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The Morning Wrap: IIT Placement Cell Bans 31 Companies; WhatsApp To Share Users' Phone Numbers With Facebook

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.

Sushma Swaraj might have the best intention in the world — to protect the rights and well being of surrogate mothers. But the Surrogacy Bill as proposed by the government is just homophobia and bigotry disguised as surrogate welfare. The Foreign Minister was quite up front about why only married couples could avail of surrogacy. Gays, single persons, live-in couples are not welcome.

Facebook is concentrating on other ways to give more people in India the access to the Internet. And for doing so they might be following the footsteps of Google by providing free WiFi on the Indian railway stations. RailTel India is in talks with Facebook to provide free WiFi services. It is notable that the same company has partnered with Google for government's free WiFi project.

The number of people killed in the earthquake that devastated parts of central Italy on Wednesday rose to 241 on Thursday morning. The Civil Protection department in Rome said a tally by local officials showed that 190 people were killed Rieti province and 57 in the province of Ascoli Piceno.

An expert panel constituted by the Home Ministry to find an alternative to pellet guns for crowd control following uproar against its use in Kashmir has zeroed in on 'PAVA shells', a chilli-based ammunition, which is less lethal and immobilises the target temporarily.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) have blacklisted 31 companies and have barred them from taking part in the placement process this year. The companies were barred because they either went back on their promise of hiring the students, or delayed the joining procedure. Flipkart, Zomato and several other start-ups are on this list.

Australian newspaper The Australianleaked another set of leaked documents regarding the operating instructions of underwater warfare system of the six Scorpéne submarines which are being built in India by French firm DCNS. The new set of documents, with Indian Navy insignia on it and marked "Restricted Scorpéne India", gives details about the sonar system of the submarines which is used to gather intelligence underwater.

Two men were arrested for allegedly beating a man to death in a fit of rage over a disagreement during purchasing of gol gappas in northwest Delhi earlier this month. According to reports two motorcycle riders were seen arguing over the purchase of the popular street food. One of the riders, hit the other in a fit of rage and dumped his body nearby.

One of Telugu actor NTR Jr's fan reportedly beat a man to death, who was a die-hard fan of actor Pawan Kalyan. The two got into a tiff when the latter started raising slogans supporting Kalyan at a NTR Jr's event.

WhatsApp's new privacy policy will now reportedly have have deeper integration with Facebook. The messenger service also confirmed that it would share phone numbers with Facebook.

Some nations, including many of the post-World War II economic miracles, had features of start-ups, writes Tyler Cowen in Mint. "The world today seems to have lower potential for start-up nations. This is in part because international relations are more peaceful and also because most colonial relationships have receded into the more distant past. Those are both positive developments, but the corresponding downside is not always recognised, namely fewer chances for reshuffling the pieces," he writes.

Across India, clusters of excellence by sport can be developed based on natural inclinations and heritage that are visible, such as boxing in Haryana and badminton in Hyderabad, writes Shekar Swamy in The Hindu. "We can win our fair share of medals at the Olympics and other games with this focus. We must start tomorrow," he says.

The Pakistan army has a very important battle to win — the corruption within, writes Christophe Jaffrelot in The Indian Express."A few days before axing the corrupt officers in April last, the COAS had made another unprecedented move: He donated his plots in Lahore and Islamabad (their value was estimated to be over Rs 450 million to the Shuhada Foundation. At the same time, Riaz, reportedly at the request of Sharif, returned more than Rs 55 billion to DHA. Are these moves sufficient to redeem the Pakistani army's reputation, the most popular institution in the country according to the last PILDAT survey in September 2015 with an approval rating of above 75 per cent (as against 35 per cent to the political parties)? Tough to predict, but the fact is the balance of power in Islamabad/Rawalpindi depends on the military's capacity to maintain a clean image," he writes.

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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.