News Digest: All-women Combat Group in Metro Trains
News Digest: All-women Combat Group in Metro Trains
The all-women combat group has been especially trained to fight in narrow enclosures.

Here is what is making news on a Tuesday morning

All-women combat group in Metro trains

The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) gave a new form of security to women on International Yoga Day in the form of a new combat group for Delhi Metro. The step was taken after multiple cases of molestation were registered at Metro police stations.

The all-women combat group has been especially trained to fight in narrow enclosures, like Metro trains, with multiple opponents using a combination of Pekiti-Tirsia Kali, a Filipino martial art, as reported in The Times of India.

NSG: US standing by India, publicly and privately

The Obama administration on Monday again put its weight behind India's admission to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, calling on member sates to support New Delhi's application even as China, the main hurdle, appeared to soften its position.

The administration used both its White House and state department pulpits to voice its support for India's membership as the 48-country cartel began its plenary session in Seoul. "India is ready for membership. And the United States calls on participating governments to support India's application," President Barack Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest said at his daily briefing. Read full article in The Times of India.

Scrap railway budget: Niti Aayog panel

The British-era practice of presenting a separate railway budget may be discarded by the Narendra Modi government after a high-powered panel headed by Niti Aayog member Bibek Debroy recommended that the annual exercise should be scrapped.

Niti Aayog was mandated by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to work out a detailed plan for integration of rail budget with the general budget. Debroy had made similar recommendations in a report on restructuring of railways. But only some of the proposals were implemented, as per a news report in The Times of India.

Story of lion cub, its ticking teddy bear ends in tears

A Lion cub cuddles up to a teddy bear in a crib, a ticking clock inside the soft toy imitating the heartbeat of the mother who abandoned him. At the Machia Safari Park in Jodhpur, it was as if a fairy tale had just turned real. Until the wake-up call came just five days later, as reported in The Indian Express.

On Sunday, the two-week-old cub succumbed to the punishing summer heat and weak immunity. "On June 14, he fell ill. We tried to revive him by putting him inside a crib with a teddy bear. We even put a ticking clock inside the toy to simulate heartbeat," said Sharavan Singh Rathore, wildlife veterinary doctor at the park.

He was building dream home, just like he saw in Kabul: Brother of Indian killed in Afghanistan terror attack

Mounds of sand fill up three rooms of a bungalow that has yellow French windows. On its red roof is a black clay mask to ward off evil spirits. The sand would have soon made way for black tiles on the floor. But the incomplete construction now stands next to Govind Singh Thapa's (48) house in Bhuttuwala area of Dehradun as a reminder of his unfulfilled dream and his untimely death.

The news of the death of Govind Singh and Ganesh Thapa (51), both ex-servicemen from Dehradun, in a terror attack by a suicide bomber in Kabul on Monday shattered their wives living over 1,200 km away. One expressed it with unstoppable tears, the other with unbreakable silence. Read full article in The Indian Express.

Protest at Noida hospital: 'Ultrasound showed twins, woman gave birth to one child'

Dramatic scenes were witnessed at B R Ambedkar Multi Speciality Hospital in Noida Monday after a woman, whose ultrasound reports had shown she was pregnant with twins, gave birth to only one child, prompting her family to protest at the hospital.

"We admitted her to the hospital on Sunday afternoon. The doctors had said a surgery would be required because the babies cannot be delivered normally," said Devendra Kumar, the brother-in-law of 25-year-old Sangeeta Devi, as repprted in The Indian Express.

Will bring tapping to SC notice, make it part of Essar leaks case: Prashant Bhushan

The recent revelations regarding alleged tapping of VVIPs by an ex-Essar employee should be made part of ongoing proceedings in the Essar leaks case in the Supreme Court. The latter relates to emails "leaked" by a whistleblower that show an alleged “nexus” between the company and politicians, bureaucrats and journalists.

Calling for this, the petitioner in the Essar leaks case, Prashant Bhushan, Supreme Court lawyer whose Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) has filed a PIL in the matter, said Tuesday that reports of alleged phone-tapping done by Albasit Khan, as first reported in The Indian Express, were "groundbreaking."

Hindus in Pakistan protest sale of Om-inscribed shoes

Hindus in Pakistan's Sindh province are protesting the sale of shoes inscribed with sacred religious symbol 'Om' and described the actions of shopkeepers selling them as "unfortunate" and "blasphemous", as per a news report in the Hindustan Times.

The patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC), Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, said that they have lodged protests with the Sindh government and local authorities in Tando Adam Khan after the sale of such shoes was brought to the notice of his community.

'Made in India' F-16s on radar, thanks to FDI

American military manufacturer Lockheed Martin could soon be producing F-16 fighters in an assembly line based in India, taking advantage of the new liberalised FDI conditions announced by the government on Monday.

If the legendary American fighter is deployed with the Indian Air Force after local production, it would signal a historic shift in India's military posture that could dramatically affect the country's relations with China, Pakistan and other nations. It could also draw much criticism to the fact that India was inducting a fighter that first took to the skies more than 40 years ago, as per a news report in The Hindu.

Why Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and ShopClues fight and can’t stand united against offline retailers and government rules

India's ecommerce blue chips are disunited and fractious, even when confronted with a constricting set of central government rules - the April-announced policy on etailers and marketplaces - and various state-level taxation threats, as per a news report in The Economic Times.

Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, ShopClues and others face a determined and united brick-and-mortar retailers' group, Retailers Association of India (RAI), but the stars of ecommerce can't lobby the government with one voice. And the impact of this on the etailing business is at best uncertain.

PM Narendra Modi's dream project 'Startup India' to be revamped to woo more participants

Five months after its launch by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government's Startup India initiative is due for an overhaul to improve participation. The government recently held a review after fewer-than expected startups applied for recognition and only one made the final cut for the incentives that are available under the programme.

Subsequently, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) chalked out a strategy to upgrade the action plan and get more enterprises to take part, said a senior official. About 200 companies had applied for recognition, of which, 30 were shortlisted for consideration last month by the inter-ministerial board formed by DIPP, as per a news report in The Economic Times.

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