Ten years of Anna Andolan: Who benefited from the anti-corruption movement?

Flying squad: While campaigning during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s Bengal president Dilip Ghosh was allotted a helicopter by the party. He refused to use it as he prefers to travel by road. This time, the BJP forced Ghosh to fly between places ahead of the state elections. The party has allotted huge funds for its Bengal campaign. Even film star Mithun Chakraborty was given a helicopter to campaign. Ghosh did not react when asked about it, stating that it was the “party’s decision”. Interestingly, Mamata Banerjee was the first leader in Bengal to campaign with a helicopter, in 2011 | Illustrations by Jairaj T.G.

Courting trouble: Former Karnataka chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy recently skipped a court hearing, citing that his parents—former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda and his wife, Chennamma—had tested positive. The special court, which was hearing an illegal land denotification case, was not happy that Kumaraswamy gave it a miss. The court, hence, barred him from attending any public event till April 17 and warned that it would issue an arrest warrant if the leader violated the order. However, the court diktat has had little impact on Kumaraswamy as he was found addressing a public meeting a few days later in Ramanagara, ahead of the municipal elections there.

Call me not: Smartphone glitches do not spare even the men of power pushing for digital India. Towards the end of March, Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman, NITI Aayog, intended to send a WhatsApp message saying, “Can you please call?” to a contact whose name starts with ‘S’. But the message was sent not only to the intended recipient but to everyone on his contact list whose names began with ‘S’. Economists, bureaucrats, corporate leaders and even ministers started returning calls. An embarrassed Kumar had to spend hours replying to them, explaining the gaffe.

A tale of two cultures: For award-winning photographer Rajib De, trips to Kolkata from Chandannagore (60km from the city), where he was born and brought up, used to be special. He would stare at the colossal Metropolitan Building, the Howrah Bridge and the busiest areas of Burrabazar and Dalhousie. He enjoyed the sweet security of the streets, bustling with porters, shopkeepers, vendors, grocers and rickshaw-wallahs. Now, De has captured the most enigmatic parts of the city in a photo exhibition, From Kolkata to Italy, along with Italian photographers, Alessandro Rosani and Rossana Coslovi. The photographs, which give poetic glimpses of town squares, internal courtyards and Florentine streets, are placed at the intersection of two cultures which, even as they diverge in structural and architectural elements, converge in the vibrancy of life that they capture. The exhibition will be on at the National Library in Kolkata till April 16.

Monster wars: ‘Mindless fun’ got a whole new meaning with the resounding success of Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong, which has become “the first official hit of the coronavirus era”. The battle between the two angry beasts enthralled audiences in the Asian and Latin American markets as well, with the film earning $122 million in its opening weekend. Perhaps there is poetic justice in the fact that while a virus that is 0.06 to 0.14 microns in diameter wreaks havoc in the real world, we are paying good money to watch a giant lizard and ape wreak havoc in a reel one. Humans are funny that way | Getty Images

Heartbreak avenue: They say your life flashes before your eyes when you are about to die. Have you ever had your love life flash before you when you see an attractive person in a coffee shop? Restaurant designer Freddy Birdy has. “If you are single you will meet someone in a coffee shop and you will want to hold their hand, not just over coffee, but every single morning of your life, watch every single Netflix show together in bed, roam without a care through supermarket aisles… and then suddenly they will pick up their misspelt container of cappuccino and forever walk out of your life,” he posted on Instagram. In her reply to the post, Ekta Kapoor wrote, “But trust me, there are advantages in getting dumped… let the ones who want to leave, leave with their misspelt cappuccino containers.” Many stars like Huma Qureshi and Arjun Kapoor liked Birdy’s post, thus proving that a celebrity six-pack or a chiselled jawline are no guarantee against a good, old-fashioned heartbreak | AFP