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Khurana makes formal splash in state politics
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Dacoits return to haunt Loni
Seven Pehelwan gang members nabbed after encounter
Pak national sentenced to death in bus blast case
Cable TV blackout leaves viewers fidgeting in the dark
JNU married scholars on the warpath
JNU exchange pact with Australian varsity
Nature Bazaar at Dilli Haat from Nov 16
MCD staffer held for duping jobless
Awareness camp for morbidly obese
N Rly highest earner in passenger segment
Directive to ASI on
Jama Masjid
Driver who fled with Rs 5 lakh arrested
Gang rape of minor at dragger point
Criminal with reward on head shot
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Khurana makes formal splash in state politics
New Delhi, November 3 Mr Khurana also sought to scotch rumours that he was facing any kind of opposition in his own party and that it has been divided into groups with one headed by Delhi BJP chief Dr Harshvardhan himself. ‘’I have not come to take Dr Harshvardhan’s place. I gave up governorship to come back to my people to solve their problems and not to occupy any party post,’’ Mr Khurana told mediapersons after a meeting with Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit where he came accompanied by
Dr Harshvardhan. ‘’I am not even a BJP member as I had to resign from the party after I was appointed as governor. I have come back to espouse a cause that is affecting the lives of the common man in Delhi,’’ he said. In reply to a question, he said he told the Chief Minister that he welcomed her decision to amend the Delhi Master Plan to regularise industrial units in non-confirming areas, but at the same time reminded her that a similar decision had already been taken under the previous NDA government and he himself as chief minister had written to the Centre to declare areas with 70 per cent concentration of factories as industrial by changing the Master Plan. Mr Khurana said the present situation would not have arisen had the Congress government not delayed the implementation of the decision taken by the previous government. It is well known that the then Urban Development Minister Ananat Kumar had made a statement in Parliament in this regard. He said he has called a meeting of Delhi manufacturers at the residence of former MP Dr Saheb Singh Verma and requested Ms Dikshit to let him know all the steps her government was taking to solve the industries issue, including its stand in the affidavit it was going to submit to the Supreme Court, and she has agreed to his request. On the other hand, Ms Dikshit made light of Mr Khuarna’s espousal of the industries cause, saying he has made no fresh suggestions and recommendations to solve the issue. Talking to mediapersons after her meeting with Mr Khurana, she disputed his claim that the previous government had already taken a decision to change the Master Plan to regularise industrial units in residential areas. ‘’It is for the first time that it has been decided to insert an enabling clause in the existing Master Plan to regularise the factories,’’ she said.
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Dacoits return to haunt Loni
Loni, November 3 The intruders left while firing in the air. Before fleeing from the spot, they beat up the inmates and locked in a room and threatened them with death if they dare to inform the police about this. The Loni Kotwali police allegedly reached two hours late and inspected the site, but no FIR was registered till evening. There was, however, acute panic in the area. The criminals had intruded into the house of Mukhtar, s/o Abdul Ghaffar in Haji colony at 2.30 am. At that time, Mukhtar and his employees - Bhura and Kasim - were sleeping in the verandah. The intruders barged through the bedrooms and opened the steel almirahas at pistol point. Later, they hit Mukhtar and his wife Shamina on head with a pistol butt. And as they collapsed, they were pushed into a room along with Mukhtar’s younger brother, his wife and kids. The assailants caused havoc in the house for about an hour and decamped with Rs.45,000 in cash, jewellery worth lakhs, while firing in the air. Later, the gang targeted the house of Sherafat, s/o Nawab in Gori Patti Mohalla, and decamped with cash and jewellery worth lakhs. Both the families then approached the police for an FIR, but till evening no FIR was registered by the cops.
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Seven Pehelwan gang members
Greater Noida, November 3 Three cases of loots in Greater Noida have also been worked out with their arrests. One of the accused was carrying an identity card of a Delhi newspaper employee, SP Rural, MP Singh said. On Tuesday, the police got a tip-off that some persons were planning a crime near Sector-36. The police team, led by DSP Sarvanand Yadav, and SP M. P. Singh noticed that some youths were standing in suspicious conditions. And on seeing the police, the youths took to their heels, when challenged they started firing on the cops. In retaliation, police also fired and gradually surrounded seven of the miscreants. Of them, one gave the police a slip. The criminals identified themselves as Sanjay Pehelwan of Dujana, Dadri, Satinder of Dankaur, Ajay and Vinod of Roopwas, Dadri, Rakesh of Dadri, Ajay of Bulandhshahr and Yogesh of Ghaziabad. The one who ran away was Rohtas, alias Lilu of Roopwas. Sanjay Pehelwan had come out of the jail only a few days ago. The gang was active in Delhi, UP, Haryana and Rajasthan and dozens of cases are pending against the gang in a number of police stations. The criminals confessed that they had committed three loots in Greater Noida on October 24 in H-561 of Alpha sector, in the house of Sanjay
Gutpa. Then, in G-431, in Alpha-2 house of Akil Anand and third they had stolen the Matiz car of Umesh Kumar. The criminals had decamped with gold bangles, chains, cash and other valuables from all the three houses. The police are trying to recover the car. More cases will be resolved by the arrest of these seven criminals, the SP added.
— OC
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Pak national sentenced to death in bus blast case
New Delhi, November 3 The court found convict Mohammed Hussain, alias Zulfiqar, alias Abdul Hassan, a native of Jindrakhar village at Okara in Pakistan, guilty of the crime and handed down the capital punishment after terming it as “rarest of rare” case. The court also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on Hussain. On December 30, 1997, a bomb exploded at Rampura near Punjabi Bagh in West Delhi in a Blue Line bus plying between Ajmere Gate and Nangloi, injuring 28 persons travelling in the bus. Of these, four persons later succumbed to their injuries in the hospital. The court has discharged accused Abdul Rehman, Azhar Ahmed and Maqsood Ahmed in the case for want of evidence. The court observed that the police had been unable to produce enough evidence against the three. The police are still after another accused, Abdul Karim alias Tunda, who is absconding, the police said. The police arrested Hussain on March 21, 1998. In 1997, around the same time, 22 serial bomb blasts rocked the Capital. The explosions occurred at around 20 places all over the city, including ITO, Kingsway Camp, Darya Ganj, Civil Lines, Kashmere Gate, Chandni Chowk, Subzi Mandi (two explosions), Karol Bagh (two), Sadar Bazar (two) and at Kotwali (three), said the police. Except Mohammed Amir Khan, accused of causing two blasts in Karol Bagh, all other accused in the cases were acquitted by the city courts for lack of substantial evidence and also because none of the witnesses could identify the accused, the police said.
Cops intensify drive against bootleggers
With the festival season approaching, the Delhi Police has intensified its drive against bootleggers and illegal storage of crackers. The North district has specifically constituted four flying squads, each headed by an officer of the rank of ACP. The police have made surprise checks at 74 places in the entire district in the last two days and cancelled the licenses of four people for violating the rules. In west district, the police have registered a total of 143 cases against bootleggers since October 16 and recovered 1177 bottles of illicit liquor. According to the DCP West district, Neeraj Thakur, “The bootlegging cases are on rise as the festival season is near. We have intensified our drive against bootleggers.”
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Cable TV blackout leaves viewers
Faridabad, November 3 This is mainly due to an official order to prevent the use of poles of electricity department and the civic body by the local operators, after filing of a contempt petition against the local administration by a social activist in the issue of alleged violation of the cable TV Act. While the number of cable connections in the town could be over three lakhs, it was the first time in the history that cable operators have been dragged to the High Court. The petitioner, Mr K. L. Gera, had filed a PIL in the Punjab and Haryana High Court, which was disposed off in March this year. The court had directed the local administration to ensure compliance of the Cable TV Act and its rules, in its order. But according to petitioner, the violations continued as usual and he had served two notices to the Deputy Commissioner, SP and SDM in this connection. But when the notices had no affect, as he claimed, he was forced to file a contempt petition in the High Court, for which the court had fixed November 8, as the next date of hearing. According to Mr Gera, he had made the DC, SP and SDM as party by name, who have been asked to file their replies. This move perhaps led the district authorities to swing into action, last month. When the local authorities, especially the electricity department, started to pull down the TV Cables from its poles in the town. In protest, the cable TV operators stopped the transmission for about four days. Stating that transmission had stopped due to re-routing of cable lines. The district officials also demanded affidavits from all the major operators in support of their claims that they were not violating the rules and regulations of the Cable TV Act. While it is reported that the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) has demanded a fee of Rs 375 per pole per year from the operators, it is learnt that the issue has left the operators in a mess. They were not able to decide whether to pay the fee to the DHBVN and the Municipal Corporation for using their poles or to go for underground cabling, as the latter option was quite costly and time consuming. While the operators have stopped transmission of local news, the overall transmission of programmes has been quite disturbed in nearly all the areas, leading to a severe resentment among the subscribers. Some subscribers have also threatened to get disconnected for the problems faced, the local operators seem to be finding it difficult to satisfy the authorities on the issue. The petitioner has alleged that the cable operators and their franchisees had been running commercial advertisements and news in an illegal manner and were not disclosing the actual number of subscriptions, while hiking the fee arbitrarily.
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JNU married scholars on the warpath
New Delhi, November 3 ‘’Our agitation is only to highlight the long-pending housing problem of the married students of the university,’’ said office-bearers of the JNU Married Research Scholars Forum. ‘’How long can we afford to stay outside paying a huge rent? We are deprived of the facilities which are actually meant for us,’’ they said, pointing out that many of the rooms of the ‘Mahanadi’ hostel, meant for the married research scholars, were occupied by non-students, especially staff members of the University. According to them , out of the 130 rooms, about 30-35 were occupied by non-students. ‘’This is unjustified because more than 70 eligible students are waiting in the wings for quite some time now.’’ The office bearers alleged that the non-students had been staying in the Mahanadi hostel with the ‘tacit approval’ of the University administration. ‘’While 27 staff members, including office attendants, security officer and junior engineer, occupy the old Mahanadi block, around 10 research associates and assistants, who are paid staff of the University, occupy part of the Post Doctoral Fellows Hostel, which is physically a part of Mahanadi Hostel,’’ Forum President Vinodh Kumar alleged. While all the major political groups of the students have come out in support of the housing demand, the Forum alleged that none of the groups had taken up this cause as a major issue during the elections. The Forum members alleged that while the outgoing Union had taken up other hostel issues with the administration in their charter of demands, the Mahanadi Hostel did not figure. Sources in the outgoing JNUSU accepted that a serious housing problem did exist on the campus, both for the staff members and the married students. However, they said that only building more housing facilities for all sections could solve the problem. Forum Secretary Q J Rizvi alleged that the University administration had allotted rooms in the Mahanadi hostel not only to staff members, but also to research associates despite the fact that both the sections were entitled to HRA. ‘’Staff members and research associates are entitled to HRA and can easily afford a housing facility outside the campus, while married students, many of whom are unemployed, depend on this subsidised hostel facility to sustain their academic life in this university,’’ Mr Rizvi pointed out.
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JNU exchange pact with Australian varsity
New Delhi, November 3 A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the two universities at a function attended by visiting New South Wales premier Bob Carr. JNU Vice Chancellor GK Chandra and New South Wales University Deputy Vice Chancellor John Ingleson were present. Under the agreement, a JNU teacher can spend one month and a JNU student can study for one semester at the Australian university. The exchange programme covers travel, accommodation, university fees and other expenses. The New South Wales University will sponsor one of its researchers to come to JNU for up to one month to be part of a co-operative research project. India is currently the second largest market for international higher education in both New South Wales and Australia. Currently there are about 19,000 Indian students in Australian institutions and in 2003 about 5,000 Indian students studied in New South Wales.
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Nature Bazaar at Dilli Haat from Nov 16
New Delhi, November 3 It is a celebration of life and nature and a confluence of tradition, indigenous technologies and craft. As always, Dastkar will be taking over the entire 6.6 acres of Dilli Haat through the 15-day bazaar — presenting over 200 craft skills from 17 states, linking nature and craft, tradition and change, age-old skills and innovative new solutions — using color motifs and materials that aree either made from or inspired by nature. And this year, it is all crafted around the theme Wind and Water. Every year, Dastkar makes the effort to reach out to as many craft groups as possible and provide adequate exposure and marketing support to them. As part of this ongoing exercise, Dastkar brings 50 new groups to the Nature Bazaar this year, thus taking the total number of participating craft groups to more than 200! These groups will showcase an enormous range of crafted products in natural fibres and materials — garments, soft furnishings, jewellery, toys, leather, pottery, paintings, accessories, gifts and decorative items from across the country. The highlight of the Nature Bazaar 2004 will be the showcasing of an all new embroidered range of tussar and wool garments made by the women of Kashmir for the first time. This is a special Dastkar initiative in association with Kiran, a Kashmir-based NGO to help women victims of terrorism in Warpora Village, Sopore District, Kashmir, using their traditional embroidery skills adapated in a contemporary style, as a catalyst to economic and social empowerment.
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MCD staffer held for duping jobless
New Delhi, November 3 The police arrested the accused after one Anoop Kumar made a complaint to them that one Kishor Kumar had cheated him of Rs 1.5 lakh by promising him a job in the MCD. He told the police that the accused had given him a fake appointment letter of a safai karmchari in the MCD. Only when he to join duty, he came to know that the appointment letter was fake. During investigation, it was revealed that Kishor Kumar was a resident of Uttam Nagar and was charging Rs 60,000 to 1.5 lakh from job seekers in MCD. The police recovered 85 blank appointment letters, 100 blank medical call letters and 11 service record books from his possession. The police said that Kishor Kumar was appointed as a clerk in MCD in 1983.
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Awareness camp for morbidly obese
New Delhi, November 3 The main aim of the camp is to generate awareness of obesity as the number of morbidly obese people, approximately five lakh in North India, is constantly increasing. This is mainly due to lifestyle factors such as high fat diet, excess non-vegeterian food, excessive drinking and a sedentary existence. According to Dr Pradeep Chowbey, chairman, department of minimal access surgery, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), New Delhi, “About two per cent of the population in metros suffer from morbid obesity. Morbid obesity is clinically defined as a condition in which a person’s body mass index (BMI) is more than 40. The BMI of a normal person ranges between 20 and 25. Endoscopic surgeons at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Delhi, have found an easy solution for obese people in form of key hole surgery to remove extra flab. They have successfully performed more than dozen morbid obesity surgeries. The surgery reduces the capacity of the patient’s stomach by inserting a silicon band. Post-surgery, the patient is put on exercises and other nutritional or hormonal supplements as per his requirement, the target being in the next one year, the person should lose about 50 per cent of his current weight. The surgery, which costs about Rs 1.4 lakh, is followed by extensive sessions with a physiotherapist, a nutritionist, a psychoanalyst and an endocrinologist before the condition can be effectively taken care of, Dr Chowbey clarified. “This is not a cosmetic surgery. It is done only on morbidly obese people as a life-saving surgery. Most of these people die young and suffer from problems like heart disease, blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and even certain kinds of malignancies.” According to Dr Sunil K Jindal, Surgeon, Surgery department LLRM, Meerut, the camp will help people become heath conscious.
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N Rly highest earner in passenger segment
New Delhi, November 3 Continuing a feverish momentum started last year, Northern Railway further improved its performance in the current year by exceeding proportionate revenue freight loading target by 2,50,000 tonnes up to September 2004. The Railway has been making consistent market plan exercises to dovetail its freight strategies to market concerns and tuning into the market-potential of various sectors of the economy. Since the export of foodgrain has registered a decline, the Northern Railway is exploring the market potential of other commodities. This exercise led to augmented loading of other commodities such as sugar, automobiles and container cargo, bringing in additional earnings of Rs 72.86 crores from the combined traffic of these commodities.
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Directive to ASI on Jama Masjid
New Delhi, November 3 The direction came from a Bench of Chief Justice BC Patel and Justice BD Ahmed on a PIL filed by Heritage and Culture Forum as Waqf Board said it had no objection to it. The Bench asked both the organisations to hold a meeting on the issue in the fourth week of November after ASI counsel Sanjay Jain and Waqf Board counsel Najmi Waziri favoured the idea. Jain informed the court that there was already a proposal to declare Red Fort complex a World Heritage Site and if Jama Masjid was declared a protected monument, it can be included in it. — TNS
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Driver who fled with Rs 5 lakh arrested
Noida, November 3 The police were able to recover Rs. 4.30 lakh from the driver and his two companions. SP City A.K. Jain said Gagan Bihari was a contractor whose driver Prashant had fled with Rs. 5 lakh along with his Santro car (DL 6C J 3135). The contractor had withdrawn the amount for disbursement of wages to workers from a Barakhamba Road bank in New Delhi. Gagan Bihari’s work is in progress near Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi. Prashant, originally from Orissa, was in Gagan Bihari’s employment for the last nine months. He had been accompanying Gagan Bihari to the bank, whenever the former wanted to withdraw money. As Gagan Bihari had begun to trust Prashant, he left the money with him and went for a piece of work. But, on his return, the contractor was shocked to find that Prashant had fled with his car and money. Gagan Bihari immediately informed the Parliament Street police station, New Delhi.
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Gang rape of minor at dragger point
Greater Noida, November 3 The crime came to light when children came to attend their classes in the school in the morning. The police, after being informed, sent the victim for medical examination. The police have reportedly registered a case against three youth of Palla village and launched a hunt to nab them. The 15-year-old daughter of Ishamu, a resident of Thaper Kheda village, had gone out to the fields in the evening to ease herself. Three youth - Mahender, Lokesh and Bholu on their way to Palla village on a motorbike happened to see the girl. They forcibly took the girl to a nearby primary school and raped her repeatedly at dagger point. When the girl became unconscious, they left her lying in the compound for the night. The police on being informed came from Surajpur and had sent her for a medical examination. The medical report has confirmed of gang rape.
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Criminal with reward on head shot
Ghaziabad, November 3 The SSP J.N. Singh has confirmed that Rajinder alias, Guddu, alias Vikas, son of Ram Singh, and resident of Balabh Garh, Haryana, has been shot dead by Sahibabad police. According to Police circle officer, Border, Dinesh Yadav, S.O. Sahibabad station, Inspector J.P.Yadav, was checking vehicles near Bhopura last night.
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