headlines that matter

Researched by: Aarthi Ramnath, Aakriti Anand & Raghav Bikhchandani

Telegram founder has been charged

Pavel Durov was arrested by French police on August 24—and has now been formally charged. As suspected, the alleged crimes centre on content moderation:

The charges concern alleged crimes involving an organised group including “complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction”. Mr Durov has also been charged with refusing to share documents demanded by authorities as well as “dissemination in an organised group of images of minors in child pornography” as well as drug trafficking, fraud and money laundering.

Telegram has been implicated in a number of serious criminal cases in France—and has ignored all requests for cooperation from law enforcement. The search warrant for Durov and his older brother Nikolai was issued back in March.

A related side-note: Durov is also being investigated on suspicion of “serious acts of violence” towards one of his kids.

Where we are now: He is out on bail of €5 million—and must stay in France, reporting to a police station twice a week. If found guilty, he could spend up to 10 years in jail. For now, he is stuck in France—for a long time:

In France, complex criminal cases like the one against Mr. Durov are initiated by prosecutors but ultimately handled by special judges with broad investigative powers, who charge defendants when they believe that the evidence points to serious wrongdoing. The magistrates can later drop the charges if they do not believe that the evidence is sufficient to proceed to trial, and cases can take years — meaning a swift resolution of Mr. Durov’s case is unlikely.

New York Times has more on the charges—and AFP via The Hindu has more on Durov.

Yogi’s gotta new PR plan

The Uttar Pradesh government has approved a new social media policy that offers hard cash for content. You could earn up to Rs 800,000 a month if you praise its initiatives, schemes, and achievements on YouTube. The estimates for Facebook and X are Rs 400,000 and Rs 500,000, respectively. The government notice says the initiative will “help in employment opportunities to citizens of the State.”

But, but, but: Where there is a carrot, there will also be a very large stick:

It also empowers the Information Director to initiate action and stop payment if “any such content, video tweet, post, reel is anti-national, anti-social, indecent or hurts the sentiments of various sections of the society”. The officer can also take action if “the content is based on wrong facts or presents government schemes in a wrong manner or with wrong intention”.

To sum up, Yogi-ji will pay you to sing his praises—and throw you in jail if you say mean things. No prizes for guessing which option the unemployed “citizens of the State” will choose. FYI: A third of UP’s youth do not have a job. (Indian Express)

A British Paralympics disability controversy

The Paris Paralympics kicked off last night with the opening ceremony, including humaari team India—led by para athletes Bhagyashree Jadhav and Sumit Antil as torchbearers. But the biggest story took place across the English Channel at London’s King Cross station—11-time Paralympic wheelchair racing gold medallist Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson was on her way to Paris but was forced to “crawl off” the train as no one had shown up to assist her. She said the following regarding the incident:

Trains were meant to be step free by January 1 2020. It’s exhausting. I was really angry last night. I can just about do it (get off a train) but there are lots of other disabled people who can’t and would have been stuck until who knows when. In this day and age it’s not right.

Team GB's Paralympics in-charge labelled the incident as a “disgrace” and said the lack of accessibility is a common “lived experience” for disabled people—which the Paris Paralympics is trying to change. (The Athletic, paywalled, The Guardian)  

India’s shocking student suicide rate 

The rate of suicides among students is increasing at a faster clip than that of the general population:

Over the past two decades, student suicides have grown at an alarming annual rate of 4%, double the national average. In 2022, male students constituted 53% of the total student suicides. Between 2021 and 2022, male student suicides decreased by 6% while female student suicides increased by 7%.

The states with the highest number of student suicides: Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Madhya Pradesh—which together account for a third of the total. Point to note: Student suicides are likely underreported due to social stigma—and fear of a police case. The Telegraph has lots more on why this is happening—and what we can do about it.

In other worrying news: According to Thorn—a controversial NGO founded by Ashton Kutcher—kids are increasingly using AI to create pornographic images. One in ten said they have a friend who has done so. It also found that one in seven have shared their own SG-CSAM—“self-generated child sexual abuse material.” 404 Media (login required) and Firstpost have lots more. 

Infosys’ illusory job offer

The company has been accused of recruiting 2,000 new graduates through job offers—but never taking them on board. Some of these offers date back to April 2022. Instead, the hires were put through multiple rounds of online “pre-training”—without pay. These courses were used as a stalling tactic:

Despite successfully completing the pre-training, the promised results were never communicated, leaving the graduates in limbo for over 20 days. To their shock, instead of receiving their joining dates, these graduates were informed that they needed to retake the pre-training exam offline, once again without any remuneration.

The kicker: The IT giant is planning to hire 15,000 to 20,000 new graduates this year!  (Ars Technica)

Two AI stories of note

One: Nvidia—the chipmaker driving the AI revolution—declared blockbuster results. It reported more than $30 billion in sales in its fiscal second quarter—up 122% from the same period a year ago. It beat the Wall Street prediction of $28.7 billion—and yet the stock price fell by up to 5%—because “merely great numbers may no longer be enough to impress investors.” Nvidia has become the singlemost important stock on the US market: 

The trajectory of Nvidia shares has power ripple effects across the broader market, thanks to the company’s outsized, roughly 7% weighting in the S&P 500. The company’s “earnings report has become the world’s most important financial news event,” Bespoke Investment group wrote in a Wednesday note.

Its numbers are also viewed as a report card on the broader AI industry. FYI: Folks actually held earnings call parties ahead of the results. (CNN)

Two: According to The Information (paywalled) and Reuters, OpenAI is working on teaching its chatbot to reason independently. The project codenamed Strawberry aims to develop bots that can “navigate the internet autonomously” to perform ‘deep research.’” The smarter iteration will be integrated into all Microsoft products later this year. (Reuters)

Spotify + Insta ki jodi

According to a TechCrunch exclusive, Spotify may soon be coming to Instagram—allowing you to “continuously share” the music that you’re listening to—even when you’re not on Insta! 

The feature is reminiscent of the social networking activity that’s currently available within Spotify’s app. Today, Spotify allows users to “connect with Facebook” to see what friends are streaming in a separate tab on its desktop app. Spotify has also tested a Community feature that would allow users to see in real-time what others were streaming on mobile, although that has yet to launch.

All we have to say is… why? (TechCrunch)

Meanwhile, on X: The social media platform is testing a video conferencing tool called X Conferences—which it claims is better than Microsoft Teams, Zoom etc. The source of this information is a bit shaky:

One of X’s employees, Chris Park, posted last week that the company had its first internal conference through the tool…  X owner Elon Musk responded to the post with a fire emoji, which is the closest thing to official confirmation now that X no longer responds to press inquiries under Musk’s leadership.

If true, X Conferences will also “support spatial audio and have built-in captions”. Wait, that sounds a lot like X Spaces. Also: X already offers video calls. (TechCrunch)

LEGO is going green

The world’s largest toy company has been working on making its products greener. Its latest solution is something called plastic resin—made mostly from renewable or recycled material. The material will replace its plastic bricks by 2032. Reminder: Around 90% of all plastic is made from virgin fossil fuels. The good news for parents: it won’t affect the consumer prices: “It is 40 to 50 to 60% more expensive in material terms. We don’t pass that on to the consumer. It comes out of our ebit [operating profit] line.” (Financial Times, paywall, Reuters)

what caught our eye

business & tech

• Prepare to pay more for YouTube Premium—the individual pack is Rs 20 higher per month, while the family pack has increased by 50%. 
• Bharti Airtel is out of the music market by shutting down the Wynk app. But an upgrade is in store for you Airtel users out there—exclusive access to Apple’s streaming apps. 
• An update on the troubled attempt at a Zee-Sony shaadi—the two companies have reached a comprehensive non-cash agreement to amicably resolve all disputes. 
• Speaking of shaadis, Reliance-Disney has been greenlit at Rs 703.52 billion (70,352 crore) by India’s antitrust watchdog. 
• TechCrunch has a good read on why AI tools can’t spell the word ‘strawberry’. 
• A lot of gizmos, gadgets, and features added in new cars are not viewed as necessary, a survey has revealed.  

sports & entertainment 

• On the same day that Oasis’ reunion was made official, goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny announced his retirement, ending a 15-year career in professional football. Fun fact: his children are named Liam and Noelia. Coincidence? 
• Washington Post (splainer gift link, login required) has a good read on the legal battles faced by tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg for reporting on the allegations of abuse against Alexander Zverev.
• India strikes gold…in astronomy—specifically the 17 International Olympiad on Astronomy (IOAA) in Rio, where we also bagged four silver medals.
• ‘Sabka badla [phir se] lega tera Faisal’, because ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ will re-release in theatres this Friday!
• Another update on the fallout of the Hema committee report in Mollywood (check out our Big Story)—an FIR has been filed against the actor Siddique for alleged rape.

as for the rest

• Say hello to the eight newly renamed stations in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi district.
• Omar Abdullah makes an assembly election U-turn—the former Jammu and Kashmir CM will contest from the Ganderbal seat. 
• Mexico has “paused” diplomatic relations with the US due to criticism from the US ambassador over the outgoing AMLO government’s proposed judicial reforms.
• The Economist via Mint has a good read on how the last woolly mammoths went extinct.
• The builders of the ancient pyramids of Giza were poisoned by copper due to exposure to contaminated metal, a new study suggests.
• Aap age chronology samjhiye—a new AI ‘brain clock’ can determine what accelerates brain ageing.

Five things to see

One: Nike and Naomi Osaka are making fashion waves on the tennis court at the US Open. As you can see, designer Yoon Ahn has totally leaned into the ‘Lolita goth’ thing. This is the green wonder she wore on court on the first day of the US Open.

Our fave look is more ballerina goth—reserved for evening matches. Reminder: She’s playing at the very highest level of tennis wearing this! (New York Times)

Two: The potholes in Udipi, Karnataka, are so terrible that Yama the God of Death decided to stage a protest—and a long-jump competition. Think of it as an Olympics X Dussehra collab. (NDTV)

Three: In sadder news, Uttarkahand’s Om Parvat has no snow whatsoever for the first time in recorded history—disappointing tourists and alarming climate scientists. Thankfully, the snow returned earlier this week—but climate scientists warn there will be many more such days in the future. See the ‘before’ and ‘now’ photos below. (Indian Express)

Four: Say hello to the Barbie Flip Phone—the love-child of Nokia and Mattel. It has a small 2.8-inch display screen, five-megapixel camera, and can call and text. And you can dress it up exactly like a Barbie—with charms and beads. The price: $129. (The Verge)

Five: Christie’s South Asian Modern and Contemporary Art will hold its first non-selling exhibition to mark the 100th birth anniversary of Francis Newton Souza. If you’ve never heard of him, GQ India has an excellent profile. See one of his best known paintings ‘Paris Landscape in Spring’ below. More paintings here. (ArtNews)

feel good place

One: When a Bruno Mars/Lady Gaga ballad met Avril Lavigne’s pop-rock. 

Two: How not to get rid of hiccups:)

Three: A throwback Jaspal Bhatti golgappa stall sketch reminds us that insane IPOs are hardly new. Context here. (H/t Founding member Manish Achuth)