Philip Kotler's marketing mantra, Mayawati and Akhilesh's alliance, Gillette's controversial ad; today's must-read stories

While questions have been asked about the people and countries behind this award, it’s worth looking at what happened on Twitter barely 24 hours after Kotler tweeted his congratulations to Modi upon being the first-ever recipient of the award. The following is a roundup of findings from various analytical tools that help make sense of just what happened between 15 January — when Kotler tweeted his congratulations to Modi — and 17 January, by which point the marketing guru appeared to have captured the imagination of a sizable chunk of Indian Twitterati.

If the past must come back to haunt the alliance, it would be in the way the two parties failed to align their priorities and interests, and not the past feuds. The BJP, in contrast, is willing to combine the voter base under a much larger umbrella of religion and nationalistic fervour; then there’s the agenda of development for those who still credit the prime minister with bringing about acche din.

The Left has undone the resurgence of regressive Hindutva (as opposed to enlightened Hinduism) post the 1991 Kerala High Court order banning women’s entry to the shrine; until then there had been a trickle of women worshippers, particularly young mothers to the hilltop, since the pagan deity Ayyanar’s open durbar closed eight to nine centuries ago. Stopping the hard work done by the 19th century Hindu reformers for their faith from being thus squandered is not a mean feat.

It’s rare to see Arshad in the lead role (in Fraud Saiyaan), but that’s not something that drove him to take the film. “I do films if I like the script. The number of heroes in the film doesn’t matter. Secondly, a comedy coming from Prakash Jha is like being in an altogether different space because he usually makes very issue-based films. I was surprised that someone has written a film like this,” said Arshad.

Gillette’s controversial ad sets bar really low by asking men to be better

In truth, of course the film depicts some toxic male behaviour. It also, to be fair, makes the distinction that only some men behave in these noxious ways. About midway, the voiceover says, “Some [men> already are [saying the right thing, acting the right way> in ways big and small.” And it actually has very little to do with MeToo, since it doesn’t ever mention women’s courage and risk that are at the heart of the movement. Rather, it arrives at some solidarity from an angle, asking men to become part of the conversation and not leave it only to women to educate or reprimand other men’s bad behaviour.