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Essential HuffPost
In a surprising move, the right-wing ideological organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has shifted its stance and has supported women's rights to enter the sanctum sanctorum, or the innermost chamber, of Hindu temples in India. The news was published in the outfit's annual report at the ongoing three-day Akhil Bhartiya Pratinidhi Sabha in Nagaur in Rajasthan.
Family and friends attending a traditional Tamil-Brahmin wedding were left awe-struck when the bride and the groom — a singer and drummer in a heavy metal band — performed at their own wedding. "The guests present at our wedding are used to celebrating a glowing bride — this time it was a growling bride!," quipped the groom.
A minor boy was made to stand naked outside his coaching class, while another student accompanied him wearing just a T-shirt in Mumbai as 'punishment' for some misdemeanour. Two persons have been booked in the case.
After spending a year in space aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Scott Kelly will retire from NASA on 1 April. NASA announced that Kelly will continue to participate in research related to his mission, providing medical samples and support for other scientific testing.
Main News
Even though the World Culture Festival held in Delhi by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living (AOL) foundation was shrouded with controversies, world leaders seemed charmed by him. While UK Prime Minister David Cameron invited Shankar to address the House of Commons, Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull invited AOL to Australia for the next World Culture Festival.
Adding to the pile of awkward and highly controversial statements made by him, republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump now claimed that more than one-fourths of Muslims are 'very militant'.
After Enforcement Directorate (ED)'s summons for Vijay Mallya to return to India before 18 March, the liquor baron has now said that as he has already been 'marked' as a 'criminal' in India, this is not the 'right time' for him to come back. Last week, Mallya had blasted the media for their "biased" coverage and had claimed that he is an international businessman, not an absconder.
A 23-year-old Dalit man was hacked to death by three assailants in broad daylight in at a busy marketplace on Sunday afternoon, in a suspected case of honour killing. Reportedly, the deceased, identified as V Sankar, married Kausalya, 19, eight months ago and the girl's parents were unhappy with the marriage.
A car bomb exploded in a crowded transport hub in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Sunday. The blast, which had the same modus operandi as the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) or an affiliated militant group, killed over 32 people and wounded at least 75 more.
Pakistani hackers defaced the official website of AIIMS Raipur. The institute's homepage was hacked and it displayed the following message: "Website stamped by Kashmiri Cheeta, Team: Pak Cyber Attackers. We are unbeatable. Mess with the Best, Die like the Rest."
Off The Front Page
Forty-two years after she was given up for adoption in Pune, a Sweden-based woman tracked down her Indian biological mother and had an emotional reunion with her. A Swedish couple had adopted Elisabet Purve-Jorendal when she was just two-and-a-half years old. Purve-Jorendal had actively been searching for her mother since 1998 and finally found her in a remote village in Maharashtra.
A tribal woman in Chhattisgarh along with her three sons have donated an acre of land to the district police for setting up a police station in a region scarred by Maoists and People's Liberation Front of India (PLFI). Reportedly, the land is worth more than â‚ą10 lakh.
One of India’s last intact Paleolithic tribes, the Jarawas in Andaman and Nicobar islands, face problems from poachers and visitors. Even though they receive medical treatment in isolation wards at hospitals, Indian government minimises the contact between the Jarawas and the world that surrounds them, hoping to avoid the catastrophes that befell aboriginal people in other countries, like the United States and Australia, when settlers passed on germs and alcohol.
Opinion
Following republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump's controversial statement that 'Islam hates us', Americans seem to have got a xenophobic notion in their heads that 'India cheats us', writes Swagato Ganguly in his column in The Times of India. "It maybe because of the spuriousness of the Indophobic sentiment which stigmatises Indians as 'job stealers', he writes.
An editorial in The Telegraph says that the Tamil Nadu political scene has become more crowded than ever. While there are undoubtedly several political parties and ideologies, they always line up behind the two main Dravida parties — Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). This time, the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) leader, Vijayakanth has staked a claim to the chief ministership, upsetting the conventional political order.
With reducing support among its traditional base and younger cohort, the Left’s decline suggests very bleak prospects for its future as an electoral force with a pan-India base, writes Rahul Verma in an opinion piece in The Hindu. "In most parts of the world, the Left parties thrive on class politics, detest religion and rely heavily on formal associations such as labour unions. In India, class politics remains marginal, religion and religious practice are ubiquitous, associational activity is weak, and the strength of labour unions is far from what the Left would expect," says Verma.
When Pakistan’s most infamous death row prisoner was executed, enraged conservatives who regard him as a hero who killed to defend the honour of Islam were also born. Now, Shahbaz Taseer, son of Pakistan’s slain Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, was freed from his Taliban or Uzbek captors after nearly five years in captivity, writes Ayesha Siddiqa in The Hindu. "The release is made to look like a turn of events from the sordid and the tragic to a new beginning for Pakistan... It seems like it has been all made to look like things were following a natural sequence indicating Pakistan’s metamorphosis from a Taliban-ridden state to a haven for liberalism," she writes.
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