As the header says, India's Supreme Court takes a broad pro-choice view on abortion: The law already permitted it, but a lower court took an unduly restrictive view, which was overturned on appeal. (Hopefully, this ruling will also help develop some medical tourism business from the US - there are hospitals with first-world standards of care in the major cities which can do almost any procedure at a small fraction of western medical costs.)

A bunch of hicks from rural Western India pull off an elaborate online betting scam on Russian punters betting on cricket matches: Vaguely reminds of the movie The Sting (1973): The common theme is that it's a fake betting racket involving advance/line feeds and live commentary, and the mobster(s)/bad guy(s) get conned in a reversal of roles. In the Indian/Russian case, they even had live Youtube feeds from a fake live cricket match held in a field somewhere, complete with the sweaters/jerseys of real cricket teams. It's just too damn funny.

India doesn't have a real Spring and Autumn - only Summer, Monsoon and Winter in most places. Where I live, a relatively pleasant dry season happens in Jan/Feb, summer runs from about March to September, and the Monsoon from October to December (it approximates to Pleasant; Damn Hot/ Humid; and Wet; respectively). Summer, while unpleasant, does offer a lot of colourful tropical flora and of course, the main attraction: the Mango season, which begins in April and ends about September. The varieties that have shown up here so far: Alphonso (Early season, orange flesh, fibreless, excellent bouquet and texture). Himayat (Early- to mid-season, straw-yellow flesh, buttery, fibreless, distinct earthy/pungent flavour). Sendura/Sindoora (Early-season, orange flesh, small fruit, smooth texture, distinct flavour. Hybrid of a cultivar Senorita from the Philippines with older Indian cultivars). Banganapalli (The sweetest peninsular Indian cultivar, and also the highest volume cultivar in the world. Yellow flesh, juicy, intensely sweet, moderately large fruit which is used as a table mango or pulped commercially for juice. Unripe green ones are usable for pickles and condiments.) Jawahar (Modern hybrid of several Northern and Southern cultivars, large fruit, firm yellow/orange flesh, exclusively used as a table mango, keeps for weeks without spoiling at room temperature. Can only be consumed when fully ripe, unripe fruit tend to be tart.) There are numerous others that will show up as the season progresses, but for now, the best value for me is the Sendura/Sindoora/Senorita, followed by Banganapalli. By end-May/early-June, several mid-season cultivars will show up, including the prized Malgova, a large green fruit with buttery straw-yellow flesh, intensely sweet with a distinct earthy, pungent flavour. Malgova is not produced commercially in large quantities these days, because it is a shy bearer and bears fruit only in alternate years, hence it has been supplanted by various other cultivars that are prolific bearers and bear fruit every year. I do have a tree that produces about ~50-100 fruits in a good year, but it's shy and choosy. It needs lots of bees and insects during the previous monsoon for pollination, a brief spell of summer rain, followed by a lot of sunshine and hot weather to concentrate the sap before picking. Climate Change and changing consumer preferences may extinct the Malgova within a few decades, after a long run estimated at ~1200-1500 years since it was first bred and cultivated. The trees will be around, but the fruits may not make it to market - it will survive purely as an heirloom variety, like most of the 4000-odd mango cultivars in the subcontinent (only about 50-100 are commercially cultivated at scale). Edit: The best weather for growing mangoes in the US is in FL, TX and SoCal. Most varieties can't tolerate ground frost, though some Northern Indian varieties have been bred for frost-resistance.

Survey data on Vaccine hesitancy in my part of the world: Some ~88% are vaccine-accepting (not all of those are fully vaxxed) and ~12% are vaccine-hesitant. Of those fully unvaxxed, ~80% believe they'll never catch Covid (sounds familiar?). Some of the remaining 20% are probably unvaxxed due to logistics, inconvenience or peer pressure - they'll probably get vaxxed if it were more convenient and were vaxxed in groups (aka sheeple). On the whole we're doing OK, but it will still take some work to get the message across to the ~12%. Another Covid wave would help in convincing some of the fence-sitters.

He was uninsured, had a suspended license, the car was unregistered, and he didn't know how to drive stick. But he still went ahead and drove it, and lost control at low speeds. He survived, but the car is wrecked. It sounds a lot like our regular AntiVa crowd. Edit: Correction - he's not an IT dude, but rather seems to be a manager of his dad's hotel properties and franchises, which include a Hilton in Boca Raton, FL. It seems to be his dad's $700k that he blew.

As the title states, Cecelia Scurlock, the rabid Anti-vaxxer who had a change of heart about vaccination just before being intubated on Feb 11th, has finally croaked. Vaxman, could you please update her profile?

As the title says: She's fully vaxxed and double-boosted, so it will only be a minor nuisance - probably a 3-4 day wonder, like my breakthrough Omicron infection a few months ago. She's asymptomatic for now, and it will probably remain that way through the week. Just hydrating with plain water or orange juice should be sufficient to see it off.