ICYMI, our festival sale is here 

Here are all the goodies we’re offering until November 7:

• Offer one month free to anyone you like—using your unique referral link available on your account page and the bottom of the daily email. It’s a great way to get folks to take splainer for a free spin! That same referral link also offers Rs 500 off our annual subscription—which is now only Rs 1000.
• You can also gift an annual subscription to friends & fam at that discounted price over at the ‘subscribe’ page.
• Coming soon: We will be opening that discount to our existing subscribers soon. So you can add 12 months at a lower rate.

Want a bulk/family discount? If you plan to gift splainer to eight or more people, be sure to email us at talktous@splainer.in.

A gift for splainer: If you’re feeling a lot of love for splainer this festival season, please become a founding member. It helps us grow faster, support our tech development—and above all, stay independent so we don’t have to hustle for partnerships or investors who don’t match our values. 

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Terrible floods in Kerala

Extremely heavy rains triggered landslides and flash floods—killing at least 27 people. Some districts received as much as 305.5 mm rain in 24 hours. The deluge was not a result of usual monsoon rains but a low pressure system that developed over the Arabian Sea—and moved towards the Kerala coast. The India Meteorological Department issued red alert warnings on October 16—but the rains were far heavier than expected (see the vast gap in these maps here). Yes, this latest tragedy is yet more evidence of climate change—specifically the warming of the Arabian Sea. The News Minute has more details.

Meanwhile in Kashmir: Four more civilians were killed by terrorists over the weekend. All of them were out-of-state migrants, including a golgappa vendor, two labourers and a carpenter. We explained the new face of militancy in Kashmir here. (The Telegraph)

Congress goes back to the future...

The party held its first working committee meeting in five months. After a very long meeting, the party announced that it will hold elections to pick its president—between August 21 and September 20 2022 (?!). Also: the interim head Sonia Gandhi insisted that she was not at all a stop-gap choice—picked when her son quit the top job—but “a full-time and hands-on Congress president.” If you need more reasons to roll your eyes: Yes, Rahul will “consider” becoming party prez again but only if the party has “clarity of thought and decides where it stands on the question of ideology.” A related read: The Hindu’s analysis of Sonia’s move to once again put Rahul back in charge. (Indian Express)

In other Congress-related news: The Income Tax department raided digital marketing and campaign management firms associated with the party—and claims to have unearthed Rs 7 crore in unaccounted investments, and Rs 70 crore in fake expenses. (Indian Express)

Anti-namaz protests in Gurgaon

Local Resident Welfare Associations and Hindutva groups have teamed up to protest open-air Friday prayers held in public grounds—which have been designated by local authorities for that very purpose. The protesters have been chanting slogans and playing devotional songs over loudspeakers to disrupt the prayers. The Telegraph and Wire have more details. You can watch some clips here.

China tests a space missile

According to an exclusive Financial Times report, the military tested its first ever “nuclear capable hypersonic missile” back in August. A rocket carried a hypersonic glide vehicle—which flew around the globe in low-orbit space before cruising down towards its target. Now, the missile did not successfully hit its target, but experts say the test displays “an advanced space capability that caught US intelligence by surprise.” Why this matters: “a hypersonic glide vehicle armed with a nuclear warhead could help China ‘negate’ US missile defence systems which are designed to destroy incoming ballistic missiles.”  Indian Express has more on the implications for India. (Financial Times)

Speaking of China: Apple has quietly deleted Quran Majeed—one of the world’s most popular Quran apps used by millions of Muslims—likely under pressure from Beijing. When asked for a response, the company said: “We're required to comply with local laws, and at times there are complex issues about which we may disagree with governments.” (BBC News)

Chimps are developing leprosy

The disease has been identified in wild chimpanzees in Guinea-Bissau and the Ivory Coast for the very first time—though the disease has shown up in other wild animals such as red squirrels and armadillos. Scientists don’t know how the apes were infected. More importantly, it is not going to be easy to treat them since it's very difficult to administer antibiotics to wild populations—and there are ethical issues in tranquilizing chimps.  (CNN)

Another unexpected disease outbreak: Doctors in the US say that teenage girls are developing ‘movement disorders’—tic-like symptoms like physical jerking movements and verbal outbursts. These young women already suffer from anxiety and depression—and have been watching TikTok influencers who claim to have Tourette syndrome, and display similar symptoms. As a result, their psychological stress is now showing up in this bizarre, imitative disorder. (Wall Street Journal)

There’s no one king cobra

The dreaded and most easily recognised snake is not a single species—but four! Indian scientists and their global collaborators have identified four independently evolving, geographically separated kinds of lineages: the Western Ghats, Indo-Chinese, Indo-Malayan and Luzon Island. A lead researcher said: “The existence of multiple species of the king cobra is surprising because they look similar, share similar habitats, display similar behaviour”—but each has been evolving separately in different geographical locations. (The Telegraph)

A prize-winning shocker

The €1m Planeta prize—the world’s highest paying literary award—was won by a Spanish woman author Carmen Mola, a pseudonym for a professor. Or so everyone thought—and she was dubbed as the Spanish Elena Ferrante. Turns out Carmen Mola is actually the fake name used by three middle-aged men. All three are TV script writers who have worked on Spanish shows such as ‘On Duty Pharmacy’, ‘Central Hospital’ and ‘No Heaven Without Breasts’. Yes, you read that right. (Financial Times)

How much for that shredded painting?

In 2018, a Banksy painting titled ‘Girl With Balloon’ was ripped to bits by a shredder built into its frame right after it was auctioned off for $1.2 million. The stunt was Banksy’s comment on the commercialisation of art (or something to that effect). Now that partly shredded painting has sold for a whopping $25.4 million. It’s new name: ‘Love in the Bin’—which sounds about right. (Reuters)