headlines that matter

Researched by: Aarthi Ramnath, Aakriti Anand & Raghav Bikhchandani

Catastrophic landslide in Wayanad

What happened: A series of landslides—within four hours of each other—hit Kerala’s Wayanad district on Tuesday morning, resulting in 144 deaths—and nearly 200 injured. As many are missing, the final toll is likely to be much higher. The landslides hit four villages in the district—Mundakkai, Chooralmala, Attamala, and Noolpuzha—starting at 2 am. People’s houses were either buried or swept away—while they slept. This map shows the two worst affected regions, Mundakkai and Chooralmala:

Heavy machinery and sniffer dogs were brought in during the early hours to to clear the damage—and find survivors:

You can see the destruction below:

Point to note: This is shaping up to be one of Kerala’s worst natural disasters. The state lost 480 residents in the 2018 floods.

Complicating relief efforts: The landslides wiped out bridges—making it impossible for survivors to reach those trapped under the mud:

In one of the many gut-wrenching sights emerging from the affected zone, a man neck-deep in mud was seen crying out for help. He was rescued after about five hours by state fire services personnel who used a temporary ropeway to literally pluck him out to safety. But not many were as lucky. 

Many are still searching for their family members—unsure if they are still trapped—or at a hospital. Point to note: Plantation workers who work and live in the area have been worst-hit. Tourists were evacuated early from their resorts—and seem to be safe. 

Why it happened: The area received 300 mm of rain in 24 hours. The landslide started in “a water-logged hillock” located 6 km away from the villages—located alongside the Iruvanjippuzha river. But that’s just the immediate cause. There are other reasons why this disaster was inevitable:

One: Lack of warning systems—especially in an area known to be vulnerable to landslides:

Scientists have known for over two decades that landslides are a major hazard along segments of the Western Ghats mountain chain that run through nearly 47 per cent of the state. A scientific review in 2009 had determined that nearly all of Kerala’s 14 districts are prone to landslides, with Wayanad and Kozhikode susceptible to what geologists call “deep landslides” in which the sliding surface is typically well below the depth of tree roots.

Two: Unplanned development. The hill slopes have become more unstable due to terrace farming, deforestation and cultivation of crops that lack “root cohesion”—which helps prevent landslides. In 2013, an expert committee had recommended the creation of an eco-sensitive zone—where construction would be strictly regulated. This included at least some of the affected villages. But the warning was ignored—primarily due to protests from agricultural and construction lobbies. Indian Express has this story.

Three: The warming of the Arabian Sea due to climate change results in the formation of deep cloud systems—which look like giant cotton balls, and occur primarily in humid, tropical areas leading to short and intense showers in a small area. Scientists say global warming has shifted rain patterns to the south—away from the northern Konkan region—making eastern Kerala far more vulnerable.

Point to note: The Indian Meteorological Department has issued a red alert for eight districts in Kerala, including Wayanad—warning they should brace for more torrential rain in the coming days. 

The Hindu and The Telegraph have the best overviews. The Telegraph also looks at the lack of early warning systems—while Indian Express flags previous environmental concerns. Business Today has more on the climate change angle. 

Olympics update: Bhaker makes history

Manu Bhaker is now the first Indian (in free India) to win two medals in a single Olympics. She won a second bronze alongside her shooting partner Sarabjot Singh in the 10-metre air pistol mixed team event. Bhaker could add a third on August 2 when she competes in the women’s 25-metre pistol event. The Telegraph has a colourful report on the win. 

Our fave quote: A self-deprecating Sarabjot on shooting: “It’s a basic sport. People go so deep into it that they end up spoiling their game. Essentially, it’s three things — sight, trigger, follow-through.” 

Historical trivia to note: Norman Pritchard—representing colonial India—won two silver medals in sprint and hurdle in the Olympics—in the same city 124 years ago.

Sticking with India: Here’s a quick round-up of the other Indian athletes:

• In archery, Bhajan Kaur won two consecutive matches to reach the round of 16. Dhiraj Bommadevara played a near-perfect game but fell to Canada’s Eric Peters by the barest of margins—just 2.4 cm!
• In boxing, it was a tough pill to swallow—three eliminations out of three.
• In badminton, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty topped their group by beating their Indonesian counterparts in straight sets—a place in the quarterfinals awaits. OTOH, Tanisha Crasto and Ashwini Ponnappa exited the Olympics without a win from their three matches. 
• In hockey, the men’s team sealed a quarterfinals spot by beating Ireland 2-0. With two group games against the Tokyo 2020 finalists—Australia and Belgium—remaining, our seeding will be key. 
• In rowing, Balraj Panwar put on a solid showing but it wasn’t enough to keep him in contention for a medal. Here’s a guide on what the different categories in Olympics rowing mean.
• Following his men’s doubles defeat in Paris, tennis ace Rohan Bopanna announced his retirement. 

The Olympics website offers a useful daily schedule, including India-specific events.

Coco Gauff meltdown: The 20-year-old US tennis star Coco Gauff got into a spat with the chair umpire over a baseline call—and went on to lose in straight sets against Croatia’s Donna Vekic. Here’s what happened:

Gauff hit a serve and Vekic’s return landed near the baseline. A line judge initially called Vekic’s shot out, and Gauff did not keep the ball in play. Chair umpire Jaume Campistol thought Vekic’s shot landed in and awarded her the point, giving the Croatian a service break and a 4-2 lead. 

The Guardian has more on Gauff’s unfortunate exit. You can see the altercation below. 

Two other superstars to track: Wall Street Journal (splainer gift link) spotlights 61-year-old Ni Xia Lian who is representing Luxembourg in table tennis. NBC News on 11-time Olympic medalist Katie Ledecky who aced the 1500m freestyle heats. She has not lost a race in the event in 14 years.

An Olympics-worthy photo: Far, far away in Tahiti—which is hosting the surfing events—AFP photographer Jérôme Brouillet took this stunning shot of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina:

You can see the live version of this moment in this clip.

Three important protests around the world

Venezuela: President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the recent elections on Monday—earning himself another six-year term. But the Opposition insists the vote was rigged—as does the United States. Protests against the result have turned lethal in Caracas and other parts of the country. At least 11 have died—as “security” forces opened fire on crowds:

Venezuela’s authoritarian government is known for using bands of armed men on motorbikes as enforcers. Known as collectives, or colectivos in Spanish, they started as pro-government community organizations, but are now essentially a paramilitary group. 

New York Times has more. See a clip of the demonstrations below:

Gaza: Far right Israelis clashed with the military police during protests—not against the war—but in support of IDF soldiers. Nine of them have been arrested for sexually assaulting and torturing Palestinian prisoners at a detention camp:

The protesters waved Israeli flags and stormed through the facility’s gate on Monday to try to prevent the soldiers’ detention as they chanted “shame”. They defended the soldiers, saying they were doing their duty. Several Israeli civilians rushed to lend support to the soldiers, according to media reports.

The prisoners are Gaza residents who were detained during the invasion. An Israeli NGO—made up of Israeli military veterans—described the abuse in these terms: “Tens of dead detainees; indefinite restraints resulting in amputations; medical procedures with no anaesthesia; sleep deprivation; brutal beatings; sexual torture.” 

Point to note: Passed in 2002, Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law permits “administrative detention or incarceration without trial”, under which Palestinians can be jailed for upto six months without any access to legal counsel. (Washington Post, paywall, Al Jazeera) 

Bangladesh: Students have been staging angry protests against job quotas for marginalised communities. They were reinstated by a recent High Court order—and now have been cancelled again. Newly emerging images and videos show security forces using brutal force against protesters—including tear gas, rubber bullets, pellet guns, sound grenades, and live rounds. Around 200 people have been killed so far. 

Content alert: The clip below shows disturbing images of violence.

The protests became violent on July 16 after a University student Abu Sayeed—standing with open arms—was shot at by the police. You can see how he died below. (BBC News)

Make yer own Meta chatbot

Meta has launched an AI Studio—that lets Instagram users create their own AI chatbots—powered by its large language model Llama 3.1. How it works:

Meta’a AI Studio handbook says that users can customize a chatbot by providing a detailed description, along with a name and image, and then specifying how it should respond to specific input. Llama will then draw on those instructions to improvise its responses. Meta says Instagram users can “customize their AI based on things like their Instagram content, topics to avoid, and links they want it to share.”

The usual content guidelines apply—so no chatbots that impersonate real people etc. The gif below shows you how to get started. (Wired)

Sticking with AI:  The rockstar AI startups use AI crawler bots to scrape content off websites–without permission or compensation. Turns out the worst offender is Anthropic—which is ripping off content from leading news sites—including Reuters and the Condé Nast. One reason why this is a free-for-all: Publications use outdated or weak code to protect their content. But being over-aggressive also has its problems: “This can have the effect of blocking search engines, internet archiving tools, and academic research, even if that wasn’t the website owner’s intention.” 404 Media has more nerdy details.

Do you look like your name?

New research shows that a rose by any other name—may not indeed look like a rose. Well, if it’s a person named Rose, at least. According to the study, people resemble their names because of a “self-fulfilling prophecy”—i.e people change their appearances to suit their name. Or rather the stereotype suggested by that name. This is why it was easy for a machine to match adult faces to names—but not that of children:

The facial appearance changes over a long period of time to align with social stereotypes associated with the name. Such stereotypes can be formed in many ways, for example, because the name is linked to a famous figure or due to the connotations of a biblical name. 

Phys.org has more on the study.

Meet the ‘Vicky Donor’ of tech bros

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is a sperm donor—and the biological father of 100 kids across 12 countries. Durov apparently shared the fact to “incentivize more healthy men to do it”—i.e, to help people have kids. Durov also wants to “open source” his DNA so his kids can connect with each other. Elon Musk’s response: "'Rookie numbers' – Genghis Khan." Hmm, what’s worse? Fewer humans? Or too many humans with tech bro DNA? (Moneycontrol)

what caught our eye

business & tech

• Despite the fintech boom, 31% of rural India still relies on old-fashioned money lenders for loans.
• According to Mint, the government may allow 100% foreign investment in online gaming companies—with prior approval.

sports & entertainment 

• Carlos Sainz signed a two-year F1 deal to drive for Williams from 2025. Reminder: Sainz is being replaced by Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari.
• Jiya Rai became the world's youngest and fastest female paralympic swimmer to swim solo across the English Channel.
• Enzo Fernández—who shared a clip of himself and his Argentinian teammates singing a racist song—has received a ‘clean chit’ from his Premier League club Chelsea. Colour us shocked. 
• The Bengali film industry has come to a crashing halt over filmmaker Rahool Mukherjee—who used Bangladeshi technicians for his film ‘Lahu’. This is a strict no-no.
• In Tamil Nadu, Kollywood film producers have called for a halt in all new projects—due to a huge backlog of films stuck in various stages of production.

as for the rest

• Indian Express has the shocking story of an American woman who was left chained to a tree in Maharashtra.
• France now supports a plan to grant “limited autonomy” to Western Sahara—under Moroccan rule—as opposed to full independence. Associated Press has more on why this matters.
• The UP Assembly has made its anti-conversion laws even stricter—by increasing the punishment to life imprisonment

Three things to see

One: Once upon a time, reporters could be seen running free in the wilds of the old Parliament building. They have now been penned in a glass box—so they don’t “crowd” the netas. So not exactly a free press then. See their glass prison here. (Hindustan Times)

Two: Olivia Rodrigo jumped on a super-hot TikTok dance-meets-fashion trend—set to the song ‘Emergency Budots’. What’s interesting: budots is a genre invented in Filipino slums to keep young people away from drugs—and has great meaning in Filipino culture. What’s even more interesting: Rodrigo is Filipino American—and the best she can do is this. NME has a fascinating piece on budots’ origin story.

Three: Emma Thompson’s daughter Gaia Wise delivered a Barbie-sized—and sly—smackdown aimed at writer-director Kenneth Branagh. She shared a photo of the two of them in a scene from ‘Much Ado About Nothing’—and added this:

For those in the know: Thompson and Branagh had a messy divorce back in 1995, when he cheated on her with Helena Bonham Carter. More on that in the New Yorker.

feel good place

One: Uber Walks—the healthy alternative to Uber Cabs.

Two: Nap time: Ellie fam edition. Ridiculous.

Three: Verdict: Ate and left no crumbs. (Translation for non-Zoomers.)

 Splainer is making changes

Earlier this month, we ran a two-part series (Part 1 and Part 2) on the dismal state of the news industry—and how minnows like splainer are finding novel strategies to survive. Starting July 22, we are putting some of those new ideas to work: 

• The first big change is that we will drop most of our sections in a single edition on Monday: Big Story, the quiz, good reads and curious facts. Much of this used to be spread across the week. 
• Headlines That Matter will be sent in a separate email from here on out—Monday through Friday—so you can read it in your inbox or on the app/site. 
• Please note: you will get two email notifications on Monday—the big story and headlines editions. It’s annoying but it only happens on that day. A tech fix requires moving way too much furniture on the back end.
• For the rest of the week, you will only receive the headlines edition. As you can see, we have a new, expanded format to make sure you stay updated through the week:) 

Be sure to send questions, complaints and advice to me at lakshmi@splainer.in. Always happy to hear from you.