Here are some important reports from the biggest newspapers of India
1. You could soon plan weddings on luxury cruises if government has its way
The shipping ministry will soon permit "marriage cruises" on sea which can accommodate as many as 4,000-5,000 persons for holding any social event.
According to the Times of India, Shipping and road transport minister Nitin Gadkari said a private player has shown interest in coming up with such a service and his ministry is keen to allow such operations on the Indian seas.
Stating that the facilities in such luxury cruises would be “better than any of Delhi's banquet halls“, Gadkari said these will have hundreds of rooms, playgrounds, swimming pool, spa and saloon.
2. Performing in bars less exploitative than working as maids, say dancers
In a startling revelation, girls who perform in dance bars told the Supreme Court that working condition in such bars were less sexually exploitative than working as domestic maids or as agricultural labourers, report in Hindustan Times said.
Challenging the Maharashtra legislation banning dance bars and seeking their early reopening, the Bharatiya Bargirls Union (BBU), through advocate Nikhil Nayyar, told the SC about the penury and pitiable condition the women were reduced to after closure of the dance bars.
3. Parking in south Delhi may soon cost Rs 100 per hour
Parking a car in south Delhi may soon be costlier. In a bid to motivate residents to use multi-level facilities, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) plans to increase parking charges on surface lots up to 100 per hour.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, officials said the move discourage commuters from using their vehicles would decongest roads. Currently, the parking fee in south Delhi is 20 per hour, up to five hours. There is a standard fee of 100 for 24 hours.
4. Uber to taxi on two wheels as Well
Bike service UberMOTO to debut in Bengaluru today; fares as low as Rs 3km
Uber will debut its biketaxi service on Thursday in India's technology capital, making Bengaluru the second city after Bangkok into which the world's most valuable startup is riding in on two wheels.
To be called UberMOTO, the service is aimed at tapping additional revenue streams in one of the world's biggest markets for two-wheelers, the Economic Times reported. Fares will be as low as Rs 3 per km.Uber declined to comment for this story.
Launching the service in Bangkok on February 24, Uber had said that all of its standard product safety features are in place before, during and after every UberMOTO ride, including live GPS tracking, two-way feedback and the ability to share trip details with family and friends.The same features will be available in India.
5. 9-bedroom tower with terrace pool in place of Rajesh Khanna's Aashirwad
The building will have several rooms with sea- facing terraces, garden area and a rooftop pool, and will be built at an approximate cost of R 3 crore
Now that Rajesh Khanna’s iconic bungalow on Carter Road has been demolished, a five-storey building with a terrace pool, flower beds and a courtyard for the new owner and his family. The demolition of the bungalow is complete, and the new owner, billionaire businessman Shashi Kiran Shetty has different plans for the 603-sq-mt plot, Mid-Day reported.
Shetty, the founder of Chennai-based multinational Allcargo Logistics, had bought the bungalow for a whopping Rs 85 crore, but it had been in poor shape since Khanna’s death in 2012. Moreover, Aashirwad had been designed in a haphazard manner, and sources say there was a massive bathroom on one of the floors, which was almost as big as a bedroom. There was no space for a garden either New property Shetty will now build a ground 5 structure on the housing the parking area for five cars, a storeroom and utilities.
6. Censored parts of films to stay out of net
Film-makers to give undertaking to Censor Board not to release deleted portions on Internet.
Film buffs may no longer be able to turn to the Internet for watching portions found objectionable by the censor board. This follows the decision of the Central Board of Film Certification to bar film-makers from releasing the excised portions to anybody, including on the Web, the Economic Times reported.
Film-makers will now be required to furnish an undertaking to this effect, Assistant Solicitor General Chetan Mittal told the Punjab & Haryana High Court on Wednesday on behalf of the information & broadcasting ministry and the censor board.
The matter came up during resumed hearing of a public interest litigation filed in January against the release of Mastizaade and Kya Kool Hain Hum 3.
7. Sops on cards for junking old four-wheelers
The road transport and highways ministry has prepared a draft voluntary vehicle fleet modernisation policy for four-wheelers older than 12 years. As per the policy, anyone voluntary scrapping his pre-Bharat stage II vehicle (older than 12 years) will get up to 15% discount (including manufacturer discount and rebate on excise duty) on new vehicles.
In phase-II, government will provide similar incentives to owners of old twowheeler vehicles as well. In India, there are over 40 lakh Pre BS-II fourwheeler vehicles in both commercial and passenger segment. With two-wheeler, the total goes to almost one crore vehicles that are older than 12 years.
Pre-BS II vehicles are almost 10 times more polluting than BS V vehicles, a transport ministry study has found. Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari gave his final nod to the policy on Wednesday, the Economic Times reported.
8. Another Dolphin washed ashore, this time in Vasai
The incident of dead Dolphins being washed ashore on the Mumbai coastline has left the conservationists fuming and raised concerns over the safety of marine life.
On Tuesday, a dead Dolphin was found dead in Gorai and was later sent for forensic analysis. Wednesday too saw a dead dolphin washed on the shores of Vasai’s Bhuigaon beach, DNA reported.
This just adds to the number of unexplained beaching of dead dolphins and whales on the western coastline. In January, carcass of a 35-feet long Bryde’s Whale was spotted at Juhu Beach, while another was rescued from shallow waters of Dapoli beach in Ratnagiri district in February.
9. Immigration officer thrashes flier at Mumbai airport for pointing out mistake
As the chef for a cruise liner, Kishore Shimpi was at sea, thousands of kilometres away, but when he heard about his son’s accident and head injury, he desperately began to look for a way to return to family’s side in Mumbai. He was at Mexico, but there was no direct flight to Mumbai from there, so he had to first go to Paris and then catch another flight. But what he could not have bargained for was the hours it would cost him to deal with the incompetence and the insensitive treatment he got at the hands of Immigrations officials.
On March 1, his flight from Paris (Jet Airways flight 9W 123) arrived at 8.15 am and he rushed towards the immigrations section to finish the formalities and leave the airport. But in his distracted state of mind, Shimpi did not notice that the official had wrongly stamped his passport with February 28 as the date of entry.
When he went back Immigrations Constable Deepak Chavan who had affixed the wrong stamp, the junior staffer began to joke with Chavan. The junior told the counter in-charge to change the date and quipped that it was not February 28 but February 2. That’s when Shimpi lost his temper. From this point on, the row kept getting uglier, soon turning into fisticuffs. Shimpi alleged that other immigration staffers turned up and held him, after which Chavan was easily able to land punches on him.
10. Outnumbered in RS, NDA to get a boost from 7 new nominated MPs
The forthcoming biennial election to 13 Rajya Sabha seats in six states on March 21 may not give the ruling NDA an edge in the upper House but it stands to gain by recommending seven nominated members who could come in handy when the government looks to pass the crucial GST bill.
Five nominated members will retire on March 21 while two others -Ashok Ganguly and HK Dua -have already retired, the Times of India reported. The five members who will be retiring on March 21 are Mani Shankar Aiyer, Javed Akhtar, B Jayashree, Mrinal Miri and Bhalchandra Mungekar.
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