Israel bombs Lebanon

Written by: Aarthi Ramnath & Raghav Bikhchandani

Indus Civilisation: Who are you calling Aryan?

We’ve published the second part of our Big Story series on the Indus Valley Civilisation. The first focused on its discovery and significance. We lay out the fierce and very political debate over the identity of the Harappans—with Tamil Nadu making a recent and unexpected entrance.

Israel bombs Gaza West Bank Lebanon

The context: Last week, hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in multiple series of attacks across Lebanon and Syria—as part of a covert Israeli operation to target Hezbollah. Reminder: Tensions between the two sides have escalated since the October 7 attacks—sparking worries of a wider war.

What happened now: Israel launched air strikes on Lebanon—killing more than 490 people—including more than 90 women and children. More than 1,000 other people were wounded. The IDF announced that it has struck around 800 targets in a single day—but claims it was going after Hezbollah weapons sites. Too bad a number of them hit residential areas.

But hey, the military did warn the Lebanese to evacuate their homes in their own country—via text messages. Al Jazeera looks at whether Israel has managed to hack Lebanon’s telecommunications.

Key point to note: Tel Aviv is making the same claims about Hezbollah as Hamas:

Israel has accused Hezbollah of transforming entire communities in the south into militant bases, with hidden rocket launchers and other infrastructure. That could lead the Israeli military to wage an especially heavy bombing campaign, even if no ground forces move in.

Yup, that’s doomsday news for Lebanese civilians. (Associated Press via The Hindu)

As for the United States: Washington sent additional forces to the Middle East—to protect its own troops stationed in the region. FYI: The US “warned” Israel against a “full-scale war” with Hezbollah on Sunday. The air strikes were carried out on Monday. Interesting bit of timing: The annual UN General Assembly meeting of world leaders kicked off in New York today. The Guardian has that story.

India’s official entry to the Oscars is…

Kiran Rao’s ‘Laapataa Ladies’?!?!? All the hype this past week for Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine As Light’ was for naught. Apparently clinching the second-highest award at Cannes—the Grand Prix—was just not good enough for the Film Federation of India (FFI). To add insult to injury, the Malayalam film did not even make the FFI shortlist of five.

About that FFI jury: The federation is essentially an industry trade group—whose members are producers, distributors, and studio heads. They appoint a 13-member panel to select India’s entry for best international film at the Oscars.

Huge irony alert: Ladies were laapataa on the jury that picked ‘Laapataa Ladies’—not a single woman to be found. This likely explains the panel’s bizarre description of Kiran Rao’s feminist film:

Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance. Well-defined, powerful characters in one world, ‘Laapataa Ladies’ (Hindi) captures this diversity perfectly, though in a semi-idyllic world and in a tongue-in-cheek way. It shows you that women can happily desire to be homemakers as well as rebel and be entrepreneurially inclined.

FYI: They also misspelt ‘juri’.

Adding insult to injury: The chair of this “juri”—Assamese filmmaker Jahnu Barua—said: “The jury has to look at the right film that represents India on all fronts. Particularly, the film has to represent India’s social systems and ethos. The ‘Indianness’ is very important, and Laapataa Ladies scored on that front.” So a story about two Malayali nurses finding love and liberation in Mumbai is not Indian enough?

What’s next: No Indian submission has been nominated to the international film category, since ‘Lagaan’ over 20 years ago. For ‘Laapataa Ladies’ to end this drought, it will require tireless campaigning from those who funded and produced the film—which includes Mukesh-bhai’s Jio Studios. Jab Ambani hai, toh mumkin hai (we hope). As for ‘All We Imagine as Light’, it was co-produced by studios in five different countries. Maybe Luxembourg or the US distributor will do right by the Cannes Grand Prix winner.

Reading list: Variety has the most on ‘Laapataa Ladies’ making the cut, including FFI’s citation. Indian Express has a succinct interview with FFI chief Jahnu Barua on the committee’s selection.

A Supreme Court ruling on child porn

The context: The Supreme Court heard an appeal against a Madras High Court judgement—which dismissed charges against a man who had downloaded two child porn videos on his phone. The reason: he did not store them for “commercial reasons.” The Kerala High Court has also deemed that mere possession or viewing of child porn is not a criminal offence—which requires “actual act of transmission or sharing.”

What happened now: The Court ruled that consuming child pornography is a criminal offence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. It will carry jail terms between three years and seven years. So watching such material online—“without actually possessing or storing it in any device or in any form or manner”—would still count as ‘possession’.

No ‘accidents’ allowed: The Court went even further—and said a person can be deemed guilty if they “accidentally” open a child porn link—and fail to report the same:

For instance, say, ‘A’ is sent an unknown link by ‘B’, which upon clicking opens a child pornographic video on the phone of ‘A’. Now if ‘A’ immediately closes the link, although once the link is closed ‘A’ is no longer in constructive possession of the child pornography, this by itself does not mean that ‘A’ has destroyed or deleted the said material by merely closing the link. ‘A’ will only be absolved of any liability if he after closing the link further reports the same to the specified authorities.

The Telegraph has lots more on this landmark tightening of child pornography laws.

Nuclear power is back in Wall Street vogue

Last December, 118 governments—led by the European Union, United States, and UAE—pledged to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050 at the UN’s COP28 climate summit. Fourteen of the world’s biggest banks—including Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs—have expressed support for that goal.

Why this matters: They did not say what this would entail but financing has been scarce for nuclear power—since the 1980s due to anti-nuke activism:

“This event is going to be a game-changer,” said [nuclear practice lawyer] George Borovas… Until now, he said, banks had found it politically difficult to support new nuclear projects, which often required sign-off from the chief executive’s office. “Banks at their senior management level would just say, we don’t understand anything about nuclear. We just know it’s very difficult, very controversial.” He added that the support from the banks would help normalise nuclear energy as “part of the solution for climate change” rather than “a necessary evil”.

Reminder: This news comes on the heels of Microsoft’s deal to reopen one reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant last week. (Financial Times, paywalled)

Beware LinkedIn’s new AI training feature

Last week, the networking platform introduced a new setting that automatically opts in your content—like posts and videos—to train its AI. If you opt out, LinkedIn says it won’t use your personal data to train models “going forward”—“but does not affect training that has already taken place.” This isn’t the first instance of covert AI training. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini also require you to manually opt out.

UK regulators have now forced the platform to stop using user data—but it won’t apply to Indians on LinkedIn. To opt out, go to settings, select “Data privacy,” and turn off the option under “Data for generative AI improvement.” (Washington Post, paywalled, USA Today)

what caught our eye

business & tech

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is being sued by…Cards Against Humanity?!??! Yes, the company behind the adults-only card game claims that SpaceX employees trespassed and damaged land owned by the card company near the US-Mexico border.
Economic Times (splainer gift link) has a must-read on how Indians’ standard ‘good morning’ WhatsApp messages have taken a creative turn, thanks to Meta AI.
Ahead of the festive season, India’s diamond market is seeing price reductions and optimism over sales, even as gold prices remain high.
With a market value of $570 billion, Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk has surpassed its home country Denmark’s GDP. But the country isn’t yet concerned about this being a Nokia-like situation. Quartz has more.

sports & entertainment

Couldn’t snag those Coldplay tickets amidst the craze? Don’t worry—you’ll get another bite of the cherry in November via the band’s cut-price Infinity tickets.
‘Stree 2’ is breaking record after record at the box office—it’s now only the second Hindi film to cross the Rs 600 crore mark within the domestic market.
The Johnny Depp PR tour continues, following his ugly legal battle with his ex Amber Heard (see our Big Story). Depp will now receive a Lifetime Achievement honour at the Rome Film Festival, alongside Viggo Mortensen and Francis Ford Coppola.

as for the rest

Financial Times (splainer gift link) has a fascinating read on ‘Trumponomics’—the Donald’s radical plan to reshape the US economy. Hint: it’s austerity across the board.
TikTok reels aside, Donald Trump is still closely tied with Kamala Harris in the polls—and ahead in three key battleground states.
The silver lining: The Donald has already ruled himself out of running for Prez in 2028, should he lose to Harris in November. A good watch: The first episode of our new YouTube show ‘The Big Q’ on Harris’ prospects.
Brazil’s coffee industry could be in trouble for the upcoming harvest season, due to the country’s worst drought in decades.
Sticking with natural disasters, South America has been hit by its worst wildfires in over 20 years. The reason: High levels of deforestation.
The Telegraph reports on a cool study explaining how 1952 was the watershed year in which humans became the ‘Frankensteins’ of the global ecosystem.

Four things to see

One: PM Modi is in Amreeka for a three-day visit. The diaspora has, as usual, put on a big show for their main man. This included a 'Modi and US' event in Long Island—starring rapper HanuMankind. Of course, Modi-ji hugged him—and annoyed liberals everywhere. (Indian Express)

Also amusing: Our PM’s version of AI—which reflected a strange affinity to Christopher Columbus. Two men who can’t keep their ‘Indians’ straight.

Two: AAP is in full Kejri-as-Ramji mode. His interim replacement Atishi now has an empty chair next to her in the CM office—a la Bharat in Ramayana. (The Hindu)

Three: India creates Chess history! Team India won their first ever gold in both Open and Women's categories at the FIDE Chess Olympiad tournament in Budapest. Watch our winners recreate Rohit Sharma’s iconic walk as they lift the trophy here. Ofc, Rohit himself was inspired by Messi so… Indian Express has more on their terrific performance.

Four: Here’s a snapshot of the famous Burning Man festival from space—released by the European Space Agency's satellite programme Copernicus. (Science Alert)