According to a Pew Research Centre’s report, public dissatisfaction with democracy continues to outweigh satisfaction across 12 high-income countries that Pew Research Centre has surveyed consistently since 2017.

A median of 64% of adults say they are dissatisfied with the way their democracy is working, while a median of 35% are satisfied.

That’s problematic because it’s widely believed to be the most efficient and just way of governance.

Even China, where there’s only one political party, calls its authoritarian rule a “democracy”.

According to the aforementioned report, India, Indonesia, Mexico, the Netherlands, and Sweden are examples of countries where people are relatively happy with both their democracy and their economy.

Being an Indian, that’s unbelievable for me. Am I living under a rock? People of my country are satisfied with the government when the scales are democracy and economy? Are you seriously not kidding me?

The current Modi government has hiked the petrol prices from ₹71.41 per litre in 2014 to ₹102.12 per litre in 2026, a rise of 43.01%, and diesel prices from ₹56.71 per litre to ₹95.20 per litre, an increase of 67.87%.

A couple of months ago, the prices of commercial cylinders were hiked by around ₹1,000, making it almost impossible for the small restaurants and food shops operating on commercial licenses and cylinders to operate.

Those are some of the very mainstream examples that I gave as pointers that caused nationwide dissatisfaction with the governance.

I have not even touched upon the topics of the Ram Mandir Chanda Chori case; Ethanol Blending case; climate change, pollution, and flooding-related issues; and construction scams. The list is endless.

The latest among the series is the paper leak scams that affect millions of Indian students.

In the last five years, according to a report, around 93 students have committed suicide related to the NEET examination.

Yes, it’s fast becoming that one infamous examination that’s more like a monster than a noble one guiding students into the premier medical colleges of the country.

This year alone, after a large-scale paper leak and irregularities case, around 12 students have committed suicide.

How sad is that! People who would have become doctors and saved the lives of others — had the system worked without any irregularities — lost their own to a corrupt, biased, and inconsiderate one.

The government’s neglect doesn’t end here.

Though they want to portray themselves as if they’re the god and have empathy for all of us , which they did by the way, by deploying the Army and banning Telegram (‘what?’ you say, but yes, that’s true) for a national-level exam and still could not make the education minister resign for this unprecedented chaos that engulfed the lives of more than a dozen students.

And truth be told, this is where the whole matter becomes way more pathetic.

The newly formed Cockroach Janta Party (you can read more about them here) has organised and asked for the Education Minister’s resignation over the mass paper-leak case that caused nationwide distress.

I think it’s a pretty logical thing to do if you can’t discharge the responsibilities attached to your position successfully. Right?

No. At least our Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, doesn’t think so. With five criminal cases pending against him, he doesn’t think his office is even remotely responsible for the lives of a dozen students.

In 2018, in the UK, a member of the House of Lords, Lord Bates, stunned colleagues by resigning after arriving late to the chamber.

Lord Bates said he was “ashamed” to not be in his place to answer a question from Labour’s Baroness Lister.

Would you believe he was just one minute late?

And here is our Minister of Education, Mr Dharmendra Pradhan, who, even after so much chaos, anger, and agitation, is firmly sitting on his ministerial chair. Utter shame, I must say.

The same demands are the primary concern of the hunger strike of an educator, climate activist, and a Ramon Magsaysay award winner, Sonam Wangchuk.

He joined the ongoing protest organised by the Cockroach Janta Party on June 28th. Since then, he has been on an indefinite hunger strike, demanding the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan.

The government’s apathy and ignorance are such that not even the cognisance of the matter is being deliberated upon. Not a single visit has been made by any ruling government official.

On top of that, Sonam Wangchuk’s health is on a constant decline. There’s a real possibility that he may not live, as he’s rejected many requests to end his hunger strike.

Is this the world’s largest democracy that we Indians are proud of? Now that’s pathetic for the world’s largest elected democracy.

Reading news on this subject every day makes me sad. Sad for the students who lost their lives, their parents, and millions of other students and their parents who feel disheartened because of the carelessness and apathy of one ministry and an organisation.

What’s more pathetic is their “we are not accountable to you” attitude, which is increasingly evident as of late.

It looks like the whole government is following the lead of our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who’s (in)famous for achieving the fame of not facing unscripted conferences and not making a single unscripted press conference wherein he takes questions and answers them himself from the press in his over a decade-long tenure of holding the Prime Minister’s office.

We’re doomed if this continues. We need accountability (for the NEET paper leak case). We need no corruption (and independent investigation and stringent actions against corruption, like the Ram Mandir [Temple] donation embezzlement case).

I don’t think people of my country are satisfied with the government when it comes to democracy and the economy. No. They are increasingly becoming more frustrated with the government.

This article would not have been possible without the discussions with my co-interns, namely Sheshnath, Aman, Shambhavi, Adarsh, and Arpit.

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Introduction

The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 was enacted to replace the erstwhile The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929.

The previous 1929 Act merely restrained child marriages without providing ways to stop them or support victims. The 2006 Act was introduced to actively prohibit and penalize the practice.

This is clear from a reading of sections 9, 10, and 11 of the 2006 Act. For reference, the marginal notes of the three sections are reproduced below:

Section 9: Punishment for male adult marrying a child.
Section 10: Punishment for solemnising a child marriage.
Section 11: Punishment for promoting or permitting solemnisation of child marriages.

These sections provide for rigorous imprisonment extending up to 2 years along with a fine for different offences pertaining to child marriage.

What led to this deliberation?

Today at my internship, I had a fruitful discussion on the provisions of the Act with my co-interns. It stemmed from our courtroom interactions with Learned Judge Shri Rajeev Ranjan Raman, District & Additional Sessions Judge cum Special Judge POCSO, the other day.

Before delving into the topic of the title, here’s the brief anecdote that made us delve into this subject area.

Yesterday, the learned judge asked us a simple question: was child marriage valid, void, or voidable? The pool of interns got bifurcated into two groups: one saying it was ‘void’ while the other said it to be ‘voidable’.

On hearing this, the learned judge gave us half an hour to deliberate upon this question, and come prepared, along with the reasoning and the sections supporting the claim, after the lunch break.

When the proceedings of the day was nearing its end, the learned judge asked us for our answer. By then, our group of interns was unanimously in favour of the scenario of child marriage constituting a ‘voidable marriage,’ and not a ‘void marriage.’

The learned judge made me come to the front of the courtroom and explain the reasoning. I relied on sections 5, 11, and 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. Marginal notes of the sections are: Conditions for a Hindu marriage; Void marriages; and Voidable marriages respectively.

Now, onto the ambiguity

The ambiguity is rooted mainly in the reading of section 3(3) in the light of sec 2 (a) and 2 (f) of the Act.

Firstly, let us understand the nuance of the definitions that is important for our present concern, i.e. sections 2(a) and 2(f) of The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929.

Section 2(a) defines a “child” as a person who, if a male, has not completed twenty-one years of age, and if a female, has not completed eighteen years of age.

Now what is interesting to note is the fact how this Act makes a distinction between a male and a female qua determining as to whether he or she is a child. This is unlike any other Act, for instance.

Under The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, a “child” means a person who has not completed eighteen years of age [section 2(18) of the Act].

Similarly, under The Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, a “child” means a person who has not completed his fourteenth year of age, and an “adolescent” means a person who has completed his fourteenth year of age but has not completed his eighteenth year [sections 2(i) and 2(ii) of the Act].

Noteworthy is that the definition of a child is not contingent upon the gender of the child insofar as any other Acts except for The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 is concerned. This contingency is unique to the aforementioned Act only.

Also, section 2(f) of the Act defines a “minor” as a person who, under the provisions of the Majority Act, 1875 (9 of 1875), is to be deemed not to have attained his majority.
Onto that, Section 3(1) of The Majority Act, 1875 defines the age of majority as completing the age of eighteen years and not before.

Reading both the statutes together, we can construe a minor, for the purposes of The Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, is anyone, regardless of gender, under the age of 18 years.

Due to this, an ambiguity is created in the reading of sections 3(1) and 3(3), when read under the above-mentioned context.

Section 3(1): Every child marriage, whether solemnised before or after the commencement of this Act, shall be voidable at the option of the contracting party who was a child at the time of the marriage.

Section 3(3): The petition under this section may be filed at any time but before the child filing the petition completes two years of attaining majority.

This creates an unprecedented situation for a specific gender (male) wherein he cannot approach the court for about a year, while still being a child, because he is still a minor but has already completed two years of attaining majority.

Suppose a child marriage of a boy happens at the age of 18. Now, according to section 3(3), he can approach the court within two years of attaining majority, i.e. up until he is 20 years of age.

The marginal note to section 3 reads thus: Child marriages to be voidable at the option of contracting party being a child.

So, let us say the child (male) turns 20 years and one day of age. According to section 3(1) of the Act, this marriage should be voidable at the option of the child (male).

But reading section 3(3) of the Act along with it, we find out that the child (male) between 20 and 21 years of age could not move the Court and get the child marriage annulled, while still being a child [section 2(a) of the Act].

This particular case creates some sort of an ambiguity wherein a child with whom child marriage has happened could not approach a competent court for getting the marriage annulled, while still being a child himself at that time.

This case goes against the very overarching idea and intent of the Act to make the child marriage void at the option of the contracting party being a child.

1. Representation: a representation is a statement of a past or present fact, made as of a moment in time to induce a party to act.

2. Warranty: a warranty is a promise that if a statement is false, the maker of the statement will indemnify the other party for any damages suffered because of the false statement.

3. Covenant: a covenant is a promise to do or not to do something. It creates a duty to perform.

4. Right: a right is the flipside of a covenant. A right entitles a party to the other party’s performance.

5. Condition to an obligation: a condition to an obligation is a state of facts that must exist before a party is obligated to perform.

6. Discretionary authority: it gives a party a choice or permission to act. It is sometimes subjected to the satisfaction of a condition.

7. Declaration: a declaration is a fact as to which both parties agree. Sometimes it is subjected to the satisfaction of a condition.

Hello everyone, your host Vritant this side. I welcome you all to this, yet another issue of White Space, where every week we delve into interesting facets of history and culture. And sometimes, other interesting contemporary stories.

Note: I am disheartened by the new update on Medium, which forbids exporting my email subscribers’ list. If you are new around here and don’t know what Medium is, don’t worry. It is just another writing platform, just like Substack. The problem is I love it a little too much, but finally I’m moving away from it.

As Substack doesn’t incentivise Indian writers yet, I was in a dilemma whether I should write on this platform. How does that make any difference from writing on Medium? But after much thought, I found a couple of reasons. But that’s for some other time. And as one of my dear friends, whom I met on Substack, recommended, here’s an optional ‘Buy me a coffee’ kind of link, if you feel like extending a warm hug and coffee.

Thanks!

Extend a warm hug

Now onto the article we go.

I was casually browsing Reddit until something uncanny caught my eye. I wish I had scrolled past that.

It was a black-and-white picture of a person falling from a plane. In the first instance, without reading the title or any text of the post, I thought it was from some 70s or 80s movie. But then I read:

“Keith Spasford, a 14-year-old Australian teen, wanted to explore the world, so he snuck into a plane wheel well, it opened mid-air and the boy fell out. The photographer was just testing his new lenses and was shocked after developing those images.”

God, it was someone’s last moments that accidentally got caught on camera.

Something similar that I read last time was the case of Evelyn McHale. This case is also popularly known as The Most Beautiful Suicide.

She jumped from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building and landed straight on a UN limousine. A photography student who was passing by took a picture of her corpse, and it looks beautiful (to some people). Calm, yes, but beautiful? Take a look for yourself.

Coming back to the present case, why would someone sneak into a plane’s wheel well in the first place? Maybe it was just for fun, or better, to run away.

In 1970, Keith Sapsford, a 14-year-old Australian, found himself in just that set of circumstances when his father sent him to a Roman Catholic Institution called Boys’ Town in Sydney. He decided to run away after just a few weeks.

Keith didn’t intend to return home, figuring he would be sent right back. Instead, he decided to head out of Australia altogether. Keith Sapsford got himself to the Sydney airport after leaving his school. Once he arrived at the airport, Keith snuck onto the tarmac where several planes were located.

One plane, whose destination was Tokyo, Japan, became the vehicle for his escape. The open undercarriage of the Japan Airlines was too tempting to resist, and he climbed inside. It is unclear if he had pre-decided or planned to hop on this plane, but fate had decided something very different from what he might be planning, if he was, in the first place.

Technicians believe the boy, who was dressed only in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, was unaware that the latch would reopen after take-off to bring the wheel back inside, which is when he fell. Experts later found hand and footprints as well as threads from his clothes in the compartment.

Statistically speaking, this could very well be a case of a passionate wheel-well stowaway who wanted to travel the world. Keith was barely a teenager when he decided to take this unfortunate step.

‘All my son wanted to do was to see the world. He had itchy feet. His determination to see how the rest of the world lives has cost him his life,’ his father, Charles Sapford, said in a reported by Associated Press from February 23, 1970.

According to Wikipedia, wheel-well stowaways are individuals who attempt to travel in the landing gear compartment, also known as the wheel bay or undercarriage of an aircraft.

Between 1947 and June 2015, a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) researcher had documented 113 such attempts on 101 flights. These 113 people were all male and predominantly under age 30. There were 86 deaths, a 76 per cent fatality rate, with many unidentified decedents.

The early life of Keith Sapsford

Months before Keith stepped out onto that tarmac, events were put into motion that impacted Keith’s decisions and ultimately led him to climb onto that plane’s wheel well. Charles Sapsford, Keith’s father, had told his son about a Spanish boy who had climbed into the undercarriage of a plane, costing him his life.

What he would not have known was that history was about to repeat, and not rhyme. This time, the boy will be his own son.

Keith’s father had hoped to discourage his adventurous son from taking such a risk, but it may have inspired him to hop on a plane to Japan.

Born in 1956, Keith had always been a curious kid who liked to be on the move. His father often used to describe him as a wanderer.

His family had actually just taken a trip overseas to satisfy his adventurous spirit. Unfortunately, he had a habit of running away, and even a long overseas trip was not enough to stop his wanderlust.

But after their return home, Keith Sapsford was restless. His parents decided that some discipline and formalised structure were needed. Boys’ Town, a Roman Catholic educational institution located in the southern portion of Sydney, was seen as the best option for Keith.

This institution specialised in dealing with troubled children, those who needed structure and a formal discipline arrangement. His parents felt it would be the right thing to help him get on the best path.

Keith stows away

Unfortunately, the institution underestimated Keith’s adventurous spirit, and he was able to run away just two weeks after his arrival. It is unclear what made him decide to head to the airport or if Keith even knew the plane’s destination when he climbed into the wheel well.

Regulations at major airports were not as strict as the ones we deal with today, so it is not surprising that a teenager was able to sneak onto the tarmac.

Keith saw a plane (Douglas DC-8) preparing for boarding and took the chance. Unlike that Spanish boy, he figured he could survive because Keith would be in the wheel well and could avoid the dangers of high-altitude exposure.

However, what Keith Sapsford did not consider was that the wheel-well compartment would reopen when the plane’s wheels retracted after takeoff. When that happened, Keith fell 200 feet to his death.

His father believes that the evidence suggests that Keith might have also been crushed by the wheels when they attempted to retract. Either way, the result was a family’s tragic loss of life and heartbreak. That heartbreak would live on for over 40 years before his parents passed away.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Authority published research that shows just one in four airline stowaways survived their illicit flights. Survivors hitch a ride on short trips with low heights, but there are no surviving stowaways on planes that reach cruising altitude.

Ignoring this information and attempting to stow away can be tragic, as the story of Keith Sapsford illustrates.

Pictured the last moments of someone’s life by mistake

Below on the ground, amateur photographer John Gilpin happened to be at the airport. He was taking pictures of events at the airport, hoping one or two would be of good quality. Although he didn’t know it at the time, John would end up capturing Keith Sapsford as he fell to his death.

Keith had already spent several hours in the wheel well before the plane took off. Later, when experts inspected the aircraft, they found handprints, footprints, and threads from the boy’s clothes. They needed all the evidence to prove that Keith had been on the plane.

Even more tragic, had Keith not fallen out of the plane, he would have likely frozen or suffocated to death. The compartment reached freezing temperatures and was not oxygenated.

Keith Sapsford was only in a short-sleeved shirt and shorts, so he had limited protection from the shift in temperature that would occur as the plane reached its cruising altitude. Even the retracting wheels were a threat because there was limited space for him and the wheels when they returned to their compartment.

But surprisingly enough, John didn’t realize what he had captured on film until nearly a week later. Developing his photographs from the day at the airport, John noticed a print with the silhouette of a boy falling feet-first from the plane. His hands were raised up in the air, appearing to be an attempt to cling to something and stop his fall.

The photo remains a chilling reminder of how that child lost his life in a desperate attempt to see the world and escape the structure of his school.

The boy’s father, Mr. Sapsford, died in October 2015 at the age of 93. I don’t know if that relates to this story, but still.

I hope you enjoyed this story. Subscribe to support and read more interesting historical, cultural, and contemporary stories.

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Featured news:

• The body of Ukrainian journalist Victoriia Roshchyna was returned by Russia with signs of ‘torture.’ It took weeks to confirm that the body was not actually that of a male, which Russia initially claimed when the exchange was happening, in February. The journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was captured in the summer of 2023 near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station. It was at least her fourth reporting trip into the occupied territories. She died after a year in detention, aged 27.

Read the full investigative report here.

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Headlines of the day

• US downturn amid Trump tariffs triggers fears of global downturn. The US economy shrank in the first three months of the year, according to official data, triggering fears of an American recession. He blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for this figure. “This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's,” Trump wrote on social media, adding that the contraction “has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”

• Elon Musk to work remotely on Doge. Just so that you know, in the past, he had labelled working from home as “morally wrong.” Now that his visits have become less frequent to Washington, it looks like he’s working from home himself. This is largely driven by the dip in profits and share price of his electric car company, Tesla. Mr. Musk suggested he would work, at most, two days a week at the agency and stay on “as long as the president would like me to do so and as long as it’s useful.”

• US reaches out to India, Pakistan to de-escalate tensions. The US has reached out to both India and Pakistan calling for the de-escalation of tensions and to maintain peace and security in South Asia, even as New Delhi has conveyed firmly that the perpetrators, backers and planners of the Pahalgam terror attack “must be brought to justice.”

• US President Donald Trump has celebrated the 100th day of his second term in office with a campaign-style speech, while speaking about his achievements and targeting political foes.

• His 100 days in office have mostly been greeted with a negative reaction. Take a look at this graph that shows how Trump’s first 100 days have been some of the worst for the economy in American history.

• Trump’s politics is getting criticised both inside the country and out. Mass protests are being organised against him, as well as companies like Amazon are planning to show the hike in prices due to the trade war initiated by Trump in numbers.

• Outside, he’s accused of using the holy land of the Vatican as a ground for negotiations that’s more likely to choke Ukraine and less likely to strike a “peace deal.”

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• After accusations of “intimidation and harrasment” on Beijing by Manila, China and the Philippines on Monday defended their claims to a disputed reef in the South China Sea.

• The Philippines and China have been engaged in months of confrontations over South China Sea.

• Beijing claims it, nearly in its entirety, despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis. Its foreign ministry on Monday reiterated the reef was part of China’s territory and said its moves constituted “rights protection and law enforcement activities.”

40 casualties in Israeli strikes on Gaza

• More than 40 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza.

• Gaza’s Civil Defence Agency said that Israeli strikes on Monday have killed at least 40 people across the Palestinian territory, which has been under an Israeli aid blockade for more than 50 days.

• Israel says that its renewed military campaign aims to force Hamas to free the remaining captives.

Election of the new Pope

• Roman Catholic Cardinals will begin their secret conclave to elect the new leaders of the global Church on May 7, the Vatican said on Monday.

• The date was decided during a closed-door meeting of cardinals at the Vatican, the first since the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday.

• Some 135 cardinals, all under the age of 80 and from across the world, are eligible to take part in the conclave and decide who should be the next leader of the 1.4-billion-member church.

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• A 30-year-old man was arrested, and murder charges were filed. Claims of terrorism were, however, dismissed.

• In a social media post, the Vancouver Police Department said that the vehicle entered the street at 8:14 pm on Saturday and struck people attending the Lapu Lapu Day festival.

  ---

Israeli jets strike Beirut

• Israeli jets strike Beirut’s southern suburbs for the third time. It said it was an attack on Hezbollah and its infrastructure and was not targeted at civilians.

• In a statement following the strike, the Israeli military said it targeted a precision-guided missile at the storage facility for the Hezbollah group.

• Israel added that it had urged the residents to move 300m away from the site before the strike.

• Fighter jets were heard, and gunfire was shot into the air to warn residents and urged them to evacuate.

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Zelenskyy dismissed Russia’s claims of the liberation of Kursk

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine has not been kicked out of the Kursk region.

• After the claim of the Kursk region coming under Moscow, Zelenskyy on Sunday said that Ukraine’s army was still fighting in the region.

• “Our military continues to perform tasks in the Kursk and Belgorod region—we are maintaining our presence on Russian territory,” he said in his evening address this Sunday.

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• Pope Francis was laid to rest in Rome on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of mourners attend, including world leaders like US President Donald Trump. More than 50 heads of state were present at the funeral.

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Russia claims to have retaken Kursk, Kyiv denies claims

• Russia claims to have retaken Kursk with the help and assistance from North Korean troops.

• It’s the first time Moscow is admitting that they took help of Pyongyang’s soldiers in Ukraine war.

• Ukraine, on the other hand, says its troops are still conducting operations in the Russian border region, with the military describing Moscow's claims as “propaganda tricks.”

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The US President’s sudden change in stance

• In a sudden change of stance, US President Donald Trump hints at scepticism. He said that he doubts if Putin wants to end his war in Ukraine, expressing new scepticism that a peace deal can be reached.

• Only a day earlier, though, in an interview, Mr. Trump had said Ukraine and Russia were “very close to a deal.”

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At least 49 dead in the past 24 hours from the Israeli strikes

• An airstrike in a neighbourhood in western Gaza City early on Saturday morning killed at least 10 people.

• A similar attack reported on Friday killed at least 23 people as well. Gaza’s Health Ministry confirmed the numbers.

• Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas last month and has vowed to continue the war until all the hostages are returned and Hamas is destroyed or disarmed.

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Trump, Putin, and Zelenskyy

• In an interview published on Friday, American President Donald Trump said that “Crimea will stay with Russia.”

• This comes off as the latest example of the US leader pressuring Ukraine to make the war come to an end.

• In a statement, Mr. Trump said, “Zelenskyy understands that it’s [Crimea] been with them for a long time.”

• Previously, the US President also made comments accusing Mr. Zelenskyy of prolonging the war by resisting negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Death toll from Israeli strike

• Gaza’s civil defence agency reported on Friday that the death toll from an Israeli airstrike the day before on a house in the north of the Palestinian territory had risen to 23.

• Gaza’s northern area of Jabalia has been a focus of Israel’s military offensive since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023, following Hamas’s attack on Israel.

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Tensions are high around the Line of Control after Pahalgam attack

• The Indian Army reported incidents of small arms firing along the LoC at some places in Jammu and Kashmir. “It was effectively responded to by the Army,” officials said. No injuries have been reported in these incidents.

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Former ISRO chairman no more

• Former ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) chairperson Dr. K. Kasturirangan passed away in Bangalore on Friday. He was 84. Sources said his health was deteriorating for the past few weeks.

• Dr. Kasturirangan served as the fifth chairperson of ISRO between 1994-2003, and also as the Secratory, Department of Space for over nine years.

• He was a recipient of Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, and Padma Vibhushan—the highest honours.

  ---

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Brief: In one of the deadliest attacks in Kashmir since the 2019 Pulwama strike, terrorists killed at least 26 civilians—mostly tourists—in Pahalgam on April 22, 2025. The assault, which targeted visitors in the picturesque meadow known as the “mini Switzerland,” has drawn international condemnation and prompted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cut short his Saudi Arabia visit. The attack marks a significant escalation in violence in a region that had been experiencing relative calm and increased tourism in recent years.

From BBC:

At least two dozen people have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a group of domestic tourists visiting a popular beauty spot in Indian-administered Kashmir, authorities have told the BBC.

The attack took place in Pahalgam, a picturesque town in the Himalayas often described as the "Switzerland of India".

The region's chief minister, Omar Abdullah, said the attack was "much larger than anything we've seen directed at civilians in recent years". Reports suggest that there are a large number of wounded, with some in critical condition.

US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and EU chief Ursula Von der Leyen were among world leaders who condemned the attacks.

"Deeply disturbing news out of Kashmir. The United States stands strong with India against Terrorism," Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Von der Leyen called the Kashmir deaths a "vile terrorist attack", while Putin expressed "sincere condolences" for the consequences of a "brutal crime".

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi - who cut short his trip to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the attack - said the perpetrators would "be brought to justice".

"Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakeable and it will get even stronger," Modi wrote in a statement on X.

Context and analysis

According to an article published in The Lowy Institute’s the interpreter, here are some possible explanations for the timing of the planned attack:

The timing, choice of target, and execution of the attack suggest several strategic objectives by its planners. First, the attack appears designed to embarrass the Indian government at a time when Delhi’s global profile is particularly firm. Moreover, the assault occurred during JD Vance’s visit to India, and just as the tourist and trekking season was gaining momentum.

Second, the perpetrators likely aim to reverse economic and social gains that followed Delhi’s 2019 decision to fully integrate Kashmir with the Indian state by revoking the region's autonomous status. By targeting tourists, the attackers strike directly at Kashmir's recovering tourism industry, which had been a sign of normalization in the region.

Third, the attack seeks to reignite tensions just as Kashmir and India had begun to establish a new regional and international narrative about the area. The deliberate targeting of tourists and apparent religious profiling of victims suggests an attempt to trigger communal tensions and destabilise the region. It also creates a feeling of panic and worry within the minds of international tourists.

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The other day, I was reading this cool article on Substack. It talked about making something ‘heavy’ v. making something ‘light.’

That concept in itself was amazing and appealing. It left me in awe because of how closely I could connect to it.

It gave me a new perspective to look at the already confusing labyrinth that was my dilemma for writing, and this constant tussle of managing a thousand different things, along with writing online.

Before you say, ‘Oh, Vritant, then just stop writing online and focus on your studies, na.’ Let me tell you how much it has helped me in tough times.

I am in law school. Arguably, the best one in the country. Wait, should I put it better, like studying one of the vastest curricula ever? Maybe. And if this was not all, just months after coming to this what-seemed-at-first a stressful place, I lost one of my closest friends. Then one more.

It was a bleak time for our college, along with all the students, professors, and staff. We witnessed three suicide cases. The whole legal fraternity was in shock. My friends from other law colleges would regularly check on me to know if everything was okay.

I was not feeling my best, obviously. And then writing came to my rescue. I could not find my way out, and then… out of nowhere, there seemed to be a way out. Bleak, unpromising, but it was there.

I wrote about this dilemma in one article:

“Not even a couple of months had passed since our college started, and we have lost not one but two of our classmates. Though my fingers are shaking and I don’t want to write any more and let everything go on in my mind, I simply can’t.”

I am glad that I have something that I can call my haven, my safe home. A place where there’s no one to judge me, no one to deny my stay. No matter what ruckus is happening in my life, I come for peace of mind here.

Then my mind tinkers about how I am managing this, although not managing it as ideally as I can. College is a task in itself. Attending classes, doing assignments, applying for internships, and a million other things can take up the entirety of someone’s mind.

After thinking so, my inner self started brimming with happiness. I start to take pride in the fact that I write. How usual yet unaddressed that fact is, don’t you think? We all subtly take pride in the fact that we are creating something of value.

But that happiness was short-lived, and fortunately so. I came across this article on Substack titled, Make Something Heavy, by Anu Atluru a couple of days ago. It opened my ideas and filled me with happy realisation, to say the least.

It talked about how we all, deep down within ourselves, think of creating something ‘heavy’ but more often than not end up creating something ‘light.’ With heavy, the writer meant something that takes all the effort and time in the world, something that is not scalable or systematic. A masterpiece.

Take, for example, writing. Something light would mean a story or an article that you have written in one go. With minimal editing, formatting, and thought. With some music in the background as well. Like this one.

Something heavy would mean a write-up that would stand the test of time. Its purpose isn’t to top the charts or win hashtags. It’s simply timeless. It will be as relevant a decade from now as it is today. Something that took months, if not years, to come to bloom. A sweet fruition.

This made me realise how almost a hundred percent of my writings are simply ‘light work.’ Almost a hundred, not everything. There are a couple of write-ups that I am so proud of. And reflecting on the retrospect, they are easy to spot and differentiate.

In the end, writing as a student isn’t hard, and it isn’t anything to be too proud of oneself.

After all, most of the time, I create (or write) something ‘light.’ Maybe someday I’ll build something ‘heavy.’

Support

I was in high school when I jumped onto that bandwagon because, apparently, there was an anonymous, hidden group on Quora when all the cool kids joined. Later turned out, that only a version of that story was true, and it was nothing like that. Talk of the past.

I created a profile on the platform and started reading answers. Oh, wait, did I just assume everyone here is familiar with that question-answer platform? I think by the end of this year, we’ll start reading about the downfall of this platform and its eventual fading into oblivion. That is the trajectory Quora is following.

So here is how Quora defines itself: “Quora’s mission is to share and grow the world’s knowledge.” I don’t think they are doing a good job—or even a sub-par job—by launching an AI platform and feeding all the data that millions of Quorans have written down through years of their presence on Quora and after decades of experience and expertise in their fields.

Now, if you open Quora, all you see is your feed full of advertisements. And if, by any chance, some question catches your fancy and you click open to read it, the first thing you see is their AI answering that question. Quora, if I had to read an AI-generated answer to my question, would I not go to ChatGPT or Gemini? Why would I come to your platform then?

I used to go to Quora to read human-written answers. The kind of answer that had a story and some element of human connection to it. Not a blatantly put, cohesively attached series of pointers with a conclusion. Quora failed every stakeholder—its readers and writers.

Many of the Quorans now recount the past days of glory that this platform had. On a question, “Is Quora dead because all the popular Quorans had left?” a Quora user writes:

“Quora is not dead but is a pale shadow of its former self today.

“The people who are using Quora today perhaps can’t understand the popularity of Quora back in 2015–2022.”

A comment on another answer goes like this:

“There has been a downfall in both the quality of the content and intent of present day Quora users.

Instead of scintillating the mind the platform is driven by the Quora users towards titillating the senses. Such inane questions were posed to me as “ What is the name of my dog?”

Yes, some dedicated Quorans keep the fire burning; but, Quora is gradually turning into a graveyard of the intelligent, inquisitive, curious seeker.

I feel it. I feel every answer, every comment, and every message like that on the platform. Quora used to be different. And then the platform decides to fuck itself over.

From a bird’s eye view, it looks like the management of the company is aimless. On one hand where they launched monetization programs, like Quora Partner Program and Quora+, and invited writers to paywall their answers and earn money and urged readers to get a monthly subscription to have unlimited access to the platform with no ads, on the other hand, they launched an AI chatbot platform called Poe and integrated it with their existing platform.

Either they should have taken a stance to be a place that houses human creativity and storytelling, or completely shifted their business to the likes of ChatGPT, if that made more business sense. What’s this position of being in between and not doing any better? Their partner program, space subscription model and a bigger Quora+ subscription have not yielded good results. As one writer points out, “no one is subscribing.”

Their AI chatbot platform, called Poe (such a weird name tbh), is their last hope for survival because the trajectory Quora is going on doesn’t look so promising. There is a huge influx of low-quality content on the platform and on top of that, many insightful writers who used to drive the platform’s growth and PR have already left.

Why I hate Quora is also due to the lack of transparency and leadership. Throughout its history, Quora has seldom made important metrics public. Those metrics help writers and readers build trust in the platform. One aspect is moderation. This platform has been notorious for its absurd moderation guidelines. From the outside, it looks perfect, but it’s anything but that.

When I used to scroll Quora a lot, almost every day I encountered answers where Quorans were disheartened and talked about how their favourite answer got taken down by the moderation team. Quora can’t take down the cringe and low-quality content that is flooding the platform, but it’s quick to take down some of the most nuanced answers ever. It’s annoying.

Five of my answers lately got deleted because they contained “sexually explicit content.” On opening the URL under those notifications, I found out that there was absolutely no way I could read the content of my answer, nor was there any way to raise an appeal for the same.

From the URL, I could interpret that the question was:

“What is the difference between love and infatuation? Is love only a kind of infatuation?”

So, apparently, writing about love and infatuation counts as “sexually explicit content” now. Wow!

We’re done, Quora. I will not be posting anything, more than anything, I’d stop hoping and praying for your comeback. Your re-birth from the ashes like a phoenix.

I hate you, Quora. You failed the writers and the readers alike.

Before we move on with our post, for I few days, I have thought of adding this little section from my About page that describes what topics will be covered in the newsletter. As you know, we humans have this tendency to fall in love with new, interesting, and novel topics (at least I do), and the result sometimes completely goes against my readers. I understand that you want to read what you signed up for, and that’s totally okay. This is my small request to message me, or reply to the email, or comment under the posts if you want to read something specific on the topics that I am about to share. I’ll be more than happy to fulfil your request (and satiate my own curiosity as well, hehe).

From the About section of White Space:

White Space is the result of a teenager documenting how he’s exploring and discovering things in life. You’ll read on a variety of topics including, but not limited to:

• articles that help you become a better “digital-first writer.”
  read: What being an editor for 2+ years has taught me about writing

• personal life, sneak peek into law school (sometimes), and anything that’s on my mind.
  read: Why am I moving to Substack despite being disappointed with the platform

• contemporary ‘digital’ writing, critique pieces, and commentary.
  read: Desk Notes #1: Commentary on Contemporary Writing

• technology, scientific development, media and commentary on the latest in tech.
  read: Bluesky is Building a Payment Platform and Why Should We Care

  ---

All in all, I want to write about everything. From the suicide that shook the entire college and left me traumatized to the latest in tech and everything in between, be it writing, reviewing tools, or writing a commentary/critique. I want to experiment. I want to provide value to you in the process. I hope that sounds interesting to you as well. If yes, let’s get rolling!

Subscribe now

I hate Notion. Not that notion in your head. Notion, the uber-popular note-taking app. Back when it launched, almost every other productivity creator on YouTube was getting aroused (kinda) just by hearing its name, lol. They can’t stop preaching how good it was. ”It can 1,000x your productivity,” I recall hearing that from some YouTuber years ago. Word verbatim, I swear. Now that I think of it, this has got to be the most hilarious thing ever.

I hated Notion for giving this false illusion of productivity. It’s just beautifying your road to productivity, not making you productive or anything. But in this process, you’ll feel like you’ve been a heck lot of productive all this while. But in reality, you were just travelling and have arrived nowhere.

Enters my first digital product: a helpful guide to Medium newbies to navigate through publications by curating and regularly updating the top 50 publications on the platform. I decided to build it after a couple of writers started asking which publications should they pitch to on Medium next after getting added to one that I owned and ran. I decided to keep it free of cost so that everyone can access it, but in case someone wants to support me, they can generously pay any amount they want to.

Currently, it has 28 sales and 7 five-star reviews. (Cheers to small wins!)

Guess what, this product is built on Notion. (face-palm moment for me)

But why did I do it, you ask? If I hated any other platform as much as Notion, I’d have never opened it in my lifetime. However, something about this platform made me come back to it when I was faced with the challenge of deciding on a place to host my data.

The answer lies in the basic “how the platform is getting used?” question. Look, Notion currently has a valuation of $10 bn. That’s unimaginable for a note-taking company. For comparison, Opera, the browser company, has a valuation of just $1.6 bn. So how does a company that makes note-taking easier (or, that was what it started out to do) get this absurd valuation figure?

The answer is the vibrant community it has built. Go to any forum, and you’ll find an evergreen discussion about the product. This epidemic of meta content for the platform is making investors go crazy. All the creators are giving out advice, techniques, and ‘templates’ for creating the most productive life possible. But are they living a life like that? Do they track their calories, their reading goals, their finances, their classroom notes, their sleep schedule, and their gym routine all on Notion? I highly doubt it.

That’s what I hate this platform for. It’s good for accessing a database but does an awful job at tracking or being productive—the very reason they advertise and advocate for. Their platform makes you counter-productive and pseudo-productive. I hate that.

But When I had to decide to host my data while keeping it accessible to everyone who’ll be using it, Notion stood out. It’s simple to use, clean, minimal and above all, gets the job done. Beautifully.

Take a look (from my recent product):

It’s clean. It’s beautiful. And the changes I made to the database are reflected on the web in real time. No refreshes or reuploads are needed. I love that.

My love/hate relationship with Notion thus continues.

Ways you can support the 18-year-old writer behind this newsletter

A lot goes into writing and delivering value on a consistent basis, and a small earning from the same motivates a writer. Newsletter subscriptions are currently not available for writers based in India. Substack, I hope someday you solve this problem for the Indian writers. But until then, here are some ways you can support my labour of love, i.e. writing and building:

• buying my free (pay-as-you-want) product on Gumroad. It’s only of use if you write on Medium or want to get started. This product will give you a list of top active publications accepting new writers on the platform. Some publications have upwards of 800,000+ followers.

• buy me a coffee on Ko-fi: I have never really tried this platform. Previously, I used to attach my personal PayPal link and I got some donations from that. Let’s see if this makes the experience any good. I’ll be really happy on the other side of your screen if you decide to buy me a coffee hehe. I have just connected PayPal, so I don’t know how this will work, but let’s see.

• a $5 optional membership through Ko-fi: If you want a means to support me on a monthly basis, here’s a $5 tier. If you value this 18-year-old’s labour that goes into writing this newsletter and building other products while navigating teenage and law school, consider subscribing. This will make me extremely happy, while also giving me some validation.

• pledge your support for subscribing in the future: I hope someday Substack and Stripe work their way out and support subscriptions for writers based out of India. Meanwhile, you can pledge support through Substack to subscribe in the future. This way, you’ll be notified when White Space enables subscription in the future, and you may decide to subscribe to it then.

She was none other than Maria Popova, and the blog I’m talking about is called The Marginalian. Here’s the model I was, am, and will always be a fan of:

“Every month, I spend hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars keeping The Marginalian going. For nearly two decades, it has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, not even an assistant—a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider aiding its sustenance with a one-time or loyal donation. Your support makes all the difference.”

I want to build the same system of writing. A place where no blogs or write-ups remain paywalled and readers (I prefer to call them friends) can support or show love and appreciation by subscribing with however much they can. It took me a while to understand the subtle difference between membership and donations.

In this Medium story, titled Here’s One Reason You Can Tip Me On Medium. (I Don’t Need It, But They Do), I write about how my reader’s tip can help a charity more than me. The year was 2022, and I was in high school. I didn’t want money. This story comes as a reflection of a good model that I can follow: make it available for free, with no ads and no memberships, and those who feel like subscribing can do so with whatever amount they want.

I like to build digital products too. I search for resources and try to solve a problem by creating digital products. I do that because I love building and solving problems. This takes time, and I would love to get paid for my efforts. (Who wouldn’t?) The first product I have made available is for Medium writers, where I created a database of top publications with relevant links, including where to apply to become a writer. This is a product that I wish I had when I was getting started on the platform.

This all takes time: building a newsletter that provides value and building digital products that help ease someone’s life or any aspect of it. I love writing, and that’s the sole motivator for me to embark on this journey.

It’s a new start for White Space.

I plan on building and writing on this platform on however little time that I get while navigating 5 years at law school. Yours truly got into one of the best law schools in the country, and I must say it’s a constant battle with time in this college. Academics is rigorous (as it should be in a law school, lol), competition is cut-throat, and you only occasionally get time to pursue your hobbies.

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I write between completing my assignments. I write in the breaks I get between periods. I write, sometimes, in the library too. I built the product during my semester break. I needed a break, and writing and building products made for a perfect escape for me. I didn’t do any internships, though I got selected in both that I applied in. I was like, ‘Wait, what? Heck no, this can’t be real!’ as I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it into any of the two. That’s a topic of discussion for some other issue of White Space.

For now, here’s the new White Space: a place for some new, innovative, interesting, and valuable things. Here’s my brief try to introduce everything this newsletter should ideally cover:

White Space is the result of a teenager documenting how he’s exploring and discovering things in life. You’ll read on a variety of topics including, but not limited to:

• articles that help you become a better “digital-first writer.”
  read: What being an editor for 2+ years has taught me about writing

• personal life, sneak peek into law school (sometimes), and anything that’s on my mind.
  read: Why am I moving to Substack despite being disappointed with the platform

• contemporary ‘digital’ writing, critique pieces, and commentary.
  read: Desk Notes #1: Commentary on Contemporary Writing

• technology, scientific development, media and commentary on the latest in tech.
  read: Bluesky is Building a Payment Platform and Why Should We Care

There should ideally be more than one way of supporting your favourite writers. But, unfortunately, on Substack, it’s nearly impossible to monetise my newsletter by enabling subscriptions. Long story short, there is some problem with Stripe integration and that’s causing this limitation. Needless to say, this motivated me to look beyond paywalling my posts as the sole medium of monetising my content.

I had initially planned on setting this subscription without keeping anything behind the paywall. “That’s a stupid idea, Vritant. Why would anyone subscribe to you then?” Good point, I see. But my primary goal is never to earn a living from this platform. My thought was this: whoever feels inclined to support this ‘labour of love’ (The Marginalian reference) can freely do so.

A lot goes into writing and delivering value on a consistent basis, and a small earning from the same motivates a writer. Substack, I hope someday you solve this problem for the Indian writers. But until then, here are some ways you can support my labour of love, i.e. writing and building:

• buying my free (pay-as-you-want) product on Gumroad. It’s only of use if you write on Medium or want to get started. This product will give you a list of top active publications accepting new writers on the platform. Some publications have upwards of 800,000+ followers.

• buy me a coffee on Ko-fi: I have never really tried this platform. Previously, I used to attach my personal PayPal link and I got some donations from that. Let’s see if this makes the experience any good. I’ll be really happy on the other side of your screen if you decide to buy me a coffee hehe. I have just connected PayPal, so I don’t know how this will work, but let’s see.

• a $5 optional membership through Ko-fi: If you want a means to support me on a monthly basis, here’s a $5 tier. If you value this 18-year-old’s labour that goes into writing this newsletter and building other products while navigating teenage and law school, consider subscribing. This will make me extremely happy, while also giving me some validation.

• pledge your support for subscribing in the future: I hope someday Substack and Stripe work their way out and support subscriptions for writers based out of India. Meanwhile, you can pledge support through Substack to subscribe in the future. This way, you’ll be notified when White Space enables subscription in the future, and you may decide to subscribe to it then.

Here’s what the subscription page has to say about Pledges: “Show White Space that you value their work by pledging a future subscription. You won’t be charged unless they enable payments.”

Subscribe now

I am just a beginner on this platform, and I know I will make some mistakes along the way. But I will never shy away from accepting and improving on it. Writing this post makes me extremely humble, and I can’t wait to explore new avenues for my writing through White Space.

I hope we all keep growing.

With lots of love,
a random 18-year-old.

This is a short-form post which was initially published on Medium.

When I started out on Medium, I found it extremely difficult to find:

• which publication I should submit to?

• where their submission guidelines were?

• how difficult it is to get accepted as a writer?

So, after spending more than 3 years on the platform, I thought of making it easier for the new writers.

I’ll get straight to the point.

I built a database (currently of 10 publications, aimed at including 100) of publications that both new and seasoned writers can submit to.

Whether you are just getting started on Medium or want to diversify as a writer who self-publishes on their profile, this is a NECESSITY.

Get free access here.

Send it to me!

Hello everyone, I’m Vritant. This is White Space. And I have done something seriously mischievous, without even realizing it. Until this started to happen: Email disabled for White Space x 6. My personal email was flooded with emails from people unsubscribing from White Space.

That’s uncommon, I’d wonder. It had never quite happened in my lifetime that I’d gotten emails from half a dozen people all unsubscribing in one go.

Then something crossed my mind. And before I could realize and correct my mistakes, it was already too late. There’s no way I can ask those six people to come back who once found enough value in the newsletter that they thought of subscribing, and then, thanks to my mischief, decided to unsubscribe. I have made peace with the fact that I have lost them forever.

Sorry Juliana, Earl, Jessica, Howard, Leon, and Ali.

So what was my mistake, you ask? I had not published this newsletter for a while. My college had started, and I got busy there. Though I occasionally wrote on Medium, my Substack took a hit and did not see new posts for upwards of six months.

I came here, read all that I had missed in the meantime, and quietly went away. I have made a separate label for my Substack newsletters in my Gmail. It’s just another fancy way of segregating newsletters from other emails. When I made it, I wanted to make reading Substacks the last thing before I went to sleep. It used to be—and still is—so soul-satisfying to me. But now, there are 3,536 unread emails under that label.

All in all, I was disconnected from everything Substack. I rarely visited the platform, rarely opened the label where all the Substack emails and newsletters reside, and rarely Substack-ed. Then I thought I’d come back to the platform since I’m currently having my semester break at my uni.

I unknowingly spammed the inboxes by sending three posts in two days and two posts in 24 hours.

The posts:

[Bluesky is Building a Payment Platform and Why Should We Care]
[This Drug (Medicine) Has Been Named the 2024 Breakthrough of the Year]
[Why You Should Learn the Art of Storytelling and Marketing To Shine as a Writer]

Those three articles aren’t even remotely related to any niche. While the first post is about social media and technology, the second one is about science and scientific development. The third jumps distinctly to the topic of writing and marketing. These three posts will separately suit in three different Substacks.

And that’s my biggest mistake: I didn’t inform my readers beforehand about this (kind of) fundamental change that’s coming to this publication. Some time ago, I informed y’all, through this post, why I’m deciding to move to Substack as my primary writing platform. Away from my current Medium. If you want to know more, or the exact reasons behind the same, please read the linked post.

But, I’m a silly teenager. At the time of writing this post, I’m an 18-year-old, who’s pursuing his undergrad from a law school. That’s no less than a trauma in itself. (Just kidding. Only during assignment submission & exam times are hell.)

So here’s the fundamental step: clearing the scope of this publication. It’s wide, and I want to talk—in a heartfelt manner, through a heartfelt medium—about some shares of life and more that capture my interests.

I have updated the same on the About page of my publication. But unfortunately, I missed sending an email.

Here’s from my About page:

White Space is the result of a teenager documenting how he’s exploring and discovering things in life. You’ll read on a variety of topics including, but not limited to:

• articles that help you become a better “digital-first writer.”
  read: What being an editor for 2+ years has taught me about writing

• personal life, sneak peek into law school (sometimes), and anything that’s on my mind.
  read: Why am I moving to Substack despite being disappointed with the platform

• contemporary ‘digital’ writing, critique pieces, and commentary.
  read: Desk Notes #1: Commentary on Contemporary Writing

• technology, scientific development, media and commentary on the latest in tech.
  read: Bluesky is Building a Payment Platform and Why Should We Care

I know this change will bring some more subscriptions to an end. Maybe a pledge or so too. I feel sad whenever I see someone unsubscribing. Wouldn’t it hurt almost every other writer to see their subscribers part ways? But, ultimately, it’s happening for a bigger good. The last thing I want to do through my writings and works is to not add any value to my reader’s life. I’d want—eternally want—my readers to spend their time where they get value.

It’s okay to part ways. It’s okay to leave. The thing that matters the most is that we had a good time together. We were nice all this while. We spent a portion of our priceless lives together. Through reading and writing.

I’m happy. I’m content.

This is the clarifying email for anyone whom I have disturbed over this weekend. I’m sorry to ruin it. If you still want to read my work, thank you so much. You’re the best! But in case, this publication has become something that’s not quite your type (or vibe? What do they say?), then please unsubscribe. No hard feelings. You’re the best as well :)

Signing off!

Subscribe now

I wrote my first article on Medium on July 8, 2021. With 2024 coming to an end, it’s been quite a long time since I’m writing online for someone who’s just 18 years of age.

I have always admired people who craft beautiful stories. Have you noticed those gregarious people who can engage you, make you listen to them to the end, and even make you crave more when you met them just a minute ago for the first time? I have.

They fascinate me. They make me realise the true power of storytelling. I don’t think there’s a better way to make a stranger comfortable and want to listen to you.

The same goes for writing. There can always be a better, more engaging way of communicating through screens in written form, aka writing digitally.

Writing for a digital-first audience is how I define digital writing. With a growing internet connection and plummeting physical book sales around the globe, there hasn’t been a better time to write for and cater to a digital-first reader.

But there’s a bigger problem lurking at us, the writers, than you can see at first…

The big problem

I will come straight to the point: the decreased attention span and an ongoing, fierce battle for the same.

There is one example that I love to give to illustrate my point. Imagine the war by thinking of it on a scale so huge that you cannot escape it. “Tell me, Vritant,” asked my friend once who was probably getting bored with me but suddenly his curiosity piqued.

Wherever you can find an ad being shown to you is a battleground where invisible components are fighting behind that billboard or your phone screen for your attention.

The battle is intense out there and with written words, another layer of boredom presents as a problem in front of us.

Challenges in front of us

I was once reading a travel story on Medium when suddenly the writer became stuck on how she didn’t like a certain cuisine in this picturesque country she was visiting.

I kept waiting for her to move on from this point. I scrolled a little, jumping a couple of paragraphs. Despite that, it was the same topic. I skimmed through another couple of paragraphs, but I only met with more disappointment.

I gave up on that story. And that’s a challenge we contemporary writers need to pay heed to.

We are writing for an audience that doesn’t think twice before clicking that back arrow, left swipe, or press that cross button. It’s unlike the previous generation of readers who gave the book another chapter’s worth of time to see if it’s worth the read.

There’s this scarcity and fierce competition whose perfect — and dare I say the only — solution exists as storytelling and marketing.

Storytelling and Marketing

Storytelling helps readers be inquisitive throughout the story and want to read more after it ends. Marketing, on the other hand, enables you to attract eyeballs in this attention-deficit economy. Can you notice a chicken-and-egg type of situation here?

The problem is that without efficiently marketing yourself, there’s no use in crafting a beautiful story because no one’s coming to read it. And if you market well, but your story doesn’t stand up to the promise, the reader won’t read it till the end — like I left reading that travel story in between.

So it all boils down to understanding the basics of how the current environment is playing out: Catch eyeballs, deliver value. People want to read human stories, and not the work of some LLM or chatbot. They don’t want to read perfection; they want to read humanity’s uniqueness. And people have communicated uniqueness through stories since time immemorial.

As Fei-Fei Li, co-director at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence likes to put it: “Artificial intelligence is not a substitute for human intelligence; it is a tool to amplify human creativity and ingenuity.”

Closing thoughts

Storytelling is not just for fiction writers, and marketing is not just for marketers. Once you get into this mindset and start incorporating best practices from around the fields, you will shine as a writer.

The basics never change. AI’s advent and rise to popularity have definitely made many writers question their very existence, but at the same time, we need to understand where our forte lies: in being HUMAN. We tell stories. We market ourselves in a creative, engaging yet valuable way.

Going into the depths of thinking, we find that storytelling and marketing solve all the problems we encounter throughout the article. From not getting readers to AI making writers obsolete. From not getting readers to read until the end of the story to how to stand out in the intense competition for attention.

The answer lies in narrating an engaging story and marketing it in a human, value-oriented way.

If you’re new to Medium, this checklist of top publications accepting new writers is a MUST-HAVE.

Get yours for FREE here.

This newsletter issue is linked to a scientific development that caught my fancy, so I decided to write a newsletter issue on it.

I hope you’ll find it interesting. Don’t proceed if science dreads you. Close this email/article ASAP.

Onto the issue now.

News

Lenacapavir, an innovative injectable drug developed by Gilead Sciences, has recently been recognized as the 2024 Breakthrough of the Year by Science magazine. This recognition underscores its potential to significantly change the landscape of HIV prevention and treatment.

Call it a coincidence if you may, but this news comes a day after I was reading a book column about COVID-19. Isn’t it surprising that a pandemic is enough miles in the past that books have been written on the subject?

I was reading one of those books late one night and went to sleep. The next day, a column appeared in the middle of the newspaper: it was about the Breakthrough Drug of the Year by Science magazine. My curiosity peaked as I was reading about medicine the previous night only.

It was a promised 6-month cure for HIV. A shot with almost 100% accuracy, the words in the newspaper meant. That means two shots a year can cure a disease that affects more than 1,000,000 people each year.

That’s a real breakthrough!

Here’s some more detail about this [directly from the source: Science magazine’s website]:

Despite decades of progress, HIV still infects more than 1 million people a year, and a vaccine remains stubbornly out of reach. But this year the world got a glimpse of what might be the next best thing: an injectable drug that protects people for 6 months with each shot.

A large efficacy trial in African adolescent girls and young women reported in June that these shots reduced HIV infections to zero — an astonishing 100% efficacy. Any doubts about the finding disappeared 3 months later when a similar trial, conducted across four continents, reported 99.9% efficacy in gender diverse people who have sex with men.

Many HIV/AIDS researchers are now hopeful that the drug, lenacapavir, will powerfully drive down global infection rates when used as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). “It has the potential, if we can do it right, which means going big and getting it out there,” says Linda-Gail Bekker, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Cape Town who led one of the two efficacy trials for the drug’s maker, Gilead Sciences.

But that’s not the only reason Science has named lenacapavir its 2024 Breakthrough of the Year. The off-the-charts success of the drug as PrEP sprang from a basic research advance: a new understanding of the structure and function of HIV’s capsid protein, which lenacapavir targets. Many other viruses have their own capsid proteins, which form a shell around their genetic material, so this drug’s triumph raises the exciting prospect that similar capsid inhibitors could fight other viral diseases.

Great strides have been made in HIV treatments since the bad old days, when an infection meant horrific wasting, a decimated immune system leading to other rampant infections, and an early death. In 1996, researchers showed that powerful cocktails of drugs could fully suppress HIV and stave off development of AIDS — Science’s breakthrough that year. Current antiviral drugs are even better, allowing millions to live normal life spans with a chronic but manageable disease. Treated people whose virus is suppressed also rarely infect others, a discovery that led Science to declare “treatment as prevention” the 2011 Breakthrough of the Year. As more people around the world gained access to the drugs, new global infections plummeted from 2.1 million in 2011 to 1.3 million last year.

In my limited readings and research for satiating my curiosity and writing this article, I came across widely optimistic applause this news is getting from scientists and researchers.

Apart from Lenacapavir being hailed as a significant breakthrough in HIV prevention, the success of this drug could pave the way for curing other viral diseases by leveraging the understanding of capsid proteins in various viruses.

In a report published by WHO, they hailed and welcomed this recent development.

WHO welcomes the latest findings from the PURPOSE-2 trial on long-acting injectable lenacapavir (LEN) for HIV prevention. […]

LEN, an HIV-1 capsid inhibitor delivered by subcutaneous injection twice a year, was shown to be highly effective in preventing HIV among cisgender men, transgender men, transgender women, and gender non-binary individuals who have sex with partners assigned male at birth.LEN, an HIV-1 capsid inhibitor delivered by subcutaneous injection twice a year, was shown to be highly effective in preventing HIV among cisgender men, transgender men, transgender women, and gender non-binary individuals who have sex with partners assigned male at birth. […]

The PURPOSE 2 trial reported a 96% reduction in the risk of acquiring HIV among study participants, with 99.9% of individuals using LEN not acquiring HIV. Only two new HIV cases were recorded among 2180 participants receiving LEN twice-yearly, compared to nine new cases among the 1087 participants receiving daily oral TDF/FTC (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine). Lenacapavir demonstrated a 96% reduction in HIV incidence compared to background HIV incidence (2.37 per 100 person-years) and was 89% more effective than daily oral TDF/FTC in preventing HIV acquisition. Both LEN and daily oral TDF/FTC were well tolerated, with no significant or new safety concerns identified. […]

Together, the results from PURPOSE 1 and PURPOSE 2 provide compelling evidence for the potential of LEN to transform HIV prevention globally, across diverse populations. It is important to note that oral PrEP is safe and effective in preventing HIV when taken as indicated.

Bluesky is the new kid in the town, or rather, I should say a rising star. It’s the platform that everyone suddenly started talking about.

But it was a social media app, right? Right? So why is it now building a payment platform? Is X too small a competitor that it wants to go head-to-head with Stripe and PayPal?

I re-discovered Bluesky after reading a story about it on Medium a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, hey now it IS something. I had used its app when it first came out. It was laggy, and honestly, it sucked.

I installed it as fast as I could just after creating an account and scrolling my home feed for a minute. I found no good reason to use it. I better use X, I thought.

Fast forward to the present day, Bluesky is making waves everywhere. From inviting scholars to share their academic writing to advertisers, and promising a better reach and return on their investments compared to other apps, this decentralised social media is doing everything.

Bluesky’s user base is on an exponential rise right now. On the best days, they are adding north of 1 million users in a single day. That’s a lot of people flocking onto Bluesky as if it were some gold rush.

A huge reason behind that is Elon Musk and what he’s doing at X, but still, it’s amazing how they have managed to grow at this pace almost organically. I mean, they don’t have a case like that of Threads where Mark is poking billions of accounts on Instagram to join Threads and yet facing a slowdown in user growth stats.

So why tap into payments with such a load already?

Building the best social network is a full-time job in itself. Most companies fail in the execution, and it’s more likely than ever with an exponential number of new accounts.

Starting from user verification to managing and removing explicit and bots account respectively, we are just scratching the surface. Branded as a decentralised social media that’s built upon the AT Protocol, there’s still a long way to go in making it a mainstream social media app.

So why get involved with payments, you ask?

In an interview with Buffer, Bluesky’s COO Rose Wang said that they are prioritising building their own payment platform.

An excerpt from the interview featured in The Verge notes:

“Where we want monetization to go is to align our incentives with our users, creators and developers. And so as they’re making more money, we should be making money, but if they’re not making money, we shouldn’t be making money. And so our goal is: let’s build a payment system so that it enables these payments to work on the app and across other apps on the ecosystem much easier. And then we’ll increase the volume of those transactions, and the creators and folks take home most of it, and we just take a percentage of the transaction fee.”

It sounds somewhat like Stripe and PayPal, doesn’t it? We make money when the creator makes money, and we take a teeny-tiny part of that as a form of transaction fee.

Users are clearly having a tough time understanding what the company wants to focus on in the near future.

One user commented: “I’m not really sure I like that development but to be honest Bluesky feels way too much like Twitter used to, so I really don’t know if I ever want to log into Bluesky ever again.” while another one talked about how they feel that Bluesky is giving them a vibe that it will shortly end up like X and Instagram.

On the other hand, some users are very enthusiastic and can’t wait to see how these developments turn out.

Legowerewolf titled account writes in the comment section of The Verge article: “Hm. It’ll be interesting to see how monetization and decentralization work together. I don’t think there’s a decentralized way to do money without reaching for cryptocurrencies, which many are (understandably) leery of.”

Let’s see how of if Bluesky will be able to pull off this payment platform integration and subscription model introduction to their app successfully.

It’s a show that we will all witness in 2025 after they showed phenomenal growth in user base in 2024.

Why should we care?

Monetising is as important for a creator as it is for the platform. If I am providing something of value, which I have created with blood, sweat, and tears, I’d want to get compensated for that.

Platforms know this very well. That’s why they want to integrate a seamless experience to reward you for providing value in their ecosystem. The best way to do that is to make it easier to facilitate transactions. It’s a win-win if you observe.

We as users get a revenue share, and they keep a minority stake (like YouTube), or charge a subscription fee (like X), or a combination of both. If Bluesky is able to add a payment processor to the mix, it could very well unlock a potential third (and most lucrative) income source.

It can outsource the payment technology to other companies too, just like Amazon did with AWS. What started with managing its own digital infrastructure is now the biggest bottom-line driver for their business.

There is a huge shift that’s happening in the social media space. More and more people are actively deciding which social media app they want to be on. They’re weighing the pros and cons. Creators are doing exactly the same, too.

If a social media platform, that’s built on an open protocol, that promises to not become an echo chamber and give you freedom, is booming at an unprecedented pace, we as writers and creatives need to pay heed.

Should we write on it? Should we market and build for the platform? — these are some valuable questions to ask at this point in time. And that’s precisely why we should care.

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