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Morning Wrap: Muhammed Cartoons, Making LGBT 'Normal', Industrial Output...

Morning News Wrap: Muhammed Cartoons, Making LGBT 'Normal', Industrial Output
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The Morning Wrap is Huffpost India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers.

Main News

In its defiant commitment to irreverence, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo put out the latest issue of their publication with a cartoon on the cover of a crying Prophet Muhammed, in a white turban and holding a sign that reads "Je suis Charlie" under the words: "All is forgiven".

Hackers claiming to represent the Islamic State militants hacked the Twitter and YouTube sites of the military’s U.S. Central Command on Monday. The Pentagon swiftly suspended the sites and clarified that no classified material was accessed. The Central Command Twitter site was filled with threats that said “American soldiers, we are coming, watch your back.”

Delhi will go in for elections on February 7 said Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath, on Monday. This promises to be the most significant test of BJP’s popularity and of whether the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) may make a comeback. While the AAP has declared candidates for all seats and the Congress has come up with its first list of 24, the BJP is yet to deliberate on even a tentative list.

The BJP predilection for “corrective” change has hit a new low after Goa’s Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Ramesh Tawadkar likened LGBT youth to alcoholics and in need of treatment.

“We will make them (LGBT youth) normal. We will have a centre for them. Like Alcoholic Anonymous centres, we will have centres. We will train them and give them medicines too,” he said.

The government on Monday informed the Supreme Court of its decision to accept the Election Commission's recommendation to allow Non-Resident Indians to vote from abroad through e-postal ballots or proxy voting. The government’s decision to allow NRIs to vote could set the stage for expatriates to emerge as a decisive force in the country’s electoral politics.

“Boyhood” has won the Golden Globe for best picture, drama. The movie, directed by Richard Linklater, was filmed over 12 years, a much-acclaimed feat that provides a unique perspective on the evolution of a family. Julianne Moore gets Best Actress Drama for 'Still Alice'. The Grand Budapest Hotel directed by Wes Anderson won the best picture for a musical, comedy or film.

Eddie Redmayne wins award for best actor, movie drama, for 'The Theory of Everything.'

Industrial output improved and retail inflation rose slower than from a year ago according to government data released on Monday. This aided by a report by Goldman Sachs that oil prices would go down further, should further strengthen government’s pleas to the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rates and thereby boost consumer spending.

S Kiran Kumar will head the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and will take over from K S Radhakrishnan. Kumar started his ISRO career with the Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad and played a crucial role in developing image sensors for Bhaskara, India's first remote sensing satellite launched in 1979.

Off The Front Page

Union Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said in a television interview that the crew from the Pakistani vessel that exploded off the Gujarat coast may have taken cyanide before setting their ship on fire to destroy evidence about their intentions.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has summoned former railway minister and second-in-command in the Trinamool Congress, Mukul Roy to question him in connection with the multi-crore Saradha scam. The probe has already seen a state minister, two MPs and a party vice-president behind bars while others are being grilled by central agencies.

The Indian Expressfinds Kumar Pathmanathan, a former LTTE leader, and wanted in the Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination case, hale and firmly rooted in Jaffna. Barely 24 hours ago, several reports suggested he’d fled Sri Lanka after the new government.

The army school in Peshawar that was attacked by Taliban militants opened for a new term along with several other schools, that had closed for an extended winterbreak in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The Business Standard reports that Kalanithi Maran, majority owner of low-cost air carrier SpiceJet, is likely to sell some stake this week to improve the beleaguered airlines’ finances. Fellow low-cost carrier SpiceJet, also assailed by losses is likely to lay off about 1,000 employees in the next few weeks to rein in costs. SpiceJet’s overall staff count is about 5,000.

The Narendra Modi government’s move to allow dual use of social and commercial infrastructure in non-processing areas of special economic zones (SEZs) will significantly benefit Adani Ports and SEZ Ltd (ADSEZ), which already has an operational SEZ at Mundra and a large area spread over 15,000 hectares with a notified area of 6,456 hectares.

Baba Ramdev's is in great physical as well as fiscal shape. Patanjali Ayurved, a that he is closely associated with, registered a turnover of about Rs 1,200 crore, up from about Rs 850 crore a year earlier and Rs 450 crore in fiscal 2012. In the current fiscal, Patanjali is expected to clock a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore, according to Aditya Pittie, CEO, Pittie Group and puts it in the same league as FMCG majors Emami and Marico.

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has denied a clearance certificate to the Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh's controversial movie, four days before it was scheduled to be released in the country. Sources in the CBFC said that the examining committee members took exception to Ram Rahim Singh depicting himself as god in the film.

A new 'talking' smartphone app humiliates you into counting calories and losing weight through hideous ads and tweets. As users set up Carrot Hunger app, it calls them a 'meat bag' and 'carcass' in order to shame them into doing more to lose weight. When users enter more personal information such as weight, height, and gender, Carrot calibrates its insults accordingly.

Opinion

An editorial in Mintwarns that incumbent president Sirisena’s election campaign rhetoric “need not match his actions.” Though he may have painted a foreboding image of China’s involvement in Sri Lanka, the quality and quantity of Chinese investment is too significant for Sirisena to suddenly veer from China towards India.

Sitaram Yechury, in the Hindustan Times, argues that the halcyon days of ancient India’s intellectual development suffered due to the emergence of Brahmanism. “Did not our scientific growth stagnate after the Brahmanical caste hierarchical order re-triumphed over Buddhism, denying access of learning and knowledge to the vast majority of our people?” he asks.

In an address at the Infosys Science Foundation in Kolkata, Amartya Sen gives a nuanced perspective on the intellectual give-and-take that existed between Greece, Bablyonia, China, India and its role in India’s mathematical “golden age” in the 1st century.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.