The Week India – July 14, 2019

APERITIF

POINT BLANK

The BJP government crushes

freedom of media and indulg-

es in sheer vindictiveness by

freezings ads to four newspa-

pers (sic). This is Modi 2.0 for

you!

Randeep Surjewala,

Congress leader, on news reports

that said the Central government had

stopped advertising in newspapers

that were critical of the government

If the BJP wants a presidential system

of government, let it say so openly.

Let the people decide if the priorities

before the country, at this stage, are

sluggish economy, unemployment,

farmers’ distress, communal hatred

and lynching, or installing the first ex-

ecutive president, subservient cabinet

and powerless Parliament.

P. Chidambaram,

former Union finance minister

China’s famous Tsinghua University

has invited me to address a gathering

of scholars to speak on ‘China’s Eco-

nomic Development: A review of last

70 years’. Since Namo [Narendra Modi]

is not interested in knowing my views, I

might as well go to China.

Subramanian Swamy,

BJP leader

How do we say things have changed?

We cannot even stomach reservations,

but we say, ‘New world. Let us forget

caste and be equals’. Asking people to

forget centuries of oppression is also

violence.

Pa Ranjith,

film director

MILESTONES

MOON-LANDING MEMORIAL

NASA reopened the Apollo mission

control, that helped the Apollo 11

moon-landing mission in 1969, at

Johnson Space Centre, Houston. The

restored mission control looks simi-

lar to how it appeared in 1969. This

comes before the 50th anniversary

of moon-landing on July 20.

NEW STAR

India’s Veer Chotrani won the Asian

junior individual squash champi-

onship held in Macau on June 30.

Veer, son of former national squash

champion Manish Chotrani, is the

third Indian to win the title after Ravi

Dixit and Velavan Senthilkumar.

JOINT POWER

Germany and the Netherlands signed

an agreement to build the world’s

first joint military internet. Named

Tactical Edge Networking, the project

is viewed as a test for unifying the

military networks of NATO members.

12 THE WEEK • JULY 14, 2019

AFP

WORD PLAY

In January, a 64m long fatberg was discovered in the sewer system of a southwestern

English town, Sidmouth. Fatbergs are congealed masses of non-biodegradable solid matter

that clog the sewers. They are formed mainly by combination of cooking fat, oil, grease and

sanitary products, that have been flushed down the toilets. The Sidmouth authorities took

eight weeks to remove the giant fatberg, which amounted to 36 tanker loads of debris, each

containing around 9.6 tonne.

If you are not feeding me or

financing [me], or the F word,

which means sleeping with me,

then your peanut does not matter.

Esha Gupta,

actor, on how she handles criti-

cism about her on social media

SANJAY AHLAWAT