headlines that matter

Written by: Aarthi Ramnath, Raghav Bikhchandani & Yash Budhwar

The censorship of ‘Phule’: A caste story

First, the Phules: ‘Phule’ is a biopic about Jyotirao and his wife Savitribai Phule—anti-caste activists in nineteenth century Pune—who challenged upper caste oppression and religious dogma. They also opened schools to educate girls—and championed progressive ideas such as widow remarriage. 

Next, the movie: Several films and TV serials have been made on the Phules but none with a mainstream Bollywood budget. The leading actors of ‘Phule’ are Pratik Gandhi—of ‘Scam 1992’ fame—and Patralekhaa—best known for ‘CityLights’—who portray the couple. The director is Ananth Mahadevan—and Zee Studios is its distributor.

Anatomy of a controversy: On March 24, the film’s trailer dropped—and immediately sparked outrage for its raw depiction of casteist violence committed by Brahmins. A range of Brahmin rights organisations (yes, there is such a thing) came out of the woodwork—including the Akhil Bhartiya Brahmin Samaj, the Parshuram Aarthik Vikas Mahamandal, the Brahmin Federation and the Hindu Mahasangh. Their response is best summed up in three words: Not all Brahmins: 

Brahmin boys were seen hurling mud and stones at Savitribai Phule. We do not oppose showing this incident. If such misdeeds had occurred at the hands of society, showing them would be understandable. However, people who helped Mahatma Jyotirao Phule with donations for schools and those who went to school and studied there, including four of the first batch of six students, were Brahmins. Is this mentioned in the movie as well? And if it is mentioned, why wasn't it shown in the trailer?

Where’s the ‘balance’—one ‘good Brahmin deed’ for every ‘bad Brahmin deed’ on screen?

The response: The movie’s naive director—Mahadevan—remained defiant—and refused to pre-screen the movie for these ‘activists’: “It will look as if we are justifying the film. You justify something if you're guilty. They can see the film when it is released. The CBFC [Central Board of Film Certification] gave it a U certificate." 

But, but, but: Earlier this week, journalist Aroon Deep leaked the list of cuts mandated by the Indian censor board—required for its release. Mahadevan had already been forced to “spare” Brahmin snowflakes: 

According to the document, CBFC has insisted on removing terms like ‘Mahar’, ‘Mang’, ‘Peshwai’, and ‘Manu system of caste’. Additionally, the filmmakers were asked to modify certain dialogues. For example, the line “Jahan shudro ko…jhadu bandhkar chalna chahiye (Where Shudras must walk with a broom tied behind them)” must be changed to “Kya yahi hamari… sabse doori banake rakhni chahiye (Is this why we… must be kept at the greatest distance?)”, and “3,000 saal puraani…gulaami (3,000 years of slavery)” should be altered to “Kai sal purani hai (It’s been going on for many years)”.

FYI: the CBFC document for ‘Phule’ is dated March 21, three days before the trailer was posted.

What happened now: Thanks to this political fight, the film’s release has been delayed  by two weeks—from April 11 to 25. We will have to wait and see if the delay is due to a new set of CBFC-required cuts. The Print offers the best summary of the controversy. Neeraj Bunkar in Indian Express offers a good takedown of the CBFC’s cuts. The Hindu is best on Jyotirao Phule—and his writings.

Welcome to the new Cold War: Wtf is up with the Panama Canal?

Geography refresher: The Republic of Panama is located on the isthmus—or narrow strip of land—that connects Central and South America. The canal—which cuts through it—was built by the US in 1914—connecting the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. Over 40% of US shipping container traffic—valued at $270 billion a year—passes through the canal. There are five ports along the canal—of which two are located at either end—Cristóbal on the Caribbean Sea side and Balboa on the Pacific Ocean side. See the Wall Street Journal map below:

Point to note: The canal was owned by the US until ownership and control was transferred to Panama in 1999.

Enter, Donald Trump: No one gave much thought to the canal or its control until Donald Trump namechecked it in his plans for global domination. In his address to Congress in March, the president grandly declared that "to further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal.” No one was clear on what "reclaiming" meant—but it sounded ominous:

U.S. Southern Command is developing potential plans from partnering more closely with Panamanian security forces to the less likely option of U.S. troops’ seizing the Panama Canal by force, the officials said. Whether military force is used, the officials added, depends on how much Panamanian security forces agree to partner with the United States.

Trump’s main grouse: He claimed China controlled the ports—without much evidence. 

But, but, but: Military plans were shelved when the Hong Kong-based firm CK Hutchison—which controls two key ports on either end of the canal—cut a deal worth $22.8 billion with the US investment company BlackRock—run (not) coincidently by Trump supporter Larry Fink. In fact, Fink directly pitched his deal to Trump—selling him on this bloodless coup. When the deal was announced, the prez couldn’t wait to gloat: 

Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others.

Point to note: The deal with BlackRock included 43 other ports owned by Hutchison around the world. The agreement was made in principle—to be sealed by April 2. 

Enter, Beijing: Trump’s victory run sparked an immediate, angry response from Chinese government-controlled media:

It called out CK Hutchison, accusing it of “spineless groveling,” “profit-seeking” and “disregarding national interests and national justice, and betraying and selling out all Chinese people. Faced with such a major event and a matter of great justice, the relevant company should think twice … and think carefully about what position and side it should stand on,” it added.

And suddenly the deal started to look shaky. The April 2 deadline came and went with no sign of a final deal. Experts agreed that China was likely leaning on Hutchison to renege—and is even lining up alternative Chinese buyers for the ports.

Plot mein pehla twist: Earlier this week, Panama’s comptroller general dropped a bombshell allegation: CK Hutchison owes the Panama government $300 million in unpaid fees—and did not get the permissions required to renew its lease in 2021. The auditor said it was up to Panama to decide whether the contract signed with CK Hutchison was kosher—and cancel CK Hutchison’s lease if it so chose. 

Point to note: No one is sure whether this is China’s doing—or just coincidence. But the timing is horrific for Panama—which was slapped with 10% tariffs—before Trump declared that 90-day ‘PAUSE’.

Plot mein doosra twist: Just today, we’re back to the military option. AFP reports the Panama and the US have inked a sweeping military pact—which puts US troops on Panamanian ground:

The document, signed by top security officials from both countries, allows military personnel from the United States to deploy to Panama-controlled facilities for training, exercises and a range of other activities.. it gives the United States broad sway to deploy an unspecified number of personnel to former bases, some of which Washington built when it occupied the Canal Zone decades ago.

That’s ‘huuge’ as a certain person would say—and marks the first step back to an earlier, aggressive era of US imperialism—which treated South America as its backyard. 

Ironic quote to note: “In 1975, then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Republican President Ford that failure to negotiate a handover of the canal would lead to ‘real uproar; volunteers, demonstrations, violence, and we would be dragged into every international forum. This is no issue to face the world on. It looks like pure colonialism.’"

Why do you care? The world—including India—had to deal with Joe Biden’s Cold War with Russia for four years. Now, everyone will have to figure out a new strategy to survive Donald Trump’s war with China. As Panama shows, it won’t just be about tariffs. 

Reading list: Wall Street Journal reports on the Panama auditor’s allegations. South China Morning Post has CK Hutchison’s response. For more analysis on China’s role, check out NBC News. AFP via The Hindu has the latest report on the military deal. Deutsche Welle has a must-read analysis on the geopolitical battle over Panama.

Not fur real: The dire wolf that isn’t 

The context: A “de-extinction” company called Colossal Biosciences aims to “jumpstart nature’s ancestral heartbeat.” The venture is co-founded by tech and software entrepreneur Ben Lamm and George Church—a famous and controversial professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School. It has raised over $225 million from equally controversial investors, including Peter Thiel and Paris Hilton. In the past, Colossal has made headlines for its plans to resurrect the woolly mammoth (explainer here) and the Tasmanian tiger (explained here).

What happened now: Colossal is back in the headlines—this time for actually doing what they promised—de-extincting a lost species—in this case a "dire wolf." That’s a giant wolf—a massive Ice Age predator made famous by ‘Game of Thrones’. They unveiled these three adorable pups—with very Hollywood names: Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi:

All of which earned them a TIME’s magazine cover plus a New Yorker deep dive.

The dire wolf resurrection: The pups were born using Colossal’s gene-editing MO, according to TIME: “Colossal scientists deciphered the dire wolf genome, rewrote the genetic code of the common gray wolf to match it.” Then they implanted these engineered embryos in large dogs—and delivered the pups by C-section. 

Colossal dutifully trotted out a dramatic account of their achievement: 

Matt James, the company’s chief animal officer.. felt the significance of the science when Romulus and Remus were just 5 or 6 weeks old. The staff was weighing the little pups, and one of the veterinary techs began singing a song from The Little Mermaid. When she reached a point at which she vocalized first up, then down, Romulus and Remus turned her way and began howling in response. “For me,” James says, “it was sort of a shocking, chilling moment.” These pups were the first to produce a howl that hadn’t been heard on earth in over 10,000 years. 

But, but, but: All that PR has sparked a backlash among experts—who insist the pups are not ‘dire wolves’. One reason: Colossal only executed 20 gene edits—hardly enough to transform gray wolves into their remote ancestors. Also this: Gray wolves are not sufficiently similar to dire wolves—they just look a lot like them—hence, perfect for Colossal’s sleight of hand: 

In other words, Colossal has modified a small number of genes corresponding to traits that are visible and thrilling to 21st-century human eyes, which was enough to convince the public — and many science journalists — that the company has breathed new life into a dead species. 

Translation: Colossal has genetically ‘deepfaked’ a dire wolf:

The fluffy white canines.. are closer to something like designer dogs. More precisely, they are genetically modified, hybridized modern wolves, gestated in the womb of a domestic dog. But that wouldn’t sound as impressive on a magazine cover.

Why this matters: If experts are right, then Colossal has created a brand new species—with no thought for their well-being or future. As Vox puts it: 

This isn’t de-extinction or conservation, but invention. Modern humans are as gods, with the power to conjure new creatures into being — and if we’re being honest, we do it not for their sake but for ours. Our record of treating non-human animals as our playthings offers little reason to believe we will wield that power with restraint, humility, or care.

TIME Magazine has the original cover story on the pups. Vox and Slate offer great takedowns of the claims. For a shorter overview, you can read BBC News.

what caught our eye

business & tech

• Nvidia’s chips are still flowing into China—days after CEO Jensen Huang hit up a $1 million-a-plate Mar-a-Lago dinner and the planned export ban mysteriously vanished.
• OpenAI has fired back at Elon Musk with a countersuit—accusing him of bad-faith tactics to hijack their AI breakthroughs for himself and slow the company down.
• Microsoft may be gearing up for more layoffs—this time middle managers and low performers could be on the chopping block as the company looks to slim down teams and tighten budgets.
• Markets flipped hard on Thursday—Nasdaq sank 4%, S&P 3.5%—as weak earnings and trade jitters dragged down the Magnificent Seven, with Apple, Nvidia, and Meta leading the slide.
• TCS missed the mark this quarter—net profit slipped 1.7% to Rs 12,224 crore (Rs 122.24 billion), falling short of Bloomberg estimates, even as revenue inched up 5.2% amid project delays and growing uncertainty.
• Indians shelled out a whopping Rs 198 lakh crore (Rs 198 trillion) via mobile phones in 2H 2024—nearly 30% higher year-on-year and 14.5 times what was spent using cards.
• IndiGo just soared past Delta and Ryanair to become the world’s most valuable airline—its market cap crossed Rs 2 lakh crore (Rs 2 trillion) after a 13% stock rally this year.
• Byju’s US arm has sued founder Byju Raveendran, his wife, brother, and top aide for allegedly swiping $533 million in what it calls a “web of deception” to defraud lenders.
• In a $1.36 billion power move, Prada is set to snap up Versace—bringing two Italian fashion heavyweights under one luxe roof.

sports & entertainment

• Even before Season 2 drops on April 13, HBO has locked in ‘The Last of Us’ for a third season—with creators hinting the epic sequel could stretch across two more.
• ‘Saturday Night Live’ is heading across the pond—NBC’s iconic sketch show will launch a UK edition with Sky in 2026, serving up British takes on satire, spoofs, and musical guests.
• Cristiano Ronaldo and ‘Kingsman’ director Matthew Vaughn have teamed up to launch UR•Marv—a new film studio with two action flicks already wrapped and a third on the way.
• Cannes 2025 is going big—films by Wes Anderson, Ari Aster, Richard Linklater and more are in the race for the Palme d’Or, with Hollywood glam set to take over the Croisette.
• Virat Kohli’s Rs 110 crore (Rs 1.1 billion) Puma deal is wrapping up—and the cricket star is now set to join sportswear firm Agilitas as an investor, with an announcement during the IPL likely.
• It’s a happy homecoming for Bangalore boy KL Rahul, as he blitzed an unbeaten 93 off just 53 balls to take Delhi Capitals to a dominant 6-wicket win over RCB.
• MS Dhoni is back at the helm for CSK after skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad was ruled out of the IPL with a fractured elbow.

health & environment

• The Trump admin has walked back emergency food aid cuts—except for war-torn Afghanistan and Yemen, which are still left in the lurch.

meanwhile, in the world

• The search is over in Santo Domingo’s Jet Set nightclub collapse—with the final death toll at 221, including prominent baseball players and politicians.
• MIT grad and Indian-American CEO Anurag Bajpayee has been named in a high-profile scandal dubbed the “Cambridge Brothel Hearings”—with Wall Street Journal reporting clients paid up to $600 an hour and flashed ID, company badges, and references to get in.
• New York Times (splainer gift link) has a simple but bold challenge: spend 10 uninterrupted minutes with a piece of abstract art—and see if it shifts the way you feel about it.
• The EU is hitting pause on its Trump-era tariff countermeasures for 90 days—buying time to hammer out a trade deal with the US.
• Firstpost has an interesting read on why angry mobs in Bangladesh vandalised KFC, Pizza Hut, and Bata—mistakenly linking them to Israel amid fiery protests against the country’s military strikes on Gaza.
• Zimbabwe is finally cutting a cheque—doling out $3 million in its first compensation to white farmers whose land was seized over two decades ago under a controversial reform programme.
• Andrew Tate allegedly pointed a gun at a woman’s face and warned, “do as I say or there’ll be hell to pay”—one of several explosive claims in a UK lawsuit against the influencer.
• New Zealand’s controversial Treaty Principles Bill—aimed at reinterpreting the nation’s founding pact with the Māori—has been soundly defeated in Parliament, 112 to 11.
• Binance founder Changpeng Zhao just signed on as an adviser to Pakistan’s new crypto council—marking a major pivot for a country that’s long been wary of digital currencies.
• DOGE is finally getting DOGE’d—the Government Accountability Office has launched a sweeping audit into Elon Musk’s shadowy agency over data misuse across federal departments.
• The Trump administration is reportedly pushing for a consent decree—a court-enforced deal that could keep Columbia University under federal watch for years—as it scrambles to hold on to government funding.
• Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams is set to testify that Facebook cozied up to China’s Communist Party—accusing execs of undermining US national security to chase an $18 billion payday.
• Donald Trump just scrapped shower water pressure limits—because, in his words, his “beautiful hair” needs it.
• In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s morality police are reportedly arresting men for skipping prayers or sporting the "wrong" haircut, says the UN.
• The US’ Take It Down Act—an anti-deepfake bill—is close to becoming law, but critics fear Trump could twist it into a censorship tool.

meanwhile, in India 

• In a stunningly obnoxious case of victim-blaming, an Allahabad High Court judge said, “she invited trouble” while granting bail to a rape accused.
• A Class 8 girl on her period was made to sit outside her classroom during an exam near Coimbatore—prompting the school principal’s suspension under the RTE Act.
• A year since the Mumbai Coastal Road’s debut, the CAG has flagged safety lapses, shoddy construction, rising costs—and contractors making off with the gains.
• Tahawwur Rana, extradited from the US for his role in the 26/11 attacks, is now in NIA custody for 18 days as investigators dig into the full conspiracy behind the Mumbai terror strike.
• Indian Express has the lowdown on the bizarre Noida biryani case—where serving chicken instead of veg sparked a charge for spreading a “deadly disease”—and breaks down what the case is really about.
• The Guardian has a good read on how South Asian art is finally having its moment—India’s growing wealth is fuelling a surge in collectors backing both modern greats and bold new voices.

Three things to see

One: The blockbuster Minecraft movie has birthed a bizarre social media trend around the words ‘chicken jockey’—uttered by Jack Black’s character. The phrase refers to a zombie character riding a chicken like a horse in a boxing ring. The inexplicable bit: the moment Black says those words, cinemagoers—mostly young boys—go into a frenzy, as if they’re about to start a riot. Theatres have started banning “unaccompanied” groups of boys. In some cases, cops were called in—as you can see in this clip below. (NBC News)

Two: The US clothing brand Reformation’s new collab with influencer Devon Lee Carlson is under fire for culturally appropriating the lehenga—with a choli-ish top, and dupatta included:

To be fair, it wasn’t really Reformation’s fault—but of some other fashion company employee who posted white women wearing some of these outfits—saying, “The vibe, the aura, what is it? It’s very European, it’s very classy.”

Cue massive outrage and parody vids like this “Fit check in my European Scandinavian clothes”. This one-year-old Harper’s Bazaar report has more on the origin of the trend. (New York Times, paywalled, Daily Dot)

Three: Of all the things that can go wrong before an exam, this one takes the cake. An eagle swooped in and snatched a candidate’s PSC exam hall ticket in Kerala. The bird of prey sat calmly with the ticket on a window—but mercifully dropped it just in time for the exam. (The Hindu)

feel good place

One: How about breakfast in bed?

Two: Now that’s what they call puppy love.

Three: Children will always betray you.