The latest ‘leak’ claims that the Chinese foreign minister is desperate to meet his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh at the sidelines of an upcoming international summit. Indian Express says Singh will indeed deign to meet him. Times of India says Singh’s playing hard-to-get—citing a “tight schedule.” Meanwhile, Beijing has accused New Delhi of ganging up with Washington DC to bully a bechara China.
Also walking out on China: The English Premier League which has ended its £550 million broadcasting deal with Chinese streaming service PP Sports two years ahead of schedule—even though the league is struggling from a loss of revenue. No reasons were offered for this sudden decision except that it is financial not political. Hmm.
The mega-venture fund SoftBank (of WeWork infamy) is trying to assemble a group of bidders to vie for TikTok India. But talks with the heads of Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have fizzled. Point to note, SoftBank has plowed bags of money into India:
“SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has a long history of investing in India and a deep network of local business connections. Local startups backed by Son include e-commerce provider Snapdeal.com, ride-hailing service Ola Cabs and hotel-booking app Oyo Rooms. In December, SoftBank poured $275 million into eye-care provider Lenskart, minting India’s latest unicorn. The company is also part of a solar power joint venture with Bharti Enterprises Pvt. and Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Co. Son helped pave the way for Walmart’s entry into the country by selling its stake in Flipkart Online Services Pvt Ltd. in 2018.”
It may not be as easy for the government to fob off SoftBank—even though it has a minority share in recently banished Tencent (best known for PubG). (Bloomberg)
Verizon & Amazon eye Vodafone India: The US telecom company and Amazon are in talks to throw a $4 billion lifeline to the company—which is being crushed by Jio and a Rs 500 billion bill which it owes to the government. (Mint)
BJP MLA from Telangana, T Raja Singh, has been banned from both Facebook and Instagram. This is the guy who was being protected by Ankhi Das, FB’s policy chief. Singh had been flagged by the company’s moderators as a “dangerous individual” who should be banned for saying a variety of ugly things. Examples: Rohingya Muslim immigrants should be shot, Muslims are traitors and mosques should be destroyed. But FB India’s policy chief had intervened—which triggered the ongoing ruckus. Interestingly, the move came soon after the company received a grilling in front of a parliamentary committee. Don’t know what this is about? Read our explainer here. (Wall Street Journal or read The Telegraph)
A rumoured new WhatsApp feature will allow you to keep archived chats entirely out of sight. They will remain hidden even when you receive a new message from that person or group. To which we say: yes, yes, yes! (Mint)
Last month, the publisher withdrew the controversial book ‘Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story’—which claimed that the Delhi violence was a result of a conspiracy between jihadists and ‘urban naxals’ (see our explainer here). Now the authors have filed a police complaint accusing Bloomsbury of criminal breach of trust, cheating, mischief, and misappropriation of property. It also takes aim at authors like William Dalrymple, Meena Kandasamy and Aatish Taseer for campaigning against the publishing of the book. News sites like Quint and Newslaundry are accused of illegally accessing a pdf version of the book. (Huffington Post)
The Maharashtra government will reserve 600 out of 3,000-acres in Aarey Milk Colony as a protected forest. The area sparked a public storm when the previous government felled over 2000 trees to make way for a metro shed. To be clear, that part of Aarey is not part of these 600 acres. Why this matters: Aarey has 27 tribal hamlets, with an adivasi population of over 10,000—and is home to 290-plus wild species of flora and fauna. Activists campaigning for its preservation say the latest move is a good step, but nowhere close to enough. (Indian Express)
In worrying ecological news: An Indian Oil tanker carrying 2 million barrels of Kuwaiti oil has caught fire. Crew members have been evacuated and 🤞🏽 we won’t end up with another oil spill (See: Mauritius).
The Prospect Magazine pulled together a list of the world’s 50 top thinkers. In the #1 spot, Kerala health minister KK Shailaja who received the honour for her masterful handling of the pandemic. Hey, she nudged out New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern who came in at #2. And that’s no mean feat.
A lively look back at our pehla election of 1951. We’ve come a long way.
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