Researched by: Rachel John, Nirmal Bhansali, Aarthi Ramnath & Anannya Parekh
Muslim child beaten in UP
An awful video shows an eight-year-old Muslim child being beaten by his classmates in a village school. They were being egged on by the headmistress and owner of the school Tripta Tyagi. She can also be heard making derogatory comments about “Mohammedan bachhe.” Apparently, he’d messed up his multiplication tables. Tyagi has now been charged on two bailable counts. And the school has been shut down according to Indian Express—though The Hindu reports otherwise. Also: the family seems to be under pressure from local authorities and politicians to compromise. The video has been pulled down from X (formerly Twitter) on government orders, but you can view it below.
Neeraj Chopra does it again!
Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra became the first Indian to win a gold medal in the World Athletics Championships. His best throw in the men's javelin final was 88.17 metres. Also a historic first: three Indians finished in top eight—including Kishore Jena and DP Manu who came in at #5 and #6. See the winning throw below. (The Telegraph)
New EU rules for big tech
The European Union’s (EU) new Digital Services Act (DSA) went into effect on Friday. And it will significantly change the way 19 tech giants do business—as most of the rules apply to platforms with more than 45 million users. These platforms have to make it easy for users to understand the rules—especially around content moderation and recommendations. More notably this:
A controversial part of the law bans companies from using so-called “dark patterns,” or manipulative ways of nudging users to click on content they weren’t originally looking for, such as reality TV or ISIS recruitment videos.
The law also bans surveillance advertising for minors—these are ads that target you based on information on your search and browsing history. FYI: this is a significant compromise since the original draft banned such ads for all users. Quartz has lots more on the new rules—and how they will affect European operations of these companies.
A $7.1 million mug shot of Trump
Now, Indians do indeed vote for maybe-dirty netas—despite the fact that they have been named as prime suspects in all sorts of shady dealings. But a great number of Americans gave $7.1 million to Donald Trump because he was arrested and charged with racketeering (i.e electoral fraud, also see: our Big Story about his indictments). Most of the money was raised from sales of merch with the dreaded mugshot on them—such as mugs, T-shirts and drink coolers—as you can see below. (BBC News)
G20 hurdle for your Delhi plans
As you may know, India is the current president of the G20—and is therefore hosting a summit in September in New Delhi. More than 50 special aircraft will fly into the capital, carrying the heads of state of nearly 30 countries and international organisations. All of which will result in a traffic jam in the skies. Hence, the government wants commercial airlines to slash their flights by 25%. This means more than a thousand flights could either be rescheduled or cancelled. And that doesn’t include issues like crowded hotels and blocked roads. If you’re making any plans to visit Delhi—or escape it—the summit is scheduled for September 9 and 10. (Economic Times)
A Silicon Valley plan for ‘utopia’
The New York Times has discovered that a group of the biggest hitters in the Valley have pooled their money to buy $800 million worth of agricultural and empty land (55,000 acres)—in a mostly agricultural region 60 miles northeast of San Francisco. The investors include:
They include Mr. Moritz; Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder, venture capitalist and Democratic donor; Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, investors at the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm; Patrick and John Collison, the sibling co-founders of the payments company Stripe; Laurene Powell Jobs, founder of the Emerson Collective; and Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, entrepreneurs turned investors. Andreessen Horowitz is also a backer. It was unclear how much each had invested.
We don’t really know what they want to do but the project is described as:
[A] new city with tens of thousands of new homes, a large solar energy farm, orchards with over a million new trees, and over ten thousand acres of new parks and open space.
New York Times has lots more details.
Bad news about Indian birds
The State of Indian Birds report offers terrible news: the numbers of almost 60% of species have declined in the last 30 years—of these, a great majority declined in just the previous seven years. The most affected: populations of raptors, ducks, migratory birds and birds in open spaces like grasslands, wetlands, and woodlands.
The most critically threatened species in India include Jerdon’s Courser, Great Indian Bustard, White-bellied Heron, Bengal Florican, and Finn’s Weaver.
The good news: 217 species are stable or increasing in numbers in the last eight years. These included Prinia, Rock Pigeon, Asian Koel, and Indian Peafowl. We did a Big Story on how Wind energy projects in Rajasthan have affected the population of the Great Indian Bustard. (The Hindu)
Speaking of endangered birds: According to a new study, emperor penguins experienced 100% “reproduction failure” at four of five breeding sites in Bellingshausen Sea. The reason:
The penguins rely on the ice frozen to land remaining stable into late December and January, the Austral summer, because that’s when the chicks acquire waterproof plumage… “But if it breaks earlier than that, the chicks basically lose that platform. So they either fall into the sea and they drown.”
Inside Climate News explains why this is a giant, clanging alarm bell.
SpaceX is not good for the environment
The context: In April, SpaceX’s Starship exploded shortly after takeoff. It was slated to be the world’s largest spacecraft—and was designed to take humans to the Moon and eventually to Mars.
What happened now: US wildlife authorities looked into the fallout of failure—and found that its costs were far higher than assumed: “Overall, the explosion earlier this year left a 385-acre debris field that flung concrete chunks as far as 2,680 feet from the launchpad and sparked a 3.5-acre fire.” But here’s the kicker:
Much of the damage was caused by a purposeful decision from SpaceX that seemingly baffled experts in the documents. SpaceX did not use flame-suppression technology like a flame diverter or flame trench, a standard in the industry that redirects energy away from the rocket ship. Without it, Starship blew a hole in the ground underneath it, subsequently destroying its launchpad.
Bloomberg News (paywall) and Mashable have more details.
In worryingly similar news: The American Petroleum Institute (API)—a trade group representing domestic oil and natural gas firms—joined Chevron and the state of Louisiana in filing a lawsuit against the US government. They accuse the White House of illegally withholding 6 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico from an upcoming auction of drilling rights on federally owned land. The reason for the government’s decision: back in 2020, it had reached an agreement with environmentalists to protect the area as it is home to Rice’s whale—one of the most endangered whales in the world. (Quartz)
Rishi Sunak’s Infosys problem
Rishi Sunak is in trouble over his wife’s wealth again. He is married to Akshata Murty—who is the fabulously wealthy daughter of tech billionaire Narayana Murty. She has retained her Indian citizenship and daddy’s money—despite all the brouhaha surrounding both (explained in great detail in this Big Story).
What happened now: The British First Lady’s assets are becoming an issue once again because of a proposed free trade agreement between the UK and India. The question is whether Infosys will be a beneficiary since the deal includes looser visa regs:
Infosys, which has had contracts with the British government as well as many UK companies, is known to want to improve access to this country for its many thousands of contract workers through changes to the UK visa regime. Allowing more visas for its workers in sectors such as IT and artificial intelligence is a key Indian demand in the talks over a free-trade agreement.
FYI: Infosys applied for 2,500 visas in 2019 alone. The Observer has this exclusive.
The embarrassing theft at the British Museum
The British Museum announced that 2,000 artefacts have gone missing. Now, this is the museum that also owns the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Sculptures. The director and a senior curator have “resigned.” But here’s the best bit in the coverage of the theft: “The scandal has proved deeply embarrassing for the museum, given both its stature and the repeated calls for the institution to return many of its artefacts that were themselves stolen under the British Empire.”
Why this matters: Prestigious museums in the West claim they have the right to hold on to antiquities stolen during the colonial era—because the treasures are safer with them than any ‘unstable third world country’.
Historically, [Christopher Marinello] says, the British Museum’s arguments about its rights of ownership have been based on the conviction that its guardianship is superior to that of the countries of origin. That argument is hard to sustain if so many antiquities have indeed gone missing.
FYI: We did a two part series on stolen Indian artefacts and why museums buy smuggled goods. (The Guardian)
Two things to see
One: ISRO released a video of the Pragyan rover wandering around the Moon. ICYMI: here’s the Big Story on the fabulously successful Chandrayaan-3 mission. (The Hindu)
Two: Fans of ‘The Morning Show’ rejoice! Season 3 is coming soon—and the trailer is here. The first two episodes drop on September 13 on Apple TV+.
