Iceland’s great threat
A dormant volcano near the nation’s capital Reykjavik erupted on Friday—for the first time in 781 years! Air traffic has now been halted thanks to the air pollution caused by the eruption. And authorities have urged people to stay indoors and keep their windows shut. No fatalities as yet, thankfully! Here’s what it looked like below—and a far more close up view here. Deutsche Welle and CBS News have more.
Australia’s great threat: New South Wales is battling a ‘plague’ of mice thanks to a bumper harvest plus unusually heavy summer rains—after years of drought. Even setting traps to kill them isn’t a great solution: “We don’t want to go inside in the morning sometimes. It stinks, they will die and it’s impossible to find all the bodies … Some nights we are catching over 400 or 500.” The Guardian has the story. Also, this is how bad it is:
In other bad news from Australia: Hindutva groups are spreading hate and fake news thanks to the farmer protests—which in turn is sparking attacks. Last month, four Sikh students were attacked in Sydney by men armed with bats and hammers. The police haven’t called it a hate crime as yet, but the cause seems fairly clear to many experts:
“Some anti-farmer hype has become anti-Sikh hype in India and has permeated into Australia among sections of the diaspora who still have, and maintain, links to India… Given that identity has become a key factor in this ongoing discord, some have resorted to violence to express their position and feelings, unable to separate the political distance from India with Australia.”
The big Ashoka crisis: The latest update
The resignations of Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Arvind Subramanian—likely due to political pressure—has sparked a firestorm of criticism and hand-wringing (explained here). Students have called for a two-day campus-wide strike calling for a public and unconditional offer letter of reinstatement—and a transparent reduction of the influence of founders over governance of the university.
At odds with this: A statement jointly signed by the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor (V-C), and the Chairman of the Board of Trustees—plus Mehta and Subramanian—acknowledging “there have been some lapses in institutional processes.” Also this:
“Pratap and Arvind would like to emphasize that Ashoka University is one of the most important projects in Indian higher education. They are sad to be leaving Ashoka, especially its outstanding students and faculty. They continue to believe strongly that Ashoka University should embody a liberal vision and commitment to academic freedom and autonomy. And they remain lifelong friends and well-wishers of the institution and are committed to its success wherever they are.”
This came hours after Mehta wrote a letter to students, urging them not to press for his return: “The underlying circumstances that led to the resignation will not change for the foreseeable future, in my case, at any rate. So I must close this chapter.”
A new question mark: flagging a possible conflict of interest for the founders:
“A Union home ministry source confirmed that a licence to receive funds from abroad… had been granted this month to a company called Reimagining Higher Education Foundation (RHEF), whose directors are among Ashoka University’s founders and which is setting up Plaksha University in Mohali, Punjab. The timing of the clearance has prompted fingers to be raised at Ashoka, but there is nothing to suggest the licence was given out of turn.”
Moral of this story: Everyone is pointing fingers at the founders. And yet not a word has been said about the government—which presumably is the original villain (if one is to blame the founders who allegedly caved into its pressure).
The great pandemic: A quick update
- The number of new daily cases rose by 67% last week—the sharpest-ever rise since the beginning of the pandemic. The last such spike was 34% in July. The total number of new cases added last week: 1.55 lakh. The death toll also surged by 41% to a nine-week high of 1,239.
- Adding to the worry is the Kumbh Mela: “The [Health] ministry said a central public health team that had visited the Kumbh Mela had noted that 10 to 20 pilgrims and 10 to 20 residents were testing positive every day in Haridwar, where about a million people are expected to congregate for dips in the Ganga daily up to April 30.”
- Researchers in Norway and Germany may have solved the mystery of blood clots triggered by the Oxford vaccine. They have identified an antibody created by the vaccine that triggers a rare autoimmune reaction. The good news: “Very, very few people will develop this complication… But if it happens, we now know how to treat the patients.”
- Medical experts in the UK say that Covid can trigger type 1 and 2 diabetes in Covid patients. Also: by disrupting sugar metabolism in patients, it could even “be inducing an entirely new form of diabetes."
- Qantas is making noises about requiring a vaccine certificate for passengers: “The vast majority of our customers think this is a great idea - 90% of people that we've surveyed think it should be a requirement for people to be vaccinated to travel internationally." Expect this to become a refrain among airlines in the days to come.
- As usual—pandemic or not—Finland was once again the happiest country in the world in 2020. But here’s the hidden good news in this year’s report: “Yes, we experienced more sadness, worry, and stress in 2020 than in previous years. However, on average, there was no change in our positive feelings, or our satisfaction with life. While lockdowns, uncertainty, and loss hit our mental health hard last spring, there’s evidence to suggest that many people recovered over the course of the summer and fall.” Ok, India ranked #139 out of 149 countries. So there’s that.
- Here’s a weird story: Bahrain’s prince Sheikh Mohamed Hamad Mohamed al-Khalifa flew into Nepal to climb Mount Everest. And he came bearing gifts: 2,000 vaccine doses for a remote mountain village. But Kathmandu isn’t happy since he may not have taken permission to import the drugs—and it may violate the country’s own vaccine protocol.
- Three good reads: The Atlantic on why post-vaccination infections are both rare and entirely expected. Nature on why herd immunity is impossible despite a widespread vaccine rollout. The Hindu offers a ‘3M’ road map to vaccinating India.
- Last but not least: meet India’s crazy anti maskers: A woman assaulting a municipal authority official in Mumbai who stopped her auto because she was not wearing a mask.
Related case of craziness: Authorities in Florida have had to bring out SWAT teams to quell thousands of spring break partiers—who are openly defying the night-time curfew.
Dire climate change news
A new study says that unchecked global warming will result in six-month summers—and two-month winters—by 2100. And the season will be far hotter, as well. All the other seasons are already shrinking:
“They found that over the nearly 60-year period, summers were becoming an average of 78 to 95 days longer. Winters, on average, shortened from 76 to 73 days, and the spring and autumn seasons similarly contracted. On average, the spring seasons shrank from 124 days to 115 days, and autumns shortened from 87 days to 82 days.”
Guess who bought that Beeple NFT?
As you may have heard, someone paid $69 million for a digital token that gives them ownership of a digital artwork created by Mike Winkelmann aka Beeple (NFTs explained here). Guess who? Answer: India-born, Singapore-based blockchain entrepreneur Vignesh Sundaresan. One of the reasons for this expensive buying spree:
“Imagine an investor, a financier, a patron of the arts. Ten times out of nine, your palette is monochrome. By winning the Christie’s auction of Beeple’s ‘Everydays: The First 5000 Days’, we added a dash of mahogany to that color scheme… The point was to show Indians and people of color that they too could be patrons, that crypto was an equalizing power between the West and the Rest, and that the global south was rising.”
In other insane NFT news: A Brooklyn-based film director is selling a year’s worth of gassy audio clips titled ‘One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts’. Staying on theme: Charmin toilet paper is auctioning NFTs that feature its, umm, excellent product. One example (others are here):
The kiddie Insta nobody wants
According to leaked internal documents, Facebook is working on building an Instagram for kids 13 and under—to help parents who are under pressure from their whiny spawn, of course. Unfortunately, news of this “new youth pillar” has not gone down well with the UK, where politicians see this as a deeply cynical attempt to get kids hooked early on to social media:
"The last thing we need is more pre-teen children addicted to social media. Instead of acting responsibly to tackle the widespread underage use of their platforms—with the associated mental health harm—this looks like an aggressive attempt to entice ever younger children into being customers for life."
Point to note: Instagram was the most widely used platform for pedophiles looking to groom their targets.
Also making an unpopular move: Netflix, which has started asking users to verify their identity via SMS—in a bid to cut down on password sharing. According to Wall Street Journal:
“A Netflix spokesman declined to say whether all users would see verification requests, only saying that the effort was designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so. Netflix hasn’t cut off any subscribers for sharing a password, a person close to the company said.”
Captain America is gay
Marvel Comics is marking the 80th anniversary of the Avenger with the launch of a new series titled ‘The United States of Captain America’. In it, Steve Rogers will team up with former Captain Americas when his shield goes missing—and meet others who have taken up the mantle to fight injustice. The first in the series: Aaron Fischer “a fearless teen who stepped up to protect fellow runaways and the unhoused.” Also: The illustration of Fischer was created by transgender artist Jan Bazaldua, and he looks like this:
In less happy news: Alexi McCammond was set to become the third Black editor of Teen Vogue, but her appointment was soon shrouded in a controversy with her past anti-Asian tweets. She has now decided not to take the position. Two likely reasons: one, the increased focus on anti-Asian hate crimes, and beauty brands cancelling their ads in protest. (Variety)
Also not doing well: mostly white, affluent men, i.e young investment bankers. First years at Goldman Sachs have warned that they will quit if their working conditions do not improve. The big problem: an average of 95 hours of work a week and five hours of sleep a night. One said: "This is beyond the level of 'hard-working', this is inhumane/ abuse.” To put this in perspective: in 2019, Goldman Sachs was one of the three worst performing banks in upholding human rights in its investments and deals. But snark aside, work pressure at places like Goldman Sachs has been implicated in serious mental health issues of their juniormost associates, including at least one suicide of an Indian man. (BBC News)
