BAD NEWS FOR INDIA
🌴 WHAT: Indonesia, the world’s biggest palm oil producer is shutting down all exports from April 28.
🧭 WHY: Indonesia is facing domestic shortages and soaring prices. By banning exports, it wants to prioritise the needs of its people first.
☎️ IMPACT: Palm oil is ubiquitous; it’s used in everything, from from cooking oils to processed foods, cosmetics, detergents and biofuels.
🇮🇳 India is the largest importer of Indonesian palm oil—importing four million tons a month. This ban will lead to surges in rates of edible oil and food prices, in general.
🇺🇦 Russia, the world’s largest exporter of crude oil, continues to bombard and attack Ukraine, the world’s largest exporter of sunflower oil, leading to an oil crisis, across the board.
DITTO
🇮🇳 WHAT: India has suspended tourist visas issued to Chinese nationals.
🇨🇳 WHY: China has, for months, refused to adopt a ‘congenial stand’ on India’s urging and let thousands of Indians (including at least 22,000 students) who left China when the pandemic broke out in 2020—back in. This, despite talks at the highest levels between the Chinese foreign minister and India’s External Affairs Minister.
📣 CHINA SAYS…nothing. It hasn’t given a categorical yes, no or even statement on the issue. The last update we have is that it was “looking into the matter” in early Feb.
FORCED SALE
🖼 THE CLAIM: Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor has told the Enforcement Directorate (ED) that he was "forced" to buy an MF Husain painting from Congress's Priyanka Gandhi in 2010 “under threat” and “against his family’s wishes”.
❓FORCED HOW: Kapoor claims the then petroleum minister Murli Deora threatened him with losing out on an opportunity build a relationship with the Gandhis, win the Padma Bhushan award and possibly even have Yes Bank face “adverse repercussions” if he did not buy the painting.
🏥 WHAT FOR: Kapoor claims Milind Deora (son of the late Murli Deora) later conveyed to him confidentially that the sale proceeds were utilised for Sonia Gandhi’s medical treatment in New York. Kapoor also claims the late Ahmed Patel (close confidante of Sonia Gandhi) later thanked him for his “good deed” for the Gandhi family.
🙄 CONGRESS SAYS: “This is absolutely astonishing and…it is almost disgusting that a 2010 transaction….a person who is behind bars for years…whose 20-30 bail applications have been rejected, who is called a crook and a fraudster, makes allegations about dead people and the government is jumping with joy only because it suits their political angle. They want to keep the pot boiling for 2022 regarding a transaction of 2010 when neither Murli Deora is here to deny it nor Ahmed Patel sadly is here to deny it.”
🚨 ABOUT KAPOOR: He, along with Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) promoters Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan had siphoned off Yes Bank funds worth Rs 5,050 crore through suspicious transactions. Kapoor has been in jail since March 2020.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
MUST BE FUNNY
💸 Little birdies have told Reuters that Twitter is set to accept Elon Musk's offer to buy out the international social media giant for $43 billion—in cash. Tesla is not involved in the deal; Musk wants it all to himself. Twitter may announce the deal later on Monday, but it may also fall apart should a higher bid reach Twitter's board.
🤑 Gautam Adani has become the world's fifth-richest person overtaking even legendary investor Warren Buffett. According to Forbes estimates, while Warren Buffett's net worth stood at $121.7 billion, Adani's net worth stood at an estimated and mind-boggling $123.7 billion.
SOME GOOD NEWS
GET THE TISSUES READY
☹️ Yes, someone else in a saffron robe said something horrid about Muslims over the weekend. Yes, two independent MLAs have been arrested in Mumbai for threatening to sing the 'Hanuman Chalisa' in front of the CM's residence. And yes, the Maharashtra government wants the central government (!) to make one policy on the use of loudspeakers, ostensibly in mosques and temples.
💚 BUT, in what we will cling to as a silver lining, over a thousand men, women and children from both Hindu and Muslim communities took out a peaceful, vibrant, goosebumps-inducing tricolour march in Jahangirpuri, just days after communal violence broke out in the area to make it clear that divide and rule never did work on Indians in the long run. A sea of tiranga; chants of 'Vande Mataram'; skull caps and saffron, all together—visuals from the rally are a sight for sore eyes. Must watch.
DELETE AWAY
HOUSES, TWEETS, rights of accused, history
🏗 The BJP-ruled South Delhi Municipal Corporation will launch a month-long demolition drive, most likely in Shaheen Bagh, Okhla and Tilak Nagar, among others areas. Places sound familiar to you?
🚨 Hours after Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani, arrested last week in connection with an allegedly defamatory tweet against PM Modi, got bail, the Assam Police arrested him once again in another district. This time under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (354, 353 and 323) suggesting Mevani may have “misbehaved/assaulted” police officials while in custody. The Congress thinks this whole thing has got to do with the upcoming election in Gujarat.
📚 The CBSE has decided to drop chapters on the Non-Aligned Movement, the Simla Agreement, lessons on the Cold War era, the rise of Islamic empires in Afro-Asian territories, the chronicles of Mughal courts and the industrial revolution, translated excerpts from two poems in Urdu by Faiz Ahmed Faiz from the history and political science syllabi of Classes 11 and 12. The CBSE has also dropped from the course content chapters on 'democracy and diversity'.
#ARTTHERAPY
EXHALE
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