headlines that matter

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 5 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.

Election 2024: The latest update

A pre-poll victory: BJP leader Mukesh Dalal was elected unopposed to the Lok Sabha seat in Surat. The nomination papers of his Congress opponent were rejected on Sunday. Then on Monday, the other candidates in fray—four Independents, a BSP leader, and three others from smaller parties—withdrew their nominations. The opposition accused the BJP of coercing the candidates into withdrawing their nominations. (The Hindu)

EVM investigation: The News Minute revealed an extraordinary conflict of interest within the Election Commission. The commission appoints an independent Technical Expert Committee (TEC) that assesses the reliability of the electronic voting system in our country. Turns out, all four members of the committee are ‘inventors’ of the voting system. 

Speaking of the EC: On Sunday, Prime Minister Modi said at an election rally that the Congress plans to redistribute wealth “among those who have a large number of children… and among the intruders.” When challenged to take action on the hate speech by Congress, a spokesperson from the Election Commission said: “We decline comment.” Reminder: The Model Code of Conduct prohibits “politicians from engaging in any activity that may aggravate existing differences or create mutual hatred.” Others have joined the Congress to put pressure on the ECI—including CPM, and CPI(M). (Indian Express) 

The war on Gaza: Chaos in Columbia

Some extended context: Things are getting kinda crazy over at Ivy League campuses because of Gaza. Last week, students set up tents in the middle of Columbia University’s campus in New York. It was supposed to be a protest against the war on Gaza. Think of it as an American college version of a dharna.

Meanwhile, the president of the university Minouche Shafik was being grilled at Congress for not doing enough to crack down on antisemitism. Of course, she made all sorts of promises to do more. And to show she was serious—on Thursday—Shafik sent in the police to take down the tents—and evict the students. Over 100 students were arrested—and anyone who was in the encampment was suspended from college. 

What happened now: Of course, all this just pissed off the students even more. And the demonstrations grew even bigger over the weekend. Even faculty members staged a walkout to protest the’ arrests. To complicate matters, there are now reports of some Jewish students being verbally harassed by some of the protesters. In any case, things are bad enough that many classes are being held online.

It’s spreading: The confrontations are becoming heated in New York University and Yale, as well. The police have arrested students on both campuses—at least 60 people, including 47 students, at Yale. And encampments are spreading across the country:

There were reports of encampments at universities in the Boston area, including at Tufts, Emerson and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in some other parts of the country, including at the University of Michigan and University of California, Berkeley.

New York Times has a round-up of all the reporting on the protests.

Meanwhile, over at the UN: Israel claimed to have evidence that employees of the  United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) participated in the October 7 attacks. The agency—which is critical for aid operations in Gaza—sacked some of its workers. Even so, the US and its allies cut funding—which has proved devastating in the midst of a famine. 

An independent committee appointed by the UN found this:

Israel made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organisations,” the report said. “However, Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence of this.”

This doesn’t mean that the allegations are untrue—they are still being investigated by the UN. (Al Jazeera)

Get ready for a new football tournament

Apple and FIFA are close to nailing a TV rights deal for a new global championship. It will be a “monthlong, World Cup-style competition” for top teams around the world. The first edition will be played in the US next year. Something to worry about:

It is unclear if the deal with Apple will include any free-to-air rights, meaning the entire event could be available only to subscribers of Apple TV+, a factor over which senior executives at FIFA have raised concerns.

If it goes through, it will be the first time that FIFA has inked a single global deal for broadcast rights. New York Times (splainer gift link) has loads more on the tournament.

Europe is getting insanely hot

According to the meteorological agencies of the EU and UN, it is the fastest-warming continent in the world. Its temperatures are rising at 2X the global average. Even more shocking is this bit: Temperatures in Europe are now running 2.3°C above pre-industrial levels. Reminder: All climate change experts consider anything approaching 2.0°C to be catastrophic. The global average is 1.3°C. (Associated Press via The Hindu)

The real victims of ‘excess heat’: Rising temperatures pose a great threat to 70% of workers around the world—according to the International Labour Organization (ILO):

Around 1.6 billion workers are exposed annually to solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation, with over 18,960 work-related deaths annually due to non-melanoma skin cancer alone, the ILO said. Around 1.6 billion outdoor workers face increased risk of exposure to air pollution, it added. 

It is also causing an epidemic of  kidney diseases in rural areas of hot countries like India. The percentage of workers at risk has jumped by a staggering 34.7% between 2000 and 2020. Indian Express has more on the report.

Defence spending at an all-time high

A new report issued by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) confirms that global defence spending is at an all-time high. It is now a whopping $2.4 trillion—an increase of 6.8% from 2022.  Unsurprisingly, the US (37%) and China (12%) were the biggest spenders. The Middle East recorded the highest increase of 9%—shelling out $200 billion in the last year. As for India: Our 2023 spend jumped by 4.2% from 2022—and by 44% when compared to 2014. (The Guardian)

Good news about the schengen visa 

The process of getting a visa for Europe is expensive, time-consuming, and has an extremely high rejection rate. And after all that effort, Indians could only get a short stay visa valid for 90 days. Happily, that is going to change. Indians can now apply for a long-term, multiple-entry visa. But the process is convoluted:

According to the newly adopted visa “cascade" regime for India, Indian nationals can now be issued long-term, multi-entry Schengen visas valid for two years after having obtained and lawfully used two visas within the previous three years. The two-year visa will normally be followed by a five-year visa, if the passport has sufficient validity remaining. 

A reminder: The Schengen allows a person to travel to 29 European countries, including Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Greece etc. A good related read: We did a Big Story on the woes of getting a Schengen visa. (Mint)

Microsoft’s got a new AI tool

VASA-1 can animate static images—by fusing them with audio clips: “The videos — which can be made from photorealistic faces, as well as cartoons or artwork — are complete with compelling lip syncing and natural face and head movements.”

Example: This rapping Mona Lisa—which combines the iconic painting with a comedic rap by Anne Hathaway:

At the moment, the tool is not publicly available—just like OpenAI’s Sora—to prevent abuse. That said, we’re not all that impressed with Mona Lisa—but this demo of the tool is seriously creepy. You can see a bunch of different iterations of the tool in this thread. (CNN)

Say hello to the new Indian chess prodigy

Until now, all the attention was on R Praggnanandhaa—the 18-year-old chess prodigy who beat world champions as a kid. But he now has competition in D Gukesh—who won the FIDE Candidates tournament, held in Toronto over the weekend. The 17-year-old is the first teenager to win the tournament.  The only other Indian who aced this tournament was Vishwanathan Anand. FYI: Gukesh unseated Anand as India’s #1 Grandmaster last year. Indian Express has a profile on Gukesh—that lists his other achievements.

Bacteria vampires are coming!

According to new research, certain kinds of bacteria are hungry for our blood. Scientists studied three types of germs—Salmonella enterica, Citrobacter koseri, and E. coli. All of them are bacteremia—which means they invade our bloodstream. And all of them cause serious disease-including intestinal bleeding.

They found that the bacteria are magnetically attracted to blood. They take less than a minute to detect even microscopic amounts of it. So how do they do it? In the case of salmonella, the germ detects an amino acid called L-serine. The mechanism is probably the same for the other two. It shows that bacteria have evolved to seek our blood as nourishment. Researchers call this Dracula-like behaviour ‘“bacterial vampirism”—no doubt, to reassure the rest of us. Sounds like the plot for the perfect horror flick—attack of the blood-sucking germs! (Quartz)

In even more worrying bacteria news: Did you know they have invaded space? The International Space Station is now home to many mutant varieties of germs. The original lot was carried to the station by astronauts. But they have since changed to adapt to the unique conditions—like microgravity, radiation, and higher levels of carbon dioxide.

What’s really alarming is that the dominant bacteria is something called Enterobacter bugandensis—which also causes severe infection. Even worse, it has mutated to become resistant to antimicrobial treatments. Eeks! We don’t know how these bacteria will affect astronauts, but it’s certainly not good news for them. (Gizmodo)

Uber’s lost & found list

Every year, Uber India puts out its lost and found index—listing all the things people leave behind in its cabs. There weren’t too many surprises this year. Delhi remains the most forgetful city in the country—followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru. We most often left our phones behind. Laptop bags came in at number two. Android folks will be happy to note that Apple users are the most careless with their devices. Among the oddest items left behind: a ukulele.

What’s interesting is the difference between the India and global lists. The rest of the world isn’t quite so careless with their phones or laptops. Clothing came in at number one. Other folks were also most careless at night—around 9 or 10 pm. Our peak hours for forgetfulness seem to be during the evening commute—between 6 to 8 pm. (Indian Express)

Four things to see

One: No, this is not a cosplay Ram Mandir celebration on the Golden Gate Bridge (thank god!). It’s a ‘rath yatra’ to promote a Broadway show titled ‘Jai Shri Ram Ramayan’—starring Puneet Issar and Vindoo Dara Singh. We have no comment. 

Two: In a first for New Zealand, a collective of Māori artists has bagged the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale–which is “the Olympics of the art world.” The winning installation—titled Takapau—was made by a four-artist group, called the Mataaho Collective. You can see the “luminous” installation below. The Guardian has loads more on what it signifies.

Three: Oh look, it’s a young and dashing Amitabh Bachchan—in the new teaser for ‘Kalki 2898 AD’. He plays the role of Ashwatthama—Dronacharya’s son from the Mahabharata—in this dystopian science-fiction flick. But the leading man is Prabhas who plays Kalki—the last avatar of Vishnu. Let’s hope it turns out better than his outing as Lord Ram in ‘Adipurush’—which was a big, fat flop. By the way, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ has a budget of $75 million—and is slated to be the most expensive Indian film ever. (Collider)

Four: I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want—a Spice Girls reunion! All five of the original UK-based girl group danced to their 1997 hit song ‘Stop’ at Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham’s 50th birthday party. (Hollywood Reporter)