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Hung assembly predicted in Delhi
High turnout shows anger to govt: Jolly
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Voter registration system flawed: Noida residents
‘Pappu’ campaign receives tepid response
Today is World AIDS Day
South Asian Women’s Day celebrated
11-year-struggle to get FIR registered
Case of fraud in buying foreign machinery registered
Apollo Hospitals to open 30 maternity homes
Disabled plan candlelight vigil
Mercury drops to 26 degree C
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Hung assembly predicted in Delhi
New Delhi, November 30 This was suggested by many voters across various constituencies in the Capital like S. K. Jain of Bhogal and S. L. Mukhija of Lajpat Nagar IV. They opined that the Capital has seen development on various fronts, including the renovation of stadiums, widening of roads, construction of subways and flyover network, coming of Metro across Delhi, besides arranging for better parking lots and bettering the supply of water in East and South Delhi by Sonia Vihar Plant. However, it has failed on several fronts—addressing the traffic problems due to BRT, containing the spiralling inflation, bettering security management, and the latest is the recent bloodbath in Mumbai, which further drifts the trust of the masses from the current Congress government. This must have led many voters to exercise their franchise against the incumbent government, which might have been a gain for the opposition BJP or the new player in the form of BSP. This is also indicated by various exit polls conducted by various news agencies and bodies. An exit poll conducted by a Delhi-based news channel indicates that Congress, confident of scoring a hat-trick would secure 32 seats (down from 47 in 2002), whereas the BJP will get 31 (up from 20) in the 70-member House. Meanwhile, the BSP having emerged as the last resort for the voters of marginalised section have bagged only three seats in its kitty, better than last time when it had failed to secure a single seat. While three remaining seats would go to the Independents, like the last time. This points out that the Congress has lost its grip over the masses with its electorate-base going down to 40.5 per cent as against earlier 48.13, while the BJP and BSP would improve from 35.33 per cent to 38.5 per cent and 5.76 per cent to 12 per cent respectively. However, the poll pundits opine that the result can swing in 12-15 constituencies as they have a margin of less than two per cent. The estimates are based on fieldwork in 32 constituencies, with a sample size of 16,000. The analysts feel that the outcome of the elections would indicate a vital impact of change syndrome governing the mind of electorate. |
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High turnout shows anger to govt: Jolly
New Delhi, November 30 Dismissing claims by the Congress that a high turnout was a reflection of the huge mandate by the people of Delhi towards the developmental initiatives by the Sheila Dikshit government over the past 10 years, Jolly said history shows that whenever people have turned out to vote in large numbers in an elections, it has been to reflect their anger towards the establishment. “In this sense, the over 60 per cent voter turnout reflects the anger of the people towards the Delhi government. People of Delhi are angry over the poor law and order situation in Delhi which they feel is due to the Delhi government’s dilly-dallying on issues like Afzal hanging,” he said. The high voter turnout in the assembly elections this year is a vast improvement over the voting percentage of 53 per cent during the 2003 assembly poll. In fact, the New Delhi Assembly segment from where Jolly is contesting against Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit witnessed a high voting percentage of 56.7 per cent in yesterday’s polling.
— UNI |
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Voter registration system flawed: Noida residents
Noida, November 30 According to Suresh Krishnan, general secretary of the Resident Welfare Association (RWA), Sector-11, “The first and most important prerequisite for a fair election is the voter rolls, but a near-farcical situation exists in their preparation.” Even Krishnan’s own voter ID card has the photo of another resident of the sector, Anadi Barua. The situation is not much different for H.K. Sahai and his family. While his name is missing from the voter list, his wife’s name has been misspelt. Sunil Gupta, another resident of the city, has his own story to narrate. “Despite filling out the relevant forms for change of address and giving the expendable ‘chai panni’ to speed up things, there is still no sign of my name in the voter list,” says H K Sahai Residents Joshi, Sharma and Awasthi have all filled in the forms five times over, but still their names do not feature in the voter list. As per the president and other office-bearers of the Federation of Noida Resident Welfare Association, (FONRWA), N.P. Singh and Suresh Tiwari, even though 85,000 people have filled in forms for their voter ID card, shockingly only 45,000 have been lucky enough to have their names included in the voter list. Moreover, cases of harassment at election ID card counters in the city seem to be increasing in proportion with the applicants’ rush. Complaints keep pouring in from various sectors of the city despite tall claims of the administration that their office is running like a well-oiled machine. Besides mistakes related to identification details on the cards, applicants are also complaining about harassment in terms of the number of visits they are forced to make for getting the voter ID card. The situation has aggravated owing to inadequate manpower and equipment, including computers, and complete lack of assistance from the staff in guiding the applicants. With promises galore from the district administration of a state-of-the-art vehicle delivering the much-talked voter identity card at their doorstep, many await the elusive identification document. In a recent meeting, the Gautam Budh Nagar district magistrate (D.M) Shravan Kumar Sharma announced that updating, correction, revision and deletion in the electoral rolls will be undertaken by the district’s election office from November 18 through December 3 at all the 852 centres of the district. |
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‘Pappu’ campaign receives tepid response
New Delhi, November 30 This figure was given after calculating the total number of votes cast in various constituencies. Chief executive officer, Delhi, Satbir Silas Bedi, yesterday claimed that almost 60 per cent votes polled but that was her assessment on the basis of information pouring in her office. Voting continued till late even after 5 pm, said a senior officer of the election department. He said that Pappu campaign continued for a month thorough various media. Expenditure in the campaigning has not been calculated so far, but it is estimated that lakhs of rupees would have spent. But the result is not as good as was expected. In 1993, when the first assembly election was held, 61 per cent polling was recorded and that was without any effort, sources said. The officer said that if the number of voters is compared from 1993 to 2008, the Pappu campaign was not a failure. It is very much successful as in the MCD election, the poll percentage was 43 and now in assembly, it is 58. The maximum number of votes was polled in Uttam Nagar and the minimum in Mehrauli followed by Okhla, one of the hyper-sensitive constituencies. In Uttam Nagar, percentage of votes were 63.96, in Mehrauli 45.91 per cent and in Okhla 49.41 per cent. |
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Today is World AIDS Day
New Delhi, November 30 “So far the funds provided by donors have not been impacted. They are providing us funds. But it may go down in the future,” UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot told IANS during a visit to India. The country is home to 2.5 million HIV-positive patients, including 70,000 children below the age of 14. But Piot said India has nothing to worry about as far as generating funds for prevention and treatment of HIV and AIDS is concerned. “Your banks are robust and doing well.” “If the economic situation of a country is bad, it affects its social structure too. The result is poverty, which means an indirect spread of HIV and AIDS,” said Piot. He said he was basing his observations on past experience when global funding for the fight against HIV and AIDS had gone down when Japan and Nordic countries like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden faced financial trouble in the 1990s. “I have seen it happening when countries experience economic downturn. In Japan, after their financial crisis in 1990, they cut development assistance by 60 per cent. “Japan is still recovering, though the Nordic countries have recovered and they have started giving aid,” said Piot, who is also an under secretary-general of the UN. His greatest worry is that governments will cut social sector spending first, which will have a strong impact on HIV and AIDS. “The cut would impact the poorest countries who would not be able to run their otherwise sponsored AIDS programmes,” he said. Piot, who will complete his term in December after having led the organisation since 1994, said in developing countries, governments may have less income due to recession, which will mean their people will become more vulnerable. “There could be an increase in sex work and the subsequent fear then is an increase in HIV and AIDS. Usually, in such situations, women are the most vulnerable,” he said. There are an estimated 33 million people living with HIV worldwide, while 2.7 million people were newly infected in 2007. About two million people died of AIDS last year. Monday is observed as World AIDS Day. UNAIDS gets funds from a number of countries, Holland and Sweden being the biggest contributors. Various foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and various development agencies are the other donors. Twenty seven countries, including the Netherlands, Britain, the US, Sweden, Norway and Ireland, were the biggest donors to UNAIDS in 2007. Said Piot: “Funding is saving lives. Also, it has shown a high return on investments. Fewer people would be impacted with it, which means good investment. “If they interrupt the treatment and prevention of HIV and AIDS (by cutting down on funds) there would be many people dying of it and obviously it would mean higher bills to pay. They have to act now otherwise they will have to pay later,” Piot said. At the moment, close to four million people all over the world are on anti-retrovirals, but about eight million more need it, he said.
— IANS |
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South Asian Women’s Day celebrated
New Delhi, November 30 Speaking about this event, Kamla Bhasin, a founder member and advisor of SANGAT, a South Asian regional network, stated that five years ago many of them in the women’s movement decided to focus on the need to build peace in the region. “Today we are being challenged on many fronts and the brutality that we are presently witnessing in Mumbai is a grim reminder of the manner in which the people of the region are being torn apart, emotionally traumatized, and trapped in a vicious cycle of hate, intolerance and distrust,” she added. Sharing their experience, Wajida Tabassum, secretary, Centre for Alternative Dalit Media, stated that in the region as a whole if governments and society want to fight against divisive forces, “it is essential to mainstream the concerns of women from marginalised communities such as Dalits and minorities,” she added Representing the young people, Sahar Khan, a Delhi University student, urged all young women to use this critical moment to raise their voice against the mindless violence that was perpetuated in Mumbai. “We must use occasions like the South Asian Women’s Day to condemn such acts of violence, strengthen peace and rise above all kinds of differences that divide the region and make it prone to the worst forms of violence and social injustice,” the student said. Speaking on behalf of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Vikram Badshah, head of Public Policy, stated, “It is time for all Indians to realize that not only the nation but the region is at stake and we must all stand united in search for regional peace and harmony.” Sagarika Ghose, senior editor, CNN-IBN, stated, “As a channel they were prepared to be part of any civil society initiative that seeks to strengthen the fight for justice, tolerance and build a strong united front against anyone who wants to divide us or weaken our resolve as a cohesive nation, region and society.” |
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11-year-struggle to get FIR registered
Noida, November 30 In a classic example of its type, the FIR was finally registered at the
orders of a court. It is a common tradition in this part that FIRs are
registered either on the orders of SP or SSP or after a court order. The BSP government’s tall claims do not appear to have made an impact on the way kotwalis and cops function here. A government retiree, N. Asthana of C-21A Sector 19 Noida had in 1997 lent Rs 20,000 to a known person simply on trust. Asthana was shocked when the person who had taken the money refused to return it. Then started the old man’s days of misery when he started going round police stations and even visiting the offices of the senior police officers to get an FIR registered, through these 11 years. At last Asthana had to knock the doors of a court. About 20 years ago, he had met one Mohd Yunis of Jagatpur, Delhi, who was managing his business from Noida. According to the FIR, Asthana had lent Rs 20,000 to Mohd Yunis for promoting his business but after a couple of months, Yunis went back on his commitment and refused to return the amount. A worried Asthana then went to police station to lodge a report, but cops just turned him away. Since then he had been contacting senior officers, but all that he got from them was assurance. In due course this tension affected Asthana’s health and he became sick. There is none else but his wife to tend to him. She too is having an indifferent health. So they thought of knocking at the door of the court. |
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Case of fraud in buying foreign machinery registered
Noida, November 30 According to police, Tyagi had placed an order on Bhardwaj, director of Messrs Cooner Overseas, Sector-10 Noida in 2005 for import of two computerized machines from China. For this Tyagi made a payment of Rs 9.60 lakh—part in cash and part by a cheque. Bhardwaj sent one machine after a lot of follow-up by Tyagi but even that machine was found to be defective. After that whenever he was asked to return the money, Bhardwaj would misbehave and even threaten. Tyagi’s complaints to police were of no use. On Saturday, a case was registered in Sector-20 Kotwali on court orders for fraud and threats to kill Anil Bhardwaj. |
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Apollo Hospitals to open 30 maternity homes
New Delhi, November 30 The chief executive of Apollo Health and Lifestyle Ltd., Ratan Jalan, briefed the media yesterday that the leading hospital chain would direct an investment of Rs 15.5 billion towards this expansion plan, and most of the expansion operations would be laid out through the franchisee channel, i.e. the Franchise India-2008, which is a franchise and retail event. Jalan added, “The maternity centres are a premier facility with each costing about Rs 150 million excluding the land price. We plan to open these in metros as well as in major towns, thereby enhancing its penetration in tier II and III towns. The expansion work would also result with the setting up of 250 Apollo clinics with upgraded systems and facilities, and the cost of setting up of each clinic would incur a cost of around Rs 20 million each.” Further, each of these medical centres would be of 100-bed capacity, and each calls for an investment of Rs 200 million. |
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Disabled plan candlelight vigil
New Delhi, November 30 It is demanding a separate ministry for disability affairs, plans on disability by every ministry and allocation of 3 per cent of every ministry’s resources. “Disabled people have responded very enthusiastically to our appeal and we are expecting over 10,000 of them from different parts of the country to turn up in Delhi on December 3. We already have confirmations from as far away as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir,” said Javed Abidi, convener of the group. |
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Mercury drops to 26 degree C
New Delhi, November 30 Though the sun appeared in the morning, the second half of the day witnessed an overcast sky. Continuing the falling trend, the maximum temperature in Delhi dropped to 26 degrees. The minimum remained at 9.5 degree Celsius. The cold conditions in Delhi are likely to persist in coming days with the weatherman forecasting a maximum of 26 degrees Celsius tomorrow as well and the minimum at 11 degrees. The Met office has forecast a partly cloudy sky in Delhi during the next 24 hours with the likelihood of mist or shallow fog in the morning. |
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