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After a cycle of endless speculations, it was finally announced on Wednesday that British band Coldplay and American rapper Jay-Z would be performing in India on 19 November. Explaining the astronomical prices of the tickets that range from ₹25,000 to ₹5,00,000, the organisers clarified that 80 per cent of the tickets were going to be given to the public for free, provided they signed up for one of the social work initiatives by Global Citizen.
Deepa Malik has been a champion long before she became the first Indian female athlete to win a medal at the Paralympics, where she bagged a silver at the shot put F-53 event in Rio. The 45-year-old was the oldest member of the Indian contingent, but that is far from being the only remarkable aspect about her journey. Malik has been paralysed waist down since 1999, when a surgery to remove a tumour in her spinal cord made it impossible for her to walk. She has had three spinal surgeries, has no sensation below her chest, and no bladder or bowel control. But with the support of her husband and two daughters, Malik chose to pursue her passion for sports and fitness by starting her athletics career in her late 30s. In 2009, she switched from para-swimming to para-athletics, training in javelin, shot put and discus throw.
Twitter's new rules to relax its 140-character limit — by not counting usernames, links, photos, and videos — will reportedly go live from 19 September. Earlier this year, the company had announced that it is going to make some changes to the platform to make it more engaging. One of the changes was to make tweet content longer to drive the conversation.
Javelin thrower Devendra Jhajharia became the first Indian to clinch two gold medals at the Paralympics after he broke his own world record to clinch the top honours at the Rio Games. Devendra, who won his previous gold in the 2004 Athens Games, bettered his own world record to finish on top in the men's F46 event.
After three days, Army and Police have declared that an encounter in Mini Secretariat in Poonch was over with the killing of four terrorists. Personnel of Army and Police stormed the under-construction complex late on Tuesday evening and eliminated the last of the four terrorists. One militant was killed on Sunday, two were killed on Monday and the last one was eliminated yesterday.
Claiming that it was former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who came up with the phrase 'acche din' — a top keyword in BJP's campaign for the 2014 national election — Union Minister Nitin Gadkari joked that the BJP was now stuck with it. Gadkari said that Singh had promised 'acche din' in the future in response to questions from NRIs, and later PM Narendra Modi had used it in his speeches.
Zee Entertainment Enterprises has launched a Spanish language Bollywood channel in the US, in a bid to woo Hispanic audiences with the drama, and elaborate song-and-dance sequences of the Indian silver screen. The new Zee Mundo channel, the first such venture by an Indian company in the US, will reportedly showcase Indian content that Hispanic communities can empathise with.
22 Congress MLAs have been holed up inside the Punjab Vidhan Sabha for two consecutive nights, to mark their protest against the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government in the state. Reportedly, the MLAs were upset with the Speaker for not letting them debate the no-confidence motion they had moved during the RS proceedings. The MLAs stayed inside the building even as the power supply to the air conditioning and the hall's LED and halogen lights was cut off. The MLAs used flashlights of the smartphones to find their way on Monday night.
A 16-year-old girl, who was sold off and married to a boy in Noida, was rescued and four persons, including a woman were arrested in the case, late on Tuesday. The girl told police that she was taken for a walk on Janmashtami by the accused woman who was accompanied by another man where three other boys were present. She was then married off and raped by her 'husband' who claimed that he had bought her for ₹1 lakh.
The inter-state disparity in the milieu of increased fiscal devolution post the Fourteenth Finance Commission awards and the centralisation of indirect taxation are going to produce a struggle between centrifugal and centripetal forces, says an editorial in Mint. "While GST is undoubtedly a net positive for the Indian economy, the interstate disparities may set the stage for some clashes in the GST council. The poorer and more populous states which are simultaneously net consumers will demand lower GST rates while the prosperous and net producing states will vie for higher rates," it says.
The Cauvery water dispute is turning out to be less about water and irrigation and more about linguistic chauvinism and regional identity, says an editorial piece in The Hindu. "Nothing else can explain the mindless violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over the Supreme Court order asking the former to release water to the latter, keeping in view the distress situation in both States in a season of deficit rainfall. Many of the acts of violence have been perpetuated in the two States by chauvinistic, fringe organisations that have little to do with the farming community or its interests," it says.
Surrogate mothers are caught in a vortex of exploitation which the new bill does not address, writes Mohan Rao in The Indian Express. "The bill cleared by the cabinet bans all commercial surrogacy. Childless couples who have been married for more than five years may go in for altruistic surrogacy. The bill also bans the commercial sale of oocytes. While the bill did the right thing, it appears to have done so for the wrong reasons. Media reports suggest that the foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, announcing the bill, instead of the health minister, adduced Indian culture as the reason for the ban. But the issue is not about culture, it is about reproductive servitude and exploitation.
These are not central to the bill's concerns; exclusion of single women, or indeed gays, from altruistic surrogacy is the bill's central concern. That is discriminatory," he writes.
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