Ghaziabad, August 20
A woman in Sector-23, Raj Nagar Ghaziabad, was so upset when her husband refused to take her to her parents’ house for the Rakhi festival that she poisoned her two daughters and self in a bid to commit suicide. While her daughters have died, she is fighting for life.

According to police, minor clashes were a routine between the couple. Ignoring his wife’s pleas, the man had gone to his sister’s house. This had annoyed the woman no end.

Ajit Singh, a property dealer staying in house No L/213 in Sector-23 Raj Nagar, told the police that his wife Rajkumari wanted him to take her and two daughters to her parental house in Noida so that she could tie a Rakhi on her brothers’ wrist, but Ajit Singh said he told her that he would first go to his village Jagatpur in Bulandhshahr to celebrate the festival with his sister.

After coming back from there, he told Rajkumari that he would take her and daughters Geetanjali, 12, and Kajal, 8, to Noida. But Rajkumari became very angry when Ajit Singh went to Bulandshahar, leaving them alone at home.

New Delhi, August 20
Acknowledging the potential of knowledge as “main creator of wealth in the new knowledge economy” and the need “to protect and manage Intellectual Property ”, the University Grants Commission (UGC) is urging university systems to “patent wherever possible through appropriate incentive and facilitative mechanism and set up Intellectual Property Management (IPM) Cells”.

As per the ambitious proposal, the UGC will facilitate 50 universities having research focus to set up such cells. The UGC is also contemplating to establish a National IPR (International Property Rights) Facilitation Centre in one of the universities in Delhi and four Regional IPR Facilitation Centres (RIFCs) in four universities located in the four regions of the country.

Universities have been asked to send their final comment by the 25th of this month to finalise the draft of the ‘UGC Guidelines for Awareness, Protection and Management of IPRs in the University System in India’.

Selected universities particularly those with potential for excellence would be urged to start academic programmes on the IPR-related issues under the scheme ‘Support for Innovative Programmes’ of the UGC.

The Facilitation Centres aimed at generating awareness, facilitate, protect and manage IPRs from the university centres, will work in association with the National Patent Office and the Regional Patent Offices under the Ministry of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India.

Even though UGC funding for filing Indian patents would be provided through the Regional Centres, funding support for filing international patents would be provided through the National Centre.

A panel of patent attorneys will be maintained and a fee structure laid down to enable the universities to use their services for filing of patents.

These IPM cells in the universities and the IPR Facilitation Centres at the national level and the regional levels will work in collaboration with IPR chairs, of which four have been established by the Ministry of HRD and two by CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) for promotion of IPR education and training in the country.

A standard model curriculum and learning material for regular academic programs as well as short-duration training courses is also on the agenda. The IPR Cells / Centres would facilitate for launch of full-fledged academic programmes aimed at development of manpower in the area of IPR.

These cells in the universities and the IPR Facilitation Centres at the national level and the regional levels will be assisted by the Ministry of HRD, Patent Facilitating Cells under TIFAC, (Technology Information and Forecasting Centre) IPR Cells under the Ministry of Electronics, CSIR, ICMR (Indian Council for Medical Research) and ICAR (Indian Council for Agriculture Research) for creation of awareness on need for IPR protection and its effective management in the new world order.

Faridabad, August 20
Badram, one of the smallest villages in the district, is giving sleepless nights to the authorities here. The reason: A minor clash between two communities that erupted about more than three weeks ago refuses to settle down, thanks to the ‘votebank’ politics that seems to have taken hold of the issue. The administration has withheld legal action against some of the accused with a view to allow the villagers to come out to an acceptable solution.

‘It appears that the political parties instead of helping to get the dispute resolve amicably have rushed to harp on the issue with an eye on the political mileage and the vote bank, thus keeping the matter alive and delaying it unnecessarily’. This has been the view of some of the organisations whose representatives had visited this village recently.

Mr Rajkumar, representing an NGO working on human rights in New Delhi observed that after talking to the people of various sections in the village, he found that the whole incident had been ‘politicised’ though the locals wanted peace and harmony in the village. He stated that there had been no violation of the human rights as charged by the various political parties, but the incident seems to have been blown out of proportions by vested interests.

Mr K.S. Hadda, President of the ‘Akhil Bharat Anusuchit Parishad’ a non-political body, said after visiting the village that all that ‘tension’ that had resulted had been due to politicisation. Claiming that certain elements had been trying to get political mileage out of the incident, which he said was minor and could have been resolved easily.

He said recent statements by some political leaders had been’unfortunate’ and were aimed at disturbing the peace in the village. According to some villagers, certain youths who had been indulging in the political activities connected with the so called ‘interests’ of the Dalits in the village had been posing as a main hurdle in reaching any solution as these persons had been inviting leaders of the political parties and mis-reporting the incident with a view to get political mileage.

The total number of households in the village is around 250, of which 30 belong to the Dalit community. It is stated that some leaders who had not even visited the village or talked to the various communities had been issuing statements that had been quite misleading and were posing a problem for the those who wanted to get the matter solved.

This include the district administration and the police which had not arrested the persons against whom two FIR’s had been booked.

While the accused include several youths of the Dalit community, who had allegedly beaten up a temple priest, the administration had constituted a three member committee to sort out the matter and had promised to withdraw the cases if the issue was resolved. But the matter seems to be getting delayed unnecessarily due to political intervention.

‘The politicisation’ of the issue should stop for a proper and immediate solution, said Mr Zile Singh, the Sarpanch of the village.

Noida, August 20
Workers of Mack International factory sitting on dharna in Phase II were chased and ruthlessly beaten up by the police on Thursday. More than 12 workers sustained injuries in the police lathicharge. Workers were sitting on dharna to demand wage hike and return to jobs. Realising the severity of the lathicharge, SSP Piyush Mordia has ordered the SI in-charge of lathicharge back to the Police Lines. The SP City has been asked to probe the matter.

The management of Mack International, it is learnt, had made workers Vinode and Dhanraj to sign the pay slips but had later refused to pay them their wages. As a protest, the other workers had also refused to take their salary. In retaliation, the management refused to take back 69 workers on duty. The workers sat on dharna at the factory gate.

The factory management is understood to have called in the police. SI Narender Chaudhry came with his posse of cops and started raining lathi blows on the workers. According to the workers, the police chased the workers for half an hour, beating them up ruthlessly. Out of the 12 workers injured four had been admitted to Chaudhary Hospital in Phase II.

SI Narender Chaudhry, who had led the lathi-wielding cops, has been sent to the Police Lines while the SP City will probe the incident.

The Joint Trade Union Morcha has condemned police and management’s high-handedness.

New Delhi, August 20
Delhi Police have cracked a blind murder case in which the father of a deceased woman hired goons to kill his daughter as she was allegedly of immoral character and was also allegedly involved in prostitution.

The police have arrested five persons in this connection including three Matru, Sunil and Ranu, the hired killers, Jai Singh (father of the deceased) and Guddu (his associate).

On August 8, the owner of a house made a complaint to the local police in Sangam Vihar that there was some foul smell coming from one of his room that he had given on rent to some people three days back. The police raided the premises and broke the lock of the room and recovered a highly decomposed body a woman. The body was sent for postmortem. The police got nothing except one telephone number from the premises.

On investigation, it was revealed that the number was of a Bulandshahar school. The police went to the school and investigated about the lady by showing her photograph to all the teachers and students.

A 10-year-old child in the same school identified the body as her mother as he said that the clothes she was wearing were of his mother. He was taken to the hospital where the body was kept in Delhi. The child identified her as her mother.

Further investigation revealed that she was putting up in Tehkhand on rent. Her father Jai Singh was Pardhan of the vegetable market in Tehkhand and was ashamed of her daughter’s immoral act, said the police. He requested her several times to leave it but she did not listen to him.

Then he called one Guddu from Hardoi, his native place. Guddu, childhood friend of Sunita, who also requested her to leave the wrong path and go to her husband back, but she refused and kept on doing the same. They then hatched a conspiracy to eliminate her and hence hired three paid killers for this task. They took the room on rent and brought Sunita there for Rs 1000. The four then had drinks, food and during late night, the three strangulated her.

Noida, August 20
The Trade Tax Department’s mobile team has seized cellphones worth Rs 1 crore. The mobile sets were being smuggled to Lucknow, but trade tax sleuths in a raid impounded the vehicle in which these were being transported.

Deputy Commissioner V. K. Rai said they had been tipped off that cellphones of a renowned foreign company had been smuggled into Noida and would be sent to Lucknow when opportunity presented itself. He had alerted his departmental sleuths.

As the vehicle carrying them started for Lucknow, trade tax officials seized the vehicle. The people inside the vehicle first tried to mislead the trade tax officials, but later showed the documents when dealt with sternly. It was discovered that form 49 used for carrying the consignment had been used earlier also for carrying similar consignments. The equipment seized was worth over Rs 1 crore, Deputy Commissioner Rai said.

Noida, August 20
Angry that armed criminals looted post office cash in broad daylight on Thursday, postal employees boycotted their work and raised slogans against the police.

The loot had taken place in front of the Mukand Nagar post office. Mahavir Singh had reached Mukand Nagar sub post office after collecting cash and post stationery etc from Ghaziabad head post office at about 10 am. While he was still paying money to the rickshaw-puller, two armed criminals approached him and snatched his bag at gun point.

Greater Noida, August 20
Small snakes have again been found in drinking water supplied in various residential sectors of Greater Noida. Residents are getting neither clean water nor the supply of water is adequate.

The residents of Alpha sector were shocked to find small live snakes in the water supplied from taps. It happened yesterday in house No. E-203 Alpha-I where Sunil Bhatti, his wife and two kids live.

When Mrs. Bhatti was washing the floor in the morning, a number of live snakes came out with water from the tap and started slithering on the floor. In panic, Mrs. Bhatti ran away raising the alarm. Sunil Bhatti and his neighbours caught some ot them and put them into a glass bottle so that they could lodge a complaint with Greater Noida Authority.

New Delhi, August 20
The on-going agitation by the staff of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) entered 14th day today.

A press note issued by General Secretary of the Non-Gazetted Staff Union of the IMD A.K. Bhatnagar said the staff were protesting against the proposed move of the Department of Science and Technology into disintegrating the IMD into small fragments in the name of reorganisation. This move will lead to resentment in the staff, claimed the press note. The union is also demanding 100 per cent promotion from scientific assistance to assistant meteorologist grade–I; immediate promotion of senior observer to scientific assistant and promotion of non-gazetted staff to other cadres as well; immediate implementation of report of cadre structure.

New Delhi, August 20
Delhi Tourism Minister Mr Arvinder Singh Lovely inaugurated the Society Interiors Expo on interior design at Pragati Maidan.

The exhibition, which is open till August 22, will showcase exclusive furniture, furnishings, building materials, décor accessories and allied design products. Over 80 participants from across the country and a few exhibitors from Pakistan are participating in the expo. It also showcases some of the finest interior design products from all over the world. The highlight of the expo is Onyx Handicrafts brought by R Q Traders from Karachi, Egyptian Papyrus and Ebony wood statues from Africa.