Government blinks on farm laws
The government has made its first big concession in the confrontation with farmer unions: We will give a sworn affidavit that will suspend the three laws for 1.5 years, and will form a committee to consider your demands. The committee—unlike the one created by the Supreme Court—will include union leaders. The Agriculture minister also promised to halt the National Intelligence Agency’s investigation into farm groups.
And the farmers are taking this one seriously:
“For a change, today’s meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere… we hardly had a confrontation with the Union Ministers… I would call this meeting a very important meeting for all. Finally, the government is in a mood to resolve the issue.”
The likely reason for bending: The planned tractor parade on Republic Day. The Supreme Court has refused to intervene. And the government doesn’t want to engage in a violent confrontation to stop them. Indian Express and The Telegraph have the most details.
In related news: Perhaps heartened by the farmers’ success, 10 national trade unions are now demanding that the new labour laws be repealed (we explained these here).
The Telegraph has more.
Jack Ma is back!
The Alibaba founder has resurfaced after he hadn’t been seen in public for months. He ‘disappeared’ soon after he criticised the Chinese government and earned its displeasure. Naturally, everyone was a bit worried. But now he’s reemerged at an online conference for rural teachers—which is a pet cause of President Xi. Watch him here. Quartz notes:
“Ma’s reappearance at a charity event could be a careful calculation to make the mogul look humble and win points with the government, since it’s likely that his earlier high profile and critical remarks played a role in his landing in hot water in China, where the Party has been pushing the private sector to show ever greater loyalty.”
Tandav mess gets even messier
Both Amazon Prime and the series’ creators have deleted the two allegedly offensive scenes—after a meeting with the Information & Broadcasting ministry. Point to note: This is the first intervention by the ministry since OTT platforms and digital news came under its purview in November.
But their troubles are far from over. The UP police has arrived in Mumbai armed with an FIR—forcing them to get a three-week pre-arrest bail from the High Court. Other than the three FIRs in UP, the Mumbai police has filed one of its own, and there two others in Madhya Pradesh. Point to note: The Mumbai FIR also named Saif Ali Khan.
A related good read: Nikhil Pahwa in RestOfWorld explains why the new digital media laws will choke independent journalism.
A new study on virus mutations
New research out of South Africa found that people who already had Covid may still be vulnerable to some of the new variants. More worryingly, it could make vaccines at least somewhat less effective—but we don’t know by how much.
The study looked at blood samples of previously infected people—and checked if the antibodies could fight off the South African strain. The bad news: “For about half of the 44 people, their antibodies were powerless against the new version. For the other half, the antibody response was weakened, but not totally knocked out.” CNN has more on this alarming study.
On a lighter related note: 52-year-old Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was instantly upgraded to hottie status after he took off part of his shirt to get the vaccine—and the photo below went viral.
Other leaders who stripped: Russian president Vladimir Putin who OTOH bares his chest at the slightest pretext. Dressed in a pair of blue swimming trunks, he plunged himself in freezing water to mark an Orthodox Christian feast. It was supposed to divert attention from the arrest of his biggest critic Alexei Navalny. Sadly, the trunks reminded everyone of Navalny’s blue underwear—which was sprayed with a deadly nerve agent to kill him (we explained that here).
A list of offensive things
Dragon fruit: Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani is so deeply offended by its Chinese name that they have renamed it Kamalam—which is Sanskrit for ‘lotus’, which is the BJP’s symbol. QED. Rupani’s comeback:
"Even though the fruit is known as dragon fruit, it doesn't sound appropriate. The word Kamalam is a Sanskrit word and the fruit does have the shape of the lotus, so we have decided to call it Kamalam, and there's nothing political about it.”
Jokes inevitably ensued—including speculation as to whether the government plans to rename the banana to better match its, er, shape. Other memes here, here and here.
Risque pastries: A baker in Egypt has been arrested for baking interestingly shaped pastries—for a birthday party for a group of women. Those who enjoyed eating the desserts—and shared them on their social media handles—are being tracked down as well. The reason: These items are an “assault on the value system, and a crude abuse of [an Islamic] society”:
This one isn’t funny at all. And we wouldn’t be surprised if our netas started moral policing food items next.
A Chinese actress: Zheng Shuang has been dropped by Prada as its brand ambassador for abandoning two children born to surrogate mothers in the US. Apparently, she later developed cold feet and now refuses to take the children—and the fact leaked after her husband went public. Point to note: surrogacy is illegal in China. BBC News has more on this unhappy story.
A podcast: A 63-year old Thai woman has been sentenced to 43 years in prison for sharing clips from a podcast that criticised the Thai king (who is a lousy one at that, as we explained in our big story on the Thai protests). Why this is chilling:
"That someone accused only of uploading these clips to social media should be given such a harsh sentence, so long after the original arrests, suggests the authorities want to send a warning to other dissidents to stop talking about the monarchy."
Two curious cases of discrimination
One: A UK worker at a curry-making factory has won a racial discrimination suit against his Asian manager—who told him to go work in a “English firm.” The reason: He did not understand how to manufacture the recipes because he was white. (Metro UK)
Two: A Thai origin customer in Dublin won a lawsuit against her local Starbucks because an employee drew ‘slanty eyes’ along with a smile—instead of writing her name on the cup. Here’s what’s interesting:
“The employee, who is from Brazil and gave evidence through an interpreter, said she had drawn a smiley face on the cup ‘as she thought the complainant was glamorous’. She had been working at the branch for about a month when the incident happened and said she had been ‘trained to be nice’.”
Pink see-saws are a winner
A see-saw installation on the US-Mexico border has won the 2020 Beazley Design of the Year award. The see-saws were placed through the sections of Donald Trump’s ‘beautiful’ wall, and allowed people on either side of the border to “play together.” The Teeter Totter Wall stayed in place for only 20 minutes, but footage of people using them went instantly viral. BBC News has more photos.