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The Morning Wrap: Madhya Pradesh To Have India's First Happiness Ministry; Noted Artist KG Subramanyan Dies

The Morning Wrap: Madhya Pradesh To Have India's First Happiness Ministry; Noted Artist KG Subramanyan Dies
Group of Gypsy Indian children - desert village on Thar Desert, Rajasthan
Bartosz Hadyniak via Getty Images
Group of Gypsy Indian children - desert village on Thar Desert, Rajasthan

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

Even as studies indicate that more than 70 per cent Indians are non-vegetarians, their habits and food preferences are grossly underrepresented on Indian television. The most common answers that script writers and advertising companies give is that the makers usually follow the 'no offence' rule. While most non-vegetarians (whose meals obviously includes vegetables, dairy, grains) don't mind looking at a vegetarian delicacy such as paneer or rajma on television, vegetarians reportedly have delicate sensibilities and are offended by images of meat.

Kamaal R Khan, who is known for his loud mouth and his 'film reviews' on YouTube, has now been slapped with a defamation lawsuit by filmmaker Vikram Bhatt. Khan's comments that Bhatt was trying to "supply Meera Chopra to a well-known producer", reportedly outraged the filmmaker, after which he sent a criminal defamation notice to Khan for circulating false and derogatory stories about him.

A 16-year-old girl from Jharkhand who was working at construction sites after passing her Class X exams, will now get a chance to attend college. Young Meera Khoya was recently admitted to Nirmala College for girls — one of the best institutions that Ranchi has to offer — after they learned of her trials.

Main News

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) recently unearthed a devious plot by Indian terror operatives, in touch with their Islamic State handlers, of planting beef inside Hyderabad's Bhagyalakshmi temple to spark riots during the month of Ramzan. There was also a plan to trigger powerful blasts targeting VVIPs in the city. The NIA also recovered weapons, ammunition, urea, acid, some chemicals, electronic gadgets and other incriminating material besides ₹15 lakh in cash from their possession.

US Under Secretary for Political Affairs on Wednesday asserted that one country who broke consensus in the atomic trading bloc should be held accountable, in a clear reference to China-led opposition to India's failed attempt to enter the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). He added that the US was committed to ensuring India's entry into the NSG while expressing 'regret' that Washington was unsuccessful in making India a member of the bloc in its plenary in Seoul last week.

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is set to announce the creation of India's first Happiness Ministry in the state. Chouhan will supervise 70 social programmes under the Ministry, such as Lok Sewa Guarantee, Ladli Laxmi, Kanyadan Yojana and Teerth Darshan among others.

Off The Front Page

KG Subramanyan, one of the celebrated modern artists in India, passed away on Wednesday afternoon. Subramanyan, who was considered a pioneer of modern art in India and was the recipient of all three Padma awards, was 92 years old when he died.

Facebook on Wednesday announced that it will now give posts, photos by friends and family more prominence on user feeds — a move that may hurt media outlets that rely on the social network to draw readers. The move comes after it was alleged that Facebook was suppressing some political viewpoints in its 'trending topics' section'.

The city of Indore in Madhya Pradesh is gearing up to host the first ever Test match and have expedited the preparations. As per the schedule announced on Tuesday, India will play the third Test against New Zealand at the Holkar stadium, which has a capacity to accommodate about 28,000 spectators.

Opinion

A pool of freshly retired cricketers are ready to assume coaching roles, says an editorial in Mint. "Nearly 16 years after Kapil Dev’s exit under the shadow of a match-fixing controversy, Anil Kumble has become the first Indian to rise to the position of Indian cricket team coach. And it has now been more than a year since Rahul Dravid took up the responsibility of mentoring the 'India A' and under-19 teams. One also keeps hearing the names of Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra floating around for the position of bowling coach. The upshot is: India now has a fresh pool of cricketers who have retired in recent years and are ready to render their services to Indian cricket," it says.

From kidnapping to communal riots, there is a common link that drives criminals, writes Abhayanand in The Indian Express. "Economics is the driving force behind most of these crimes. The media focus their reporting on the petty incidents that create the so-called spark. Activities of anti-socials begin to get projected for the next few days. Many times these get prolonged, and tend to get politicised in the most predictable ways. In fact, these steps are now so well programmed that an observant person can almost script out the media reports of the next five days," he says

Brexit has smashed up the European Union, imperilled the United Kingdom and redefined the relationship between Parliament, the Constitution and the party system, writes Roderick Matthews for Open magazine. "'Take Back Control' was the winning slogan, but taking control of what, and from whom, was always the issue. Maybe we’ll now find out that we can’t control the world economy, the corporations, the climate, the Middle East or even our own people. Will 'Out' then prove any better than 'In' for anyone? Will the lovers of liberty, our latter-day village Hampdens, remain stoical if we as a nation end up poorer and less important in the world," he asks.

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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.