Elon Musk takes aim at the Indian government

Written by: Aarthi Ramnath, Raghav Bikhchandani & Yash Budhwar

Elon Musk takes aim at the Indian government

While Indians eagerly await the arrival of unaffordable—and unpopular—Teslas, Musk has already doled out an early ladoo for the Indian government: A lawsuit accusing it of “unrestrained censorship.” This while he’s been inking Starlink deals with Airtel and Reliance. Hmm.

The context: In February 2021, the Indian government tightened its grip on digital media with amendments to the Information Technology Act (IT Act). Companies now have to immediately obey any sarkaari request to block an account or takedown a post within 36 hours. The grounds for such a request are vague and sweeping—including protecting the interest of the sovereignty or security of the state, decency, morality etc.

If a company fails to comply, it loses ‘safe harbour’ protection. This clause says platforms cannot be held responsible for content shared by users. Without such assurance, social media companies can’t function. This 2023 Big Story by Samarth Bansal maps the steady and sweeping erosion of online free speech in India.

Enter the Sahyog portal: In December, the Home Ministry rolled out an online mechanism to make it super-duper easy and fast to issue takedown notices. It would side-step all the pesky responses to such notices from social media companies—who annoyingly ask for FIRs or refer to international legal requirements. Thanks to Sahyog, law enforcement officials can send takedown requests to these platforms with a click of a button—and demand compliance. As of Tuesday, 38 companies—including Meta, WhatsApp, Apple, Amazon, Telegram, Instagram etc—have signed on to Sahyog. Missing on that list: X.

What happened now: On March 5, X filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court challenging the Sahyog portal. The reason: It creates “an impermissible parallel mechanism” that causes “unrestrained censorship of information.” It empowers “countless” government officials to issue takedown orders—without any legal safeguards or oversight. And the government is bullying social media platforms to sign on to the portal—which is illegal, as well.

Point to note: X also pointed out that the portal now empowers any and every ministry to issue such orders—not just the IT ministry. It cited three blocking orders issued by the Railways last year.

What’s intriguing: The Indian government’s response has been unusually muted. An unnamed Indian official told Times of India that the government will be filing an affidavit in court. This is notable since it is already annoyed with X’s AI chatbot. Grok has been giving gaalis in Hindi—only when prompted, of course. More importantly, it has been unleashing truth-bombs on the BJP:

Grok responded to a user query asking, ‘Who’s the most communal politician in India?’ with ‘Narendra Modi is often seen as India’s most communal politician, tied to Hindu nationalist policies & the 2002 Gujarat riots. His 2024 remarks calling Muslims ‘infiltrators’ stirred global backlash’.

A big-ass red flag: So what’s an unhappy government to do—especially when the company is run by Donald Trump’s blue-eyed BFF Elon Musk? The answer should worry all of us. While officials have “opened a dialogue” with X, they plan instead to go after those ‘prompting’ Grok’s ‘bad behaviour’:

Importantly, the source said the govt — which is keeping a tab on the responses — is also looking into the role of those who are posing questions to the platform that may lead to inflammatory responses. "There is no confirmed view as yet, but if the platform does not pull down the content, can there be action against it as well as the person or user who originally generated the query with an aim to get unlawful or mischievous responses? You (platform) can be prosecuted under Indian laws along with the person who posted it. If it's unlawful, govt will punish."

Translation: If we can’t punish Musk, we can always destroy the freedoms of our citizens.

Reading list: Medianama offers a nerdy report on the lawsuit—and its founder Nikhil Pahwa’s tweet offers more analysis. Times of India has the ominous response from the unnamed sarkaari source. BBC News reports on the Grok tamasha. MoneyControl has the most details on the X petition.

Is Israel deliberately killing kids?

Who is dying? Another 91 Palestinians have been killed and many more injured in a third day of Israeli strikes across Gaza. Most of them were women and children. The previous strike on Tuesday killed more than 400—which included 183 children and 94 women.

How did the children die? Between October 7 2023 and January 15 2025, children accounted for at least 18,000 of the 46,707 killed in Gaza. Here’s how many of them died:

Most children have been killed by direct military strikes. Israel has dropped an estimated 85,000 tonnes of explosives on Gaza, killing Palestinians through direct hits, building collapses, fires and inhalation of toxic substances. Doctors have also reported evidence of children being killed in drone attacks and by snipers, including by shots to the head and chest.

A mere coincidence, perhaps? The United Nations doesn’t think so. A new report says Israel is “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group.” It points to the deliberate targeting of fertility clinics as an example of “reproductive violence.” Then there is this:

Israel has systematically used powerful explosives in densely populated areas and, through AI tracking systems such as “Where’s Daddy?”, deliberately targeted Palestinians in their family homes. Given the deep evidence base about childhood health, the logical outcome of using starvation as a method of war, actively denying aid, and destroying infrastructures that enable life is that children will die disproportionately.

But, but, but: Here’s Israel’s description of its current campaign:

Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, said earlier this week that Israel had attacked “terror targets and terrorists in Gaza … to weaken their military and governmental capabilities and remove threats to Israel”.

Reporting in Israeli media confirms the claim:

Ohad Hemo, the Arab affairs correspondent for Channel 12, Israel's leading channel, reported that more than 400 Palestinians were killed in the attack. According to Hemo, "what a large part of those casualties has in common is their critical role, no less, in Hamas's civilian-governmental structure."

Phir na kehna, we haven’t been ‘fair’. The Guardian has more on the astonishing child death toll. The Conversation lays out evidence of a deliberate strategy of targeting children. Middle East Eye reveals how Israeli media covers the killing of Palestinian kids.

Big battle ahead for professional tennis

The Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA), an organization co-founded by Novak Djokovic and Canadian player Vasek Pospisil in 2019. The unofficial union of around 350 players is suing a long list of governing bodies:

The lawsuit names the men’s (ATP) and women’s (WTA) tours, the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which runs anti-doping operations in the sport, as defendants and labels its four Grand Slam tournaments as “co-conspirators.”

Their complaints: are this:

It also says that the tournament schedule, which runs for 11 months of each year, both damages players’ bodies and prevents other events from competing with the main tournaments on the ATP and WTA Tours... Players, as independent contractors, do not receive a regular wage or benefits, as an employee might do, but they also, the PTPA lawsuit argues, are denied the freedom to choose what jobs they take.

Data point to note: While NBA, NFL, and golf athletes earn around 50% of total tournament revenues, tennis players take home just 15% from Grand Slam profits.

The defence: The tennis governing bodies have dismissed the lawsuits’ claims as “regrettable and misguided”—accusing the PTPA of “division and distraction through misinformation.”

What´s next: The lawsuit is mostly a tactic to force negotiations and get a settlement that offers more to players. The Athletic (paywalled) offers a lengthy explainer. For a free-to-read report, check out BBC News.

Sci-fi to scam-fi: Director blows Netflix's $11 million

Only in Hollywood! Writer-Director Carl Erik Rinsch has been arrested for fraud and money laundering—allegedly taking $11 million from Netflix to complete a show which never saw the light of the day. He faces 90 years in jail if found guilty!

Okay, who is Rinsch?: He is best known for ‘47 Ronin’—which itself is a mediocre Keanu Reeves film from 2013 that flopped at the box office. But hey, that didn’t stop Netflix from blessing Ritch’s 2018 pitch for a sci-fi series called ‘White Horse’—also confusingly known as ‘Conquest’. Maybe the investment from his mentor Keanu Reeves helped. It was billed to be the next ‘Stranger Things’.

What happened next: Rinsch shot six short episodes and then demanded more money. He asked and received $11 million—and went on an insane spending spree:

The purchases included $638,000 on luxury mattresses; $295,000 on luxury bedding and linens; $180,000 on kitchen appliances; $5.4 million on furniture; and $1.68 million on two Rolls Royces, the arbitrator’s ruling states. According to the indictment, he bought five Rolls Royces and one Ferrari for $2.4 million. He also paid his rent on his home in Spain, and legal bills to pursue Netflix for breach of contract in arbitration.

That last bit is truly the chef’s kiss. In total, Netflix lost $55 million on the series—which it eventually had to shelve in 2021. Variety has lots more on the case against Rinsch.

what caught our eye

business & tech

20% of job postings are fake and typically target mid-level professionals with salary offers of Rs 5-10 lakh per year. The scam: you pay upfront processing fees.
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber’s Latin T-shirt mocking Mark Zuckerberg outsold two years of custom domains in a day.
Elon Musk scores again: Microsoft is backing his AI startup in a $30 billion data center project—teaming up with OpenAI’s rival.
ChatGPT falsely accused a Norwegian man of murdering his children, prompting him to file a complaint demanding OpenAI delete the claim.
AI meme captions are officially funnier than human ones—on average. But people still make the best individual zingers.
HP escapes fines in a lawsuit over blocking third-party ink with sneaky printer updates.
Reuters has a good read on how Boeing's delivery delays are leaving Akasa Air pilots twiddling their thumbs, stalling India's newest airline’s expansion plans.

sports & entertainment

Team India bagged a Rs 58 crore (Rs 580 million) cash reward for their ICC Champions Trophy 2025 win over New Zealand.
Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ documentary ‘One to One: John & Yoko’ will close the second edition of Red Lorry Film Festival in India.
Eminem’s former employee was charged with leaking the rapper’s unreleased music online.
Gwyneth Paltrow felt “stifled” as an actor with the presence of an intimacy coordinator at the set of her new film ‘Marty Supreme’ where she shares sex scenes with Chalamet. Eye roll.
Telangana cops filed an FIR against Rana Daggubati, Vijay Devarakonda, Prakash Raj, and 22 other celebrities for allegedly promoting illegal betting apps.

health & environment

Scientists are testing an experimental drug called gantenerumab that could help people with delaying Alzheimer’s by 50%. But but but, the sample size is very small.

meanwhile, in the world

US authorities have detained Indian postdoctoral researcher Badar Khan Suri, accusing him of spreading Hamas propaganda and having ties to a suspected terrorist, as part of Donald Trump’s broader anti-Palestine crackdown.
But, but, but: a US judge has blocked his expulsion order, ruling he can’t be removed without further court orders.
China defended the execution of four Canadians, citing drug offences and claiming it acted “in accordance with the law,” despite Ottawa’s pleas for leniency.
Tesla protesters are planning their largest global demonstration yet, with 500 showrooms targeted for action on March 29.
A French scientist was denied entry into the US due to phone messages dissing Trump. And you think the Indian police are bad.
Outdated space laws risk turning the final frontier into a billionaire-fuelled Wild West.
Sticking with space travel: despite the apparent excitement around it, the job gives you the same old pay. NASA astronauts Williams and Wilmore earned just $5 a day in overtime despite spending 278 extra days on the ISS—no better than a government employee on a road trip.
Serbia’s government is accused of blasting protestors with a sonic weapon—devices that fire deafening sound waves over long distances, sometimes inaudible but still painful.
New York Times has an indulgent read on luxury sleeper trains—Champagne, Michelin-starred meals, and hotel-style suites gliding through scenic landscapes.

meanwhile, in India

An update on the violence that hit Nagpur earlier this week: four fresh FIRs have been filed, including sedition charges against local party leader Fahim Khan, while VHP and Bajrang Dal activists are booked for inciting violence.
Sticking with the incident in Nagpur, the ASI has erected tin sheets around Aurangzeb’s tomb in Khuldabad, amid calls to raze it.
Indian security forces’ offensive in Chhattisgarh continues—22 alleged Maoists and one police officer have been killed in two separate incidents.
A series of recent male suicides—typically citing domestic abuse—across the country has prompted renewed discourse around divorce laws and family financial issues.
Now available in India: Eli Lilly’s weight-loss drug Mounjaro, for Rs 3,500 a pop.

Five things to see

One: A great mural by MF Husain—painted in 1954 and titled ‘Gram Yatra’—sold for $13.8 million (over Rs 118 crore) at a Christie’s auction in New York. It is now the most expensive work of modern Indian art. The buyer: Kiran Nadar, who will be bringing it to her museum in Delhi, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. That’s nice because it was previously owned by a Norwegian doctor and bequeathed to Oslo University Hospital—and not available for public viewing. This auction nearly doubles the previous record set by Amrita Sher-Gil’s ‘The Story Teller’. This clip best captures the grandeur of this 14 X 13 work of art. (The Telegraph)

Two: Say hello to the winners of FORMAT—the UK’s leading international biennial festival of contemporary photography. This year’s theme: Conflicted—“the tensions and contradictions that define the personal and the global”. Our faves include this gorgeous portrait by Sujata Setia called ‘A Thousand Cuts’—which explores domestic abuse in South Asian culture. She uses Sanjhi—a traditional paper art from Uttar Pradesh.

This fabulously neon photograph is called ‘Flashed’—and showcases the rave culture in the UK.

From the archives: Geno Washington performing at the opening night of Clouds in the 1960s.

You can check out more images at FORMAT’s website. (The Guardian)

Three: Private company Firefly Aerospace landed its rover Blue Ghost on the moon’s surface on March 2. It successfully completed its two-week mission. But before going dark on March 16, it sent a series of gorgeous “final goodbye” gifts—-images of the sunset on the moon. See the vid below.

And here’s one of the photos. FYI: That’s the Earth on the top left. (CBS News)

Four: We’re not recommending this NSFW trailer for the horror comedy ‘Toxic Avenger’—but it is notable. Directed by Macon Blair, it stars Peter Dinklage, Kevin Bacon, and Elijah Wood. It is based on the 1984 film of the same name by Lloyd Kaufman—which is also super gross. Half of the reboot is shot like a commercial—and the other half as a film. This weird movie is slated to release on August 29. (Gizmodo)

Five: If you prefer something a little more mainstream, here’s Jacob Elordi in the adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’ by Richard Flanagan. See the trailer below. (Variety)