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The Morning Wrap: India, Syria To Step Up Security Consultations; Kamal Haasan To Receive France's Chevalier Honour

Our selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers.
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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.

Reliance Jio on Saturday started an open sale of SIM cards with 90 days of free unlimited 4G data. That means that if one own any 4G phone, one can grab a Reliance Jio SIM card now. HuffPost India called up the Reliance Digital store and confirmed that the SIM cards are now available through an open sale without any coupon codes. Multiple other sources have reported this apart from the SMS sent by Reliance.

A 15-year-old Dalit boy was beaten up by two men in Gujarat because his father refused to continue with his job of disposing cattle carcasses. The incident took place in Bhavda village, Ahmedabad district. Describing the incident as a "minor scuffle", the police informed that a case has been registered against the accused under the Prevention of Atrocities (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Act, besides other provisions of the Indian Penal Code.

As the action shifts from Rio Olympics 2016 to PV Sindhu's hometown Hyderabad, with a grand welcome planned on her arrival on Monday, social media chatter has begun demanding that she be appointed as the brand ambassador of Telangana. But this appointment would take place only by replacing the state's current brand ambassador, Sania Mirza.

With the water level in the Ganga rising, the flood situation in Bihar was grim on Sunday. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed apprehension that the situation could worsen by Monday in view of the release of water from Bansagar dam. Kumar, who held a high-level meeting to assess the situation, later went on an aerial survey of Patna, Bhojpur, Saran, Vaishali, Begusarai and Khagaria. He concluded that there was possibility of flood waters entering Patna currently.

Following the terror attack in Dhaka in July that killed over 29 people, including an Indian, and with the IS and related terror groups on the rise, India and Syria have agreed to step up security and intelligence consultations.

A 28-year-old woman PhD student from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was allegedly raped by an AISA activist on Saturday. The accused, who is also a JNU student, reportedly made contact with her after reading her post about wanting a copy of the critically-acclaimed Marathi film Sairat. He reportedly picked her up from her hostel took her to his hostel where he offered some drinks. He then raped her and threatened her of dire consequences if she told anyone about it.

Actor Kamal Haasan is set to be awarded the Chevalier de L'Ordre Arts et Lettres (The Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government. The Order is part of France's premier award, the Legion of Honor. The award will be bestowed on the multi-faceted Tamil actor at a special ceremony.

The Indian government and the internet service providers have tightened the leash on piracy and illegal websites in India. Now, if an internet user tries to view any blocked website, the message that pops up on the site claims that the accused may get a three year jail sentence as well as a fine of ₹3 lakh.

A 20-year old national level handball player hanged herself to death after she was allegedly denied free hostel facility by Khalsa College authorities in Punjab. The victim left suicide note addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, listing the difficulties she was going through in the hostel. The words, "PM Modi ji, please help my family," were also scrawled on the suicide note with blood.

It looks as though apart from the court, the other branches do not view the deterioration of the justice system as a pressing issue, writes Sriram Panchu in The Hindu. "The tension between the judiciary and the government on the appointment of judges to the High Courts and Supreme Court seems to be intensifying. The two have been locked into conflict on this issue for the last 16 months. Meanwhile, 475 seats in the High Courts remain unoccupied, a staggering and unprecedented number. The damage to an already overloaded judicial system is beyond calculation," he says.

Urjit Patel has a sophisticated sense of the policy challenges ahead, says an editorial in Mint. "Patel takes charge of Indian monetary affairs under vastly different circumstances than Raghuram Rajan did three years ago. Inflation has come down sharply, the current account deficit is being comfortably financed, policy credibility has been partially restored, and a new monetary policy framework is in place. A lot of credit for this has to be given to the trio of P. Chidambaram, Arun Jaitley and Rajan. The new governor was also an important combatant in the long battle against persistently high inflation," it says.

Farm incomes may not revive despite good monsoon. There are new challenges for policymakers, writes Neelkanth Mishra in The Indian Express. "Cereal production continues to rise, mainly due to rising yields. This started showing up in rising food-stocks from 2008 onwards, till we ran out of storage space. Then exports started, helped by high global prices. In the last two years, consecutive monsoon failures and falling global prices have brought down stocks as well as exports, but if monsoons are good (helping groundwater levels and the rabi crop too), we could see an additional 25 million tonnes of cereals this year. Weak global markets make exports unviable, particularly for wheat. What is the farmer going to do," he asks.

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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.