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Sajjan resigns as rural welfare board chief
CM to chair grievances panel meeting
VAT panel to meet on August 24
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Vehicles for VIP security: Rival bidders to get contract
Tribunal blasts DTC, asked to reinstate driver
Reliance Infocomm, XIMB launch virtual classroom
Six call girls held from ‘massage parlour’
Panchayat poll: A vote worth a bottle of rum
Staff shortage: UPPC unable to collect Rs 13 cr
MLAs assess BSES performance
Women gherao powerhouse
Dreaded criminal fears for life in jail
Acid sale banned in Meerut
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Sajjan resigns as rural welfare board chief
New Delhi, August 11 Kumar, who represents Outer Delhi in Lok Sabha, sent his resignation to the Chief Minister, Mrs Sheila Dikshit, who accepted it. Mrs Dikshit told reporters that Mr Kumar had called her up in the morning expressing his desire to quit. Later, he sent in his resignation, which has been accepted, she said. His resignation comes a day after another Delhi Congress leader, Jagdish Tytler, stepped down as Union Minister of NRI Affairs following his indictment by the Nanavati Commission. The Delhi Rural Development Board, which has a corpus fund of Rs 100 crore, was set up last year with Mr Kumar as the Chairman. The Nanavati Commission that probed the Delhi carnage had recommended examination of six cases against Kumar which were closed as ‘untraced’. Noting that there is “credible material” against Kumar for “recording a finding” that he and another Congress leader Balwan Khokhar were “probably involved as alleged by witnesses,” it said in these particular cases, no charge-sheets were filed. The Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan Singh, had yesterday promised in the Lok Sabha that the government would take steps for “reopening and re-examining” specific cases referred in the Commission’s report.
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CM to chair grievances panel meeting
Faridabad, August 11 The meeting is being held after a record time gap of about nine months. The last meeting was held in October 2004 when the Chautala government was in power. As the code of conduct came into force in December in view of the elections to the state assembly in February, no meeting of this body could be held. The meeting has assumed importance since it will be the first meeting to be held under the chairmanship of the new Chief Minister. The local authorities and the ruling party seem to be in the action mode. Leaders and activists of the Congress and other political parties who were in the opposition at that time used to allege that genuine complaints were hardly taken up at meetings chaired by the previous CM. “This matter will be raised this time too if the system of handling grievances was still the same,” claimed Mr Rajkumar Gaur, a social activist here. He said there had been no such meeting in the past about nine months. The grievances which required the attention of the CM had perhaps gone unheard. Claiming that residents of the city and the town faced problems like acute shortage of power, damaged roads and malfunctioning of various services, besides the deteriorating crime control scenario, he said it was to be seen if the complaints were taken seriously. He, however, said the visit of the CM to the city each month to chair a meeting aimed at solving their problems was a welcome step, but added the government should ensure that the results of such a meeting were fruitful. BJP leader and former MLA Krishan Pal Gurjar said the authorities concerned should bring about a proper change in the spectrum of the meeting so that a majority of the problems taken up were of common nature rather than being personal grievances. He said past experience showed that many matters taken up were of trivial nature and these could well be solved by the district administration. He demanded that the district authorities, however, should be made accountable if the routine type of grievances were not solved at the local level within a given timeframe. According to the Deputy Commissioner, the CM will preside over the meeting at about 10 am on Saturday after attending a function at Sector 59 here, where he will be addressing a public meeting along with the Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. The CM will inaugurate a plantation drive at this place where about 24,000 saplings will be planted.
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VAT panel to meet on August 24
New Delhi, August 11 When asked whether the complaint of the Delhi Government about shift in bullion trade to Rajasthan and Gujarat because of less tax rate in the two states would be taken up, he said all implementation issues, including this one, would be discussed at the meeting. Delhi has complained to the VAT panel about less than UFR tax on bullion in Rajasthan and Guajrat because of which the trade on precious items is being shifted to the two states.
Considering Delhi government’s complaint, the VAT panel at its meeting on July 9 had decided that all states would impose at least 1 per cent tax on bullion from August 1. However, states missed the deadline because of which Delhi Finance Minister A K Walia took up the issue with Empowered Committee Chairman Asim Dasgupta who assured him of convening a meeting in the first week of this month.
The meeting, however, could not take place then. Walia said he will wait for the next meeting before deciding on lowering the VAT rate on bullion. Delhi had lowered tax on bullion early this year but raised it again to 1 per cent because of implementation of VAT from April 1. However, Rajasthan and Gujarat retained sales tax at 0.25 per cent on bullion. Even though Rajasthan and Gujarat have not implemented VAT, they are expected to abide by Empowered Committee’s directives on
UFRs. Walia said Delhi would lose Rs 40 crore of bullion trade because of lower tax structures in Rajasthan and Gujarat. However, bullion traders in the National Capital put the loss at much higher level. “Everyday, the gold market in Delhi is incurring a loss of more than Rs 50 lakh due to lower sales tax rates in other states,” said a leading gold merchant Ravi Jalan. Bullion traders complained that Delhi has lost 70-80 per cent of its gold trade to Rajasthan and Gujarat after imposition of 1 per cent VAT on bullion. By the time the next meeting takes place, there would be just one week left for another deadline of September 1 for UFRs on items other than bullion. After the last meeting of the VAT panel, Dasgupta had said the Empowered Committee would recommend “administrative action” to the Centre against the states violating VAT panel’s decision on UFRs. However, it is yet not clear what those administrative actions would be even though the states missed the first deadline of UFR on bullion.
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Vehicles for VIP security: Rival bidders to get contract
New Delhi, August 11 Following this, a division bench of acting Chief Justice B.A.Khan and Justice Madan B Lokur asked petitioner Aman Services and its rival Jay Pee and Company to file applications before it in this regard within 10 days and posted the matter for hearing on August 24. According to the court’s suggestions, agreed to by the Delhi Police and the two rival bidders, Aman Services will get the contract for supply of Gypsy (30 in number) and Jay Pee and Company will get to supply Ambassador cars (70 in number) as the two were the lowest bidders in their respective categories. Earlier, the Bench had asked the Police Commissioner to appear before it at 2 pm for allegedly committing contempt of court by issuing an offer letter to Jay Pee and Company for hiring of vehicles after petitioner’s counsel R M Bagai pointed out that the police tried to overreach the court’s order. In the afternoon, Joint Commissioner of Police (Security) Rajesh Kumar appeared before the Bench and admitted that there was an “error” on the part of the department. Mr Bagai alleged that Jay Pee and Company did not fulfill the criterion for awarding the contract as it had not furnished the bank guarantee required to take part in the tender process. The court turned down Delhi Police counsel Mukta Gupta’s request to allow the department to hire more vehicles from the two taxi operators in the same ratio, if needed. “You invite fresh tenders,” it said.
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Tribunal blasts DTC, asked to reinstate driver
New Delhi, August 11 Directing that the driver be reinstated for some other work in the same pay scale with the service benefits earned by him before pre-mature retirement, the tribunal ordered DTC’s Chief Managing Director, General Manager and the Depot Manager to bear the liability of the fine. “It will be in the interest of justice to award cost to the workman, which I fix as Rs 21,000, which shall be recovered equally from the salary of CMD, GM and the Depot Manager concerned of the DTC, who decided to retire the workman prematurely,” M C Garg, Tribunal’s Presiding Officer said. The driver Raj Singh, who had joined DTC in 1980, was declared unfit due to deterioration of vision and was retired pre-maturely from service. On the DTC management’s refusal to consider the employee’s plea to relocated, the tribunal said: “They (DTC) are fully aware of the rights of the workman under section 47 of the Disability Act. It was obligatory for the management to shift the workman to some other place in same pay scale with same service benefits even if he was unable to perform his duties as driver.” Ordering payment of full back wages to Singh, terminated from service on Feb 23, 1998, it said: “Public authorities cannot be permitted to avoid their statutory obligations”. The tribunal took strong exception to the “wilful non-implementation” of Baljit Singh’s judgement wherein DTC had conceded before the Delhi High court that it would provide alternative employment to it’s physically challenged workman. The Presiding Officer said the management had not done the same despite being approached by the workman (driver) by way of filing an appeal and thereafter raising this dispute as also even after availing opportunity from this tribunal. “In these circumstances, the action of the management cannot be sustained and thus the reference made to this tribunal has to be answered in favour of the workman (driver),” the tribunal said. The Delhi government had referred the termination of the driver before the Industrial Tribunal for confirmation of the decision taken by the DTC.
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Reliance Infocomm, XIMB launch virtual classroom
New Delhi, August 11 The two-way interactive classroom will be facilitated through 240 Reliance WebWorld outlets and will afford the mid-career executives a chance to brush up their knowhow of logistics and supply chain management. As per the tripartite arrangement, XIMB will offer a one-year Post-Graduate Certificate Program in Business Management
(PCPBM), using Reliance’s platform. In due course, management development and customised training programmes for enterprises will be added to the product suite. Unlike satellite-based technology, this 14-month course of 400 hours teaching will offer real-time, multi-way audio and visual presence of the professor and the students. Classes will be scheduled over the weekends for three hours each and the learners will have to spend a week in
XLRI. The course, to commence in October 2005, will begin with an online registration and examination process, initially across 12 cities through which students will be short-listed.
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Sex racket busted, actress held
New Delhi, August 11 The 20-year-old actress disclosed that she had acted in movies like Pinjar,
Devdas, Parwane and Dil Ka Rishta. Besides, she had also worked in a tele-serial,
Yakeen. The actress said she was working for some music videos also. Her associate revealed that she had come from Chhattisgarh a year ago and was lured into the sleaze trade by a tout. Acting on a tip-off that some girls were active in the sex trade in Lajpat Nagar area, a decoy customer contacted one Asha and asked her to arrange for some girls. Accordingly, the two girls were caught near the main gate of Qutab Minar, Mehrauli, while soliciting. The police are now looking for the tout, Asha.
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Six call girls held from ‘massage parlour’
New Delhi, August 11 The sleuths recovered three mobile phones and some incriminating documents after raiding one Global Massage Parlour in Kucha Pati Ram Bazar. Acting on a tip-off that one Shiv Ram Gupta, a retired STC official has been running a shady business, the sleuths raided his massage parlour and nabbed him along with six girls. During interrogation, Gupta disclosed that after retirement in 1990, he altered his bungalow to enter the call girl business.
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Panchayat poll: A vote worth a bottle of rum
Ghaziabad, August 11 Certain villagers alleged it was a prank played by drunkards, but candidates had taken it as a condition laid down by the voters. Handing over a bottle of rum to voters, the candidates’ staff solicitously say, “Do let us know if you need anything else”. According to reports, candidates have started liberal distribution of liquor with the start of the election campaign. Certain candidates have been distributing sweets and cold drinks. In certain villages, voters have declared that whoever distributes liquor more liberally will get their votes. The Dehat Morcha in Dadri, meanwhile, has issued an appeal to voters, declaring that whichever candidate tries to woo the voters with liquor should be boycotted. No one should vote in his or her favour. A large number of women are also contesting panchayat elections. A large rally was taken out in Badalpur village yesterday where women declared that they would not vote in favour of candidates distributing liquor to
menfolk.
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Staff shortage: UPPC unable to collect Rs 13 cr
Noida, August 11 As many as 9, 000 consumers are defaulters. They have defaulted for a period ranging from one month to a couple of years. There are 85 consumers in residential sectors who owe the UPPC more than Rs 1 lakh each. The UP Police is also a defaulter. It owes the UPPC more than Rs 1.16 lakh. Collecting money from the defaulters is not an easy task. The power corporation lacks adequate field staff for effecting collections. All its employees are technical people who man the substations, the accounts department people say. The distribution wing had issued notices to 509 consumers last year. Some 225 recovery notices issued by the district administration have been returned without recovery, it is learnt. Police stations in Sectors 58 and 24 and police posts under them owe the UPPC Rs 1.16 lakh on account of default.
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MLAs assess BSES performance
New Delhi, August 11 At a meeting of the MLAs held at the Secretariat to assess the performance of BSES, which was attended by the CEO of the company Rakesh Aggarwal, the legislators pointed out problems such as long power cuts, fast meters, inflated bills and non-functioning streetlights. “We have asked the power discom to take the complaints of the MLAs seriously as they are answerable to the public,” Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who chaired the meeting, told reporters. She said BSES has been asked to strengthen its complaint cells. “We told them that not only should the complaints be noted, they should also be acted upon,” Dikshit said.
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Women gherao powerhouse
Noida, August 11 These have not been replaced for the past
many days. Certain women protestors succeeded in surrounding certain staff members and made them accompany them to the UPPC head office in
Sector 16. Here, they created a furore for 90 minutes till the power officers agreed to install a new 500 MW transformer in place of the gutted one. Heavy police reinforcements have been deployed in both the power stations to deal with the agitating consumers. Women were in the lead. Men and kids followed them. At the headquarters, they could not meet any senior officers. Chief General Manager B. B. Singh is looking after both Noida and Meerut districts. Thus, he either remains
in Meerut or is travelling between the two places.
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Dreaded criminal fears for life in jail
Ghaziabad, August 11 Wanted for murder, loot and dacoity, Jatan was in the Ghaziabad gangster court yesterday for a date. He was brought amid strict security for the court appearance from Bulandshahr Jail. He did not reveal as to which constituency he would contest from and which party would give him the ticket. “You will come to know when the right time comes,” he said.
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Acid sale banned in Meerut
Meerut, August 11
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New Delhi, August 11
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