Here are some important reports from the biggest newspapers of India:
1. Goa tops Islamic State's India hitlist
Goa tops the list of Islamic State (IS) targets in India, the interrogation of suspected members of the terror organisation by enforcement agencies has revealed.
IS seeks to attack foreign tourists and Indian security forces in the state for global publicity and to boost the morale of its South Asia adherents. Interrogators also said that the IS is scouting for a site in India to train its fighters.
Government sources told Hindustan Times that the so-called Amir-e-Hind of IS, Muddabbir Mushtaq Sheikh of Mumbra, Thane, told interrogators of plans to explode bombs in Goa with foreigners as the main target.
2. Jail ki murgi dal barabar, 'lonely' dacoit gives it up
Former Chambal dacoit Arvind Gujjar fought for his right to non-vegetarian food, among other `luxuries', in jail, but the good things came at a price Gujjar realised he could not afford.
Eleven years after he surrendered, Gujjar realised he had not signed on for the hard, colourless, tasteless life he was leading in jail, the Times of India reported. An RTI query filed by his lawyer confirmed that Gujjar was entitled to non-vegetarian food, firewood, coal, ghee, cooking utensils, holy books, and other perks. Armed with a copy of Madhya Pradesh's 1998 sur render policy for dacoits, Gujjar confronted the authorities at Gwalior Central Jail. A baffled jail department agreed to fulfil its end of the deal, but with a rider: he would have to relish the goodies in the confines of an isolation cell.
Jail superintendent S P Kamthan told TOI, “We have hundreds of prisoners who may go berserk at the sight of mutton and the other special arrangements provided to him. So we shifted him to an isolated cell on the premises.“
3. Waterless in Marathwada: Farm crisis is extra hard on women
About 65 kilometres from the cracked earth that was once their source of income, Mandakini Mujmule, in her forties, and her daughter Anita, 21, have spent 16 days in Beed city’s government hospital. Mandakini has undergone a complicated uterine surgery, nearly four years after she first experienced shooting pain in her lower abdomen.
The crop failures at home in Kari village of Beed’s drought-hit Dharur taluka are behind them, they don’t talk about it anymore. Until Mandakini is reminded that the trouble with her uterus coincided with the drought of 2012.
In Marathwada’s worst-hit districts of Beed, Osmanabad and Latur, households now have an uncompromising priority list of expenses as an economy hit by years of near-total crop failure goes into a tailspin, The Indian Express reported. And, as rural doctors are finding to their dismay, women’s health, and certainly reproductive health, lies at the bottom of the pyramid, along with women’s nutrition, equal pay for labour and higher education for girls.
4. Of Kerala polls, a Left activist, angry BJP & `fair-skin' gods
Kerala's election battle has reached Delhi, and how. The information & broadcasting (I&B) ministry has been petitioned in a controversy that involves a Kerala green activist, a radio programme and gods.
The Kerala unit of Bharatiya Janata Party complained to the I&B ministry on March 23 that a programme by CN Parameswaran, a 78-year-old surgeonturned-environmentalist, on the state's All India Radio network had “anti-Hindu“ content. And that the incumbent Kerala government, the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), is “misusing“ AIR.
5. Flipkart, Snapdeal founders spar over Alibaba's India plans
India's startup poster boys Sachin Bansal and Kunal Bahl have got into another spat on Twitter, this time over plans by Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba to directly start operations in India, the Economic Times reported.
Bansal, executive chairman of Flipkart, fired the first salvo on Friday night by indirectly criticising rivals, in whose companies Alibaba has invested. “Alibaba deciding to start operations directly shows how badly their Indian investments have done so far,“ he tweeted.
6. Pee in public and pay `5,000
The Centre has directed states to start levying fines for littering, open defecation and public urination by April 30 as the NDA government’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission has failed to have the desired effect in urban areas.
Littering or urinating in public places could invite penalties ranging between ` 200 and ` 5,000. In a communication to all chief secretaries, the urban development ministry has asked states to impose penalties in at least one ward in each city by April 30, all wards in 10-15 cities by the end of the year and all wards in all cities by September 30, 2018, the Hindustan Times reported.
7. Western UP gangs hunt for fresh recruits in state’s jails
Recruiters for western Uttar Pradesh’s criminal gangs are increasingly tapping the state’s jails to scout potential talent, posing a law-enforcement challenge in Noida and other NCR towns, police say.
Members of different criminal outfits are lodged separately in eastern and central UP’s jails to avert clashes but this safeguard also allows them to form networks funded by parent gangs from outside. Petty criminals’ bail bonds are often furnished by gangs offering them lucrative roles, a special task force of the state police has found.
“Intelligence inputs have suggested that many of them (western UP gangsters) are spreading their gangs in eastern UP. We are compiling details of criminals who have recently furnished bail bonds and got out of these jails,” Raj Kumar Mishra, deputy superintendent of police, special task force (west), said.
8. Jail ki murgi dal barabar, `lonely' dacoit gives it up
Former Chambal dacoit Arvind Gujjar fought for his right to non-vegetarian food, among other `luxuries', in jail, but the good things came at a price Gujjar realised he could not afford.
Eleven years after he surrendered, Gujjar realised he had not signed on for the hard, colourless, tasteless life he was leading in jail. An RTI query filed by his lawyer confirmed that Gujjar was entitled to non-vegetarian food, firewood, coal, ghee, cooking utensils, holy books, and other perks. Armed with a copy of Madhya Pradesh's 1998 sur render policy for dacoits, Gujjar confronted the authorities at Gwalior Central Jail. A baffled jail department agreed to fulfil its end of the deal, but with a rider: he would have to relish the goodies in the confines of an isolation cell.
Jail superintendent S P Kamthan told TOI, “We have hundreds of prisoners who may go berserk at the sight of mutton and the other special arrangements provided to him. So we shifted him to an isolated cell on the premises.“
9. UK court rules deporting Indians for ‘cheating’ unlawful
A British court has ruled as unlawful the basis of the deportation of nearly 48,000 non-EU students — most of them Indians — in the past two years for allegedly fraudulently passing a mandatory English language test needed for visa purposes.
In a damning ruling this week, the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) allowed an appeal by two students who were accused of cheating in the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) conducted by the US-based company ETS.
10. Cops among 20 accused of beating up Congolese man
A 25-year-old Congolese man has alleged a mob of around 20 people, including some policemen, assaulted him with cricket bats and passed racial slurs at him and two of his friends on Wednesday night, the Times of India reported.
Divin Sebuliri, a masters student at Noi da International University , said his friends were stopped from entering the residential society in Greater Noida where he lives on rent. Some residents also called him “dark skinned“.
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