This week's events included a return gift from Pakistan, ISIS scum and more coverage for CM Kejriwal.
The Week That Was takes a contrarian and nonsensical views of the events of the past week.
The first week of 2016 started off pretty well for the ruling party as they promoted beleaguered IAS officer Ashok Khemka, ordered a revamp of the Censor Board and granted citizenship to Adnan Sami. But things took a turn for the worse thanks to a return gift from Pakistan. Here are the important news events of the week:
Worst Return Gift Ever
Just over a week ago PM Modi dropped in on his Pakistani counterpart on the latter’s birthday, held hands and gifted him a pink turban for his grand-daughter’s wedding. Modi’s sudden move had thrown everyone off track, particularly the media who were getting ready for an elongated afternoon siesta on Christmas day and were understandably outraged because how dare you do something without telling us. Where will we find experts to shout at the late minute?
The media weren’t the only ones flabbergasted by the PM’s sudden change of heart. His online brigade was at pains to explain his actions while his ideological brethren who revelled in asking people to go to Pakistan were suddenly very quiet. Those who take great pride in opposing the so-called Bhakts gleefully retweeted CM Modi’s tweets to prove he wouldn’t have stood for PM Modi. Sadly, all the new-found bonhomie lasted barely a week as forces whose latest nickname is the ‘enemies of humanity’ took umbrage and orchestrated an attack on Pathankot Air Base in Mandela’s land.
Meanwhile, the PMO went a step further and tweeted about the benefits of yoga while soldiers were battling terrorists, which didn’t go down well with the perennially outraged on social media. Our news channels went a step further as they shoved mikes into the faces of family members of the martyred which makes one wonder— is it too hard to wait before you intrude on people’s grief?
All said and done, Pakistan seems to have become a problem that absolutely no one has any solution for right now, irrespective of their ideological position. As for the people who can’t contain their excitement about the ‘Modi government’s failure’, I’d urge them to remember seven soldiers died. Not that this stopped our TV anchors who descended like vultures upon the martyr’s families to share and broadcast their grief.
Stop the Odd One
At first glance, Donald Trump and Arvind Kejriwal have little in common, but look more closely and you will realise they have several similarities. They are both outsiders in politics, love to thunder non-stop and have the innate ability to always be in the news without paying for it!
And nothing made more news than his proposed Odd-Even Rule, perhaps because the capital’s journalists realised that it would affect them. There was an almost Jio-level support for the move, which is strange considering news media outlets are supposed to be unbiased (or at least need to pretend to be unbiased). Oh and the move got corporate backing as well and one company released an air purifier at the same time. It was also slightly odd to watch people call it a success two hours after the launch, while thousands were hell-bent on explaining that move was a failure. Seriously, just wait a bit.
(Read: Forget fake Rajiv Chowk pics, here's the truth about Delhi's tryst with odd-even)
ISIS scum’s rules for raping and enslaving women
ISIS, the group determined to prove that they’re lowest level of scum to ever walk the face of the earth, hit a new low when they decided to set down a list of dos and don’ts for raping female slaves. Their theologians have decided that a father and son can’t have sex with the same female slave, while the owner of a mother-daughter duo is only allowed to have sex with either one of them. These claims however have nothing to do with Islam, as Professor Abdel Fattah Alawari, dean of Islamic Theology at Al-Azhar University, a 1,000-year-old Egyptian center for Islamic learning pointed out. He said that Islam was based on freedom to slaves and he said: "Islam preaches freedom to slaves, not slavery. Slavery was the status quo when Islam came around. Judaism, Christianity, Greek, Roman, and Persian civilizations all practiced it and took the females of their enemies as sex slaves. So Islam found this abhorrent practice and worked to gradually remove it." But, hey, the ISIS is hell-bent on bringing back the good ol' days.
(Read: ISIS 'scholars' issue fatwa to determine 'dos and don'ts of raping female slaves')
My beheadings are better than your beheadings
And, finally, Saudi Arabia, the government who many fail to differentiate from ISIS, executed 47 individuals. This, shockingly, wouldn’t have made news if it wasn’t for the execution of Nimr al-Nimr, a leading Shia cleric from Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province who had been arrested in 2012. This has led to reactions across the world from Kashmir to Bahrain to Pakistan, but the major reaction came from Tehran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Kim Jong-Un, said that Saudi Arabia would face ‘divine revenge’, and posted the picture we see above, pondering the difference between ISIS and Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Riyadh accused Tehran of supporting terrorism. Saudi cut diplomatic relations with Iran, suspending all flights, and wrote a letter to the UN Security council accusing Iran of failing to protect the Saudi embassy against attack.
Not that Iran has any moral problems with executions per se, having carried out 694 of them between January 1 and July 15 in 2015, according to Amnesty International. It was interesting to see how the various nations reacted to these events. While Sunni-majority countries like UAE and Sudan sided with Saudi, either downgrading diplomatic relations or cutting ties, Shias across the world protested and in our part of the world, there were protests in Lahore, Karachi, Kashmir and Srinagar, which led sane people to ask— how jobless are you guys?
(Read: Something's rotten in Saudi Arabia)
Star Wars: The elitists' Bigg Boss
And finally, Star Wars, the elitists' Bigg Boss, continued to go strong at the box office, inching towards becoming the greatest blockbuster of all time. It’s funny to see people who mock fans of Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Sooraj Pancholi (Yes, there are fans of Sooraj Pancholi), etc. completely lose their cool over a guy in a burkha-like robe, wearing a mask and carrying a red tubelight-ish object. Ok, I am fan too, like the millions across the globe, which explains how Disney’s coffers will keep being filled. The movie has already made $740 million in the US and $770 million across the globe giving it at total gross of $1.51 billion. At this rate, it will soon overtake Titanic’s $2.1 billion and is most likely to break Avatar’s all-time record.
(Read: Star Wars' Box Office Record)
Bonus: Viral Video of the Week - Watermelon Boy
And finally, let's end on a lighter note with the viral video of the week which shows a kid eating an entire watermelon. Seriously, that's it. Just a watermelon. Definitive proof than anything will go viral!
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