Researched by: Rachel John, Aarthi Ramnath & Anannya Parekh
Bad news about Canadian visas
The context: Canada has been reeling from a housing affordability crisis—with housing prices rising by 22% over the past two years. One reason: a huge spike in immigrants and international students over the past few years—a consequence of Canada's efforts to woo skilled workers from around the world.
What happened now: Under pressure from the Opposition, the Trudeau government announced it will cap the number of international students for the next two years. Canada will only approve 360,000 student visas in 2024—slashing the number by 35% compared to 2023. Important to note:
Each province and territory will be allotted a portion of that total, determined by population and current student intake. Provinces will then decide how to distribute these permits across their universities and colleges.
The other aim is to crack down on colleges that are money-making rackets—charging massive fees while offering very little in terms of education:
It's unacceptable that some private institutions have taken advantage of international students by operating under-resourced campuses, lacking supports for students and charging high tuition fees, all while significantly increasing their intake of international students.
Data point to note: There were more than 800,000 foreign students with active visas in 2022, compared to 214,000 in 2012. About 41% of them are Indians—many of them from Punjab—and who fall prey to these fraudulent colleges. (BBC News)
Turkey okays Sweden’s NATO bid
The Turkish parliament voted to approve Sweden’s NATO membership bid. This clears a significant hurdle for Stockholm:
Erdogan initially objected to Sweden’s membership bid, accusing Swedish officials of being too lenient on militant groups, including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Since applying, Sweden has tightened its anti-terror legislation and agreed to work more closely with Turkey on security concerns.
Turkey also scored a F-16 jet deal with the US—to sweeten the deal. The only holdout now is Hungary. Why this matters to the rest of the world:
Sweden’s membership would complete a significant enlargement of NATO that shifts the balance of power in Europe, adding thousands of soldiers along with naval power and warplanes. Both Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership in 2022, seeking to shore up their security in response to Russia’s assault on Ukraine. The decision ended a decadeslong policy of managing an uneasy relationship with Russia by choosing not to align with NATO in order not to provoke the Kremlin.
Wall Street Journal (paywall) and CNN have more.
The Oscar nominations are here!
Let’s get the bad news out of the way. No, neither Greta Gerwig nor Margot Robbie were nominated in their categories—director or best actress. ‘Barbie’, however, did okay—scoring eight nominations—including one for America Ferrera and for Best Picture. Also snubbed: Leo Di Caprio who didn’t get the nod for ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. But we’re happy to note that his co-star Lily Gladstone made history as the first Native American actor to be nominated for an Oscar—which sounds terribly wrong in 2024. ‘Oppenheimer’ has the biggest haul—13 nominations—followed by ‘Poor Things’ and ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’. Deadline and Variety have the rest.
In more amusing news: Check out the Razzies nominations over at Variety—which are always more fun.
Signs of trouble for OCI card holders
The context: The Overseas Citizen of India card is supposed to function the same way as a green card. You get most of the privileges of being a citizen—but with certain restrictions. In 2021, the government decided to restrict an OCI card holder’s ability to work in the country. They would now be required to get special permission to undertake “research activities, journalistic activities, internship or employment with foreign diplomatic missions or foreign government organisations in India.” In 2019, the government famously cancelled the OCI of Aatish Taseer—son of Tavleen Singh—for writing a piece critical of PM Modi in TIME. The new rules followed soon after.
What happened now: French journalist Vanessa Dougnac—who is married to an Indian—has been issued a notice by the Home ministry threatening the withdrawal of her OCI status. Her crime: “malicious” reporting that created a “biased negative perception” of the country. She has been asked to explain why her OCI status should not be removed within 15 days by the government. The weird bit: She hasn’t reported on India since 2022—when her work permit expired. Before that, she filed reports on India’s wheat export ban, production of arms and ammunition and the pandemic. So it’s all a bit mystifying—and worrying. (The Print)
A fire sale on Byju’s stock
Byju’s has been drowning in financial woes (See: this Big Story)—including delayed auditing, disputes with lenders, regulatory filings and much more. It is now in a desperate attempt to raise fresh funds—at a whopping discount of over 90% from its last round:
The beleaguered Indian education provider is asking more than $100 million from existing investors through a fresh issuance of shares slated for next month, at a price that values the firm at less than $2 billion, people familiar with the matter said. That’s down from $22 billion at its previous round in late 2022.
The funds will reportedly be used to rebuild the “core business” of the company—and help it break into hyper-personalised learning using artificial intelligence. (Bloomberg News, paywall, Reuters)
Point to note: Byju’s has also finally released its financials for 2021-22—after a 22-month delay. It reported a loss of Rs 82.4 billion (8,245 crores)—which is almost double its losses of Rs 45.64 billion (4,564 crores) in 2020-21. That said, the revenue of the company jumped by 118% to Rs 52.98 billion (5,298 crores) from 2022-2023. The auditor also cautioned that Byju’s faces “material uncertainty”—which isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for future investors (Mint)
New worries about hypochondriacs
They are often not taken seriously—but their fears about their health may prove to be self-fulfilling prophecies. A new study from Sweden proves that debilitating hypochondriasis can lead to early death:
They found people with the disorder were 84% more likely to die in the study period, and that they died an average of five years younger than those without the diagnosis, at 70 versus 75 years old…Subjects with the disorder died at higher rates of both natural and unnatural causes, with most of the unnatural deaths a result of suicide.
What this means: chronic stress and anxiety should be treated with more urgency and care: “This is a serious mental disorder. This is not a peculiarity or something that should be ridiculed.” (The Guardian)
Saudi Arabia’s ‘golden’ bet on snooker
After conquering football, golf and Formula One, Saudi Arabia will host its first invitational snooker event—the ‘Riyadh Season World Masters of Snooker’ from March 4 to March 6. The exhibition game will feature the world's top 10 snooker players—and offer a prize of $1 million. More notable: The tournament will introduce a twist to the game—a golden ball worth 20 points. It can only be potted at the end of the game—once all other balls have been cleared from the table.
A quick reminder: Saudi Arabia has spent at least $6.3 billion (£4.9 billion) in sports deals since 2021—and invested heavily in LIV Golf (see: our Big Story), F1 racing, boxing, soccer and recently Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). CNBC has more on the event while Independent UK explains why the golden ball (pictured below) is a bad idea.
In related news: Virat Kohli withdrew from the first two test matches of the upcoming series against England, which is set to begin tomorrow, citing “personal reasons.” No other details are out yet, but a BCCI statement asked fans and media not to speculate and respect his privacy. Rajat Patidar has been chosen to replace him in the two matches. (NDTV)
Happy, happy news for the movie biz
According to a new industry report, Indian box office collection reached an all-time high of Rs 122 billion (12,226 crore) in 2023—breaking the pre-pandemic record of Rs 109 billion (10,948 crore) set in 2019. It also marks a 53% growth in gross box office collections, compared to 2022.
Interesting point to note: Despite all the chatter about South Indian films, Bollywood accounted for the bigger share of the revenue pie:
Hindi cinema's box office share hit a pre-pandemic high of 44%, from 33% in 2022. Tamil and Telugu cinemas maintained their 2022 share with a box office collection of Rs 2,265 crore and Rs 1,961 crore, respectively in 2023.
Of course, it’s all down to SRK mania—i.e ‘Pathaan’ and ‘Jawaan’—which earned over Rs 5 billion (500 crore) each. Also helping the bottomline: The average ticket price has increased by about 9% since 2022 from Rs 119 to Rs 130. (Economic Times)
Also doing very well: The Indian stock market which has overtaken Hong Kong—to become the fourth largest in the world. The Hindu has that story.
Five things to see
One: Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Nyay Yatra—was welcomed by this massive show of support in Meghalaya on Monday. That’s a good sign for his latest grassroots campaign—unless, of course, he is arrested. The Assam police has booked Rahul Gandhi for “wanton acts of violence”—as the political face-off with BJP Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma heats up. The Hindu has that story.
Two: Three cubs were born at Kuno National Park to the cheetah Jwala—who had previously given birth to a litter of four in March 2023. But only one of them survived. This comes on the heels of another litter of three—birthed by Asha. Fair warning: the video is a little out of focus. (The Hindu)
Three: The Ram Mandir opened its doors to the public yesterday—and the result was sheer madness. Things were so bad that CM Yogi Adityanath flew to Ayodhya to check the crowd control measures. The Print has more on the chaos—which you can see below:
Four: Check out Kangna Ranaut’s turn as Mrs G (or is it Cruella de Ville?) in this trailer for ‘Emergency’ set to release on June 14.
Five: We’re intrigued by this black and white trailer for ‘Ripley’. Andrew Scott plays Tom Ripley—a cunning man inserting himself into a rich playboy’s life while on the run. Sound familiar? Yup, it's an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s original 1955 novel—made famous by Matt Damon’s ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’. The series is set to release on April 4 on Netflix. (The Verge)
