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Murderer at large traced in Munirka
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Community policing set to go places in Gurgaon
‘Sarkar Apke Dwar’ schemes yet to see the light of day
A ‘story-teller’ is out to revamp children’s literature
President calls for new educational model
Consumer court non-functional for six months
Small units petition PM on govt inaction
Indians are at high risk of osteoporosis, feel experts
Rich Indian heritage on display till Oct 31
Afghan refugee held with illegal passport
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Murderer at large traced in Munirka
New Delhi, October 19 According to the police, Shekhar had committed a daylight murder in his village. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by the session court. He petitioned the Supreme Court, but the apex court had dismissed his appeal. Instead of surrendering, since he was out on anticipatory bail, he arrived in the Capital with the certificates of one of his friends, Narhari Dass. He even did not keep in touch with his wife Reena, whom he had married in Orissa in 1995. In Delhi, he got married to one Sangeeta Mathur (name changed). However, after marriage, he started behaving in a suspicious manner. He even asked his father-in-law for Rs 50,000 to facilitate plastic surgery on his face as he wanted to improve his looks. In May 2004, during general elections, a car with a beacon light happened to stop in front of his house. Seeing it, he tried to jump from the first floor of the house. His wife prevented him from doing so. She voiced her suspicions to her father. Meanwhile, the accused, who had got some inkling of the suspicions she was harbouring, escaped from there. The Crime Branch apprehended him last night and booked him in a case of impersonation and cheating.
Principal held for selling fake CBSE certificates
The Delhi Police have arrested a principal of a senior secondary school for allegedly selling fake certificates of CBSE. The accused, Santosh Kumari Bhardwaj (49), a resident of Tri Nagar, is the Principal of Mata Shiv Devi School, Keshav Puram. According to the police, Rajender Mahajan, the complainant, reported to the police that the principal had allegedly cheated him of Rs 50,000 by promising to help him get through the CBSE examinations. When the complainant went to the CBSE office, he found that the certificates he had allegedly obtained from the Principal were fake. Later, he contacted the principal and asked him to refund his money. But the principal refused to oblige. At this, the complainant contacted the police. The police said that there were some other complaints against the principal too, which the Department of Education was investigating. The complainant, Rajender, a resident of Paharganj, was appearing for the examination as an external candidate for the
second time. He had earlier appeared in the same examination in 1985-86, but had failed. The involvement of the CBSE in the racket cannot be ruled out, the police said.
Five held for highway, train robberies
The Delhi Police have arrested five persons for their role in robberies. Of these, three persons were involved in robbing truck drivers while two were active in trains. Those arrested were identified as Satender Pal Singh, Bhoop Singh, Raj Kumar, Deepak and Praveen Kumar. Raj Kumar, a former dealer in acid, took to train robbery after he suffered losses in business after the death of his father. He was involved in a number of train robberies along with his associates Deepak and Praveen Kumar. The police arrested them on October 18 after being tipped-off that the gang was planning an operation in a moving train. They were arrested near the Azadpur junction after they jumped from a moving train. In another case, the police seized 25 metric tonnes of paper and one Maruti car with the arrest of Satinder Pal Singh and Bhoop Singh, both involved in looting trucks on the highways.
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Cops turn foster parents to lost five-year-old child
New Delhi, October 19 The burly policemen, who maintain law and order in the crime prone area bordering Ghaziabad, are now taking turns in looking after the basic needs of the infant. For the last two weeks they are also taking turns in escorting the child to a nearby school, where he has been admitted in the pre-nursery by the foster parents – the policemen. Five-year-old Rahul has really taken to the new found “uncles” who not only look after him well by providing him food and clean clothes but occasionally treat him with chocolates and sweets. Rahul lives and plays in the police post The only time he is left in the care of a neighbour is when they have to use “ police methods” to interrogate suspects. “ We do not want the child to see all this. We want him to think of policemen as friends,” explained a policeman posted at the post. Rahul was found by the police four months back in the Harsh Vihar area in the northeast district of the Capital. In response to a PCR call, the local police reached the spot and found a child crying for his mother. He was hungry and his clothes were dirty. Standing at the corner of the road, he was trying to locate his mother. Sub-Inspector Kailash Yadav, posted at the Harsh Vihar police post, picked him up, took him to a sweets shop and purchased some milk for him. The boy stopped crying and the police took him to the police station and since then he is living with the cops even as efforts are being made to locate his parents. The police initially took him to a Children’s Home but they refused to take him and since then he has been living with the cops. When The Tribune met him at the police post, Rahul was brimming with happiness as he had been given a new dress by the wife of SI Kailash Yadav. “Aunty bahut achchi hain.
(Aunty is kind hearted. She has bought me new dresses). But Rahul still fondly remembers his sisters, Pooja and Lilly. He recalled the last time he had been with his family before getting separated. Every time he talks about his family, his eyes have a forlorn look. He is convinced that his saviours would trace his parents soon. To keep him away from the humdrum of the police post, the cops have requisitioned the services of a local resident, Budha Singh, and his family who take care of him most of the time. “Lekin homework karne yeh hamare paas hi aata hai (But for doing his homework, he comes only to us),” said a constable posted at the police post. Rahul goes to Rajiv Public School, a nearby English medium school. He returns at 12.30 pm. He takes his lunch with the policemen and then goes out to play. At 3 pm, they make him take a nap. In the evening, one of the constables helps him in his studies and then Rahul watches television. He prefers TV to even the Ramlila. The police are now distributing posters pasted with his photograph in the nearby areas to trace his parents. They do not want him to go, but they are duty bound to restore him to his kin. The description of the child has also been flashed at other police stations in
Ghaziabad district. This is not the first that these cops have done something like this. Six months ago, they had found a seven-year-old child, Ankit. But he was able to give the
cops details about himself. The police kept him for a few weeks till they managed to trace his parents, who were living in Pratap Nagar in the Capital.
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Community policing set to go places in Gurgaon
Gurgaon, October 19 A few days ago, the district police chief, Mr Alok Kumar Roy, along with other senior officers, addressed a selected 50-odd members from the constabulary as part of imparting training to the personnel on the issue. The convention of the police personnel was organised in the DLF police station. The idea of community policing is quite old, though it remains on paper only in our country. It is, however, the ‘in’ thing in some of the advanced democratically ruled countries like the USA and the UK. A senior officer said that community policing means that the residents keep themselves on the vigil and participate with the police to prevent the occurrence of crimes. They could do this with blowing the whistle on the criminals. For this to happen, the public have to have confidence in the police, and the personnel must be conscious of it. Significantly, Gurgaon is perhaps the only city in Haryana where the police are trying to work the concept on the ground. The reason for this appears to be a growing demand on the police department to make Gurgaon crime-free. With the ever-increasing geographical boundaries of the city, the city is acquiring a cosmopolitan character wherein the neighbours hardly know each other. Besides, the number of skyscrappers is increasing. To cap it, with the floating labour force, the area has become prone to crime. The passing of the national highway and Gurgaon being neighbours to Delhi and Alwar district of Rajasthan, have added to the concern of the police, what with the inter-gangs groups crossing over here. Besides, the police force is facing a severe manpower shortage. The police-public ratio is abysmally low. Whatever remains, a good chunk of the force is invested in VIP securities. Many feel that in such a situation, a strong practice of community policing is a ‘win-win’ proposition for all concerned in Gurgaon. A senior member of the district police told TNS that the aim was to train larger section of the police force so as to make it sensitive to the issue. The personnel are asked to adopt a human approach towards the complainants who visit the police stations. They are also being impressed upon to be people-friendly as this would increase their intelligence network and the concomitant inputs on the crime front. If the present mood in the higher echelons of the police is any indication, a vigorous training programme is being worked out to further attune the constabulary on the issue.
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‘Sarkar Apke Dwar’ schemes yet to see the light of day
Faridabad, October 19 The government had announced to begin quite a few projects of development worth about Rs 30 crore in the
third phase of this programme in the Ballabhgarh Assembly constituency, which was held
in 2003. However, according to reports, many roads which were to be repaired and developed by the State Marketing Board are still in disrepair. The main roads identified to be taken up in the last programme, include the road connecting Ballabhgarh with Asavati, Mothuka to Dulepur, and from Bahadurpur to Mandhavali. It is learnt that only half of the work had been done as these roads were still to be metalled properly. Due to dumping of only soil, the people who use these roads had to brave clouds of dusts and innumerous pits, claimed a resident of a nearby village. The authorities are still to take up the work of constructing a boundary wall of the well-known Dussehra ground of the Ballabhgarh town, whose announcement had also been made in the last ‘Sarkar Apke Dwar’ programme. The ground which serves the purpose of holding public functions has also reduced to a dumping ground of waste. The residents of Unchagaon, who were promised a sub-divisional level sports stadium, are still waiting for the start of the work. It is learnt that there were no signs of any development of the sports complex in the village so far. The announcement of relaying the roads and construction of ‘phirnis’ in many ‘khader’ villages is also waiting to be materialised. The residents of these villages had demanded roads to link Ghevar and Noida of UP from there. There are at least 12 villages of Ballabhgarh subdivision, but they are located across the Yamuna. One of the main roads that links Khader-Baghpur village was announced to be made of concrete, but the condition of this passage is also reported unchanged despite the passing of more than a year of the announcement. Even the roads of Ballabhgarh town are no better. “There are several points, including the Sihi Gate and the main road near the post-office where deep craters have emerged on the roads, endangering the lives of people moving on the road,” said a local shopkeeper. On the other hand, the works that have been claimed to have been completed include the
laying of sewerage system in two main localities, and boundary wall of the main
city park. The officials claim that most of the works announced in the last phase had been completed and if anything was left out, it could be due to non-feasibilty. The Congress leader, Ms Sharda Rathaur, has described the programme as only a run-up to the next elections and claimed that there was hardly any development in the region during the past five years.
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A ‘story-teller’ is out to revamp children’s literature
New Delhi, October 19 “We have a problem as far as children’s literature is concerned in the country, especially in Indian languages. Apart from major publishing houses like Children’s Book Trust (CBT) and National Book Trust (NBT), there is very little,” he told The Tribune. Having accepted the challenge of producing meaningful children’s literature, Prof. Kumar highlighted the work that the council will carry out in that direction. “We are setting up a committee, which will draw up policies for non-textbook material for children. We are also bringing together some of the best minds for the magazine as well as the non-textbook publications,” he said. He went on to add, “One of my first steps after coming here (NCERT) was to moot a proposal for the publication of children’s magazine which, we hope, will start by the middle of next year. We have begun designing the magazine, which will be for both children and adolescents.” The magazine, which will initially be published in Hindi, could later on be brought out in other Indian languages, the Director pointed out. He added, “I must also say filling up of vacuum has to be both in terms of better publications for children as well as better media. We should look at children’s media in a holistic manner and the Central Institute of Educational Technology will be looking at the improvement in the quality of children’s programming”. Bitter that the children’s media has done little for encouraging imagination and that admission tests for the younger children continue despite the Yash Pal Committee’s recommendations against the same, Prof. Krishna Kumar said that “putting the same kind of pressure on children as young adults is destroying our children’s potential, both in terms of their intellectual capacities and imagination, which are the gifts of childhood.” Prof. Kumar is also hopeful that story-telling as an effective means of education will revive. “I am a story-teller and I have started telling a story every week to Class 1 children in our primary school. I find it a refreshing way of starting a day of administrative work, but I feel that story-telling has to receive a much higher profile as an activity and has to become a serious matter of training, as India is a land with a great story-telling tradition. We are an oral culture, which has maintained story-telling as a heritage and we have to promote this.” He added, “I hope when the NCF is reviewed in the coming years, story-telling would become an important activity of primary school reforms.”
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President calls for new educational model
New Delhi, October 19 Addressing the first convocation of Guru Gobind Indraprastha University here, he said education and health care, agriculture and food processing, information and communication technology, infrastructure development and self-reliance in critical technology are needed for the growth of the nation. “For participating in the nation building tasks, the capacities required to be built among the students in their formative years by the educational institutions are: the capacity for research or inquiry, the capacity for creativity and innovation, particularly the creative transfer of knowledge, the capacity to use high technology, the capacity for entrepreneurial leadership and the capacity for moral leadership,” the President said. Dr Kalam said with the economy becoming knowledge-driven and not industry-driven, there was need for building and nurturing special capacities among students. With 540 million youth below 25 years in the population of a billion people, Kalam said “the nation needs young leaders, who can command the change for transformation of India into a developed nation embedded with knowledge society.” The President said an important ingredient for success of the vision of transforming India into a developed nation by 2020 is the evolution of creative leaders. He suggested that ingredients for capacity building must be embedded right from the beginning of the students’ life and the aptitude for entrepreneurship should be cultivated right from the beginning and in the university environment. “We must teach our students to take calculated risks for the sake of larger gain, but within the ethos of good business. They should also cultivate a disposition to do things right. This capacity will enable them to take up challenging tasks later,” he said.
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Consumer court non-functional for six months
Ghaziabad, October 19 According to rules, for the functioning of any district consumer court, there must be one chairman and two members in the forum. Surprisingly, after the retirement of its previous chairman Mr S. P. Tyagi on April 15, no chairman has been appointed by the UP government so far. This apart, one member of this forum Mr Kanhaiya Lal was transferred six months back to Kanpur. Nobody has taken charge of his post so far. As a result, there is only one member left in the forum. And without fulfilling the quorum, no judgment can be given. An employee of this court informed on condition of anonymity that recently 300 fresh cases had arrived, but “we are completely helpless. We can only register the cases as no judgement can be delivered ”. Most of the pending cases are against the government agencies like Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) etc. One of the litigants, Mr Sanjay Sharma, president of the Vasundhara Social and Cultural Organisation (VASCO), said that they have been waiting for the judgment for many months. But because of the absence of the chairman and only one member, it cannot be delivered even though it is ready.
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Small units petition PM on govt inaction
New Delhi, October 19 A delegation led by Babarpur Area Small Industries Association President Rajesh Gupta told the Prime Minister that any delay in halting the sealing of units would prove disastrous for small manufacturers, who were suffering because of the Delhi Government’s inaction. Mr Gupta said the Prime Minister assured them that he was aware of the problem and a solution would soon be found. The government has been sleeping over the issue and swung into action only a few months before the deadline set by the Supreme Court for closure of polluting units in non-confirming areas was to expire, the manufacturers said in a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister. “The government had from time to time amended the Master Plan to suit its convenience and ignored the norms such as in building the Delhi Secretariat, IT Park, Commonwealth Games Village, both on the Yamuna river bed, and regularisation of unauthorised colonies,” the memorandum said. It pointed out that the Supreme Court had ordered the closure of factories as a last resort, only after it has given time to the government to bring these units under the Master Plan by due process of law. The manufacturers demanded that areas of industrial concentration should be regularised by developing them as per the Master Plan.
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Indians are at high risk of osteoporosis, feel experts
New Delhi, October 19 To mark the World Osteoporosis Day, observed all over the world on October 20, the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) launched an Asia-wide campaign that will figure on television and in print. In addition, IOF has prepared a special campaign aimed at physicians, to enable them to do an even better job of diagnosing and treating patients with osteoporosis. Osteoporosis, when the bones become brittle and break easily, is one of the world’s most widespread and debilitating diseases. It is also often known as the ‘silent epidemic’, as it has no symptoms until a fracture occurs. One out of three women over 50 will experience fractures worldwide due to osteoporosis, as will one out of five in men. The first Asia-wide advertising campaign, prepared by IOF and its 24-member societies in Asia, urges women to take control of their bone health by taking the “IOF one minute osteoporosis Risk Test”. Directed by leading Indian film-maker Naren Multani, the TV spot “Mannequin” will be available in English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hindi, Korean and Thai and soon in other major Asian languages. Many regional and selected national broadcast and print media in Asia agreed with the urgency to diagnose and treat osteoporosis and will offer free air time and space to run the advertisement. Dr Sushil Sharma, Chairman, Arthritis Foundation of India, “Indians are at high risk of osteoporosis. We have a lower bone density, we don’t get a calcium-rich diet as children and we increasingly lead a sedentary lifestyle.” Urging people to take responsibility for their bone health by taking the ‘IOF One Minute Risk Test’, he said, “Osteoporotic fractures often result in a loss of productivity and mobility. Only by regularly checking our bone density can we Asian women be sure we will be able to retain our independence. The TV spot will alert women throughout Asia that they can easily find out if they are at risk of osteoporosis by taking the risk test.” Meanwhile, actor and MP Hema Malini will kick-start the ‘Nari Na Jhuke’ campaign in association with the Nicholas Piramal India Limited. The month-long campaign, which begins tomorrow, will include free check-up camp for early detection and treatment of Osteoporosis and women can avail a free bone mineral density test. Hema Malini will speak to people across the country in their native language through an audiovisuals route, which will be aired at various hospitals and clinics.
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Rich Indian heritage on display till Oct 31
New Delhi, October 19 Inaugurated by Mr B K Sinha, Development Commissioner (Handlooms), India Weaves 2004 is a complete showcase of a fascinating and innovative range of weaves, stitches, prints and dyes, created exquisitely by millions of weavers from all across India. The exhibition closes on October 31, 2004. Organised by Association of Corporations and Apex Societies of Handlooms (ACASH) in association with the Development Commissioner (Handlooms) - Ministry of Textiles, India Weaves 2004 reflects the rich cultural diversity of the country through the hands of the weavers. It is also a platform to revive age-old weaves with a contemporary and fashionable look for the discerning Indian customer. India Weaves is an earnest effort to give a boost to the unknown artisans and craftsman and keep alive the rich timeless heritage. It provides a platform to the weavers from all parts of the country to showcase their products on a much wider scale and interact with the consumers directly, the organisers said. From Jammu and Kashmir to Tamil Nadu, from Pashmina shawls to silk saris, India Weaves 2004 boasts of a remarkable and exclusive collection of hand-woven fabrics, saris, shawls, durries, carpets, blankets, bedspreads and bath linen. The range of hand-woven fabrics includes saris, dress materials, woollens, shawls, blankets, home furnishings, decoratives and many more in a variety of brilliant colour combinations to suit every taste and occasion.
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Non-stop reading of Guru Granth Sahib
New Delhi, October 19 The books were transported to Gurdwara Kalgidhar in vehicles led by Baba Lakha Singh of Gurdwara Nanaksar near Ludhiana. Devotees carried silk-covered copies of the Guru Granth Sahib on their heads into the prayer hall, later placing them on separate seats under large canopies. However, several Dera traditions have drawn flak from community scholars. Workshop on AIDS awareness A workshop on ‘AIDS Awareness’ was organised by the Delhi State AIDS Control Society today at the CRPF Headquarters. The senior officers of the Force and office-bearers of the CRPF Wives Welfare Association attended the event.
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Dasehra function
Faridabad, October 19 A former HPCC chief and MP from Rohtak, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and Mr Avtaar Singh Bhadhana, MP from here, will be the guest of honour and chief guest respectively on the occasion.
— TNS
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Afghan refugee held with illegal passport
New Delhi, October 19 The CBI has further revealed that a large number of Afghan refugees, who are staying in Delhi, Faridabad and nearby areas, have acquired Indian passports illegally by submitting forged documents in connivance with the police and passport officials. With the help of these illegal documents, these refugees are slipping in and out of the country. Most of these refugees have obtained passports through impersonation and by furnishing fictitious addresses. The agency had carried out searches at Faridabad and Delhi, which resulted in seizure of several incriminating documents.
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