Mohammed Zubair’s arrest: The latest update

After spending three weeks in custody, the Alt News co-founder is finally out on bail thanks to the Supreme Court. The Court granted him bail in all six cases filed against him—and moved all Uttar Pradesh FIRs to Delhi. It also specified that the same will apply to any future FIRs. And the Court disbanded the Special Investigation Team set up by the UP government to investigate these cases. Notably, when the UP lawyers asked the Court to ban Zubair from tweeting, the bench said: 

“How can we tell a journalist not to write? How can we tell he will not utter a word? If he does something, he is answerable in law. We cannot stop a citizen from using his voice. We will not say anything like that.”

FYI: This week, the Court also stepped in to grant Nupur Sharma protection from arrest in the many FIRs filed against her for making insulting remarks about Prophet Muhammad. (Indian Express)

The next ‘criminal tweet’ case? Filmmaker Avinash Das has been arrested for a recent tweet that shared a photo of Home Minister Amit Shah with an IAS officer accused of corruption. The caption said: “It is a picture of a few days back when the Crores of amount was recovered from the house of Puja Singhal.” Turns out it was an old photo from Shah’s 2017 visit to Jharkhand. Also at issue: Das shared a painting of a woman wearing the national flag. According to the Gujarat court, she was naked underneath.

The Gujarat police claims: “He has a history of posting fake and wrong posts on social media… We have also found a post where he described Hindu gods and goddesses in an obscene manner.” Indian Express has more details.

New evidence of bad faith by big tech

Politico accessed the internal documents of Google, Meta and Amazon—emails, memos and strategy papers—and found some eye-opening instances of bullying. For instance, Google forced Samsung to steer users of Google’s Gmail service away from Samsung’s own email app. It also pressured a number of smartphone companies to preinstall Google apps. In the case of Amazon, it restricted Diapers.com’s ability to advertise on its platform—so that it could acquire the company at a lower price. (Politico) 

A self-boosting Covid vaccine

MIT scientists are working on a novel single-shot vaccine that will automatically deliver booster doses at various times. How it works: the jab contains microparticles that are like tiny coffee cups with a lid. They remain under the skin, degrading over time until the lids break—releasing the next dose of vaccine. Why this matters: a person may never need to go back for a booster dose, which is especially valuable for vaccines for kids living in remote areas. (Newsweek)

Speaking of medicines: Here’s some surprising news. Australia is facing a “dire” shortage of 320 key drugs for diabetes, hormone replacement therapy, depression, nausea, stroke and contraception. One reason is Covid-related supply disruptions. The other: Australia does not manufacture its own medicines and since it is a small market, companies often don’t stock enough reserves. (The Guardian)

A battle over a Manipuri lake

Loktak Lake is one of India’s largest freshwater lakes and is home to unique masses of floating vegetation known as ‘phumdis’. The local community has lived in huts on these phumdis for centuries. The government has issued an order to remove these homestays within 15 days to restore the deteriorating ecological state of the lake. OTOH, Land Conflict Watch points out, the government has also approved Rs 20 billion (2000 crore) in tourism-related projects on the same lake. FYI: around 1.2 million people depend on the lake for their livelihood—either directly or indirectly. See their Twitter thread here. (EastMojo)

Manolo Blahnik scores a win in China

The glitzy brand made famous by ‘Sex and the City’ finally won a 22-year trademark battle over its name. This case involves China’s “first to file” jurisdiction—which recognises the rights of the person who is first to trademark a brand name. In 1999, a Chinese businessman Fang Yuzhou did just that with ‘Manolo Blahnik’ even though it is the name of the company’s founder. Hence, the long court battle that has now been settled by the Supreme Court. This isn’t the first such case. Qiaodan Sports—which uses the Chinese version of basketball legend Michael Jordan’s last name—was blocked from using his silhouette. (Reuters)

Have powerful passport, won’t travel

Japan, Singapore and South Korea, in that order, have the three most powerful passports in the world. Their citizens can seamlessly go almost anywhere in the world. Yet, the Henley Passport Index—which ranks passports—also reveals that they are the least likely to travel. While global travel is now 60% of pre-pandemic levels, international travel out of eastern Asia is still at 17% because of tighter restrictions. Also this: despite all the cliches about Japanese tourists, they’re actually not big on leaving their country. Less than a quarter even have a passport. (Quartz)

Tamil comes to Twitter

It will now become the second Indian language on the platform, after Hindi. The only bad news is that it will show up on Twitter’s content filter page ‘Topics’—which may be the single most useless feature on the platform. FYI: in 2019, over 50% of tweets on Indian Twitter were in a local language. (Mint)

Two things to see

One: Boris Johnson’s farewell speech was everything we all expected—brash, bouncy and peppered with action flick cliches. For example: “Mission largely accomplished”—and even worse, his parting phrase: “Hasta la vista, baby!” (Reuters)

Two: The Sun let out a giant fart—as in, “a solar storm that spews out plasma and magnetic energy”—and scientists were lucky enough to capture it. TBH, although the video went viral, it isn’t all that impressive a sight. Look for the plume in the bottom-right corner. (Futurism)