New India’s answer to Lord Macaulay, without the English but with the entitlement, introduces three bills that are set to remove “British slavery” from India’s criminal justice system by ending the “British” part once and for all. Under these bills, men who “deceive” women for sexual intercourse will be severely punished, but not if women deceive themselves into believing that their husbands can be rapists.
Meanwhile, capital punishment prevails for select cases because nothing screams justice quite like retribution, while petty offences, such as defrauding banks, will be punished with community service or a house in London. Stricter measures will be reserved for riots with zero casualties, where instigators hold PhDs instead of guns. Additionally, on the potential of broadening the scope of sedition, the government has assured all free-thinking Indians that “you have nothing to fear as long as you have nothing to say”.
Elsewhere, the Prime Minister’s speech on Independence Day repeats the words “reform, perform and transform” more often than his favourite four-letter word (it is not yoga, Yogi or Shah), while forgetting to mention that Indians must also learn to “conform”.
Wondering what else happened while you conformed to your family’s I-Day plan of looking at more flags than faces? Here’s presenting the top stories from the week that should have been.
August 14
As per the unwritten rules for all Prime Ministers of Pakistan, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar will move to the UK following the end of his term TT archives
- Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar (the third most popular ul-Haq in Pakistan) takes over as caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan, as the country prepares to hold fresh elections as soon as its army has decided who they want in power next.
- The Reluctant Bank of India (RBI) has hired McKinsey and Accenture to understand how AI can be leveraged to better obey ministers.
August 15
‘Made in Heaven’ has proved that all it takes to overcome years of interpersonal tension is one cheesy monologue and some pink champagne
- Demand for therapists plunges in Delhi after the arrival of the second season of Made in Heaven, as rich, troubled couples accept that all they need for lifelong peace are rich, troubled wedding-planners.
- A survey by Love is Blind to Capitalism (LBC) has found that most heterosexual men say the words “I love you” once they are certain that their partner will not outearn them in the next 20 years, while most heterosexual women utter the three magic words once their partner asks them “how was your day?” on 10 different occasions.
August 16
Alia Bhatt admits to firing her accent coach after “my Bengali sounded too sweet in ‘Rocky aur Rani’” TT archives
- Speaking on Heart of Stone, which is effectively Mission: Impossible without Tom Cruise and any pretence of logic, Alia Bhatt expresses her “absolute delight” at being able to normalise the Indian English accent in Hollywood.
- An economics professor at a progressive, multi-disciplinary university in Sonipat has resigned from his position, since his paper on the political workings of elections is not vague enough to be deemed progressive or multi-disciplinary.
August 17
Now that he is an Indian citizen, Akshay Kumar can officially sign all Bollywood films on Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir TT archives
- In the proudest moment for India since the boycott of Oppenheimer, Akshay Kumar switches his Canadian citizenship to Indian on realising that elite gossip clubs in Toronto now have more Punjabis than those in Mumbai.
- Gadar 2, the release of which means Sunny Deol can finally take anger management classes, is a superhit, since audiences appreciate how it has the perfect combination of noise and nonsense for the brain to completely shut down.
August 18
US regulators have asked for 35 years’ time to look into AOC’s sunscreen recommendations Wikimedia Commons
- Members of the far-left (who are as far from the right as they are from common sense) in the US are irate after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urges the country to have “better sunscreens” but fails to call out “the deep-seated, chemical racism of the sun”.
- In a bid to draw more traction, FIFA president Gianni Infantino introduces a “pathbreaking rule” for the Women’s World Cup final in Sydney. Should both teams be level after 90 minutes, the match will not go to extra time or penalties. Rather, the champions will be the women who have managed to make more of their male counterparts pose with their jerseys on social media.