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The Morning Wrap: Mayawati Accused Of Demanding ₹50 Cr; PM Modi's Sri Lanka Visit Comes At A Crucial Time

Our selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers.
Rajya Sabha MP and BSP Chief Mayawati during the Parliament Budget Session.
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
Rajya Sabha MP and BSP Chief Mayawati during the Parliament Budget Session.

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.

A hashtag is doing the rounds on social media these days - #JusticeForSonika. Sonika Singh Chauhan, 28, a model and a TV anchor was killed in a fatal car crash on April 29 in Kolkata. Actor Vikram Chatterjee was the man driving the car. He walked away from the crash with a few stitches and a lot of unanswered questions. It's about the growing fear yet again. Did the system fail the breathalyzer test in serving justice for Sonika Singh Chauhan? Read here.

The Supreme Court commenced its historic hearing on a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the practice of triple talaq and nikah halala among Muslims, saying it would first determine whether the practice is fundamental to Islam.

We're conditioned to treat Justin Bieber with casual disdain. While the packed stadium in Mumbai was subjected to a botched lip-sync performance for most of the night. But, here's an account of a non-belieber who went to Bieber's first-ever live concert in India that tells a different story.

The attention grabbing part of Shashi Tharoor's internet breaking tweet--"farrago of distortions and misrepresentations" was used in a famous debate a few years ago. At a debate held at the Oxford Union in 2013, Mehdi Hasan, a British political journalist used the same sequence of words in a very similar sentence.

Lieutenant Ummer Fayaz, the 22-year-old officer was shot dead at a family wedding in south Kashmir on Tuesday. Police investigating the killing of officer have told The Indian Express that witnesses have said the killers were led by local Hizbul Mujahideen operative Abbas Ahmad Bhat who was wanted for two earlier homicides, including one of a local doctor.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on Wednesday expelled its legislator Naseemuddin Siddiqui and his son from the party for carrying out "anti-party" activities. Both Naseemuddin Siddiqui and Mayawati held back-to back tell-all press conferences after that. Siddiqui alleged that his expulsion has nothing to do with anti-party activities, but rather his failure to pay Rs 50 crore that the Bahujan Samaj Party chief had demanded. Meanwhile, Mayawati called him a "big blackmailer".

A wedding in Bharatpur had the most tragic ending. A sudden storm led to a wall collapse, that crushed 24 people to death and injured about 30 others on Wednesday night. The wall — almost 90 feet long and 12-13 feet height — "was structurally weak" and the tent, loaded with cloth and corrugated sheets of aluminum, "was weighed down by the rain and hail and, acting as a sail", pulled the wall down, police said.

This was a scene straight out of a Bollywood movie. A wedding was called off in Kanpur when a girl barged into the venue with a pistol, claiming that she was the "lover" of the groom and they were "secretly" married at a temple. Later, the bride's family took away all the valuables they had given to the groom. Ouch.

Bang Jun-hyuk, the man behind South Korea's biggest initial public offering in seven years has a rags to riches story. The high school dropout born in a textile factory slum, built a company Netmarble Games Corp. into a gaming giant. Its shares debut Friday after an IPO that raised 2.66 trillion won ($2.3 billion) and values the company at about 13 trillion won, which is more than the market capitalization of LG Electronics Inc.

Justice C.S. Karnan was sentenced to six months for contempt by the Supreme Court. Sidharth Luthra, in an op-ed for Indian Express writes why the fundamental issues that have emerged are concerning and require serious thought by every democratic institution. "This episode has caused great damage to the justice delivery system and the higher judiciary is reflected in the media having had a field day reporting the crossfire of orders," the op-ed notes.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Sri Lanka to speak as chief guest at a massive, international conference on Buddhism, organized for the occasion in the Sri Lankan capital. Maya Mirchandani writes for NDTV why the visit is significant. "Against the backdrop of growing incidents of communal violence at home and uncharitable global commentary around cow vigilantes and anti-Romeo squads targeting Muslims and mixed religion couples, the Prime Minister will use this chance to project India's own constitutionally-protected core values of secularism and tolerance at a global forum," she writes.

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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.