The Morning Wrap is Huffpost India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers.
Main News
Ex- IPS officer Kiran Bedi, who a mere two years ago frequently attacked PM Narendra Modi on Twitter, joined the BJP on Thursday and will likely be a key face of the party in the crucial Delhi elections in February. There is the tantalizing possibility that she might be the party's chief ministerial candidate against former anti-corruption comrade and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal.
Troubled low-cost carrier SpiceJet on Thursday informed the bourses that promoter Kalanithi Maran and his associates will cede ownership and management control of the airline to Spice Jet's former promoter Ajay Singh and a clutch of investors. Singh plans to infuse Rs1,500 crore into the airline in three tranches and expects the airline to turn around within this year.
A senior officer of the Indian army has warned of potential terror attacks ahead of US President Barack Obama's visit.
Though it's common for books to be pulped and withdrawn from Indian bookstores , a banned book, 'El Sari Rojo,' a fictionalized account of Sonia Gandhi's life by Spanish author Javier Morois, is set to make a comeback to Indian bookstores.
The Goa state government on Thursday lifted a 2012 order banning mining in the state. Though the Supreme Court had lifted the ban on April 21, 2014, mining operations remained suspended pending a new policy. The ban had severely hit Goa's
industrial economy.
The government has moved to punish Samir Brahmachari, former head of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and India's largest chain of civilian-research institutions. The penalization, which might involve withdrawing the technocrat's pension benefits, follows an investigation into failed attempts to establish a research lab with private biotechnology companies and non-transparent recruitment procedures.
Off The Front Page
Two police dogs at the Guwahati airport got into a vicious fight with one another and frightened travellers, including West Bengal Human Rights Commission chairperson Naparajit Mukherjee, who then sent a letter to Director General, CISF, Arvind Rajan, complaining that the rights of Mukherjee and several others users of the airport were "violated."
The police in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh--to warn against driving without a helmet--have portrayed Union transport minister, Nitin Gadkari, in a large publicity campaign, as a lawbreaker. Parodying a helmetless Gadkari riding a scooter during elections in Maharashtra, the police commissioned billboards and a caricature of an errant scooterist that strongly resembles Gadkari.
Rahul Yelange of Maharashtra was part of a team that climbed Mount Everest in May 2012, but today his advocate wife and he are battling a social boycott, of Himalayan proportions, in their village on account of their inter-caste marriage.
Deedi Damodaran, a lecturer in Kozhikode, Kerala, has been pulled up by her college for kissing her husband Premchand in public last month. The offending kiss was part of a larger protest in Kerala to protest moral policing.
A group of gun-wielding young men's runaway romp through a reserve forest and social media photos of their wildlife haul have left Karnataka's forest authorities shaken.
Film Censor Board chief Leela Samson quit on Thursday amidst reports that controversial film, Messenger of God featuring Dera Saccha Sauda chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, in lead role has been cleared by Film Certification Appellate Tribunal (FCAT).
Opinion
Harish Damodaran in the Indian Express says that consumers "... ought to be prepared for the next agricultural downtrend. The government should, first of all, recognise that the time has come to think equally or more about producers, rather than consumers."
An editorial in the BusinessStandard emphasises the importance of credible fiscal management as necessary for sustained reductions in the policy rate. The Union Budget for 2015-16 will then be a "milestone around which the magnitude of the next move will presumably be decided."
Joel Rai, citing recent overtures by Lionel Messi to leave FC Barcelona, says in the Business Standard that this isn't a great time for top stars to move because oil prices are closely linked to the fortunes of football-team owners.
GS Sampath, in Mint, lampoons PM Modi's concept of anarchy and says that the RSS' favourite utopia of a "Vedic past" is itself also replete with anarchist 'rishis.'
Tamal Bandopadhyay, in Mint, argues that the RBI's rate cuts follow sound economic logic and dismisses the possibility that it may partly have come about due to pressure from the government.
Swapan Dasgupta in theTelegraphsays "...Despite its recent history, contemporary Europe is by and large an easy-going (perhaps too permissive) and accommodating society and ..has swung from destructive nationalism to New Age cosmopolitanism, with mixed results.."