The Morning Wrap is Huffington Post India's selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers
Main News
In an interview to The Hindu, former environment minister Jayanti Natarajan has said that Rahul Gandhi often doubled as her superior and influenced decisions to clear or bar several environmental projects . She added that she was “forced” to target Narendra Modi during the general elections campaign, on issues that didn’t resonate with her.
Ousted foreign secretary, Sujatha Singh, in her farewell letter alluded to foreign policy beginning to be managed by the Prime Minister’s Office and that people can’t be bigger than institutions.
Separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani lauded the two Hizbul Mujahideen militants who were responsible for killing decorated Indian army officer Colonel MN Rai and head constable Sanjeev Kumar Singh, during an encounter in south Kashmir.
The White House on Wednesday drew flak for appearing to differentiate between ‘good terrorists and bad terrorists,’ after it described the Taliban as an “armed insurgency” and the Islamic State (IS) a “terrorist group.” The controversial distinction was made by White House deputy press secretary Eric Shultz when asked about Jordan’s proposed prisoner swap with the IS.
Sex has been especially unsafe for over eight months in Haryana, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. “Bureaucratic delays in procurement,” is causing a shortage of condoms and thus, hampering HIV control programmes in these states that also have higher HIV prevalence than other states.
Off The Front Page
For a change, the RSS has decided to avoid controversy and leave the BJP to foment discussion on India’s secular and socialist credentials, triggered by a recent government advertisement.
The pantheon of Hinduism will soon have a new god in the form of Nathuram Godse after the fundamentalist group, Hindu Mahasabha, announced plans to install his statues in temple premises. They plan to do this on Friday, the anniversary of the day Godse assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.
‘Vaastu,’ and not administrative ease, is the motive force guiding Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision to shift the secretariat of his fledgling state. The present location is “inauspicious” as the sixth Nizam, Mir Mahboob Ali Khan’s, wife once spotted a monitor lizard, a clear ‘bad omen.’.
Kerala business-man Muhammed Nisham was so upset with a security guard’s tardiness in opening a gate that he sought to punish him by pinning him to the wall with his Hummer. Though booked by the cops, this isn’t the first time that Nisham and his cars have been in the news.
Carpets in India are now being used to turn black money into white. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has unearthed a Rs 2,700 crore racket in which over 500 containers of 'handmade carpets,' valued at Rs 2,700 crore and exported to UAE and Malaysia from Delhi turned out to be cheap quilt covers.
Blockbuster movie ‘PK’ has been chosen among the limited foreign films allowed to be screened in China and will play in 3500 theatres in the country, with Aamir Khan is likely to be present for the first screening.
Opinion
Mihir Sharma in the Business Standard asks if the Modi government is struggling to match tall claims with action or if the PM is actually falling victim to bluster.
Bhupesh Bhandari in the Business Standard says that notwithstanding all the women-power on display in the Republic Day celebrations, women still have a long way to go towards gender parity in business as well as the armed forces.
An editorial in Mint queries whether it’s high time India explicitly moves away from symbolic associations of being socialist.
Apoorvanand in The Indian Expressreminds us that Gandhi was frequently a rebel and it would be an insult to his memory to only reminisce about his religiosity.