DailyOh! Why Nitish Kumar brought up The End, to how Paula White got Trump's address wrong
Wilbur Beast, who ain’t no beast, but a bull dog, has been elected mayor in a landslide victory. Rabbit Hash, a small community in Kentucky, chose the French bulldog to be their new leader in a practice that has been on since the 1990s. What is Wilbur expected to do for Rabbit Hash? Raise funds for the community and its charitable causes. Since the new mayor can’t speak, he has a spokesperson, Amy Noland, on his behalf. And Amy has told the media that Wilbur has thanked his supporters for voting him to power.
Votes for who will be the new President of the Unites States of America are still being counted. From the ballots counted so far, it appears Democratic candidate Joe Biden would unseat in-office President Donald Trump.
Biden has already secured more ballot votes than any US presidential candidate in history, leaving behind Barack Obama, who held the record with over 7,00,00,000 votes. Biden has crossed the mark with many votes still to be counted. So even if he doesn’t win them all, he will still end up being a record holder, and also the next US President in all likelihood.
In Michigan, it had suddenly turned out that Biden has won 100 per cent of the votes, forcing Trump to ask, “What is this all about?” It so turned out that someone added an extra zero to Biden’s tally of ballots by mistake. When the mistake was identified, it was also fixed.
But that set us wondering, why a ballot is called a ballot. Ballot, the Word Of The Day, is basically a device used to cast votes. Over centuries, the word ballot has come to be interchangeably used for votes. But many centuries ago, ballot found its origin in the word Italian word balla, which in English is ball.
It so happened that small balls were used to cast secret votes. Until recently, India used paper as ballot. Now, we use EVMs. America still uses paper. No matter what one uses to vote, a ballot has to be one that is cast secretly. If you have been to a polling booth to cast your vote, you know nobody is watching you when you press the button or put the folded paper with your choice of the candidate in the box. Your vote remains a secret unless, of course, you want to tell people who you voted for.
In Bihar, there is a section of voters called chhuppa voters. They are the ones responsible for setting pre-poll predictions wrong because they never divulge who they are going to vote for. Such voters exist everywhere. In Bihar, they have a name. We will come to Bihar later. For now, let’s just tell you what Paula White is doing to ensure Trump spends four more years in White House.
Before that we must tell you who Paula White is. Paula White is Donald Trump’s spiritual guru. Going by what Trump speaks in public and writes on Twitter, he seems more far removed from spirituality than Paula White from White House. But White says angels have been dispatched from Africa and “I hear a sound of victory. The Lord says it is done. For I hear, victory, victory, victory!” Looks like the angels got dispatched to the wrong address, reaching Biden instead of Trump.
Trump reportedly turned to Paula for spiritual guidance after watching her on television. Paula even delivered the invocation at Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Not many liked it. Some criticised it saying involving Paula is an unnecessary boost to the Prosperity Gospel Movement. What is the problem with prosperity gospel? “None,” would be the reply of some lazy individuals. Don’t take it to mean we have anything against being lazy. Don’t also take it to mean we support it. We will go neutral on it because taking sides is too much work.
Anyway, prosperity gospel believes financial blessing is always the will of God. So if you want your financial situation to improve, invoke God. If you are too lazy to do that, invoke some Paula White to dispatch angels your way. Whether she can get it delivered to the right address will be known when the results of the US presidential election are announced.
Elections in Bihar are now just left for 78 of the 243 seats and will be held on November 7, so campaigning came to an end today in the state. It will then shift to Twitter, Facebook and newspaper advertisements completely. In a move that could serve as an advertisement to attract some more votes, Chief Minister and Janata Dal(United) leader Nitish Kumar has announced no matter what the outcome of the elections, he will bow out of electoral politics after this one. "Ant bhala to sab bhala [all is well that ends well]," said Nitish and then asked people, "Vote dijiyega ki nahi dijiyega (will you give me votes or won't)?"
Nitish's close aides were quick to clarify that Nitish did not mean it was his last election, but the last day of the election campaign. You can listen in to what Nitish said to draw your conclusion though.
Will the confusion help or harm Nitish's bid to make a comeback, one last time? We will know on November 10 but to ensure victory in the 2021 West Bengal elections, BJP leader and Union Home Minister Amit Shah sent some salvos Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s way from Bankura. Shah said people are angry with Banerjee.
How does Shah know? He is the Home Minister and may have a lot of intelligence information, but this one piece of information about people’s anger, Shah said he saw in people’s eyes. He has a reason too. Banerjee, according to Shah, is not letting the benefits of about 80 central schemes reach the people.
Sikhs in Pakistan are also reportedly angry because the management of Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara in the neighbouring country has been passed on from a Sikh body to a trust which has no Sikhs on board. India has criticised the move calling it “highly condemnable”. Why is India speaking on the matter? In November 2019, New Delhi and Islamabad threw open a corridor linking Dera Baba Sahib in Gurdaspur in India with Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan, to push people-to-people initiative.
Actor Ranveer Singh’s fans are disappointed for a reason that has nothing to do with what is happening in Pakistan. Their disappointment is shared by the fans of cricketer Kapil Dev. The movie '83 will now not release on Christmas 2020, but sometime in 2021. The movie is ready but the makers say they need more time for promotional events.
The movie, you know, is based on the life of Kapil Dev, who led India to the 1983 World Cup win. Talking of cricket, today happens to be the birthday of skipper Virat Kohli, who is going to be a father soon. Kohli is in UAE playing IPL and wife Anushka is there in a supporting role.
The birthday celebrations began last night itself.
You may find it odd that no one is wearing a mask, but the teams in UAE are in a bio-bubble. So everyone inside the bubble is being tested frequently and is not being allowed to mix and match with those outside the bubble.
And since we are talking masks and Covid, let us also tell you that Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine could be launched by February. The trials so far have shown the vaccine is safe and effective.
If you want to be reckless, listen to Bryan Adams's album instead. You can listen to the song even if you don’t want to be reckless but just want to listen to music. Also, given that it's Bryan Adams's 61st birthday.
But if you don’t want someone to contact you, you can report them to WhatsApp. You can report whole groups and chats as unwanted. WhatsApp is working on a lot of new features and this is just one of those few.
The thing with new features promising to make life easier is that you end up spending more time using them. So the jury is still out on whether more technology is bad or no technology is worse.
Either way, technology is here to stay. We will however take your leave for today.
Be back tomorrow.
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Also Read: How Covid may reorder the world we know