If you can’t beat ‘em, join Jio
Once Mukesh Ambani’s fierce rival in the e-commerce space, Jeff Bezos has decided to join forces with his nemesis instead. Amazon is reportedly planning to buy a 9.9% stake in JioMart. There is no news on how many more millions of dollars Mukesh-bhai will make out of this latest deal. He has already raised over $20 billion from the likes of Google, Facebook etc for his digital arm, Jio Platforms (More on that in our explainer here).
In related ‘going local’ news: Flipkart has wholly bought out Walmart India—and its 28 Best Price cash-and-carry stores. The plan: to launch a new digital marketplace called Flipkart Wholesale in August.
In related Amazon news: Hackers are using Amazon’s brand-new ‘Pay Later’ option to pay their own paani and bijli bills. Customers are very unhappy. Huffington Post explains how this scam works.
In related hacking news: The young men who hacked Twitter last week accessed private messages of up to 36 handles. The silver lining: the only elected official is someone from the Netherlands. Translation: No one peeked into Barack Obama’s DMs.
China is refusing to stand down
More news reports confirm that Beijing is refusing to honour the agreement to create buffer zones—specifically, at Lake Pangong and Gogra in Ladakh. Coming up: Yet another military/diplomatic meeting to resolve the impasse. Already here: new foreign investment rules that make it harder for bordering countries—read: China—to bid on government contracts. Nope, TikTok ain’t coming back anytime soon.
In other China news: A new report reveals that the 38 leading apparel brands—including Gap, Adidas, H&M, Zara and Victoria's Secret—are sourcing their cotton from detention camps in China. The shocking data point: “Roughly one in five cotton products sold around the world comes from the Uighur heartland.” The Guardian has more.
A quick pandemic update
Can you get Covid again? The answer: most likely not. Although there have been stray reports of people falling ill again, these are unlikely to be reinfections. Times of India explains why. Also read: New York Times’ longer reported piece.
A far less noisy world: The worldwide lockdowns have caused the longest and most pronounced drop in human-created noise in recorded history. As The Telegraph explains:
“Human activity causes vibrations that travel through the ground as high-frequency seismic waves. These waves have increased worldwide over the past decades, driven by industrial, economic and human population growth, and are most prominent near areas with large populations.”
This “seismic ambient noise” dropped by a jaw-dropping 50% between March and May.
A new way to drive: Jaguar Land Rover is developing a new “contactless touchscreen technology” called Predictive Touch. It uses artificial intelligence to reduce the need to actually touch a screen by 50%. Hindustan Times explains.
An antigen passport for Goa: The local government has made rapid antibody tests mandatory for travellers. Asymptomatic arrivals who test positive can opt for a home quarantine.
A Bangalore travesty: When a domestic worker at a flat tested positive, local authorities decided to seal the apartment doors with metal sheets—effectively sealing in its residents. A Twitter outrage led to a much-needed U-turn. See insane photo below. Indian Express has the story.
A plane to nowhere
Asiana Airlines has flown its biggest planes—the A380—twenty times since the pandemic. The flights, which last a few hours, are entirely empty. The reason for this bizarre practice: trainee pilots need to log in flight hours to remain certified. Bloomberg News (via NDTV) has more.
In crew-related news: British Airways settled a bitter dispute with its pilot union by dialling back the number of job cuts—from 1,255 to a mere 270. But staying on the job can be hazardous too. Point in case: 60 Air India pilots who operated repatriation flights have tested positive.
In passenger-related news: Emirates is offering coronavirus insurance worth Rs 13 million to all its passengers—for free! It also includes quarantine costs for up to Rs 8,192/day for 14 days. Also: if you want to fly to the US, you may have to fly SpiceJet—which has been picked as the “scheduled carrier” from India.
Sexism thrives on Zoom
WFH has not saved women from the routine sexism of the workplace. New research found that one in three women in the UK has been asked to wear more makeup or dress provocatively for work video meetings—leaving them feeling “objectified, demoralised and self-conscious.”
“The most common ways bosses justified lurid comments about dress included saying it would ‘help to win new business’, it is important to ‘look nicer for the team’, and ‘it would be more pleasing to a client’, according to the study.”
That golden tigress isn’t cause for celebration
In recent days, Twitterati have been cheering a gorgeous photo of a golden tigress—taken at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam. But the photographer, Mayuresh Hendre, explains why this sighting is a bad sign:
“Golden tigers were only known to be in zoos and breeding centres; finding them in the wild is quite rare. That’s why this sighting, and the study done by the Kaziranga Forest Department is important. This sighting is not a sign of joy, it’s a sign of utmost concern. This occurrence is believed to be caused due to recessive genes in individuals, as a result of inbreeding in the wild, because of habitat destruction and loss of connectivity of Kaziranga with other tiger areas.”
That said, a genetic disaster has never been this pretty:
