Researched & collated by: Vagda Galhotra & Nivedita Bobal

South Korea’s ugly election ends

Opposition candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol, was elected as the country's next president following a very close and nasty election campaign. He defeated the ruling liberal Democratic Party candidate, Lee Jae-myung by less than 1% of the vote. The election of Yoon—who has been compared to Donald Trump—marks a swing to the right. FYI:

“He has pledged to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and has blamed the rise of feminism for the low birth rate in a country which has one of the worst records on women's rights in the developed world.”

The campaign: The two candidates put on a show worthy of a K-drama—so much so that South Koreans are calling this the ‘Squid Game’ election. They’ve accused each of corruption, shamanism and even gone after each other’s wives:

“Yoon described Lee’s party as ‘Hitler’ and ‘Mussolini’ while an associate called Lee’s purported aides ‘parasites.’ Lee’s allies called Yoon ‘a beast,’ ‘dictator’ and ‘an empty can’ and derided his wife’s alleged plastic surgery.”

And it’s widely speculated that the loser could end up in jail. In other words, it’s not just us… (Associated Press)

OTOH: The election has also been colourful and high-tech—with cheerleaders, candidate press conferences in metaverse and a deepfake AI version of Yoon—who is “sassier” than his real life counterpart. All of which is captured by the Al Jazeera report below:

Truecaller has a huge privacy problem

A Caravan investigation has found that the Swedish app we all use to ID numbers is flagrantly violating user privacy. The reason it can so easily identify an unknown number is that the company has built its dataset without the user’s consent. Here’s how this works:

“[O]nce a user signs up for or downloads Truecaller, a give-and-take dynamic comes into play. If you want access to caller ID features and the app’s other functions, then you have to give up your contacts, so other users can access the same functions. Every single contact in your phone then becomes part of Truecaller’s database that includes users who did not register and did not give consent to having their numbers identified.”

What’s really alarming: none of this is illegal as per Indian law. You can read the rest of the republished investigation over at RestOfWorld.

New rules of cricket

The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC)—the custodian of cricket laws—have made two significant changes. One, ‘Mankading’ or running out the batter at the non-striker end is now totally okay. Two, using saliva to shine the ball has been banned forever—and not just for the interim of the pandemic: “MCC’s research found that this had little or no impact on the amount of swing the bowlers were getting. Players were using sweat to polish the ball, and this was equally effective.” England pacer Stuart Broad is unhappy with the run-out rules: “I think it is unfair & wouldn't consider it, as IMO, dismissing a batter is about skill & the Mankad requires zero skill.” (Indian Express)

Is Delhi the new startup king?

The Economic Survey released before the budget showed that the capital city has beaten Bangalore in the number of startups founded in 2019-21—5,354 compared to namma Bengaluru’s 4,998. While it may be India’s new startup hub, a Mint analysis shows that its southern rival continues to hog most of the funds—raising a whopping $17 billion compared to Dilli’s paltry $7 billion. What hasn’t changed at all: “founders from prominent colleges—the likes of IITs and IIMs—have cornered almost 60% of the funding in 15 major cities, despite accounting for just 4.8% of the startups. The skew may only be rising.” (Mint)

The exploitations of great Hindi authors

Vinod K Shukla is the author of many novels, stories and poems—which have earned him a Sahitya Akademi award and are part of the Hindi curriculum in school. Yet of his two publishers, one has only paid him Rs 1.35 lakh in the past 25 years—while the other has shelled out Rs 14,000 per year for six books. Adding insult to injury, the 85-year-old’s son said: “My father has been requesting them for four-five years not to publish some of his books as there were proof mistakes but there were no replies. They even keep bringing out new editions”—without paying him royalties. You can see him talking about the betrayal below. (The Print)

Bad news about lab-grown meat

Steaks and chicken nuggets grown in a lab are praised as a cruelty-free way to enjoy the delights of meat without the attendant cruelty to animals. But a Mother Jones investigation has uncovered an unpleasant truth about what goes into artificial animal flesh: “the blood of unborn cow foetuses, extracted from their mothers after slaughter.” Fetal bovine serum is essential to growing animal cells in a test tube—and is insanely expensive ($1000/litre). It’s also the reason why lab-grown meat has struggled to go mass. Mother Jones has more details.

A long-lost shipwreck is found!

Back in 1914, Ernest Shackleton set sail from South Georgia to cross the vast Antarctic ice sheet to the south pole—and cross all the way to the other side. But the ship got stuck in the ice and sank—though happily the crew managed to escape. It was considered one of the most daring expeditions in history. More than 100 years later, his 144-foot ship—Endurance—has finally been found—and it’s intact! The director of the search said: “This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen. It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact, and in a brilliant state of preservation…This is a milestone in polar history.” You can see an image below. (The Guardian)

Three things to see 

One: Believe it or not, Daily Show’s Trevor Noah invited none other than Sadhguru Jagdish “Jaggi” Vasudev to talk on his show. Many folks on Twitter were not happy. To be fair, he held forth on desertification—which all of us can agree is a bad thing.

Two: Ten-month-old Locklan Samples has hair that stands up straight from his scalp—and cannot be combed flat. He has an extremely rare condition called Uncombable Hair Syndrome (UHS)—which his mother had never heard of until she posted photos of her son. Why it happens: A rare genetic disorder of the hair shaft. Don’t worry: There’s nothing wrong with Locklan—and his hair will be just fine once he hits puberty. (The Guardian)

Three: We all associate a devotion to cow poop with the BJP, but Bhupesh Baghel—the Congress CM of Chhattisgarh—made a style statement that the saffron party would envy—a briefcase made out of dung with the phrase “Gomaye Vasate Laxmi” (wealth resides in the cow) imprinted on it. Happily, his “gobar economy” budget plans do not include any scheme for cow urine or other more exotic bovine products. (The Print)