1. Twice He Promised, Twice Haryana CM Stood Up Navy Officer Kin
The Indian Express reports on the blatant display of insensitivity by Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar who stood up late Lt. Kiran Shekhawat’s family on two occasions. Lt. Shekhawat has died in an air crash off the coast of Goa earlier.
An angry kin told the The Indian Express,
And on top of it, the state government is playing with our emotions. When I called up the CM’s residence, an official rudely asked me, ‘CM ke aane se aapki beti ki shahadat safal hogi kya (Will your daughter’s sacrifice be successful if the CM comes)?’ We never invited him. He called us and said he wanted to visit. Now, we don’t want him to come.
Read more here.
2. The Rafale Deal Explained
The Indian Express’s Pranav Kulkarni answers some pertinent questions about implication of the 36 Rafale jet deal with France that PM Modi announced on Friday.
India and France will now be dealing with the contract on a government-to-government (G-to-G) basis. Prima facie, it also marks a success for India which has been negotiating hard for lower price and maintenance besides other aspects of the contract.
Read more here.
3. Raju Doesn’t Watch TV, Reads Case Papers in Jail
Cherlapalli central prison’s Qaidi number 4148 (Ramalinga Raju) and Quaidi number 4147 (Rama Raju) were shifted to barracks without TV based on their unusual request, reports The Times of India.
Like ordinary prisoners, the Raju brothers were served khichidi for breakfast, chapatti/rice, dal, rasam and papad for lunch and a similar dinner with a different vegetarian curry for the early dinner at 4pm.
Read the TOI report of how Raju’s first day in prison as a convict was like.
4. Khap Sets an Example
In news that shows Khap Panchayats in rare good form, The Times of India reports on a UP Khap Panchayat which has banned a dowry seeker from marrying for two years.
Mamata, his latest bride-to-be who was turned down, was the man’s eighth victim. He had turned down seven women in the past too, and each time, the families of the women incurred losses in making preparations for the wedding.
Read the report here.
5. Sandalwood Loggers Risk Their Lives For Rs. 650 Per Kg
Hindustan Times’ Sudipto Mondal visited the Tamil Nadu village where some of the victims of the Tirupati killings were from, to get a sense of what drives the men to rush their lives.
Perumal finally gave in as the money was good — Rs 650 for every kg of sandalwood — while he earns around Rs 350 a day as a farm or construction labourer. And, the ‘owner’, whose job was to recruit loggers for a commission, assured him that forest and police officials had already been paid off.
Read more here.
6. A New Vehicle for Clean Air
“The best way to improve Delhi’s toxic air is to massively augment public transportation systems.” writes environmentalist Suntia Narain for The Indian Express for the paper’s “Death by breath” series.
Let us be clear, actions for cleaning our air are within our reach. But only if we accept that polluted air is a killer. This slow murder must be stopped.
Read her take here.
7. Lifting the Shroud of Silence: It’s Time, Let’s Talk Depression
Taking a cue from her interview with Deepika Padukone where the actress broke convention by opening up about her battle with depression, Barkha Dutt writes more on the subject for Hindustan Times.
In a country with the highest number of suicides in the world (WHO report, 2012) Deepika Padukone has done us all a favour. She has lifted the shroud of silence that has long veiled an honest discussion about our mental well-being.
Read her full column here.
8. Healing Deep Wounds: Understand What Kashmiris Long For
“The return of Kashmiri Pandits to Kashmir is a key touchstone for progress in the state”, says the Hindustan Times’ edit piece, asking the Centre and state governments to clarify their stand on the emotive issue.
New Delhi must not countenance the idea of separate townships as this will escalate unrest, sow fresh seeds of discord between communities and exacerbate PDP-BJP tensions within the coalition government. Policymakers must understand where Kashmir’s objections come from.
Read HT’s take here.
9. Nobody is Clean in This Ugly War
Vidya Subrahmaniam writes on AAP’s crisis in The Hindu asking all sides to come clean on the recent controversy.
Procedures and principles cannot operate in a vacuum, and Yogendra Yadav, the advocate of pragmatic, solution-based politics, ought to know this better than anyone else. In the conflict within the AAP, the battle has been cast as one between strongly ethical ideologues and practitioners of opportunistic politics. Unfortunately, this is an oversimplification of a fight far more layered and complex.
Read her take here.
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