwar are witnessing a of cases ahead of the Maha Kumbh Mela—which will kick off today. And that surge is going to keep surging given the crowds seen in . Also: The Taj hotel in Rishikesh after 76 people tested positive.  * Delhi airport authorities will conduct on passengers—and require anyone who later tests positive to quarantine themselves. * Brazil has said ‘thanks, but no thanks’ to Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin—after ordering 20 million doses. : “non-compliance with the requirements of Good Manufacturing Practices for Medicines.” Ouch! * According to new trial data, the Pfizer vaccine is almost in kids between the ages of 12-15—even more so than adults. * Japan’s All Nippon Airways Co. (ANA) has a new luxury experience, the “winged restaurant”. The only catch: This plane stays parked on the runway and costs a whopping $540 for a typical first class meal. * A good pandemic read: has a hall of shame for world leaders who totally mishandled the crisis. The competition is fierce, btw.   In bizarre pandemic-related news: Indian tourists in the Maldives are very unhappy. The reason: Those who test positive on the island nation have to pay for their own quarantine. This can turn a short holiday into an expensive two-week stay at a luxury hotel—but only if you refuse to opt for the far cheaper, government facility. So a lot of them are very upset—and demanding the Indian high commission save them from their own ill-thought travel decisions. has more on their “harrowing” experiences. Point to note: 49,322 Indians visited Maldives as of March 6.   INDIA’S SHOCKING GENDER RANKING India has placed #140 among #156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap Report. We were #112 among 153 countries last year—so that’s a bit of a slide. The report looks at four main indicators of gender parity: economic opportunity, political power, education and health. Our gender gap increased by 3% this year. The biggest slide was on the political front—where it widened by 13.5% due to a reduction in women Ministers. Also this: the estimated earned income of Indian women is one-fifth of that of men—making us one of the worst-performing nations in the world. FYI: Iceland is the most gender equal country in the world. ()   Added bad news: The report also reveals how 12 months of the pandemic have delivered a terrible setback to women everywhere. Last year, the same report estimated that it would take 99.5 years to close the gender gap. Now that number is 135.6. ()   RBI OFFERS AUTO-PAY REPRIEVE The Reserve Bank pushed back the deadline to implement new guidelines that would require banks to specifically get your explicit consent before executing recurring payments on your credit/debit cards. The reason: no one including banks had the systems in place to execute the new rules—and it would have totally messed up everyone’s payments and life. The new deadline: September 30. You can go back to worrying about your Airtel payments then. ()   GOOGLE IS WORSE THAN APPLE Researchers found that Google accessed 20x more user data via an Android phone like Pixel than Apple does with an iPhone. Even when idle, Google collects about 1MB data every 12 hours while Apple collects around 52 KB. One extra-creepy detail:    > “When a user inserts a SIM in either of these smartphones, both Google and Apple are sent details. It was found that iOS sends > the MAC addresses of nearby devices to Apple as well as their GPS location. iOS users cannot opt out of this and there seem to > be almost no realistic options for preventing this.”   has more.   A MEDICAL STUDENT SCAM IN PHILIPPINES As we know, Indian students will go anywhere in the world to get a medical or engineering degree. Around 15,000 head to the Philippines every year—lured by easier admission criteria and cheaper fees. But many fall victim to agents who take away their passports, and squeeze them for vast amounts of money—which has prompted the Indian embassy in Manila to issue a strong warning. explains how these rackets work.   THE OSCARS’ NEW PLAN The organisers of the Academy awards really, really don’t want people to ‘Zoom in’ their acceptance speeches. First, they required everyone to show up in person in Los Angeles. When that caused a backlash, they’ve now come up with a new plan: ‘hubs’ in London and Paris for European nominees (because who cares about the rest?). But hey if you do show up, they promise to cover your travel costs and an Oscar experience like no other: "We've turned it into kind of a cocktail party, essentially." Wait, it wasn’t one already? ()   A movies-related good read: looks at the dire state of movie theatres and the industry—as Bollywood movie-makers are once again forced to postpone their big releases for 2021.   SWISS ARMY’S NEW UNDERWEAR POLICY Switzerland is making history in the strangest possible way. Its military will finally issue women’s underwear to its female recruits. Yes, you read that right. Until now, the standard uniform included only loose-fitting men's underwear, often in larger sizes. The Army hopes this great new stride in acknowledging the reality of female anatomy will boost the numbers of women soldiers from 1% to 10%—because who doesn’t want panties that actually fit. As one female soldier , your underwear really “makes a difference whether you have to crawl on the floor with 27 kilograms of luggage or sit quietly on an office chair.” ()   THERE’S A NEW DINO IN TOWN! A new fossil find in Argentina has uncovered the existence of a mega-sized dinosaur now dubbed Llukalkan aliocranianus—which lived eighty million years ago. This contender for the next Jurassic Park sequel was a bipedal, meat-eating predator with a “stubby, rugged skull,” could grow to nearly 30 feet long, and had excellent hearing. has more details. Also: it most likely looked like this.   In other animal-related news: Some black bear cubs in California have been seen behaving like overly friendly dogs. For example: one of them walked into a classroom and “sat in the back just like a puppy dog.” But this isn’t a good thing. The reason for this unusual behaviour is an inflammation of the brain caused by a virus—and it makes it impossible for them to survive in the wild. Many have been moved to wildlife shelters. See a bear with a snowboard below. ()    

Tiger, Burning Bright...

Sanity Break #2

We’re not big superfans of superhero franchises, but the trailer for ‘The Suicide Squad’ is awesome—as is the insanely talented cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Viola Davis, and Sylvester Stallone! It even includes an excellent pandemic joke! The flick lands in theatres on August 6. Also: Since the trailer is restricted, you have to head over to to view it. Hence, the of Idris as Bloodsport instead.

Sanity Break #2

Feel Good Place

: In the Philippines, the courier has to take a photo as proof of delivery—and then usually this happens. Click through for an entire thread of hilarious selfie moments.   : When you just can’t take it any more…   : There is no wrong place to do a sit up.    

Feel good place

Reading Habit

READING HABIT BOOK EDITOR’S NOTE Am I the only one who was strangely thrilled by the sight of Ever Given stuck in the Suez Canal? This is the kind of world event one hopes for in their lifetime, big enough to be shared by everyone around the world, and yet small enough to be safely meme-ified into a fond memory. In its honour, my quick fixes today are about ships, seas and other maritime miscellany. Happy reading! A LIST OF LITERARY READS One: Which book gets to be called a “classic” has always been an arbitrary decision, usually made by people who all look very much like each other and very little like the rest of us. has put together a list of early reviews of twenty such classics which serve to make you think twice before you decide to finally pick up your pretend-to-have-read selection. (You can never break me, ‘’. I will see you in hell.)   Two: Some ground-breaking literary history has been made. The tells us about the International Booker Prize 2021 longlist and, more specifically, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who has become the first writer to be nominated for the prestigious award as both author and translator of the same book, ‘’, and the first nominee writing in an indigenous African language. You love to see it.    Three: My heart soared at this piece about Rebecca Brill, a huge Sylvia Plath fan and devout reader of her diaries, who discovered the author’s fascinating relationship with food in her private journals and has been. “Brill has tweeted out a meal from Plath’s writings once a day ever since. Every Sunday, her collaborator, Lily Gibbs Taylor, illustrates one of the tweets.” There’s a sponge cake recipe in here too. Genuinely my favourite discovery of the month (thanks Lakshmi!).   Four: Here to scratch a very specific vicarious itch: in the, Grant Snider lovingly illustrates the many mental calisthenics you experience when you see another person’s bookshelves. He revels in judging you by your bookshelf, but loves you nonetheless, and gives you advice on how to save yourself from such judgement. An all-round delight.   Five: I failed quite spectacularly at this quiz in, which asks you to recognize a famous quote after it has been put through Google translate a bunch of times. Why was it so hard? Try for yourself and let me how you fared. I’m still shaking my head at my performance and continuing to be in awe of translators. Six: Jacqueline Winspear is the author of the immensely popular '’ series, where the eponymous protagonist solves mysteries in the interwar years. In this essay, Winspear tells us about how she started, how she was compelled to question the nature of genres, and what’s changed in her outlook on reading and writing since her success. It is inspirational stuff for all aspiring writers, especially those trying to get their amateur detectives to stumble across a murder they can cheekily solve.   QUICK FIXES, AKA A FEW VARIED RECOMMENDATIONS My favourite murder on water: My love for murder mysteries is, I’m sure, quite evident by now, and no one does murders on a train, on a plane, on a ship, or literally anywhere as well as Agatha Christie, forever Queen of Crime. ‘’ is an enticing, fabulous read. Hercule Poirot is on a cruise on the Nile where he befriends the handsome newly-wed couple, Linnet and Simon Doyle. He is forced to bring his little grey cells into action when Linnet is murdered. Inject this directly into my brain, please.   My favourite novel on a ship: ‘’ by Peter Carey is one of my favourite novels of all time, and it plays out primarily on a ship! Oscar is a priest and Lucinda is a young heiress and the owner of a glass factory. They couldn’t be more different, except that they’re both gamblers, one obsessive, the other compulsive. They meet on a ship to Australia, and Lucinda ends up betting Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church from Sydney to a far-away small town in New South Wales. The bet changes their lives forever (as it did mine). You do not come out of this novel unchanged.   Engrossing non-fiction about a ship: Not the. Erik Larson’s non-fiction is legendary, and his book, ‘’, tells the story of the luxury passenger ship as it begins its voyage carrying civilians in the middle of WWI in 1915. Caught in the middle of a sea full of warships and clandestine tussles between the two sides, its journey resulted in a disaster. This account is a captivating tale of a lesser-known side of the war.   Super cool non-fiction about seas: ‘’ by Dava Sobel tells the story of John Harrison, who invented what we now know as the chronometer, essentially solving the centuries-old problem of sailors getting lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land, due to their inability to measure longitudes. It is also a brief history of navigation and clock-making, and someone should make a movie on this stat.   A book about the Suez Canal: In 1956, in an attempt to clutch at colonial straws, Britain and France, working with Israel, tried to reclaim the Suez Canal, which had recently been nationalized by Egypt. The plan was one of the biggest mistakes of the time, resulting in blocking the canal for months. Fantastic historian Alex von Tunzelmann’s ‘’ deals with the subject matter deftly and interestingly, as the many players hit and miss and continue to try their hand at a peaceful outcome. Bonus: ‘’ by Rabindranath Tagore ❤️     Note: Reading Habit is curated by our books editor Anushree Kaushal. Want to send along recommendations, feedback or just say hi? Email her at . : In the Philippines, the courier has to take a photo as proof of delivery—and then usually this happens. Click through for an entire thread of hilarious selfie moments.   : When you just can’t take it any more…   : There is no wrong place to do a sit up.    

Reading Habit

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