Needed: A soundtrack for the slog: Let’s get real. Working can be challenging, stressful or just plain boring. But the right playlist can help ease the burden—and keep us going. Help us put one together—add your picks to this handy short form.
Also very important: Have you checked out our weekly election special? No? Why not? It’s very, very good, even if I say so myself—especially this week.
We are hiring for the key position of a News Editor to join our brilliantly talented editorial team. This is a ‘teaching’ newsroom—where learning new things is a big part of the job. We also pride ourselves on a warm, friendly work culture. But, but, but: This is not an average newsroom gig with a boiler-plate desk job. What we’re looking for:
Someone with 1.5 to 2 years of experience in a newsroom or related field. This is not an entry level position.
Excellent research skills are a must—especially the ability to break down complex jargon into accessible language.
Someone who is interested in—and has some knowledge of—hard news issues in politics, economy and law. This job isn’t for someone who prefers culture/lifestyle topics.
A person who enjoys juggling a couple of different roles. Example: working closely with the production team that creates our awesome videos. Or managing relationships with content partners.
Willingness to work in a startup environment where we all do a bit of everything—and are eager to take initiative and responsibility.
A knowledge of and love for splainer is a huge plus—since we’re not the usual news product.
Please note there is a six-month probation period and the pay will be industry standard. We are an equal opportunity employer and are preferably looking for someone based out of Bangalore. Please send your resumes and cover letter—telling us why you want this job—to talktous@splainer.in.We will reach out to you if you’re shortlisted.
Behold: The electoral bond hall of fame!
The context: We highly recommend reading our Big Story on electoral bonds. Suffice to say, the bonds allowed companies and individuals to make secret donations to parties—which violated our constitutional right to know. The Supreme Court ordered the State Bank of India to cough up details of all bonds sold to date—worth a total of Rs 121.55 billion (12,155 crore). And so here we are.
What we know now: Let’s sum up the most intriguing details—but remember, we still can’t connect the donor to the recipient of the bond:
One: The top donor is Santiago Martin of Future Gaming and Hotel Services—who bought a total of Rs 13.68 billion (1,368 crore). His is a rags-to-riches story—from a labourer in Myanmar to the ‘Lottery King’ of South India. He has a record of supporting the Left in Kerala, DMK in Tamil Nadu.
Two: He is followed by Megha Engineering out of Telangana (Rs 10 billion), Reliance-linkedcompany Qwik Supply Chain (Rs 4.1 billion) and Haldia Energy (Rs 3.77 billion) based in Bengal. If you’re looking for familiar names, the top ten also includes Vedanta (Rs 3.75 billion), Essel Mining (Rs 2.24 billion), Bharti Airtel Limited (Rs 1.98 billion) and Keventer Foodpark Infra Ltd. (Rs 1.95 billion). Not on the list: Ambani, Tatas or Adani.
Three: Of the top five donors, three bought electoral bonds while under investigationby the Enforcement Directorate and tax officials. These are Future Gaming, Megha Engineering and Vedanta. Some like Megha are also partners in marquee infrastructure projects of the state government in Telangana.
Also this: A number of the top donors are mining and steel companies—awaiting environmental clearances for their projects.
Four: Unsurprisingly, the BJP received the most moolah—a staggering Rs 60 billion (6,060 crore). That’s half the grand total of all bonds ever sold: Rs 127.69 billion (12,769 crore). It has already cashed bonds worth Rs 2 billion (202 crore) just in January—for the Lok Sabha elections this year. Back in 2019, it cashed an eye-popping Rs 10 billion (1,056.86 crore) in April of that year—and Rs 7 billion (714.71 crore) in May.
Five: There is plenty of speculation as to why many of the big players are not on the list. Unnamed sources suggest smaller, no-name companies may be acting as proxies for them. The Telegraph has more on the rumours. Indian Express has more on the ED/tax probe connection, BJP bonds bounty—and future petitions to link donations directly to parties. The Hindu looks at the top donors—and has a full listof the data on donors and parties.
Moving on to election commissioners: We now have two new ECs—to replace Arun Goel who suddenly announced his resignation last week—and Anup Chandra who retiredlast month. The selection committee—let’s get real, the government—has chosen Sukhbit Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar. Their claim to fame: Kumar oversaw the revocation of Article 370 and was involved in setting up the Ram Janmabhoomi Trust. Sandhu is linked to the passing of the Uniform Civil Code in Uttarakhand. Both bureaucrats have been favoured by the government in the past.
PS: The lone and outvoted Opposition leader on the committee—Congress leader Adhir Chowdhury—says he was given the shortlist of six names just ten minutes before the meeting. Hindustan Times, The Telegraph and Indian Express have more on the selected candidates. A very relevant read: Our Big Storyon the new rules of appointment.
Oh no, it’s ONOE!
The context: The committee appointed to look into the ‘One Nation, One Election’ proposal has submitted its report. Reminder: This is the proposal to hold the elections for state legislature, Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha seats—all at the same time (explained in this Big Story).
What happened now: Unsurprisingly, the committee—headed by former president Ramnath Kovind—has come out in strong support of the idea. It has asked the government to set a date for the first mega-election.
Why this is a very big deal: If the government decides that 2029 is going to be the first mega-election, then a number of State governments will be dissolved before their term is up. Ten states will hold elections in 2028—including Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Their governments would have been in power for a year. Others like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Gujarat will last only two years—and Tamil Nadu, Assam, and Kerala governments will have to be dissolved after three.
Point to note: Only Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Haryana—all of which hold elections this year—will have a full five-year term.
What’s next: To implement the new system, the government will have to pass 18 amendments to the Constitution. For the amendmentsthat require syncing elections together, the government does not need state ratification. However, others like the preparation of a common electoral roll will require approval by the states. This will be tricky since most of the key Opposition parties—Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and the CPI (M)—hate the idea. Our Big Story explains why ONOE is bad news for regional parties. (Indian Express)
Moving on to this election: A News18 “mega poll” shows that the BJP will sweep the Hindi Belt—and secure the largest haul in Karnataka. It will even landfive seats in Tamil Nadu—which would be a stupendous achievement since it didn’t manage even one in 2019. The overall prediction: Char sau paar—as in a total of 411. It ought to be called Modi-ji’s wish fulfilment survey. (News18)
War on Gaza: A direct attack on Bibi
In an unprecedented move, the majority leader of the Senate—and top-ranking Democrat—Chuck Schumer lashed out at Benjamin Netanyahu. In a speech on the Senate floor, he said Bibi has “lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel”—and called him one of the obstacles to peace. But there were plenty of caveats:
Mr. Schumer said there had been an “inaccurate perception” of the war that lays too much blame on Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza without focusing enough on how Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. And he acknowledged how difficult it was for traumatised Israelis to contemplate the possibility of a two-state solution at this time.
Meanwhile, in Gaza: Israeli forces are targeting Gazans waiting for food—killing 20 and injuring another 100. The IDF is calling it fake news. Here’s a clip from the scene. CNNhas more details.
Who pushed Mamata Banerjee?
The Bengal Chief Minister ended up with a deep gash on her forehead after being “pushed from behind” at her residence—or so she insists. The wound appears to have been serious—but she’s okay now:
She had cerebral concussion and sharp cuts on her head and above her nose, from where she was bleeding profusely. Initially, she was assessed by the heads of the departments of neurosurgery and medicine, and cardiologists, and her vitals were stabilised. Three stitches were given on her forehead and one above the nose, and dressing was done.
The Information & Broadcasting Ministry has blocked 18 streaming platforms for allegedly publishing obscene content. These include Dreams Films, Voovi, X Prime, MoodX, Besharams—some of which were hosted on the Google Play store and Apple App store. According to the ministry:
[These apps] depicted nudity and sexual acts in various inappropriate contexts, such as relationships between teachers and students, incestuous family relationships, etc. The content included sexual innuendos and, in some instances, prolonged segments of pornographic and sexually explicit scenes devoid of any thematic or societal relevance.
FYI: One of the apps has a record 10 million downloads—while another two platforms had 5 million each. Minthas the full list of blocked platforms. (The Hindu)
SpaceX scores a partial win
The Starship rocket—the largest ever—was successfully launched—and travelled about halfway around the Earth. But it lost contact when re-entering the atmosphere—and fell apart. But it fulfilled a number of engineering goals—and is considered a success by the SpaceX team:
The spacecraft far exceeded its two past performances, both of which were cut short by explosions minutes after launch. The company had acknowledged in advance a high probability that its latest flight might similarly end with the spacecraft's demise before the mission profile was finished.
Why this rocket matters: It can carry great amounts of cargo and crew—which is critical for any Moon or Mars missions.There is no video of the rocket falling apart but you can see the launch below. (Reuters)
Also exploding mid-air: The Japanese rocket Kairos—which exploded five minutes after lift-off. Japan’s mission to put its first satellite into orbit has failed once again. The video of the explosion is a sight to see. (Reuters)
Say hello to the first AI software engineer
Tech grads beware, the machine is coming for your job. Cognition AI launched its software development assistant Devin—which is a super-coder—3X better than its rivals GPT-4, Copilot and Llama. According to the Bloomberg reporter:
In my tests with the software, Devin could build a website from scratch in 5 to 10 minutes, and it managed to re-create a web-based version of Pong in about the same amount of time. I had to prompt it a couple of times to improve the physics of the ball movement in the game and to make some cosmetic changes on its websites, all of which Devin accomplished just fine and with a polite attitude.
Devin is so awesome that it can simultaneously do “hundreds and even thousands of tasks without going off track.” Why this matters: At this rate, coding “assistants” are likely to become full-time developers very soon:
Silas Alberti, a computer scientist and co-founder of another stealth AI startup (of course), has tried Devin and says the technology is a leap forward. It’s less like an assistant helping with code and more like a real worker doing its own thing, he says. “This feels very different because it’s an autonomous system that can do something for you.”
The Delhi Police uncovered a very large criminal network in Delhi—involved in the manufacture and distribution of fake cancer and chemotherapy drugs. Seven people—including an oncologist and a lab technician—have been arrested with charges of selling adulterated drugs, cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy:
The accused allegedly filled empty vials with anti-fungal medicine worth Rs 100 and sold them as "life-saving" cancer drugs across India, China, and the US for Rs 1 to 3 lakh per vial. The operation reportedly lasted over two years, during which the accused sold more than 7,000 such injections.
Why this is especially alarming: This is the first instance where used vials of real drugs were filled with spurious meds—which usually use their own fake labels. (Economic Times)
An ‘Enjoy Enjaami’ row
Producer of the insanely popular song—Santhosh Narayanan—claims that the label Maajja has not paid him—or the artists Arivu or Dhee. That’s a pretty big claim for a song that now has a billion streams online. The company CEO dismissed the “false and damaging allegations aimed at tarnishing reputation.” He claims that the artists have not agreed on “the contribution to the song”—which may be true since Arivu has accused Dhee and Narayanan of taking undue credit for his creation. The whole mess is complicated by the fact that the beloved AR Rahman is one of the co-founders of Maajja—and no one wants to throw shade on him. (The Hindu)
Four things to see
One: An Ivory Coast football player was assaulted by the locals in Kerala’s Malappuram district. No one knows what triggered the attack, but this is what he said in the police complaint:
Our team got a corner kick when my team was leading by a goal. I went near the corner flag for taking the kick, and the natives and the audience called me a monkey. One among the audience threw a stone at me and it hit my head. When I turned back, two more stones were hurled at me and they started screaming at me. Those people who threw stones at me were saying f**k African monkey, black cat.
Two: It’s a war of robots now! The company Figure unveiled its humanoid robot Figure 1 in collaboration with OpenAI—and it’s making Tesla’s Optimus Robot look slow:
The human asks for something to eat, and Figure 01 proceeds to hand him the apple. The human then introduces some trash into the environment and asks the robot to both explain why it just did what it did, while also picking up the trash. There is, of course, some lag time as the robot processes the instructions, but it otherwise executes the command perfectly. “On it. So I gave you the apple because it’s the only, uh, edible item I could provide you with from the table,” Figure 01 says, complete with a disturbingly human “uh” interrupting the middle of the sentence.
Three: The world’s biggest museum is soon going to open in Egypt. The upcoming Grand Egyptian Museum spans 90,000 square metres of a 50-hectare site. It will have more than 100,000 artefacts from Ancient Egypt—including antiquities from the famed tomb of King Tutankhamun. FYI: The largest museum right now is The Louvre in Paris. Check out a sneak peak of the museum, which will open in mid-2024 below. (Dezeen)
Four: In a gutsy move during her ‘Guts’ World Tour, Olivia Rodrigo handed out emergency contraceptives, condoms and information about abortion in Missouri. Abortion is illegal in the state. See the kits handed to the fans below. (Variety)
Takshashila: A doorway to public policy
Editor’s note: We are delighted to unveil our partnership with Takshashila Institution. It is one of India’s foremost think-tanks on public policy. They also run valuable courses that teach students how to tackle complex policy challenges–bringing together academic experts and policy practitioners from across the world. We will be showcasing their courses in splainer. Please do note: This is not paid content.
Over to Takshashila… If you’re looking for a way to distil complex and confusing public policy discourse and learn more about the functioning of a government then Takshashila Institution’s Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy (PGP) course might be for you. This 48-week online adventure is your gateway to mastering the art and science of public policy.
From constitutional frameworks to the nitty-gritty of economic policy, each module in the course is a step towards becoming the policy architect of tomorrow. With workshops that bring your online learning to life and a capstone project that tests your skills, Takshashila doesn't just teach policy; it immerses you in it. Whether you want to pivot your career or deepen your expertise, our program is tailored for the working professional, offering flexibility without compromising rigour.
