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
Siachen survivor Lance Naik Hanumanthappa Koppad's condition worsened, even as India prayed for his recovery. The next 24 hours will be critical for him, said doctors treating him at the Army hospital in Delhi. Meanwhile, meet the canines who, along with 150 soldiers, helped rescue him.
For the Uttar Pradesh by-polls this week, the BJP is mounting an aggressive campaign. Despite its failure to divide voters on religious lines in the Bihar polls, the party has unleashed a polarizing campaign for a by-election in Muzaffarnagar. On Saturday, by-polls to three assembly constituencies will be held in UP: Muzaffarnagar, Deoband and Bikapur.
Watch why this Sikh woman's slam poem on racism in Australia is winning massive applause. When Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa, a first generation Sikh immigrant, captured the daily injustices people of her community faced in Australia in an incredible spoken-word poem, she left some of the audience in tears.
Pakistan may ban all activities linked to the celebration of Valentine's Day in its capital, Islamabad. An official of the interior ministry said the decision to ban Valentine's Day celebrations was taken at the orders of interior minister Nisar Ali Khan. The ban, however, was not announced officially.
An elephant that strayed from nearby Baikunthapur forest to Siliguri town went on a rampage for around seven hours, damaging over 40 houses and some vehicles before it was tranquilized.
Main News
Jashodaben Modi, the estranged wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, filed an RTI application seeking details and a copy of the PM's passports. The application comes after she was denied a passport in November because she failed to produce her marriage certificate or a joint affidavit with her spouse.
Another case related to the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots ended in acquittal. Four men accused of gang raping a woman during the riots were acquitted after the victim and key witnesses were declared hostile. The victim’s husband said they were threatened with dire consequences and told to retract the charge.
Another former employee of The Energy and Research Institute (TERI) accused its executive vice-chairman RK Pachauri of sexually harassing her and other women in her presence, alleging that the police did not take action on her complaint.
In a startling revelation, Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam claimed that Lashkar-e-Taiba operative David Headley could still be sentenced to death by the US court for his involvement in the 26/11 Mumbai attack, if he was found to be lying to the Indian court.
Taxi-hiring app Uber is looking at ride sharing as its next focus area in India. David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s campaign manager during the 2008 elections, and currently Uber’s chief strategist, is spearheading the company’s expansion drive in the country.
Off The Front Page
A picture of Abbott Mount near Loha Ghat in Uttarakhand, taken by government doctor Kamran Khan, made it to the Limca Book of Records as the picture that captured longest Himalayan range, more than 500 kms, in one frame.
A series of advertisement billboards put up at Delhi Metro stations by a religious group, encouraged people to worship their parents on Valentine’s Day and batted for police action against couples.
An FIR was filed against ‘Mastizaade’ director Milap Zaveri and actors Sunny Leone, Vir Das and Tusshar Kapoor in Mumbai. According to the complainant, advocate Gaurav Gulati, the actors were seen discussing condoms inside a temple in a “vulgar manner”.
With four bullets in his stomach, a Garuda commando with the air force, fought the Pathankot attackers for 90 minutes. Corporal Shailabh Gaur’s story is one of the bravest in the Pathankot gunfight. Read it here.
Prince, an eight-year-old tiger at the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, has grown to be a legend: calm, handsome, roaming the range, a lord of all he surveys. A rumoured stud, he is a prime attraction for tourists, who spend hours waiting for a glimpse of him in his abode spread over 18 sqkm.
Opinion
“While we as a nation remain indebted to our brave soldiers who laid down their precious lives on the glacier, there is neither valour nor glory in death due to cerebral edema or hypothermia, guarding a few kilometres of ice whose strategic value is ambiguous at best,” writes Happymon Jacob in The Hindu. “If New Delhi desires to demilitarise Siachen, and thereby save the lives of our soldiers there, it has roughly five options to choose from.”
There is much enthusiasm today for efforts to improve access to information about poor people’s rights and entitlements, writes Martin Ravallion in The Indian Express. “There is no denying that efforts are needed to improve the access of poor people to knowledge about public services that can help them. But these new research findings also suggest that such efforts need to be directly targeted to poor groups, rather than relying on prevailing processes of knowledge diffusion, which may simply reflect, and reinforce, existing inequities.”
What makes up the majority of cases of rape under promise of marriage? Women’s rights lawyer Flavia Agnes gives a reality check in The Times of India. “When the girl gets pregnant, the boy pressurises her to undergo an abortion. The girl’s own family disowns her as she has brought dishonour to the family. Left with no choice, the girl approaches the police for help and the police file a case of rape. She is then placed in a government home for unwed mothers.”
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