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The Morning Wrap: Kanhaiya Calls Smriti Irani 'Anti-Rational'; Twinkle Khanna Gets Trolled By Sri Sri Followers

Morning Wrap: Kanhaiya Calls Smriti Irani 'Anti-Rational'; Twinkle Khanna Gets Trolled By Sri Sri Followers
NEW DELHI, INDIA - NOVEMBER 13: Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani during the first day of the 10th Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry's (FICCI) Higher Education Summit on November 13, 2014 in New Delhi India. The NDA Government plans to set up separate committees to review the functioning of regulatory bodies like UGC, AICTE and NCTE. It will also launch the Bharat Avishkar Abhiyan (National Innovation Campaign) for funding ideas and innovations next year. (Photo by Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
Hindustan Times via Getty Images
NEW DELHI, INDIA - NOVEMBER 13: Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani during the first day of the 10th Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry's (FICCI) Higher Education Summit on November 13, 2014 in New Delhi India. The NDA Government plans to set up separate committees to review the functioning of regulatory bodies like UGC, AICTE and NCTE. It will also launch the Bharat Avishkar Abhiyan (National Innovation Campaign) for funding ideas and innovations next year. (Photo by Arvind Yadav/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

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

Ellen Page, known for her major Hollywood films such as Juno (2007), Inception (2010) and X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014), among others, is in India filming a show called Gaycation which explores the diverse cultures of sexual minorities around the world. She anchors the show with her close friend, Ian Daniel. The focus of the show is to explore what life is like for the LGBTQ community in different countries, and they have covered the US, Japan, Jamaica, and Brazil so far.

Students of Class VIII in BJP-ruled Rajasthan will no longer learn about Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, or about Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, because their names have been removed from the Social Studies textbooks. The State Institute of Education Research and Training based in Udaipur said that it was a part of 'curriculum re-structuring'.

A Dalit labourer from Kalambeshwar village in Maharashtra drew the attention of local news channels and social media as he dug a 15-feet well alone. He undertook the difficult task and completed in within 40 days, because he felt humiliated after his wife was not allowed to draw water from a bigger well by its owner because they were Dalits.

Giving a sanskari twist to Indian relationships, the popular dating app Tinder recently came out with a new advertisement where the mother is encouraging her daughter to go out on a date. The social media had a gala time making fun of the portrayal of the mother, who while asking her daughter to return home at a decent hour, also encourages her to put on extra kajal to pretty her up.

Main News

JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar wrote an open letter to HRD Minister Smriti Irani on the occasion of Mother’s Day, asking her how could a 'mother' punish her children on the basis of 'biased probe reports' and 'doctored videos'. Kumar even referred to Irani 'anti-rational' mother of 'anti-nationals' and sarcastically wished her a happy Mother’s day.

Amidst the preparation for the crucial test of strength in the Uttarakhand assembly on 10 May, a new sting video targeting deposed chief minister Harish Rawat has given fodder to the BJP and put Congress in a crisis situation. The video allegedly shows Congress MLA Madan Singh Bisht admitting to horse-trading and was aired by a local channel in Dehradun. Hitting back, Rawat accused the BJP of indulging in political blackmail.

Sikh religious bodies have passed a new rule that Sikhs who trim or shave their beards, hair, smoke or drink alcohol, can no longer vote in elections the religious bodies. According to an official notification, President Pranab Mukherjee gave his assent to the Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Act, 2016, which Parliament had recently passed to amend the Sikh Gurdwaras Act, 1925.

Off The Front Page

Ayesha Aziz hailing from Khawaja Bagh in Baramulla, Jammu & Kashmir has bagged the title of the youngest pilot in India. The 20-year-old flies single engine Cessna 152 and Cessnal 172 and already holds a Student Pilot Licence (SPL). As soon as she gets her Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL), Aziz dreams of joining an Indian airline, moving on to foreign flights in future.

Twinkle Khanna got the caught in a controversy regarding her tweet against Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Commenting on the recent news that Shankar had said that Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, Khanna had tweeted, "Sri Sri got his noble foot and half his beard stuck in his mouth in a yogic pose that Baba Ramdev perfected a while ago. #HolyMenandHairyTales (sic)". While she some trolled her, most of the twitterati cheered her candid remark. But she later deleted the tweet.

Jamaican cricketer and Royal Challengers Bangalore player Chris Gayle's photo with his newborn daughter has been going viral. Shared on Mother's Day, Chris, along with his wife Natasha and daughter Blush's photo on Instagram sent his fans into a tizzy.

Opinion

A year after Nepal suffered a devastating earthquake, political tremors rocked Kathmandu last week. Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli barely managed to stave off a looming crisis as his coalition partner, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)-UCPN(M), threatened to withdraw support, writes Rakesh Sood in The Hindu. "Oli may be on his way out but the Indian government also needs to introspect about why Indian PM Modi’s “neighbourhood first” policy has backfired in Nepal, after having gotten off to a splendid start when he visited Nepal in 2014 and laid out the contours of the relationship that he wanted to develop. Since then, relations have soured and perceptions have turned hostile," he writes.

In its Asian regional economic outlook released last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has put out new data that shows how the two most successful Asian economies after 1990—China and India—have seen inequality rise in tandem with economic growth, says an editorial in Mint. "The countries of East Asia managed to evade this trap through labour-intensive industrialization that moved millions of poor people from farms to modern factories. The troublesome question is whether India can replicate this Lewisian transition at a time when robotics is changing the nature of industrial work," it says.

The odd-even programme is no long-term solution to pollution. It can only be the beginning of the search for one, say Jyoti Parikh and Kirit Parikh in The Indian Express. "In the light of growing vehicle ownership in Delhi, we need Bharat VI or electric vehicles, good public transport, footpaths and cycle tracks and appropriate congestion and parking charges as well as enforcement of measures to reduce dust, the banning of biomass burning, better traffic management and driving discipline," they write.

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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.