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The Morning Wrap: Jio Makes Operator-Wise Call Drop Data Live; 100-Year-Old Woman Sexually Assaulted, Murdered

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.

In a television interview, Ae Dil Hai Mushkildirector Karan Johar opened up about a number of issues — from facing threats from Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) for casting Pakistani actors in his films, to battling depression and feeling that hollow in his life due to the lack of a partner. Johar, who reiterated that while he understood the anguish and anger of the friends and families of the soldiers who were killed during the Uri attack, said Bollywood and Indian cinema should be kept free from politics.

Malayalam writer Benyamin, a pen-name for Benny Daniel, who won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award in 2009 for his novel, Aadujeevitham (2008), has now come with a new novel Kumari Devi. The story revolves around a middle-class Malayali couple who're are desperate to hire a domestic help, but the good ones, as usual, are hard to come by. Into this typical urbanite problem, alive with its third-world jokes and ironies, comes Sunina Shakya Devi, an elderly Nepali lady, who proves to be a real find, though not without her share of idiosyncrasies.

Narendra Modi's speech last Saturday in a Kozhikode party rally should be seen as a watershed event in his prime ministership and his approach to Pakistan. His speech was remarkable both for the aggressive intent conveyed and the different constituencies he addressed. This strategy plays to Modi's strengths for a simple reason: the aura of macho strength remains with him, but without committing him to rash action. A Manmohan Singh doing the same would have appeared weak; a Modi calibrating an active and aggressive policy against Pakistan (but without war) will be seen as carrying a hefty punch.

A Houston lawyer whose business was struggling opened fire on morning commuters on Monday, injuring at least nine people before being shot dead by police. Six people were taken to hospitals and three were treated at the scene after being shot at while inside their vehicles in the affluent neighbourhood of West University Place. The man was dressed in a military-style uniform with Nazi items, and police found thousands of rounds of ammo in his car.

Taking its fight against incumbent telecom operators to the next level, Reliance Jio on Monday made live data on call drops its users are experiencing due to Airtel, Vodafone and Idea for not providing enough interconnectivity. The company added a link on its website detailing call drops experienced during a 24-hour duration.

An online White House petition asking for Pakistan to be declared as a state sponsor of terrorism has crossed 1 lakh signatures, thus qualifying to get a response from the Obama administration. The online petition launched by Indian Americans last week has become the third most popular petition on the White House website with nearly 1,10,000 people signing the petition. The Obama administration is expected to respond to it within 60 days.

In a gruesome case, a 100-year-old woman was found murdered after allegedly being sexually assaulted by a group of local drug addicts in Daun Kalan village, around 15 kilometres from Patiala. According to her family, the victim used to sleep on a cot outside her house. The crime came to light on Monday morning when they found her body dragged a few meters from there.

Sixteen trees native to Aravali and NCR, will soon be notified as "protected" natural heritage, on the lines of recognising special monuments in Delhi. "Monuments are recognised as 'historical heritage' of the city, but now Delhi government will, officially, recognise trees as 'natural heritage' in the city. Now, Delhi will also recognise its famous, old, historical trees," Delhi Cabinet Minister Kapil Mishra said. Some of the tree in the list are -- banyan, ailanthus, mango, arjuna, and ashok.

Two Class XII students in Delhi stabbed their teacher in front of their classmates. The teacher, reportedly had called the students to stop them from cheating in the exams. During the conversation, one of the students reportedly lost his temper and stabbed the teacher thrice.

A fundamentally flawed judgement regarding the Cauvery water dispute, reflecting ignorance of a crucial concept, has been accepted without question, by our finest legal minds, reporters and other stakeholders, writes Prithwiraj Mukherjee in Mint. "A technically sound analysis would account for Karnataka's total water holding, and then consider how much water must be released to Tamil Nadu. Tmc (thousand million cu. ft) is commonly used as a volume unit here. If a flow rate of 6,000 cusec (L3/T) were maintained for 10 days, i.e., 864,000 seconds (T), the total volume (L3) of water released would be 5184,000,000 ft3, or 5.184 tmc. But cusec and tmc are not interchangeable units, as they are dimensionally different. Thus, it may be important to pedal back to basic physics, compare apples with apples, and hope that our crucial decisions are taken after a proper understanding of dimensions," he writes.

The opinion polls suggest that whites will vote for Donald Trump in the same proportion as they did for Reagan in 1964. Is that even probable, let alone likely, asks Surjit S Bhalla in The Indian Express. "One explanation is that it is in everyone's interest to show that the race is too close to call. The TV networks ring in the profits — the whole globalised world is clued in. Political websites never had it so good. Why upset the profit-cart? Democrats prefer an ex-ante close race for a high turnout. If it looks like a landslide, won't Democrats just stay home on voting day? The Trump camp prefer a close race to help with funding. And the pollsters? After being caught by circumstances (Brexit and Trump) they are playing it safe, erring heavily on the side of caution, since nothing is gained by being an "outlier" at this early stage," he says.

The slogan 'one country, one election' overlooks the existence of 29 States... The intention, it seems, is to move the country towards becoming a unitary state, say Jagdeep S Chhokar and Sanjay Kumar in The Hindu. "While there are various ifs and buts before this may be finally implemented — including the feasibility of constitutional amendments of the kind which this may require, State governments agreeing to the untimely dissolution of the Assemblies, the question of what happens if a government falls without completing its term, and several such issues — if simultaneous elections were to become a reality, it would go against the political diversity which is essential for addressing the social diversity of India," they wrote.

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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.