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Essential HuffPost
Delhi Police chief BS Bassi, who is set to retire this month, is no more in the running to be a commissioner at the Central Information Commission. “Doesn't bother me at all,” Bassi was quoted saying. During the recent standoff in JNU, he strongly backed the Modi government's stand on the issue and faced much criticism for it.
In a diktat, the head of Suraj village in Narendra Modi’s native district Mehsana in Gujarat has banned unmarried women from using mobile phones, even as the country’s prime minister continues to promote his ‘Digital India’ drive.
If you are planning to place an order for the world's cheapest smartphone, at ₹251, you should reconsider it. The website of the company, which is the sole interface for purchasing the phone, has abysmal security and compromises user data,including the shipping address.
In Mumbai, considered one of the safest cities in the country, two children under 12 years of age get sexually abused every day. Data collected from the police and four hospitals authorised under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) to treat such cases, revealed the dismal state of affairs.
Pakistani authorities have lodged an FIR into the Pathankot terror attack case, officials said, after weeks of probe into the assault that led to the postponement of Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks. The FIR was needed to start police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected.
Main News
The army was deployed in eight districts of Haryana, with curfew and shoot-at-sight orders imposed in two of them, after protests by the Jat community for quotas in jobs and education turned violent, leaving three people dead and dozens injured.
Harper Lee, who wrote one of America's most loved literary classics, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, and surprised readers with a second book about racial injustice in the US South after living a largely reclusive life for decades, died at the age of 89.
Congress dissident leader Kalikho Pul was sworn in as the ninth chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh soon after President’s Rule was formally lifted from the state. The swearing-in after 10pm coincided with the 30th Statehood Day of the state bordering China.
Rural distress seems to be taking a toll on jobs with all religious groups registering an increase in unemployment, according to the latest edition of a biennial survey conducted by the Ministry of Statistics. Unemployment rate is 1.7 per cent in rural and 3.4 per cent in urban areas.
Indian Space Research Organisation’s bid to acquire the capability to launch heavier satellites into orbit received a boost with the successful hotbed test of the cryogenic engine for the upper stage of the GSLV Mark 3 rocket.
Off The Front Page
Vigyan Gadodia’s romance with rural India began in 2005 when he, as head of the micro-finance vertical of YES Bank, began exploring opportunities in villages. In 2012, this biochemical engineer from IIT-Delhi set up a 1.72 hectare dairy farm in a village near Jaipur, to sell fresh cow milk and prove that dairy farming was a viable business proposition.
Shouting "I am Prithviraj Chauhan", Mahavir, armed with a sword and pistol, burst into a wedding venue in UP and tried to carry away the bride by force. But since he was not the historical Rajput warrior he believed he was, locals beat him up and the police filed an FIR against him.
A dog was allegedly sexually assaulted by a man who is believed to be from Kerala, with the incident coming to light after a video of the act surfaced on WhatsApp, an animal rights organisation claimed. The Humane Society International India has offered a reward of up to Rs 1 lakh for information leading to the conviction of the person responsible for the assault.
A fortnight after five Jet Airways flight attendants were benched for aiding an impromptu Sonu Nigam concert inflight, the country’s aviation regulator is now probing a complaint against Indigo Airlines for promoting a movie.
The Organization for Rare Diseases India is holding a 7km race in Bengaluru to commemorate Rare Disease Day and draw attention to the needs of patients with rare diseases. The 7km run will be flagged off on February 28.
Opinion
Is India so weak that it is threatened by a handful of twenty-somethings shouting bharat ki barbaadi at a dhaba in one corner of a very large campus, asks Shivam Vij in HuffPost India. “From 9 February onwards, the government and its supporters have been busy proving them right, bringing India global infamy, as a place where intolerance and vigilantism are rising.”
A clutch of films in the past year has tried to break the mould in more ways than one even as the shock value associated with homosexuality refuses to go, writes Namrata Joshi in The Hindu. Karan Johar says the world of arts is a liberal zone but society is still not. We are stuck with moralities and censorship. People still associate shock value with homosexuality. “We filmmakers will keep pushing the envelope,” he says. The key is whether it will get delivered in the right size and shape.
The death of US Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia has created a vacancy in an institution that is truly the US’ ubergovernment, when it comes to delivering the final verdict on social policy. That leaves plenty of room for an appointment with speculation. Among the nominee names that have been noted is 48-year-old appeals court judge Indian-American Srikanth Srinivasan. He’s a likely candidate, but the very reasons that qualify him could also make him unlikely, writes Anirudh Bhattacharyya in the Hindustan Times.
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