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The Morning Wrap: PM Modi To Celebrate Birthday In Gujarat; PIL Against Pokémon Go For Hurting Religious Sentiments

Our selection of interesting news and opinion from the day's newspapers.
Amit Dave / Reuters

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.

With less than a fortnight to go for the release of her third Hindi film, Pink, Taapsee Pannu talked to HuffPost India about how since she grew up and lived most of her life in Delhi, she connected deeply with the subject of the film. The capital is, of course, notorious for its reputation as a city where sexual harassment and violence are part of an everyday reality — a reality that significantly affects the life of every woman who lives there. She recalls the list of rules she had to live by — "It's fed into our system, as normal as walking or talking," she said — as though she's mugged them up the way people learn the periodic table.

A look at Professor VN Parthiban's visiting card could induce a little dizziness. It includes all his educational degrees and currently that number stands at 145. Parthiban has degrees in various fields and teaches over a 100 subjects in different colleges in Chennai. The unbelievably long list of degrees includes 12 research degrees (M Phil), 8 Master of Law degrees (ML), 10 Master of Arts degrees (MA), 8 Master of Commerce degrees (M Com), 3 Master of Science Degrees (M Sc), and 9 Master of Business Administration degrees (MBA), among others.

President Barack Obama made history on Tuesday by nominating the first Muslim person to the federal judiciary, Abid Qureshi. The nomination carries a symbolic value: It lands in the midst of a chaotic presidential campaign in which GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has said that a Muslim federal judge wouldn't treat him fairly because of his calls for banning Muslims from entering the country. Trump made similarly bigoted charges that a Latino federal judge would be biased against him because he has advocated for building a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Manohar Lal Khattar government in Haryana announced on Tuesday that they will collect samples of biryani from restaurants in Mewat, a Muslim-dominated area in the state, to make sure that no beef was being served. The announcement, which is likely to stir up the beef controversy again, was taken by the president of Haryana Goseva Ayog Bhaniram Mangla. Reportedly, the IPS and in charge of cow protection task force Bharti Arora was also present during this meeting.

An LIC agent has been accused by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) of covering up and managing Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's 'tainted money'. The ED also accused the agent, one Anand Chauhan, of signing a fake Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the CM.

Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi's largest ever outreach programme towards farmers, which started in Uttar Pradesh recently, took a turn for the hilarious, when only a handful of farmers attended it. The event, which was titled as 'khaat sabha', in which Gandhi was to personally interact with the farmers, who would be seated on a khaat — an Indian seating, made from wood and strong strings — did not have enough people to occupy it. After several attempts where Gandhi's aides finally managed to get a few farmers in at the meeting held in Dudhnath Baba Mandir ground in Rudrapur — the second stop after a symbolic door-to-door reachout to farmers in Pachaldi Kritpura village. But the meeting ended on a hilarious note, where all the local participants scrambled for the foldable kaats and walked away with them.

A PIL has been filed in the Gujarat High Court against developers of the location-based augmented reality game Pokémon Go, alleging it hurts religious sentiments of certain communities by showing eggs in places of worship. Filed by Alay Anil Dave, the PIL is likely to be heard on Wednesday by a division bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice Vipul Pancholi.

Former Indian women's team captain Anjum Chopra has been awarded an honourary life membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) along with former men's team stalwarts Zaheer Khan and Virender Sehwag. She is the first Indian woman cricketer to get the prestigious life membership of MCC.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to celebrate his 66th birthday in Navsari, Gujarat, on 17 September. According to reports, the location for PM Modi's birthday celebration has been motivated by the Assembly polls to be held in the state in 2017.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's endorsement of a private company (Reliance Jio) distorts free and fair competition in an otherwise regulated and competitive telecom market, writes Jay Manoj Sankleja in The Hindu. "The advertisements in question are very craftily worded to suggest that the launch of the telecom services is dedicated to the Prime Minister's stated vision of a digital India, and therefore the use of his name and image have to be understood in connection therewith. However, as would be obvious to a neutral observer, the company through the advertisement cleverly appropriates the Prime Minister's name and image to further its own business interest, and therefore is likely to fall within the mischief the enactment seeks to prevent. Ultimately, therefore, the question of legality would turn on whether the company secured prior approval of the Central government before using the Prime Minister's name and image in the advertisement. However, there appears to be no formal clarification in this respect from either party," he writes.

Pakistan has vowed to get rid of its armed militias, but they aren't leaving quietly, writes Khaled Ahmed in The Indian Express. "Pakistan is realising that its past of deniable wars — in which the world acquiesced — is catching up with it. The world is now threatened by what it once encouraged and tells Pakistan to get rid of its warriors. It accuses Pakistan of allowing sanctuaries on its soil to killers who commit crossborder mayhem. Pakistan bled too but took its time changing tack; but it finally shifted the old paradigm and carried out the cleanup, Operation Zarb-e-Azb, under a new army chief with pluck. The terrorists are reacting by attacking and killing innocent Pakistanis," he says.

Except people in high-income countries, most of the world cannot afford the fruits and vegetables they need, according to research in Lancet, writes Roshan Kishore in Mint. In low-income countries, including India, only 27% of the population could have more than one serving of fruits per day.... There has been big debate on the increasing gap between poverty estimates and average calorie intake levels. The majority view holds that declines in calorie intakes should not be taken as an indicator of worsening income levels. This consensus notwithstanding, concerns remain about the alarming level of malnutrition in the country. The glaring deficiency of fruits and vegetables in Indian diets is another pointer to the poor quality of diet of the average Indian," 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.