Researched by: Rachel John, Aarthi Ramnath, Aakriti Anand & Anannya Parekh
Say hello to headlines in five
Have you checked out our excellent daily news wrap, ‘What the F*** Happened Here?’. It tells you what happened during the day—in around five minutes. As always, we are here to make it easier to know what’s up—without noise, negativity, or that existential feeling of despair. The Monday pm edition is below. Follow us on YouTube to get your daily dose.
Splainer’s latest vid explainer: Is ISIS back?
Today, we’re talking about ISIS. Yup, the Islamic State—which everyone had forgotten about until the spectacular attack in Moscow. The rest of the world had moved on—thanks to the pandemic, then Ukraine and Gaza. Islamic terrorism—it all feels so retro! Is this an ISIS comeback? Also: Is it ISIS, IS, ISIL, or Daesh?
We will look for answers for these and other pressing questions below. ICYMI: splainer now offers a fun 5-minute wrap of the day’s headlines every day around 7 pm. Be sure to follow us on YouTube and hit the notification button—so you don’t miss out.
War in the Middle East: The latest update
The context: Iran rained around 300 drones and cruise missiles on Israel this weekend. Almost all of them were intercepted and destroyed. The attack was retaliation against Israel’s missile strike on April 1 that levelled the Iranian consulate in Damascus—and crossed a big fat red line. Our Big Story has more on what happened and why.
What happened now: Iran’s decision to delay the attack by two weeks has become a huge source of controversy. Experts had already noted that Iran had given advance notice of its plan. Perhaps to give the Israelis and their allies plenty of time to prep for the attack. It also deployed its slower drones—which gave time to scramble their air defences.
Now, Iran says that it gave a 72-hour notice to the Arab countries and the US. Its claim is backed by Turkish, Iraqi, and Jordanian officials. In fact, the Turks say they personally passed on the message to Washington. But the Americans claim it's a lie—and it heard from Tehran only after the strikes began. FYI: All three states are US allies. So that’s embarrassing.
Now everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop—that is, for Israel to respond. Tel Aviv says it will "exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us.” In other words, Israelis are going to make the entire region sweat.
As for India: We’ve taken a neutral stance—urging both sides to dial down the aggro. New Delhi is focused on rescuing the 17 Indian crew members in Iranian custody. They were aboard an Israeli cargo ship seized by the Iranian military on April 13.
The External Affairs minister S Jaishankar has spoken to his Iranian counterpart. He has promised to give India access to the crewmen soon. On the subject of the strikes, Jaishankar tweeted this: “Shared our concern at the developments yesterday. Discussed the larger regional situation. Agreed to stay in touch.” Now that’s diplomatic. (Reuters)
Tatas aur Tesla ki jodi
The Tatas have signed an exclusive deal to sell semiconductor chips to Tesla. This is a big deal for the Tatas since it positions them as a supplier to global tech giants. The agreement also shows that Musk has decided to give into the Indian government’s demand to Make In India. The two men have been in a standoff for years over setting up Tesla operations in India. Musk wanted India to remove the high import tariffs. New Delhi, in turn, insisted Tesla invest in manufacturing in India. That demand is likely to be met—and announced—when Musk meets Modi later this month.
The interesting bit: The Tatas were most opposed to Tesla’s entry into India, since it dominates India’s EV market. Guess the semiconductor sop has made up for any competition offered by Tesla. Experts say Tesla is likely to invest at least $2-3 billion in India to manufacture electric cars. But it may import its premium cars—and make the cheaper models here. According to reports, the company is already looking at showroom and service hub locations in New Delhi and Mumbai—and is likely to begin operations in India later this year.
Why Musk decided to play ball: He is losing out in China—which is one of Tesla’s biggest markets. The company has been steadily losing market share—and recently cut production at its Chinese factories. The source of all its sorrows: the Chinese EV brand BYD—which is now the largest seller of EVs in the world. (Economic Times)
In very much related news: A leaked internal memo from Elon Musk confirmed that more than 10% of employees—about 14,000 people—will be laid off. The aim is to cut costs while sales are slumping. Tesla sold only 386,810 cars in the first quarter of this year—down by 8.5% from last year. New York Times notes:
Mr. Musk has not outlined a plan to reverse a decline in car sales, and he appears focused on long-shot ventures such as a self-driving taxi, rather than new models that would help Tesla compete with cars being introduced by established carmakers and new rivals from China.
Ouch! Just as concerning: the exit of key C-suite leaders from the company. (New York Times, paywall, Quartz)
Moving on to Twitter: In the midst of Tesla troubles, Musk announced that all new users of Twitter/X will have to pay to tweet. The new policy is aimed at cracking down on bots—and the deluge of spam on the platform:
The new policy comes as X faces backlash over its inability to stop the flood of spam accounts that link to pornographic content and fake products. Earlier this month, Musk kicked off a “system purge” of bot and troll accounts on the platform, although it’s unclear how successful the effort was.
We’re not sure if the cure is worse than the disease. Quartz has loads more on the new policy.
Rainy days are coming!
We finally have some happy news about the weather. According to the meteorological department, India is slated to experience an above-normal monsoon season—thanks to the exit of El Niño. The rains between June and September will be 6% higher than the annual average of 87 cm. The models also indicate a 30% chance of a 10% spike—categorised as ‘excess’ rain in weatherman vocabulary. Of course, just because there is more rain, it doesn’t mean every part of India will benefit equally. And more isn’t necessarily better. One effect of climate change is the rise in fewer monsoon days—but with more extreme rain. (The Telegraph)
Meanwhile, in Kolkata: The city is sizzling at 39°C—and is likely to hit 42°C over the weekend. To put that in perspective: “Churu in the Thar desert region, one of the hottest places in India, witnessed a maximum temperature of around 33 degrees on Monday.”
Meanwhile, in Bangalore: A new study shows that the city has become a “heat island” due to “concretisation”—basically, paving over green spaces. The result is this:
Heat islands are called so for a reason: They experience temperatures higher than the outlying areas, a trend fuelled by a high concentration of buildings, roads and other concrete infrastructure that absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than green expanses and water bodies. This ‘heat island effect’ in areas across the city has amplified the already unbearable summer discomfort.
The study predicts that 98% of the city will be paved over, if good sense does not prevail soon. (The Hindu)
Samsung is the king of the world!
The mighty Apple is also losing out to pesky Asians. Its iPhone shipments dropped by 10% in the first quarter of 2024. As a result, Samsung is now in pole position with 20% of the market share. In the same quarter, it shipped 60 million phones from its latest flagship series—Galaxy S24. In comparison, Apple only sold 50.1 million.
This may just be a blip. but there have been rising concerns about Apple’s flagship product—which also accounts for the lion’s share of its revenues. The iPhone is losing ground to Android phones, in general. Xiaomi’s sales jumped by nearly 8% in the first quarter, putting it in third position. (Reuters)
A million Indians waiting for green card
According to the latest official data, there are 1.2 million Indians—including applicants and their dependents—waiting to get a green card. This is actually an improvement on 2022—when 1.4 million Indians were waiting in line. Reminder: The current system imposes an annual cap of 7% for each country—irrespective of size, number of applicants etc. This means there are only around 10,000 green cards available to Indians each year. If there is no green card available that year, then your application goes to the back of a long line.
Data point to note: Without Congressional action, the backlog for Indians will reach 2.2 million by 2030—and it will take 195 years to get through the backlog. We did a detailed Big Story on immigration woes for Indians in America. (Forbes)
Exit CEO: Byju’s melodrama continues
The context: India’s most valuable tech startup defaulted on a $1.2 billion loan. The US lenders took Byju’s to court in Delaware—demanding their money back or, at the very least, control of its US holdings. Both sides sued each other and things got really nasty (all of it explained in this Big Story). There were allegations that the company parked the collateral of the loan—$533 million—in a shady investment fund. Over the past year, Byju’s has slashed its operations, cut costs, and promised to turn a new leaf in attempts to raise money.
What happened now: After just seven months, the CEO Arjun Mohan has called it quits. The daily operations will now be taken care of by founder Byju Raveendran. That hands-on approach would be laudable, but investors on the board recently voted to kick out Raveendran as the CEO. In any case, by every account, Raveendran is taking the helm of a sinking ship:
In recent months, about 1,500 employees have left Byju’s amid the escalating crisis, raising doubts about the company’s ability to continue as a business. Besides, Byju's has vacated many of its offices nationwide to cut costs, retaining only its headquarters at IBC Knowledge Park in Bengaluru, according to media reports.
An insider also told Mint that the company’s outstanding debt has mounted to more than $200 million in India and around $200-250 million in the US. Yikes! (Mint)
BCCI declares war on selfies
The cricket board of India is mad at IPL commentators who insist on posting photos or videos from the stadium. It’s all about paisa, of course—and on both sides. The BCCI has sold all content of ‘live matches’ and the ‘field of play’ to Star India for television and Viacom18 for streaming. And made a pretty packet from it. Naturally, the broadcasters don’t want to share the golden goose they’ve paid for.
On the other hand, former cricketers use these photos and clips to boost their social media following. A single video can chalk up millions of views—and potential influencer revenue. The board has now sent out a strict cease and desist order—threatening to slap fat fines on anyone who disobeys. Jay Shah is such a party pooper! (Indian Express)
Climate change linked to strokes
According to a new global study, extreme temperatures were linked to more than half a million stroke deaths in 2019. Most of them died due to low—rather than high temperatures:
While that may sound counterintuitive for global warming, cold temperatures also come along with climate change. Warmer temperatures on land interfere with the polar vortex — the dense cold air mass around the poles — and when it is weakened, it can lead to cooler temperatures.
But strokes caused by heat are expected to increase rapidly in the future–especially in Africa and Central Asia. (CNN)
A link between vision and Alzheimer’s
According to a new study, certain kinds of vision problems can be early signs of cognitive decline. It found that Alzheimer’s first affects areas of the brain that control vision– long before there are visible symptoms of the disease. Damage to parts that control memory comes much later. That's why a test that measures ‘vision sensitivity’ can predict dementia 12 years before it is diagnosed. The authors explain the reasons in greater details in The Conversation.
Bonobo apes: A not-so-hippie monkey
The context: Scientists have long praised the bonobos as ‘hippies’—interested in making love not war. One conservationist even called them an “icon of peace.” Chimpanzees, OTOH, are considered violent–prone to awful behaviour such as killings, infanticide and sexual coercion.
What happened now: One scientist decided to take a second look at what the bonobos were actually up to—in those “remote, swampy rainforests.” She found bonobo males are actually three times more aggressive than male chimpanzees. And they were rewarded for their bad behaviour. The more aggressive males were more likely to mate with the females.
Why this matters: Researchers have long been extrapolating theories about human behaviour from chimps and bonobos—who are our closest relatives.
In 2012, a trio of Harvard researchers proposed that bonobos evolved much like dogs did. Less aggressive wolves were not as likely to be killed by humans, which over time led to the emergence of dogs. In a similar fashion, the researchers argued, female bonobos preferred to mate with less aggressive males, giving birth to less aggressive offspring. The researchers called their idea the self-domestication hypothesis. In later years, they speculated that humans may have undergone a self-domestication of their own.
Turns out, none of that may be true. Interestingly, male bonobos are fairly docile with their mates. Female-on-male violence is more frequent–as they have higher status in the pack. So nature may not be peaceful—but it is occasionally feminist:) (New York Times, paywall The Guardian)
Three things to see
One: Is it an eel, a fish... or a manta ray? Well, yes, but not the real kind. This Manta Ray is an underwater drone—an underwater drone unveiled by the Pentagon. Nerdy fact: Biomimicry, or looking to nature for solutions to engineering problems, is not new. We developed planes by learning from birds. You can see the drone in action below. (Popular Mechanics)
Two: Dogs in Amreeka can now catch a flight on Bark Air. It’s a special airline dedicated to transporting pooches. And it’s terribly fancy. Passengers can enjoy treats, music, dog-friendly colours, and calming jackets. So it’s more like doggie business class—and has the ticket prices to match. The flights cost $12,000 for a round-trip—and a one-way between New York and London is a whopping $8,000! (Quartz)
Three: Archaeologists have unearthed two well-preserved and stunning frescoes from the ruins of the legendary Roman city Pompeii—which was buried by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. The first shows Apollo attempting to seduce the priestess Cassandra—who rejected him:
The second depicts Paris’ kidnapping of Helen of Troy—which didn’t exactly turn out well. BBC News has lots more on the discoveries.
