DailyOh! Why PM Modi is visiting Bangladesh, to Karnataka minister's monogamy dare

If your late-night parties give you only hangovers next morning, you don’t need pawris as much as you need PR. Malaika Arora trended today morning, and much of the afternoon, because she attended a get-together at sister Amrita Arora’s house last night and wore a satin red co-ord set to the party. Yes, others attended too and all of them did so in clothes, but not as shiny as Malaika’s red co-ords.

If you can’t wrap your head around that, wrap the co-ord around your head. The cost? About Rs 1.5 lakh.

The headache for Maharashtra government, meanwhile, is rising. The Maharashtra Health Department has estimated 64,613 possible deaths against a total caseload of 28,24,382. This projection indicates up to 1,000 deaths a day over the next two weeks. By April 4, active cases in state could be around 3,00,000. When so many people get sick, we realise we have so few beds to accommodate the sick. The severely sick also need ventilators and oxygen cylinders. Of course, we need the doctors and nurses and other medical staff to take care of the sick.

To prevent more people from getting sick, India has decided to stop the big exports of Covishield temporarily because what applies to aeroplane journeys, applies to life’s other journeys too – “Put your oxygen mask on before helping others.”

India fixing its oxygen mask first is likely to impact supplies to about 180 countries that are part of the WHO-backed COVAX vaccine-sharing facility. Not to forget that India has bilateral agreements also with nations for vaccine sharing.

Covishield maybe be stuck in India for now but Adar Poonawalla is not. CEO of Serum Institute of India, which manufactures Covishield, Adar has rented a mansion in London. Why are we concerned? No, we aren’t. We are just awed to the point of jaw-drop because the mansion’s weekly rent is 50,000 pounds (Rs 49,70,000; that’s about half a crore). The mansion is located in Mayfair, one of London’s most affluent areas.

Since Adar has the mansion to himself, we have the word mansion to ourselves. Mansion, the Word Of The Day, means a large dwelling house. Now, how large does a house has to be to qualify to be a mansion? Check its rent. The word mansion derives from the Latin word mansio ‘dwelling’, an abstract noun derived from the verb manere - ‘to dwell’.

Leaving Adar to his mansion in London, let’s move to Iceland. Did you read about the volcano eruption in Iceland? Now listen to this: people are cooking hot dogs and eggs on the molten lava. You may not want to make hay while the sun shines because you may have no need for hay. But making eggs and hot dogs while the lava is hot – why not?

While molten lava is flowing in Iceland, ship traffic has stopped in the Suez Canal. This happened after a large cargo ship ran aground and got stuck sideways across the canal. You see, this sideways blocking is worse than one-way blocking. A long queue of vessels is now waiting to move ahead. Egypt is diverting ships to an older channel so that more ships don't get stuck. Why are we telling you about a traffic jam? Because the Suez Canal, a human-made waterway, is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, carrying over 12% of world trade by volume. So a traffic jam on the Suez means all trade all over the world affected somehow or the other.

Talking of the world, PM Narendra Modi will be on his first foreign trip since the outbreak of the pandemic. On a scale of foreignness for Indians, Bangladesh would sit right in the middle of Nepal and Sri Lanka but considering the elections in West Bengal, Bangladesh is right on top of BJP’s priority list. But Modi is visiting Bangladesh to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s Independence.

He would visit the Matua temple at Orakandi on March 27 too, which is to send a message to the Matua community in India, who go to vote in Bengal this election.

In Karnataka, there is no election (for now) but there a contest is on. The contest is open to all 225 MLAs – 224 elected and one nominated. Karnataka Health Minister Sudhakar has dared all MLAs to take a 'monogamy test' and come clean on affairs. “This is an open challenge from me to those who think that they are Sathya Harishchandras. Let all the 225 of us face an inquiry... It is the question of morality and values. Let the people of the State know if they have any illicit relationship and extra-marital affairs,” said Sudhakar. Sudhakar has found no participants, but truckloads of criticism. Some trucks went his way even from his BJP colleagues. Sudhakar’s dare came after six BJP MLAs got a media gag order in their favour after they expressed apprehension of being defamed. They approached court days after TV channels played a video CD allegedly featuring Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi and an unidentified young woman, leading to his resignation.

It would have been interesting to see how you put someone through a monogamy test. What would the test involve? Also, Sudhakar’s monogamy test only asked MLAs to come clean on affairs. He left flings out of the ambit of the test. Would that be a reliable test then? What Sudhakar didn’t tell, we can’t tell but we can tell you about a love test that is common in Fiji.

It’s simple. Dive into the sea, go hundreds of metres into the depths, find a whale. Don’t go for it till you are sure the whale is a Sperm Whale. Once you find the Sperm Whale, extract its tooth. Go with the tabua (tooth) to the father of the woman you want to marry. Present the tooth and you get what you want.

Find that difficult? Go look for the person who told you love is easy. No, we are not recommending any tooth extraction there.

If love is elusive, take to fantasy. For a bewitching fantasy, we recommend The Witcher (2019). Watch Season 1 because Season 2 will follow soon.

You can watch India play against England tomorrow 1.30 pm onwards. The last match, you know, India won and Team India came in to win high praise. But who does Team India belong to? India, maybe your answer and while that is the correct answer, there are other answers too. Some may say this is Virat Kohli’s team. A team, any team, is a reflection of its leader. But former cricketer Ajay Jadeja believes this is coach Ravi Shastri’s team.

“Ultimately, this team is Kohli's, but he is the one running this team - Ravi Shastri. The intent has been visible, not only today but for the last 3-4 years. There is no change in approach irrespective of the result. This time remains the same. The difference is the thinking,” Jadeja said.

You may agree and you may disagree. You may choose to do either or neither because why should you choose if it is not your team. But choosing to murder his wife and in-laws with thallium has landed a Delhi man in jail. The accused was arrested after doctors detected thallium in the samples of his mother-in-law, who died of poisoning on Monday. The wife of Varun Arora, the accused, is on ventilator. Traces of thallium have also been in found in Varun’s father-in-law. But how did Varun find that thallium can be used to kill? From Saddam Hussein. Yes, Saddam used thallium to eliminate his adversaries and Varun found that information on the internet. The police found Varun had looked up for that information on his laptop.

Your search history can help people searching for evidence against you.

On that note, we will take your leave for the day.

We will be back tomorrow.

Stay safe.

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Also Read: Nobody says the M-word