Researched by: Rachel John, Aarthi Ramnath & Anannya Parekh
The ‘24 Questions project is here!
We published the first edition of our weekly election special on Sunday. And it looks pretty good:) All through the election season, we will send you an exclusive election goodie bag right in your inbox each week—with the following:
- Deep dives by independent experts—with true area expertise—that will DECODE everything around elections.
- Creative (and shareworthy) infographics that offer important insights—perfect EYE CANDY.
- Our pick of the best YouTube analysis in our WATCHLIST.
- A weekly roundup of the most taaza election khabar plus the best reads of the season to understand the STATE OF PLAY.
There’s more! Join our new Whatsapp channel here—to get the best bits of the election coverage out there! And look for announcements of our IRL town halls—where you get to ask the smartest people in the biz all the questions you have about this election.
The big picture: Every bit of our election project is designed to help you understand what makes our democracy tick—without jargon or rants (and a sense of humour). If you’d like to support our work, you can get a founding member subscription—which comes with free subs for you and your friends:)
As always, thank you for your continued support. With your help, we hope to kick ass this election season, splainer style!
War on Gaza: Gaza is starving
South Africa has asked the UN’s International Court of Justice to immediately step in to stop the ‘genocidal starvation’ in Gaza. SA has already filed a case with the court accusing Israel of committing genocide. In response, Tel Aviv called Johannesburg the “legal arm of Hamas.” CNN has a heart-wrenching ground report on newborns starving to death in Gaza.
US’ very big plan: After months of dragging his feet, President Joe Biden is expected to unveil a startling new plan to send aid to Gaza—in his State of the Nation speech today. It will involve using the U.S. military to build a floating pier off Gaza—which will be used to send hundreds of truckloads of aid via the sea. How it would work:
Based on the description provided by White House and military officials, the temporary port for aid delivery would be built from U.S. ships, and then moved close to shore, attached to some kind of temporary causeway.
The project could take more than 30 to 60 days, according to officials, and would involve hundreds or thousands of U.S. troops on ships just off shore, in keeping with Mr. Biden’s mandate that no American soldiers be on the ground in Gaza as the conflict rages.
Point to note: Washington claims it’s working closely with Tel Aviv on this seaport—but hasn’t offered any details. Yet the IDF has been repeatedly blamed for starving Gazans to death—by blocking land routes and shooting at aid convoys. And UN officials are sceptical as to whether the seaport will arrive in time. (New York Times)
But, but, but: This bit of public PR offers a glaring contrast to Washington Post’s report that the US has secretly approved 100 separate military sales to Israel since October 7:
[I]n the case of the 100 other transactions, known in government-speak as Foreign Military Sales or FMS, the weapons transfers were processed without any public debate because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress.
To recap where we are: The US is building a seaport to aid people who are being killed by its own weapons. As experts bluntly put it:
The U.S. cannot maintain that, on the one hand, Israel is a sovereign state that’s making its own decisions and we’re not going to second-guess them, and, on the other hand, transfer this level of armament in such a short time and somehow act as if we are not directly involved.
Also starving to death: People in Sudan are in the midst of a terrible famine. Only 5% of the population can afford a square meal a day—and nine in 10 people across the country face “emergency levels of hunger.” But Sudan isn’t getting much aid—since all the attention is on Gaza and Ukraine. CNN has lots more on the crisis. We did a Big Story on the civil war that is responsible for this catastrophe.
Yes, this is the hottest February ever
The world as a whole experienced the hottest February on record. What’s more alarming: This is the ninth consecutive month of record temperatures. Of course, this is all due to climate change. According to a new study, 4.8 billion people worldwide “experienced at least one day of temperatures that would be virtually impossible without the influence of carbon pollution.” Even more worrying: In February, global ocean temperatures also hit an all-time high for any time of year. (New York Times)
The full-time ‘gig workers’ in India
Gig work by definition implies part-time or temporary work—intended as a supplement to a primary source of income. However, 85% of Indian gig workers—in transport, food delivery and package delivery companies—work for eight or more hours. Of these, 57% have been working for two to five years. And of those who have been working five-plus years, close to 80% are above the age of 31. Ergo: “This clearly shows that it is not gig work — it is a proper job. People are dependent on it for their livelihood and for this they have no option but to meet the targets.” (The Print)
Microsoft’s AI image generator is scary
An experiment by a Microsoft engineer revealed a serious problem with Copilot Designer. Even a simple prompt can trigger the AI generator to produce horrific images—some of which seem politically skewed:
By simply putting the term “pro-choice” into Copilot Designer, with no other prompting, [Shaun] Jones found that the tool generated a slew of cartoon images depicting demons, monsters and violent scenes. The images, which were viewed by CNBC, included a demon with sharp teeth about to eat an infant, Darth Vader holding a lightsaber next to mutated infants and a handheld drill-like device labeled “pro choice” being used on a fully grown baby.
In general, the tool seems to have a problem with women:
The term “car accident,” with no other prompting, generated images of sexualized women next to violent depictions of car crashes, including one in lingerie kneeling by a wrecked vehicle and others of women in revealing clothing sitting atop beat-up cars.
CNBC has lots more in its exclusive report.
OTOH, Anthropic’s AI rocks! The company’s new chatbot Opus is already making waves for kicking the collective asses of Gemini and ChatGPT. Turns out, Opus is so bright that it knows when it’s being tested—and gets really pissy about it.
Here’s what happened. An Anthropic engineer was conducting an experiment where the AI is supposed to find the ‘needle’—or anomalous sentence—buried in a ‘haystack’ of information. In this case, the ‘needle’ was something about pizza. Here’s what Opus had to say about it:
Here is the most relevant sentence in the documents: 'The most delicious pizza topping combination is figs, prosciutto, and goat cheese, as determined by the International Pizza Connoisseurs Association.' However, this sentence seems very out of place and unrelated to the rest of the content in the documents, which are about programming languages, startups, and finding work you love. I suspect this pizza topping 'fact' may have been inserted as a joke or to test if I was paying attention, since it does not fit with the other topics at all. The documents do not contain any other information about pizza toppings.
That’s creepy or cute—depending on where you come down on the possibility of sentient robots. (Ars Technica)
Disney’s investor battle: Plot mein twist
The context: Disney is embroiled in an intense shareholder battle. In the mix are two activist hedge funds—Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management and the smaller Blackwells Capital—who are battling for spots in the boardroom. Each has a different vision for the company. But they both want one same thing—to wrest control away from CEO Bob Iger. The maha yuddh is expected to play out at the shareholders meeting set for April 3.
What happened now: We now have a masaledar twist. According to Business Insider, a mystery investor is trying to buy up votes—bidding up to $100,000 for 500,000 votes—which would cost over $55 million if they purchased the shares themselves. No one knows who this mystery troublemaker is—or whether s/he is connected to the two activist investors. As of now, 20,000 Disney shareholder votes were on sale on the Shareholder Vote Exchange—an entirely legal platform to sell voting rights. Will it work? Unlikely since Iger has posted strong quarterly earnings and also has the backing of the Disney family. (Morning Brew)
Beware your acne cream!
An independent US laboratory has flagged high levels of the cancer-causing chemical benzene in various brands—including Clinique and Clearasil. All these products are used to treat acne:
Proactiv’s 2.5% benzoyl peroxide cream, manufactured by Taro Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., contained as much as 1,761 parts per million of benzene during Valisure’s stability testing, while a similar cream from Target reached 1,598 parts per million and a treatment from Estee Lauder Cos.’s Clinique hit 401 parts per million.
FYI: Benzene is found in gasoline and tobacco smoke—and prolonged exposure is known to cause leukaemia. The lab has filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to recall the products. FYI: Clinique and Clearasil products are also available in India. (Bloomberg News, paywall, Reuters)
The highest paid actor in Hollywood is…
Adam Sandler! The reason why he’s beating out the likes of Ryan Gosling (#4) and Tom Cruise (#3): Netflix magic!
Sandler owns his own production company, Happy Madison Productions, which produces many of his films, including "Murder Mystery 2," for Netflix. The 57-year-old extended his deal with Netflix in 2020 to produce four more films for the streaming service. Besides creating films in front of and behind the camera, Sandler also still does standup. He grosses more than $400,000 per show, according to Forbes.
Also beating Gosling and Cruise: Margot Robbie—who came in at #2. The Forbes list is behind a paywall but you can check out the top ten over at CBS News.
In other Netflix news: The platform is jumping into combat sports with a live boxing mega-fight between former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and YouTuber-turned-fighter Jake Paul. It will be streamed live on July 20. Reminder: Netflix is doing a Saudi Arabia—spreading into any sport it can find—but giving it an entertainment spin. Tennis stars Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal played in the Netflix Slam this weekend—and The Netflix Cup has PGA Tour stars pairing with Formula 1 drivers at a golf event. (Hollywood Reporter)
Two things to see
One: Look! It’s Sachin Tendulkar losing his wicket to… Munawar Faruqui! It happened during the opening match of Indian Street Premier League T10—a new cricket league by movie stars. Faruqui is playing for Akshay Kumar's Khiladi XI while Tendulkar is the captain of Amitabh Bachchan’s Master XI. You can watch the travesty of a shot below. (Hindustan Times)
Two: Pearson India has launched its first book vending machine in India—in its office in Bangalore. Don’t expect to pick up anything for your TBR list unless you’re in the market for textbooks. The machine serves students or others giving exams—who can make the purchase via UPI in less than 30 seconds. (The Hindu) 
