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Sealing drive: Khurana, Uma court arrest
Teachers to hold indefinite dharna before Parliament
News
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Mystery shrouds death of woman
Man killed savagely in Ghaziabad
Udyog Vihar firms get notice for ‘misuse’ of plots
Units in Noida, Ghaziabad lack
High cholesterol linked to prostate cancer: Study
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Sealing drive: Khurana, Uma court arrest
New Delhi, April 15 Mr Khurana and Ms Bharti were arrested when they, along with the activists, were proceeding from Jantar Mantar to the residence of Prime Minister Mr Manmohan Singh to submit a memorandum to him demanding the issuance of an Ordinance to halt the ongoing sealing and demolition operations in the capital and ensure passing of a Bill in Parliament to grant full statehood to Delhi. In the memorandum to the Prime Minister, Mr Khurana has also called for strict action against big builders who he alleged colluded in the construction of unauthorised buildings in the Capital. Earlier, addressing the activists of the Morcha gathered at the Jantar Mantar, firebrand Uma Bharti alleged that the multinational corporations were behind the current drive for demolition of unauthorised units and sealing of shops in residential areas. “While small shops are being sealed and dwellings of common people razed, the government is turning a blind eye to the hundreds of shopping malls under construction in various areas of Delhi,” Ms Bharti said. She alleged that the sealing of shops in Delhi was part of a design of multinationals to render Indian traders out of business so that they could flood Indian market with their own products which were much costlier compared to the indigenous ones. “As part of their designs they are first striking at businesses in Delhi as it is the heart of India,” she said. “Till now, one came across reports of farmers in several parts of India committing suicides due to the policies of the government. Now, this black order for sealing of shops in residential areas is driving small traders and their employees on the brink of suicide,” Ms Bharti said. “It is not merely an attack on traders and common people in Delhi but one on Indian people by foreign forces who are out to subjugate them under their economic clout,” she said. Demanding that the government come out with an ordinance to regularise commercial units in residential areas, she said: “If an ordinance can be brought for regularising unauthorised constructions in Ulhasnagar, why can’t the same thing be done in Delhi too. It is indeed a matter of shame that common people, small traders and their families are being divested of their sources of livelihood for the sake of beautification of Delhi.” Lauding the initiative taken by Mr Khurana for launching the Delhi Bachao Morcha to halt the sealing of shops in Delhi, she said: “If we are successful in our struggle against the designs of the MNCs in Delhi, they will be halted in their tracks and not ever again dream of seizing control over the Indian economy.” Prominent among others present at the gathering were former minister in the Delhi Government Rajender Gupta, Dayanand Chandela and Akali Leader Paramjeet Pamma. Meanwhile, continuing with his sharp attacks on the BJP, Mr Khurana today alleged that the “new crop” of leaders in the party was responsible for its deterioration over the last few years. “Till Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee was at the helm of affairs, the party was being run well. However, deterioration crept in after the new crop of leaders came to hold
centrestage,” Mr Khurana said in his address to the hundreds of activists of his Delhi Bachao Morcha gathered at Jantar Mantar. “Till 1998, the BJP was run on principles. However, after it came to power at the Centre in the 1998 Lok Sabha polls, the situation changed and the new leaders of the party began running it like a private limited company,” Mr Khurana said. Levelling charges of corruption against several BJP leaders, he said: “Several party leaders who became ministers in the NDA Government at the Centre were nobodies 7-8 years ago but today they are millionaires.”
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Teachers to hold indefinite dharna before Parliament
New Delhi, April 15 Teachers from all over the country would do “protest-squatting” in batches from May 16 at Jantar Mantar. The long-pending problems pertain to the 1996 pay revision, the restoration of complete parity for DPEs and librarians, and career advancement schemes and restoration of professorship in all colleges under CAS as per the Cabinet decision circulated in 1998. The teachers are also demanding a third promotion to end the stagnation of senior lecturers in Selection Grade and of Readers. AIFUCTO functionaries said Union Minister for HRD Mr Arjun Singh had assured them in July last year of resolving the issues through a Cabinet note which did come up for consideration on March 23 but was unjustifiably referred to the Committee of Secretaries. This has fuelled AIFUCTO’s anger. The NEC called upon the government to implement the reservation policy in educational institutions in accordance with the Bill passed by Parliament. The law of the land with respect to reservations in admissions to all universities and colleges for SC/ST and OBCs must be implemented in all central and state institutions, demanded AIFUCTO. No educational institution should be considered elitist and beyond the law in this democratic, sovereign country, they said. AIFUCTO also demanded the immediate constitution of the Sixth Central Pay Commission and UGC Pay Review Committee, grant of interim relief amounting to Rs 1,000 per month as per the already mutually accepted formula by the government and the Confederation of Employees, and revising the pay scales of employees. AIFUCTO will also organise campaigns for people’s awareness and movement against what they claim are the deleterious effects of the announcements of Sam Pitroda-led National Knowledge Commission, CABE Committee Report on Autonomy of HE institutions; the escalating cost of education; the legislation on private universities and allied issues. The awareness campaigns would demand full implementation of 6 per cent of GDP for education; the complete removal of illiteracy; quality education for all young people and strengthening public-funded system to ensure judicious access, equity and excellence in education.
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Only one way to prevent infernos: Fire the officials
by Raahul Gul You’d have to be blind not to notice the stark irony of it: Firemen all over the country observing the Fire Service Week just four days after a horrendous fire tragedy that fried to death almost a 100 people – not officially, of course, while a prominent UP politician claims the toll was nearer 500 – and left many more badly charred or still missing. The Fire Service Week commemorates the memory of 66 gallant officers and men of the Bombay Fire Brigade who perished while fighting a major fire in the Bombay dockyard in 1944. It’s another thing that last Monday, when the murderous fire erupted at the site of Brand India Fair in Meerut, the members of their community were not only absent from the spot – in contravention of norms – but took more than half an hour to turn up there. They might as well have not bothered. But it was in the aftermath of the fire that official apathy showed up in all its monstrosity, when they actually deployed heavy earth-moving machinery to ‘clean up’ the site. Frenzied public accounts of this move or the motive behind it are not very clear. One version has it that the machines were used to remove victims’ bodies, while another says the machines crushed children’s skulls down to dust or destroy crucial evidence. Considering the subsequent mismatch in official and ‘unofficial’ figures of how many really died or went missing, the events are reminiscent of the attempted destruction of gas chambers and crematoria in concentration camps by retreating Nazi soldiers towards the end of the Second World War which killed nearly 6 millions Jews. It took a major public agitation to rouse the government from its slumber. The action taken: transferring five officials of the district and police administration. Considering that the fire resulted from their failure to ensure that fire safety norms were enforced at the venue of the fair, this amounts to just letting them off the hook. Why haven’t the concerned officials been held accountable and brought to justice? Just transferring them to similar positions in the state is no ‘punishment’ in any sense of the term. They are responsible for the fact that almost every norm in the book was flouted at the site of the fire. The fire was apparently caused by an electric short-circuit. There were as many as 36 split air-conditioners at the venue, leading to electrical overloading, catering to 130 stalls made from highly combustible material. An emergency corridor was closed, for it ‘‘hampered’’ the business. Norms call for an exit gate every 50 feet, fifty per cent open area in the structure and minimum use of combustible material. The fair was being held in an area of 20,000 square feet, calling for at least a dozen exits. Instead, three conjoined pandals, fully covered from above, were set up in a U-shape, with just one entry-cum-exit gate of four feet width at the start of pandal number 1. Moreover, all three pandals were fully covered from above; smoke had no escape route and caused asphyxiation deaths. There were loads of combustible material: wooden flooring, synthetic cloth pandals, wooden pillars, thermocol for good cooling and LPG cylinders. The eating area was exactly in the middle of the second and third pandals. As cylinders burst, they created a wall of fire making it impossible for people to rush towards the exit gate. It’s not the first time that such a scenario has come to light, so to say. On December 23, 1995, a fire at a pandal in a school in Dabwali, Haryana killed over 500 schoolchildren. The casualties were higher because of ensuing stampede since there was only one small gate at the entrance. On June 13, 1997, the Uphaar cinema in the Capital caught fire, killing 60 and leaving many injured. While the cinema had a license issued by Delhi Police, Delhi Fire Service failed to conduct periodic inspections that the premises were safe from fire hazards and that the mandatory safety measures and fire alarms were in place. On January 23, 2004, a marriage pandal in Srirangam, Tamil Nadu caught fire, killing 62 people and injuring 45. The fire was caused by heat from a video flash gun, which set fire to decorative materials on the thatched roof of the pandal. There was also a stampede as people tried to flee through a narrow staircase in a corner. On July 16, 2004, a fire in a primary school in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, killed 91 children. In January 2005, 257 people were killed in a stampede when fire broke out at a religious festival in Wai in Maharashtra. As long as concerned officials and agencies continue to blatantly disregard rules and regulations, such fire tragedies will continue to occur. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as governance in the country anymore.
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Mystery shrouds death of woman
Gurgaon, April 15 However, the mother of the deceased, has lodged a complaint with the police that her daughter was murdered by her employer as she was demanding Rs 1.5 lakh due from him. The deceased, Ms Sony Javed, was sales manager of Keburk Pub in MGF Mall. She had gone to Mumbai on some assignment. She came back last night and along with the pub’s owner attended a party in a restaurant housed in the Mall. They then had a heated discussion at the place. Her employer is alleged to have brought her outside the restaurant; both of them then grappled with each other. Thereafter, the deceased fell down. She was admitted to a private hospital in DLF where she was declared dead. The police have registered a case. However, no arrest has been made so far.
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Man killed savagely in Ghaziabad
Ghaziabad, April 15 By the time people came to his rescue, the assailants had fled. The victim was later identified as Kulraj, 25, of Biharipura in Vijay Nagar on the basis of papers found on his person. On hearing the gunshot when a woman looked out of her house, she noticed a profusely bleeding man. She immediately informed the Vijay Nagar police who rushed him to government hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. SO Vijay Nagar said one local revolver and two blood-soaked bricks were recovered near his body. One bullet was found stuck up in the revolver.
— OC
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Udyog Vihar firms get notice for ‘misuse’ of plots
Gurgaon, April 15 However, the entrepreneurs of Udyog Vihar are agitated by the HSIDC’s direction as running a car showroom, a catering service or an STD booth in industrial plots actually help the industrial estate, they assert. The Estate Manager, HSIDC, Udyog Vihar, Mr Divya Kamal, informed ’The Tribune’ that the department had issued notices to three big car showroom owners: Toyota, Honda and General Motors and one Benetton garment showroom and one shed owner for running catering services and an STD booth on their premises. These five industrial plot owners had been running commercial activities for the last more than two years and had not stopped their activities despite several show-cause notices, added the Estate Manager, HSIDC. However, Col Raj Singla, general secretary of the Chamber of Industries of Udyog Vihar lamented that the industrial community had given various representations to the Managing Director, HSIDC, Mr Rajiv Arora, against the arbitrary move of the local HSIDC officials, but nothing concrete had come out. They have now decided to approach the Haryana Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and explained to him the actual position in the one of the prime industrial estates of the state, added Mr Singla. Such ‘disturbing notices’ discourage the industrialists to set up their plants in Haryana, said the general secretary. Mr Jogo Singh, owner of the shed No. 55-D who had been issued with a resumption notice, revealed that he bought the plot in 1993 and ran a filter-manufacturing unit till 2004 in the plot. He suffered a major loss in business and then switched over to catering services. He immediately applied for the change of the business as per the policy of the department, but did not get the approval. He had a small shed of 300 square metre. He sent many reminders and visited many times to the local office of HSIDC for getting the approval but of no avail. Two days ago, he received a resumption of plot notice, said Mr Singh. Mr Rajender Singh, manager of General Motor’s ‘Apex Auto’ show room, said that they had not violated any rules and regulations of the HSIDC. There are a number of other car showrooms which have been functioning in Udyog Vihar for the last 15 years. The pick and chose policy of the local office is illogical and unacceptable, added Mr Singh. If the department needs some formalities to be fulfilled, we would soon abide by the direction, added the show room manager. Mr Kuldeep Gangwani of Avon Cranes Pvt Lvt, one of the oldest units in Udyog Vihar, suggested that the local officials of the HSIDC must help industries for the smooth functioning of
the units. Rather they are creating problems on one pretext or other, alleged Mr Gangwani.
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Units in Noida, Ghaziabad lack
fire-safety measures
Noida, April 15 Industries in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad lack sufficient fire-safety measures. Only yesterday, an export company in Sector 58-A 50, Noida, lost goods worth lakhs in a fire. The blaze was caused by a short circuit. Out of 400 units in Greater Noida, only 10 have proper fire-safety measures. According to sources on an average, 25 per cent of units manufacturing highly inflammable products are virtually sitting on mounds of gun powder. A spark from a short circuit or even from a ‘bidi’ can blow up the whole factory. After which little can be salvaged or saved, including human lives. In Ghaziabad, apart from industries, the godowns in residential areas have wreaked havoc on mostly inflammable goods in the past. These premises are located in narrow streets where fire tenders are not able to negotiate. In Sector-18 posh market of Noida, a couple of times, premises with goods had been completely destroyed in blaze which could not be controlled as there was no water in the water mains or they were located very far. In the past one year, dozens of factories have been reduced to rubble due to fire, causing a loss of over Rs 18 crore. The fire brigade officers do not have the authority to take action against these defaulters who play with the lives of their employees. Fire brigade in-charge R.B. Diwedi says that he cannot take action against such units on his own. He can only send the report to the Administration or Noida or Greater Noida Authority. He can only issue no-objection certificates to factories or schools, which again has to be approved by Industrial Development Authority concerned. The fire officer says he is not aware as to on what basis the industrial authorities issue completion certificates to the units. In Greater Noida, there is only one fire tender which has to provide safety against mishaps in 400 industrial units, including large multinational factories and companies.
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High cholesterol linked to prostate cancer: Study
New Delhi, April 15 Prostrate cancer is known to be directly linked to obesity
and diabetes which are recognised high-risk factors contributing to high
cholesterol. Dr Aggarwal feels that factors like age, ethnicity and
family history contribute to developing susceptibility for prostrate
cancer. In a study conducted between 1991-2000, researchers looked at
1300 men under the age of 75 who had prostrate cancer and then they
compared them with 1451 men who did not have cancer, but had been
admitted to the hospital with acute non-cancerous conditions. The
association between prostrate cancer and high cholesterol was stronger
in those over 65 years of age then in younger men.
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Hooda opens girls’ hostel
New Delhi, April 15
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