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Essential HuffPost
Bollywood actor Anupam Kher recently announced that he is set to make a film on the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. Reportedly, Kher has joined hands with Ashoke Pandit, a familiar BJP loyalist and member of the censor board to make a film on the trials of Kashmiri Pandits.
JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar claimed that a BJP supporter tried to strangle him on a Jet Airways flight bound from Mumbai to Pune.
Former minister Madan Mitra is expecting thousands of electors in Kamarhati Assembly constituency, West Bengal to vote for him, but the Trinamool Congress candidate will not be able to cast his vote despite being a registered voter. Election Commission sources confirmed that Mitra, who is presently lodged in Alipore jail in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam, will not be allowed to exercise his franchise.
Ola Cabs on Sunday withdrew their notoriously sexist advertisement which compared women to cabs and/or cars. With an oblique apology, the popular taxi service in India, tweeted, "We understand one of our TVCs has ended up hurting some sentiments. We've pulled it down. However, #OlaMicro continues to run at Rs.6/km."
Main News
Unlike in January, where most Delhi-ites volunteered to use the metro and bus services for their daily commute during the odd-even scheme, the scorching April heat in the capital has now prompted many to avail cab services, a factor that has led to more cars and traffic on the city streets. Along with the unfavourable weather, little presence of civil defence volunteers on the roads, violators going unnoticed, and have thus largely rendered the odd-even scheme ineffective this time.
The Chief Justice of India TS Thakur lamented the "inaction" to increase the number of judges from the present 21,000 to 40,000 to handle the "avalanche" of litigations. On the verge of tears, the CJI said from a munsif to a Supreme Court judge, the average disposal in India is 2,600 cases per annum as compared to 81 cases per annum in the US. Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured him of his government's resolve in finding a solution jointly with the judiciary.
Liquor baron Vijay Mallya's name is found listed on the electoral rolls in the United Kingdom, as his country home in Britain is recorded as his address, said media reports. Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines has been accused of having defaulted loans of over ₹9,400 crore in India.
Off The Front Page
Mairaj Ahmad Khan won India's 1st ever skeet medal at a World Cup, winning the silver medal in the Men’s Skeet event on the final day of the ISSF Shooting World Cup in Rio De Janerio on Sunday. His best international performance has been a Team Gold in the Commonwealth Shooting Championship in 2010. Earlier this year, he became India's first ever Skeet shooter to win an Olympic quota place.
A 30-year-old Indian-origin woman doctor who was caught drunkenly attacking an Uber driver in Miami has now been fired from the hospital Jackson Health System. The incident which was caught on camera in January, had instantly gone viral.
Sachin Tendulkar turned 43 on Sunday and the legendary sports personality celebrated the day with his wife Anjali by playing cricket with children from the Make-A-Wish India Foundation in Mumbai. Tendulkar hung out with 21 children who were suffering from life-threatening medical conditions.
Opinion
Maharashtra’s new social boycott law is an important step that must be applauded. It should also inspire work on a comprehensive anti-discrimination law on the lines of the Civil Rights enactments in the US and UK, says Gautam Bhatia in The Hindu. "The focus of the Act is clear: it is directed against caste panchayats which often function as community-based parallel forums of justice, and whose diktats are invariably directed against recalcitrant individuals who have been deemed to transgress the bounds of caste or community morality. Interestingly, therefore, the Act specifically penalises causing discrimination among the members of a community on the basis of “morality, social acceptance, political inclination, [or] sexuality... This law, for now, is an important first step, that carries forward the judicially-aborted goals of the 1949 Excommunication Act, and the rarely-used Protection of Civil Rights Act," he says.
Fizzy drinks, malls, golf courses, swimming pools or IPL, all these symbols of excess virtual water consumption touch a raw nerve. Calls for frugality gets mocked. There is little doubt that many other things consume more water than a few IPL matches, writes Amitangshu Acharya in Hindustan Times. "Pointing at sugarcane, weak water governance and tanker mafia is ducking under the bouncer of an inconvenient truth. With their lifestyle and consumption, the urban rich are a part of India’s water mafia," he writes.
They don't make men like Ratan Tata any more because in today's world, you are defined by your wealth and not by your worth as a human being, says Suhel Seth in Mumbai Mirror. "Ratan Tata had retired from the House of Tata but not from the responsibilities of being a humanist and someone who deeply cared about India and its unique place in the comity of nations. There is gentleness and a genteelness, which he will always have, and something that will always inspire generations," he writes.
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