England breaks Denmark’s heart

The fairytale story of the Danes finally came to an end with a 2-1 loss to England in extra-time. And the English fans rejoiced by singing their new anthem—Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’—with the players joining in:

ESPN decodes the match and looks at what this victory means for a young English team. Also from ESPN: a look at a disappointed but not bitter Danish team. Washington Post has more on the controversial penalty kick that spelled defeat for Denmark.

An excellent Euro reminder: This banner with a very important message displayed at the Italy vs Spain match in Wembley:

The assassination of Haiti’s president

Jovenel Moïse was killed at his private residence by a group of unidentified assailants—who have also critically injured his wife. According to Prime Minister Claude Joseph, the assassination was carried out by a commando group that included “foreigners who spoke English and Spanish." And there are video clips showing the men identifying themselves as US drug enforcement agents. Also: this bit of CCTV footage of the attack:

Haitian police announced that four people suspected of being involved in the assassination were killed in a gun battle and two others were arrested. But no suspects have been named as yet.

Point to note: Moïse has been ruling Haiti by decree since 2018—when elections were delayed:

“Many in the impoverished nation viewed Moise's rule as illegitimate as his term legally expired in February 2021. He cycled through seven prime ministers in four years and faced a strong protest movement. Opposition leaders have accused him of being power-hungry. With two controversial decrees, Moise has limited the power of courts to perform audits on public procurement contracts and created an intelligence service that only answers to the president.” 

The Guardian has details of the attack. Deutsche Welle has the big picture.

Trump v/s big tech

The former US president has filed a lawsuit each against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for suspending him from their platforms since the Capitol Hill riots (explained here): “We’re asking [for]... an immediate halt to social media companies’ illegal, shameful censorship of the American people...We’re going to hold big tech very accountable.” All three lawsuits ask the court to award unspecified damages, declare Section 230—which allows companies to moderate their content—unconstitutional and restore Trump’s accounts. But most legal experts think his case is DOA, and here’s why:

“The First Amendment applies to government censorship or speech regulation. It does not stop private sector corporations from regulating content on their platforms. In fact, Facebook and Twitter themselves have a First Amendment free speech right to determine what speech their platforms project and amplify—and that right includes excluding speakers who incite violence, as Trump did in connection with the January 6 Capitol insurrection.”

A controversy over Giloy

Giloy or Tinospora cordifolia is a herb often prescribed in Ayurvedic treatments for viral fevers. And it is among the traditional medications prescribed as an immunity-booster by the Ayush ministry. A peer-reviewed study published this week found that in patients with underlying conditions—such as diabetes—giloy can trigger severe liver damage—and cited at least six such cases in Mumbai, and one of them resulted in death. But the Ayush ministry has now come out and attacked the study as “completely misleading”:

“The ministry said that it went through the aforementioned study and found out that the authors of the study had not analysed the contents of the herb that was consumed by the patients… ‘In fact, there are many studies that point out that identifying the herb not correctly could lead to wrong results. A similar-looking herb Tinospora Crispa might have a negative effect on the liver.’”

Journalists in jeopardy

One: NewsLaundry correspondent Nidhi Suresh did a damning report on how big media outlets misreported the conversion of a Hindu woman, Ayesha Alvi, to Islam. Alvi called out reporters who were harassing her—among them News18’s Deep Srivastava. She told Suresh:

“The first mobile call that I received was from 063******** and when he came he threatened that he will publish the news about my conversion and that I would get arrested and he demanded money from me and when we denied he threatened again. Thereafter he forcefully took 20 thousand rupees from us."

The number turned out to be that of Srivastava—who refused to speak to NewsLaundry. But he has instead filed an FIR charging Suresh with criminal defamation. What’s striking about this case: A case of criminal defamation requires a magistrate’s approval, but the UP police appears to have skipped that step. Also, the FIR doesn’t mention the actual news story but a tweet shared by Suresh. Hmm. 

Two: A Mathura court has rejected the bail plea of Siddique Kappan (we explained his case here)—who has now been in jail on sedition and terror charges for eight months. (The Telegraph)

Three: Award-winning Dutch reporter Peter de Vries was shot five times in the middle of the street—and is now fighting for his life. De Vries is widely respected for his big investigative stories on crime and the underworld. Most recently, he was advising the key witness testifying against a feared gang boss named Ridouan Taghi—currently facing trial for murder and drug trafficking. CNN has more on this tragedy making global headlines.

NGOs face rigorous tax audits

An estimated 300 nonprofit organisations that receive foreign funding under the Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) are facing intense scrutiny from tax officials. That’s out of a total of 22,000. They have received notices stating that, “after a preliminary scrutiny of the Annual Returns submitted online,” the government “has reasonable cause to believe” that some FCRA rules are being broken. Audits—which are rare and usually triggered by a complaint—have suddenly become the norm. But no one dares complain since most of these NGOs have to renew their FCRA licenses soon. And what are these taxmen looking for? Here’s what they asked for in one typical case:

“In total, the auditors asked for files on around 100 beneficiaries. The auditors told him, the executive director said, that they’d been asked to look for evidence of money disbursed to Muslim or Dalit groups, or to groups that supported the farmers’ protests earlier this year, or to those that supported protests against India’s controversial citizenship bill in 2019.”

Quartz has an excellent report on this disturbing trend.

Flipkart does good

The ecommerce platform has eliminated all single-use plastic packaging from its supply chains:

“This has been achieved across more than 70 facilities of Flipkart, where it has eliminated single-use plastic packaging by introducing sustainable alternatives such as eco-friendly paper shreds, replacing poly pouches with recycled paper bags and bubble wraps with carton waste shredded material and 2 ply rolls, to name a few.”

Next, it will work with its sellers who deliver directly to customers—to make them more eco-friendly as well. (Mint)

Robots get the feels

Singapore researchers have developed something called artificially innervated foam, or AiFoam that gives robots the sense of “touch”—so that they can sense nearby objects. Also: it can literally heal itself when damaged. Watch how it works below:

The red carpet at Cannes

No more striking awkward Zoom poses. People are back to sashaying on the red carpet in Cannes—in person and without masks! Check out excellent photo galleries over at Vogue. Our two favourites: Spike Lee pulling off all-pink, and a truly radiant Helen Mirren. Also: NPR reports on the upbeat and celebratory air that surrounds the festival this year—after a long year of Covid.

Also good to see: This conscientious Jedi kid calling out maskless rowdies with his ‘lightsaber’ in Dharamsala.

In our gratitude jar…

A big shout out to our wonderful founding members Geetanjalee Agrawal, Divyanshu Rai, Prema Dutta, Varsha Natarajan, Shrinivas SG, Deepa Kochhar, Anushree Kaushal, Kaustubh Khade, Shrabonti Bagchi and Tarini Uppal. Your support means everything to us.