Smoking in India has quietly declined over the last 25 years. More than 50% overall drop. India has many health challenges but this is one example where long term pressure, policy & culture change worked.
Who else in this weird stage in their life? Drinking isn't fun anymore, relationships don’t work, dating doesn’t exist, work is just a distraction, and friday nights are better spent alone.
From Abhinandan Sekhri of NewsLaundry:
Yesterday, The Washington Post laid off one-third of its staff. It eliminated every single editor and correspondent in the Middle East. Bureau chiefs, from Cairo to Berlin, were laid off, including India’s bureau chief Pranshu Verma. We’re told over 300 people have lost their jobs.
Even by the normal standard of media layoffs that have been documented through Covid, this is a purge.
This should be a wake-up call.
Jeff Bezos bought Washington Post for $250 million. For context, he’s worth over $240 billion.
He paid $500 million for his ‘super-yacht’.
He also has a ‘support vessel’ that cost $75 million.
He spent $237 million on properties just in Miami.
He owns over 420,000 acres of land in the United States.
He spent at least $20 million – a pittance, compared to the rest of his spending – on his wedding last year.
Under him, Amazon spent $40 million to acquire the rights to Melania, a documentary on Melania Trump. Melania herself will get paid 70 percent of this amount. Amazon also spent $35 million to market it.
We’re not even converting these dollar figures to rupees because that’s too many zeros for a single email. But remember this, Jeff Bezos could spend $1 million every single day and only run out of money after 623 years.
Yet here’s Washington Post’s purge, just a year and a bit after Bezos famously said, “The advantage I bring to The Post is when they need financial resources, I’m available…I’m the doting parent in that regard.”
Billionaires don’t have your backs. We’ve said this for 14 years. It’s why we built a series on media ownership and explained NDTV’s crumble after the Adani takeover. Billionaires want to do one thing – make more money. It takes precedence over everything else, whether in America or India.
You don’t have the billions – or the millions either – of a Bezos. That doesn’t mean you don’t have their power. You have even more power. Because there are so many of you, of us. We are all stronger TOGETHER!
Thank you for supporting Newslaundry and building the future of journalism. For every bad decision made by a billionaire, we’re able to offer you the alternative. Because we’re stronger together.
Forward this email to a friend who could use a wake-up call too. Tell them to subscribe. Gift them a subscription if you have to, or reply to this email with their email ID and we’ll email them for you. We’ve got the power together.
In gratitude,