WhatsApp groups are set to expand to include a maximum of 1,024 members, which is good news for Elon Musk’s children, Taylor Swift’s exes and all those called Aegon Targaryen. However, Telegram, which allows groups of up to two lakh people, remains the preferred networking platform for RSS pracharaks, the creditors of Vijay Mallya and South Point alumni.
Meanwhile, after Amit Malviya is reported to enjoy special powers when it comes to reporting and taking down Instagram posts, half a dozen concerned fathers in Kolkata (no, not those wearing white robes in New Town) reach out to the BJP leader to report obscene posts made by university professors that were unearthed after hours of investigation via Finstagram.
Elsewhere, the WHO assures all those who still believe in its updates that the latest Ebola outbreak in Uganda is nothing to worry about since no white tourists will be travelling to East Africa to fetishise poverty anytime soon.
Wondering what else happened while you waited for someone (white or otherwise) to fetishise your bank balance? Here’s presenting the top stories from the week that should have been.
October 10
Shortly after Kapil Dev’s appointment in his new role, Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma reveal that they will not enrol their daughter in a CBSE-affiliated school TT archives
- On World Mental Health Day, CBSE appoints Kapil Dev as its mental health ambassador for schools as Dev knows best how to “convert pressure into pleasure” and can teach young students how not to break down on national television when put under the cosh on a show called HardTalk.
- The court refuses to entertain a plea to make the cow the national animal of India, citing Part IV(Z) of the Constitution that deals with Discreet Principles of State Policy and prohibits the “explicit assertion of timeless truths”.
October 11
Vladimir Putin threatens more explosions in Kyiv the next time Volodymyr Zelensky starts trending on Twitter TT archives
- Vladimir Putin launches missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv to impress septuagenarian women in Russia and distract Volodymyr Zelensky from reading his Twitter mentions.
- Israel and Lebanon temporarily forget that they are at war to pen a historic maritime agreement pertaining to natural gas fields under the Mediterranean Sea so as to make life a little easier for their respective oligarchs.
October 12
Power-hungry BCCI officials will not nominate Sourav Ganguly for the post of ICC president since they are aware of how well he can lead outside India TT archives
- Sourav Ganguly will not be given an additional term at the BCCI since world cricket’s most powerful body makes no exceptions for those that have captained India, refuse to read from teleprompters or are not named Rajeev Shukla.
- Kylian Mbappe tells Paris Saint-Germain that he feels “betrayed at the club and wants to leave as soon as possible since the bumper contract I signed last summer had assured me that Lionel Messi and Neymar would never return to form”.
October 13
France threatens to quit NATO if fellow member states do not pool in to supply more wool to Paris this quarter TT archives
- France has trumped fellow European Union members, including an increasingly hapless Germany, in dealing with the impending escalation of Europe’s energy crisis in winter by reviving the use of traditional, versatile and cost-effective turtlenecks.
- The iPhone 14, which is designed to call 911 in the US the moment it senses a health emergency, frustrates users by getting triggered during rollercoaster rides, McDonald’s meals and the moment Tucker Carlson (also known as the American Arnab Goswami) opens his mouth.
October 14
Netflix secures the rights for a special documentary on Kiara Advani and Sidharth Malhotra’s wedding, which will be directed by Karan Johar TT archives
- Kiara Advani confirms that she will be marrying Sidharth Malhotra next April as both Dharma Productions and her PR team have greenlit the plans.
- Podcast.ai, hailed for using artificial intelligence to create an imaginary conversation between Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs, has been approached by the Prime Minister’s Office to improvise a conversation between Narendra Modi and Narendra Modi. The Congress has criticised the move as “a total waste of public money since our PM already has Mann Ki Baat”.