Here are some important reports from the biggest newspapers of India.
1. 'Reach crime scene fast like pizza boy'
The police must improve its response time and should take less than 10 minutes to reach a crime scene, the Delhi High Court said on Wednesday. Swift response to a distress call is key to making citizens feel safe, the court added, saying that maximum response time should be "like a pizza boy delivering the stuff faster than the guaranteed half an hour".
According to the Times of India, a bench of Justices BD Ahmed and RK Gauba made the remarks after the Centre, by way of an affidavit, claimed the Delhi Police response time has reduced to 10 minutes, to ensure safety and security of women in the city .
"We are concerned over the response time of the police team," the bench said. Referring to the response time given by the police, the HC said it is "very important to check the efficiency of the police. You will have to ensure that you reach the crime scene before 10 minutes." HC told additional solici tor general Sanjay Jain that response time of police should be known to everyone so that the citizens are aware that the police are always there on time at the crime scenes. The court asked the Delhi Police to file another affidavit on the concerns raised by it.
2. Bihar school toppers face retest after TV show leaves red faces
Just as the Bihar government was patting itself on the back for conducting the state education board examinations amid foolproof security, a controversy erupted after two toppers failed to answer rudimentary questions pertaining to their subjects on a television show.
Embarrassed board officials have put the results of the students — Roby Rai from the intermediate (arts) stream and Saurav Sresth from the intermediate (science) discipline — on hold, and are planning to subject all meritorious students to a re-test on June 3.
"Seven toppers each from intermediate (arts) and intermediate (science) will be called for an examination and an interview before a panel of experts. The students' handwriting will also be studied to confirm if they wrote in the answer books themselves," said Bihar board chairman Lalkeshwar Prasad Singh, the Hindustan Times reported.
3. Dead on paper for 12 years, he's living a nightmare
Santosh Murat Singh (35) has been on dharna at Jantar Mantar since 2012. And his is a unique problem-- he has been officially dead for 12 years and everything he owned has been sold off by his relatives. Yet once, he was the cook of Bollywood actor Nana Patekar. So how did things go downhill for him?
Love, he says. He fell in love with a Maharashtrian Dalit woman and married her. In 2002, he returned to his village in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, with his newly-wedded wife. But instead of a warm welcome, he faced social boycott from his family and the whole village.
"In 2000, Nana Patekar ji had come to Varanasi for the shooting of his film 'Aanch'. He took me with him to Mumbai and I worked as his cook and driver. Two years later, I married this Maharashtrian woman without caring for her caste. Six months after that, when I returned home, I got a reception I never expected. They abused me, assaulted me and pushed me out of the house. My fault: I was a Thakur who had married a Dalit. The whole village disowned me," Singh said, a reoport in the Times of Inda said.
4. Buy for Rs 3.75 crore, pay stamp duty for Rs 31 crore
According to official records obtained by The Indian Express, Maharashtra Revenue Minister Eknath Khadse's wife, Mandakini, and son-in-law, Girish Chaudhari, jointly purchased a three-acre land in Bhosari, near Pune, for Rs 3.75 crore on April 27, 2016. But the same records show that they paid Rs 1.37 crore as stamp duty. This works out to close to the stamp duty for a transaction amount of Rs 31.01 crore, the market value of the plot.
The reason for the discrepancy: The purchase price declared by Khadse's kin is substantially below the market value determined by the state government for the property. Going by the sale deed, Khadse's wife and son-in-law bought the property at Rs 1.25 crore per acre or Rs 3,088.81 per sq m.
The government’s annual statement of lands, which is used by the administration to determine the true market value, fixes the property rate at Rs 25,630 per sq m, which is over eight times more.
5. Life of Gandhi in 140 characters
A unique project launched by a scholar of Gandhian and peace studies to narrate the story of the life, philosophy and struggles of Mahatma Gandhi is set to make a lasting impression on youngsters in Rajasthan, where academicians and activists have expressed concern over school textbooks being revised with an "ideological slant". The scholar tells the story of the father of the nation through tweets.
"Gandhi Katha", released by Naresh Dadhich, head of Political Science Department in Rajasthan University, through a total of 405 tweets till Wednesday on his Twitter handle @ndadhich has covered the whole life of the Mahatma, ending with three bullets fired on him by Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948.
In the series of tweets in Hindi, Professor Dadhich has covered the significant events in Gandhiji's life, including his leadership in the freedom struggle, talks with the British government's missions, his fasts, jail terms served by him, attempts to forge Hindu-Muslim unity and his rejection of the two-nation theory, the Hindu reported.
6. By itself, disproportionate assets not crime: SC
Mere possession of assets disproportionate to known sources of income is not an offence and a person can be held guilty only if it is proved that the assets were acquired through illegal means, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.
“Disproportionate assets per se is not a crime. If it is proved that some of the income is not proven, then only the offence is complete, otherwise, it will be an inference only ," a bench of Justices PC Ghose and Amitava Roy said while hearing an appeal against the acquittal of Tamil Nadu CM J Jayalalithaa in a Rs 67 crore disproportionate assets case.
According to the Times of India, the Karnataka government, which challenged the acquittal, told the bench that the high court verdict was "perverse" as it "committed error" in calculating the CM's assets. It said the assets, expenditure and income of the accused was considered jointly and they couldn't make out a case for sepa rate assessment now. The bench said, "Suppose you prove all the accused are together and it is the same money of accused No. 1 (Jayalalithaa) which was being circulated, does it lead to conviction? Will it mean the money ... was from income obtained from unknown sources?" Appearing for the Karnataka government, senior advocates Dushyant Dave and B V Acharya claimed the HC had committed a grave error in calculating the disproportionate assets to the extent of 8.12% only when it actually worked out to 76.7% of the total income of the AIADMK chief and others.
7. From Sanskrit to Nepali to English, Assam MLAs take multilingual oath
Angoorlata Deka, the Assamese actor newly elected a BJP MLA in her state, drew more attention on Wednesday when she took oath in Sanskrit. "Yes, my mother tongue is Assamese, but then Sanskrit is the mother of most Indian languages," said Angoorlata, 30.
"When I chose Sanskrit to take oath as an MLA, I not only wanted to focus on the importance of this ancient language – dev bhasha – but also tried to tell the younger generation of the importance of learning this ancient yet rich, scientific language."
Angoorlata represents Batadrava constituency, which is also the birthplace of Srimanta Sankaradeva, the 16th-century saint-reformer who, she added, enriched the Assamese language by translating several Sanskrit scriptures, as per a report in the Indian Express
8. War readiness may have been hit if Pulgaon blaze had spread
The Army recovered at least three more bodies from the debris in the Army's Central Ammunition Depot (CAD) at Pulgaon in Maharashtra taking the death toll in Tuesday's fire to 19, even as details continued to emerge of how the military may have narrowly escaped a much bigger disaster.
The war preparedness of the Army could have been dramatically affected had the fire spread to other storage facilities in the vicinity.
Army sources said DNA sampling was under way to identify the three bodies recovered on Wednesday. At least one more firefighter is suspected to be missing in the fire and blasts. About 130 tonnes of mines and other ammunition blew up in the fire, which luckily did not spread. "One shed was completely blown up while another three sheds were slightly affected," one officer said. Officials said that in such explosions much of the ammunition usually goes down into the earth, while the shards fly in all directions. The unexploded bombs make the cleaning-up process particularly dangerous, a report in the Hindu read.
9. Vadodara locality to civic body: Don't let Muslims here
Residents of Kapurai — a neighbourhood in Vadodara where about 300 displaced families, mostly Muslims, are supposed to be relocated following the demolition of their homes in Suleiman Chawl — have written to the Vadodara Municipal Corporation protesting against the move. The letter states that allowing Muslims to move into the locality will "hamper the peace-loving nature here" as their "daily activity involves assaulting and abusing".
Kapurai is located about a kilometre from Hanuman Tekri, where the Best Bakery outlet run by a Muslim family was set ablaze during the 2002 Gujarat riots, resulting in 14 deaths.
As many as 318 clustered homes in Suleiman Chawl were on Tuesday demolished as part of the VMC's 'Slum Free Vadodara' drive. On Monday, the civic body had conducted a draw of lots to choose homes for 218 families, who would be relocated under the Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP) housing scheme. The documents of the rest of the families are being verified, the Indian Express reported.
10. Police stations to be graded on performance
Police stations nationwide will be graded on the basis of their performance, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told The Hindu in an interview on Tuesday.
Singh, who spoke at length on the steps that his Ministry has taken to improve policing, said: "Police stations should be graded on the basis of their performance. How they have performed on various parameters. The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPR&D) has developed parameters on which the police stations would be graded, and we have sent the proposal to the States for their suggestions."
According to the Hindu, the Minister said a new concept of "tourism police" was being considered. “We are raising a new police force for tourism and will provide it training, The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has prepared a concept paper, and it is being examined in the Ministry," Singh said.
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