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The Morning Wrap: Centre Issues Zika Guidelines; Man Drops 'B' Word At IGI Airport, Delays Flight

The Morning Wrap: Centre Issues Zika Guidelines; Man Drops 'B' Word At IGI Airport, Delays Flight
HuffPost Staff

The Morning Wrap is HuffPost India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers. Subscribe here to receive it in your inbox each weekday morning.

Essential HuffPost

A day after WHO declared emergency over the “explosive” spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus, the Centre issued detailed guidelines for combating the disease, including a travel advisory that asks pregnant women to either defer or cancel their travel to the affected areas.

The LGBTQ community let out a collective sigh of relief after the country's highest court agreed to reopen the contentious debate on Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises homosexuality.

Uber is reportedly piloting a new way to check the quality of its drivers — by monitoring their driving, speed and distractedness via their smartphones, using the devices’ geolocation information, accelerometers and gyrometers (which reveal whether a person is, for example, moving their phone around while driving).

A day after women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi courted controversy over reportedly proposing mandatory sex determination of a foetus, her ministry completely denied the reports. “Compulsory determination of foetal sex is an idea given by some stakeholders,” it said in a statement.

French schools changed their lesson plans to combat terrorism. Teachers are being trained to encourage discussions about current events that promote inclusion and respect for diverse opinions.“School needs to be the place where we can prevent in real time and begin to detect signs of radicalization,” said France's education minister.

Main News

The impasse over government formation in J&K continued with PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti making it clear that she was still awaiting a grand gesture from the alliance partner BJP. “We don’t need assurances
 we want a new atmosphere, new measures to give some fillip to the government and fill the void,” she said, after she met the Governor.

The Islamic State threatened to “expand to Kashmir to fight the cow-worshipping Hindus and the apostates from factions allied to the idol-worshippers of Pakistan, such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba”, its in-house magazine Dabiq reported.

A week after the visit of President Francois Hollande, French Ambassador Francois Richier said the price and the terms of delivery on the Rafale aircraft deal will be better than those negotiated by the previous UPA government, and the terms “should take no more than four weeks”.

Ruling out scrapping reservation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a veiled attack on Congress saying a “campaign of lies” has been let loose on the issue of Dalits under a “deliberate conspiracy” to disintegrate the country.

Actor Anupam Kher said Pakistani authorities denied him a visa to attend a literature festival, a decision that he suggested may have been prompted by his stand on the issue of Kashmiri Pandits and his support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Off The Front Page

Be careful of the 'B' word on a flight. The word “bomb” was carelessly uttered by a man exasperated with the multiple security checks at IGI airport. But it triggered a security alert that ended up in his detention and a thorough combing of the aircraft which took off about 3 hours late.

Here’s a beggar with a heart of gold. A 68-year-old beggar, famed for donating alms to encourage girls' education, presented 10 girls from poor families with a pair of gold earrings each, all bought from the money he received by begging outside temples in Mehsana, Gujarat.

Senior IPS officer Archana Ramasundram was appointed Director General of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the first woman to head a paramilitary force. The SSB is entrusted with guarding the country's frontiers with Nepal and Bhutan.

Over four years ago, a youth from Gorakhpur befriended a 60-year-old woman in California on social media. Gradually, they developed a mother-son bond so strong that when the boy was getting married, she came all the way to his village carrying boxes of jewellery for her “bahu”.

The Indira Gandhi Zoological Park in Visakhapatnam that recently got a sanction of $6 million by the World Bank, has revived captive breeding of white tigers after a gap of nine years. The zoo has two male and three female white tigers and a pair of lions.

Opinion

This US presidential election is the most interesting in recent times, writes Seema Sirohi in The Economic Times. “There is deep ferment at the grassroots, a near complete rejection of the party establishment and the rise of outsider candidates. The “known unknowns” — to use Donald Rumsfeld’s memorable words — are deliciously off the charts. Nothing, so far, has gone according to plan.”

Kashmir today is outwardly at peace, but violence hovers. Pakistan’s appeal and that of separatists is on the ebb, but Kashmiriyat is now only a sad memory. Decentralisation, transparency and accountability are crucial to turn things around, writes Wajahat Habibullah in The Hindu. “India is indeed seen as a land of opportunity, but is also seen by Kashmiris as a Hindu nation. And given the State’s experience with economic packages, the answer can hardly lie in guarantees of implementation of government-administered programmes.”

Amid raging debates on gender equality in India, the Delhi high court ruled that the eldest woman member can be a ‘Karta’ — the manager of a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF). The landmark ruling will help women break another glass ceiling as traditionally only men used to be the ‘Karta’ of an HUF, says an editorial in the Hindustan Times.

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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.