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Essential HuffPost
A third woman, who is a foreign national, has alleged that she was sexually harassed when she was 19 years old by RK Pachauri while she was working as his secretary in 2008. The woman, who publicly released her statement through her lawyers, alleged that when she summoned the courage to tell Pachauri to maintain professional relations with her four months into her job with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), he abruptly terminated her one-year contract.
A youth-based portal named 101 India has opened up a very raw, realistic side to the lives of the LGBTQ Indians, with their series of stories featuring people 'coming out' to their friends and family. The stories featured on the website highlight their — as well as their families' — fears of being treated as outcasts in a society that is still largely conservative and unwilling to accept alternative sexuality as 'normal'.
In a heartwarming story, a popular restaurant in Kochi has started feeding the poor with the help of a 420 litre fridge placed outside. People who have extra food pack it and place it for the poor, and the underprivileged people, who cannot afford to buy food, simply come and pick it up. Minu Pauline, the owner of the restaurant said that the fridge has never been empty so far, and all the food is being picked up immediately.
When Indian cricketer Virat Kohli was playing fabulously for India on Thursday evening against West Indies in the World T20 semifinals, Twitter went overboard with his praise, as well as cheeky comments about India's almost-assured win. But when India lost the match, all the tweets and the snarky remarks gained a different (and kind of pathetic) tone all together. As they say, it's just a matter of perspective.
Main News
An under-construction flyover collapsed in a busy north Kolkata neighbourhood Thursday afternoon, claiming at least 24 lives. Army and other emergency workers battled through the night to rescue dozens of people still trapped under the debris. Around 250 metres of the under-construction 2.2 kilometre-long Vivekananda Road flyover crashed onto dense traffic around 12.30 pm, near one of Kolkata's most important business districts, Burrabazar.
The Pakistani Joint Investigating Team (JIT) probing the Pathankot attack strike in India on examined 13 witnesses, including former Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Salwinder Singh. India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) handed over more documents, including DNA reports and call details of the four terrorists killed in the attack, for the JIT's perusal.
Two Indian student scientists who work with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) project that recently proved the existence of gravitational waves envisaged by Albert Einstein a century ago, met Prime Minister Narenda Modi in Washington with other senior scientists from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that signed an agreement with the Indian Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Science and Technology, to set up an observatory in India. The union cabinet had recently approved ₹1,200 crore for the project, and this will be the third LIGO observatory, and the first one outside the US.
Off The Front Page
Indian skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni cheekily dodged embarrassing question about his retirement after India lost against West Indies in the World T20 semi finals. Dhoni, who was confident and happy even after the loss, asked the Australian reporter who had asked him about his retirement from cricket to the podium, made him sit down and enquired if the reporter thought he was unfit. When the journalist replied no, Dhoni said, tartly, "You have answered the question."
Bollywood actor Hrithik Roshan, who was caught in a controversy because of his tweet that said he'd rather date the Pope than the alleged actress he was linked up with, has now come up with a hilarious defence. According to reports, Roshan's lawyers have claimed that when he said 'Pope', he didn't refer to the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church, but a freshwater fish found in Europe which also bears the same name.
A piece of news that will definitely put Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan on the global map, The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon played the Dera Sacha Sauda chief's song 'Love Charger' on his show, from his album Highway Love Charger. But there's a catch. Unfortunately, it was played in a segment called 'Do Not Play', which features the worst of music from around the world. What's worse? It topped the list.
Opinion
There has been little done by either the influential pharmaceutical industry or the government to improve the quality of medicines sold in less-regulated markets like India, says Dinesh S Thakur in his column in The Hindu. "The effects of substandard medicines and poor drug regulations that lead to their sale are similar to the effects of climate change. They are difficult to quantify and sometimes hard to prove but this is certainly not a mere academic issue. Apart from a failure to cure diseases, the effects of such substandard drugs include growing antibiotic resistance and the birth of deathly superbugs. The long-term effects will be devastating to public health, especially to the poor and vulnerable," he writes.
Agriculture is a business where the farmers suffer rules that other businessmen never encounter, writes Harish Damodaran, in The Indian Express. "The last law exclusive to agriculture in India is that it is the only business where introduction of new technology is a matter of controversy. It happened with dwarf wheat varieties and cross-bred cows in the 1960s and 1970s, and we are currently witnessing it in genetically modified (GM) crops. Any objective analysis would show that these technologies helped India become self-sufficient — even a net exporter — in foodgrains, milk and cotton, resulting in higher farm incomes as well. Yet, far from recognising this, we believe the future lies in going back to paramparagat krishi and desi gaai," he says.
The Supreme Court has now stepped in to frame a law that would offer protection against harassment from police or hospitals to the good samaritans who extend a helping hand to victims of road accidents, says an editorial in The Telegraph. "The indifference of politicians to such a critical matter is symptomatic of the erosion of humane values within modern societies. It is pertinent to mention that a crowd had gathered to peer at the dying woman and her injured companion after their assaulters had thrown them off a bus in Delhi in 2012. Legal intervention is not enough to bring about a change in mindset. Education and heightened awareness have to work in tandem with the law to make a difference," it says.
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