Here are some important reports from the biggest newspapers of India:
1.) Now, a choice to opt out of rail food
June 15 onwards, Railways will start the much-awaited trial in which passengers can opt out of meals while booking tickets of Rajdhanis and Shatabdis. If the passenger chooses not to eat, he/she will not have to pay either. This means paying around Rs 300 less — the catering charges levied by Railways for serving food, The Indian Express reports.
The 45-day trial will be carried out on the Patna Rajdhani, the Delhi-Mumbai August Kranti Rajdhani, the Pune-Secunderabad Shatabdi and the Howrah-Puri Shatabdi. But officials are certain that the trial is a mere formality. The element of “freedom”, they said, will be received positively by passengers.
2.) Becoming an MBA Gets Tougher as Fees Rise, Scholarships Ebb
In a double whammy for management students, fees of the top schools have risen significantly even as scholarship disbursal on the campuses has slipped. The Indian School of Business (ISB) is the latest to raise its fee for an MBA degree to Rs 24 lakh, The Times of India reports.
Its move followed the IIMs', which cited rising costs and shrinking government funds to up their sticker rate. The increases come even as almost one in every three freshmen is unable to pay the fees and needs loans or scholarships, said a faculty member.
3.) People mistake pair of glasses on floor as art
Several visitors to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art were fooled into thinking a pair of glasses set on the floor by a 17-year-old prankster was a postmodern masterpiece, The Times of India reports.
To test out the theory that people will stare at, and try and artistically interpret, anything if it's in a gallery setting, TJ Khayatan set a pair of glasses down and walked away. Soon, people began to surround them, maintaining a safe distance from the `artwork' and several of them taking pictures. The teen's tweet about the moment gathered over 45,000 retweets.
4.) India seeks fresh treaties with 47 nations
India has written to 47 countries to nullify the existing bilateral investment agreements and ink fresh treaties that will make it mandatory for foreign investors to exhaust local judicial remedies before seeking arbitration.
The Narendra Modi-led NDA government has prepared a model draft which will serve as the template for all investment agreements in the future and also for reworking the current ones, The Economic Times reports.
5.) How Central Railway lost 42 precious minutes in an emergency situation
It took Central Railway 42 minutes to put out an SOS when the main line services went kaput on Wednesday night. It thoroughly exposed the “quick“ response to a crisis situation. The train services got disrupted around 8.15 pm after a technical glitch at Vikhroli station led to a total breakdown of services on the CR main line with at least one lakh commuters in limbo.
The disruption of services spilled over to the roads with both the eastern express highway and the LBS Marg the only two direct road alternatives to the rail line choc-a-bloc with traffic pile-up. It took at least three hours for people to reach their destination, which otherwise should take 40 minutes to an hour, The Mumbai Mirror reports.
6.) A Didi fan organises her photo exhibition in Chennai
A plastic shop owner in Kasi Chetty Street Sowcarpet in Chennai, Anand Kumar Bhowmick, has displayed around 200 photos of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, of whom he is a huge fan, The Hindu reports.
Bhowmick who says his father was from West Bengal and his mother a South Indian, travelled to Kolkata in 2011 a few months after Banerjee won the elections there, just to meet her. The 50-year-old scoured books, newspapers and event went to book fairs in Delhi and Chennai looking for any material on Banerjee.
7.) To make inroads in Delhi University politics, AAP floats teachers’ body
After formally launching its students’ body last year, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has now announced the formation of a teachers’ body. The 15-member body has already selected four teachers as office bearers. SA Jafferi, associate professor at Rajdhani College, is the president of the body, as reported by The Hindustan Times.
Jafferi was earlier associated with Indian National Teachers Congress (INTEC) –the teachers body associated with the Congress between 2009 and 2011. Jafferi was also the officiating principal of Ram Lal Anand College (evening) between 2012 and 2015.
8.) Nirbhaya Fund only lip service if it remains unused, says SC
As Rs 2,000 crore Nirbhaya Fund remains unutilised, the Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre to formulate a national policy for proper rehabilitation of rape survivors, saying the fund amounted to “just a lip service”. Nirbhaya Fund was started with a corpus of Rs 1,000 crore to support initiatives towards protecting the dignity and ensuring safety of women in India. Since then the fund has become fatter but mostly remained unutilised.
Issuing notices to the Centre, states and union territories, a vacation bench headed by justice PC Pant asked them to spell out within six weeks the steps taken for effective implementation of a provision of the Criminal Procedure Code on victim compensation, other such schemes and the number of women compensated, The Hindustan Times reported.
9.) Officials shouldn’t connect phones to office computers, ministries told
Vulnerabilities posed by devices have made the government crack down on officials handling sensitive information using smart phones at work. “As smart phones are increasingly becoming prone to data theft and hacking, the government has warned all ministries and departments to be careful with their use,” said a senior government official requesting anonymity.
The issue was discussed at a two-day conference on strengthening the country’s cyber security network that concluded on Thursday. Such devices should not be brought for sensitive meetings or briefings. Even sensitive conversations should not allowed on them, the Hindustan Times reported.
10.) Man dies of heart attack from shock of blast
Five people died, 126 were injured and many remained missing after an explosion in a Dombivli chemical factory in MIDC Phase-II on Thursday morning. The blast shattered windows of buildings and blew away a few roofs as far as two kilometres from the factory, creating panic in the city.
One of the five deceased Raju Shilgare, who recently underwent a bypass surgery, reportedly died of a heart attack following the sound of the blast. The injured were taken to nearby hospitals like Icon, AIMS, RR, Shastrinagar and Fortis and 58 were discharged after treatment but 13 are reportedly in a serious condition, The Times of India reported.
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