New Delhi, January 23
Five youngsters-four in their early twenties and one a teenager-- have been arrested by the west district police on the charges of robbing and killing at least four persons.

According to the police, the boys have confessed to their involvement in more than 15 heinous cases, including 10 murders committed in the areas of Jind, Sonipat, Gohana, Ishrana, Mulana, Murthal and Gannaur of Haryana.

The accused have been identified as Virender (20), pursuing hotel management from a renowned institute in Haryana, Manoj (19), Sandeep (21), Sanjay (23) and Naveen (24).

According to Sharad Aggarwal, DCP (Southwest), the gang members were nabbed last night from a DDA park in Najafgarh while planning to rob a petrol pump.

"They wanted to rob the petrol pump so that they can get money for running away from their native places to get out of the reach of the Haryana police," Aggarwal said.

All of them hail from Sonepat and according to Aggarwal, they committed their recent crime on January 3 when they shot dead a man who had a property dispute with the family of Virender.

According to the police, Naveen runs a pig farm, Sanjay is an ITI dropout, while Manoj and Sandeep are unemployed.

Virender was also involved in the murder of one Amit Malik in April last year. Sanjay is allegedly involved in a case of two murders committed at Jind in July last year, besides three other murder cases.

New Delhi, January 23
Over 21 schools in the capital have been found violating the age norms according to a list submitted by the civil rights NGO, Social Jurist. The list was submitted to both the Delhi High Court and the Department of Education (DOE). All these schools were found admitting children in the age of three and above in Nursery and Pre-Nursery.

The Delhi High Court in turn released a list of schools recently that were found violating the age norms stipulated by the DOE. An official from the DOE informed, "Despite the fact that according to guidelines released by the DOE, many schools violate the rule and admit children at the age of three and three plus. The high court recently released a list of such schools found violating the age norms. Notices will soon be issued to the schools and legal action will be taken against these."

These schools had published advertisements in the newspapers inviting applications from parents with children of age three and above.

Founder Social Jurist Ashok Aggarwal said, "Many schools continue to violate the DOE guidelines as far as age norms for nursery school admissions go. This year, as in the past, a number of children of three years of age have got admitted to Nursery despite the fact that it is mandatory that the age of the children should be four and above.

"Schools are rather lax about this rule and we at Social Jurist have compiled a list of many schools that have violated age norms," he added.

Arati Bhargava, a parent, said, "It is extremely frustrating for the parents. Despite the government rule, many schools are admitting children at the age of three. As a result, the entire admission scenario has been complex and confusing. I applied at, at least, 10 schools for my son's admission this year and out of these, four schools were admitting children at the age of three and above."

New Delhi, January 23
The cluster bus service buses are likely to be operated in south Delhi from this week where Star Bus Private Limited has been awarded the contract. In the beginning, the private company will operate 50 buses that is replacement of the Blueline buses, sources said.

The company will drive two kinds of buses - one is air-conditioned, while the other is of non-air-conditioned.

Non-air-conditioned buses will be of orange colour while air-conditioned buses will be of purple.

The cluster buses will be driven on the routes where Metro rail service is not available.

The Delhi government had in 2009 divided nearly 650 bus routes across the city into 17 clusters, each comprising profitable and non-profitable routes, and decided to give each cluster to a private operator.

Three private companies have been awarded contract to drive buses in five clusters. Till June, they are likely to operate 800 buses on different routes.

The cluster bus service, modelled on bus services in London and many other European cities, is seen as a replacement for the Blueline buses for which the government has set January 31 deadline for a complete phase out.

These buses will have an onboard passenger information system on the lines of the Delhi Metro.

Commuters will be able to know various informations like upcoming bus stops. These will also have electronic ticketing system.

Meanwhile, the Delhi government is considering allowing Blueline buses to operate as feeder bus service for the Metro network. Currently, the DMRC runs 120 feeder buses on 12 routes ferrying more than 35,000 people everyday from their homes to stations and back.

Due to lack of financial viability it cannot run more buses, the sources said.

Hardly 1,200 Blueline buses are on roads while the remaining buses have been phased out.

New Delhi, January 23
After the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) installed waterless urinals on a mass scale across the national Capital, such eco-friendly units may also come up at some Metro stations soon and the airport in future.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) is installing Kupple (cartridge-less) waterless urinals at 11 of its stations while the Airport Authority of India (AAI) will pilot test 'eco loos' at the IGI airport, say officials.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has already installed nearly 500 waterless urinals across the city, most of them before the Commonwealth Games in October last year.

These urinals help save water, have lesser bacteria, no odour, are more hygienic and require less maintenance.

"Due to the absence of water and contact with air, urine does not form any gas and the toilet remains odour-free," said an MCD official.

A spokesman of AG Aqua Solutions, which has supplied such units to both MCD and DMRC, said the urinals function on gravitational pull concept and have flap technology that stops the backward migration of odour.

"There's also cost saving. As the unit requires no recurring costs, one ends up saving Rs 7,000 per month on operational costs, and the maintenance routine is simple, quick and touch-free," said Sabyasachi Dasgupta, sales manager, AG Aqua.

It is estimated that up to 20 per cent of the available drinking water in the world is flushed down the drain. In addition, leakage of water lines may add 8 per cent more to the above. Water-saving products are thus attracting attention of governments and corporates across the world.

MCD has installed these urinals at places like ITO, Indira Gandhi Stadium, ESI Hospital, Raja Garden, Ashok Vihar, Rohini, Prashant Vihar, Mukherjee Nagar, Old Delhi Railway Station, New Delhi Railway Station, Kailash Colony and ISBT.

The civic body which had unveiled the first waterless urinal at Kashmiri Gate on the World Environment Day in 2009, went on to conduct a pilot project along with the private firm and then launched the scheme to install such units on a large scale.

In recent times, however, it has faced some hurdles due to difficulties in garnering enough advertisements for the sites. The urinals have advertisement panels on two sides from which MCD hoped to earn big revenue.

When asked about the future of the waterless urinal scheme in view of this problem, a senior MCD official maintained that the project is important and there is no possibility of scrapping it midway. -- PTI

The much awaited cabinet reshuffle has come and gone. The cosmetic change done in this musical chair act has left the people in the corridors of power wondering what the need was for the shuffle. Drastic decisions like dropping M.S. Gill for incompetency should have been taken. The corrupt and those with liaisons with big business houses should have been dropped. The intellectual lot in Delhi are wondering why they were just shifted around. Tall leaders like Vir Bahadur Singh have been allocated portfolios of public interest, much to his advantage. Deliverance and capabilities need to have been taken into consideration. They could have adjusted the articulate and deserving faces like Manish Tiwari. One wonders whether now in the AICC reshuffle if people from the states would be roped in. The Prime Minister does not seem to have faired well in this exercise. There are some ministers who have paralysed their ministries. It seems that talented people are being kept out of party affairs. This is discouraging and demolarising the common Congress workers. The Congress men are a worried lot and they should be. Tough steps will have to be taken to improve the UPA 2 image. Otherwise they will have to pay heavily in the next session and elections.

In this interesting shuffle of the same pack, the Prime Minister has disturbed the vastu proceeding of many ministers' offices. Some were so sure of not being disturbed that the feng shui and vastu gurus were working overtime in the ministerial offices and homes. Well, it clearly does not seem to have worked. The alliance partners are now getting ready to bargain on seats with Mamata in West Bengal and the DMK in Chennai. Hence, no claim for new ministers' berths so that it will give them more power on seat-sharing.

Underdogs? Not quite

Delhi's bar scene is vibrant and alive, but all rather new. With the liberal licensing policy, new bars are competing for business and wooing the young and the restless.

Witnessing the soft opening of a hugely spacious brand new sports bar imaginatively called "Underdogs" was a pleasure. Since most bars celebrate champions, this is by design, as its very name suggests, meant to be a different kind of space.

Kohilika Kohli, the young US-educated architect has interpreted the theme boldly with sweeping sports hoardings celebrating the plethora of sporting underdogs who have made it to the list of the greats.

Imaginative design combined with operational efficiency and aesthetic interiors made for a great opening party that started early and wound up in the early morning hours.

From the huge space has been carved out into several multiple spaces that will allow the bold and the beautiful to swill their beers in comfort and semi-privacy. "Underdogs" is a venture of the entrepreneurs running the successful "Crepes and More" in Khan Market.

A guest list of the city's who's who, from diplomats to page 3 people and swish Delhi royalty, experienced the unique flavour of the bar that celebrates an ethos that is not Delhi's norm.

New Delhi, January 23
Foreign galleries participating in the India Art Summit for the first time are "impressed" by the "educated art market" and the large turnout. Many even brought down the prices of their paintings to "suit" the Indian tastes.

"This is the first time that we are participating in the art summit here and frankly, before coming here we didn't know what to expect. But I am very happy to say that the response has been absolutely great," said Christian Dorey of the Arteria gallery from Montreal, Canada.

The art summit has grown in size over the years. As compared to 54 in the last edition, a total of 84 galleries from 20 countries are participating in the January 21-23 third edition at Pragati Maidan here.

The number of foreign galleries participating has gone up from 17 in the last edition to 34 this time.

"Because we didn't know what to expect or what kind of artwork Indians would like, we brought a variety of work. So you have a few classical paintings, pop art, prints and others. What I was sure of though is that our artwork should be accessible and affordable to all, so we brought down the prices," said Dorey, who is an artist himself.

For instance, a painting priced at Rs 73,000 here is priced almost double elsewhere, like New York. Most other paintings were priced around Rs 30,000 onwards. The most expensive piece-- a pop art on Elvis Presley that is already sold-- was priced at Rs 90,000.

"Art should be accessible. I am an artist and nothing is more pleasing than to realise that my work can be taken by as many people as possible. We have already sold six pieces and many people said they were pleased with the price range," Dorey said.

An official of the Robert Bowman gallery of UK said that she was impressed to see a very "art educated" market here.

"Although we do have clients in India, this is the first time we are participating in the summit. So the aim really is just to introduce ourselves here and get our work familiar. But we are very happy with the response and am impressed to see an educated market," she said.

The Robert Bowman gallery showcased sculptures by various artists.

"There are many students coming and talking to us about the sculptures and sharing their interpretation about the pieces. One student had a very interesting mathematical interpretation about a piece which actually never crossed my mind," the official said.

An interesting artwork in the exhibition space of the Stark+Granit Gallery of London was one with an Indian connection -- Mahatma Gandhi.

"Carlo Pasini is a Milan-based artist who does a lot of pop art and iconic images. This art work titled 'Afterlife' depicts the face of Gandhi and it's made entirely of pins on board. It's an iconic image," said an official of the Stark+Granit Gallery.

Another interesting artwork was that of Francesco de Molfetta. The piece was that of a blister pack of Prozac, an anti-depressant, in which one pill was replaced by a miniature form of a couple, depicting the everyday stress of modern life.

"Our art medium is quite familiar in Europe, but it's new in India. Therefore work like that of Francesco de Molfetta is getting much attention here. The level of interest is impressive," she said.

The curator of Tokyo's Tamura Akio Gallery said: "I am happy with the response. People are very curious with our work, that of mixed media in acrylic boxes."

A number of foreign galleries said they were happy to participate in the summit for the first time and get an idea of India's art market.

"Our prices are high...2,000 euros (over Rs 1,20,000) onwards...so I can understand that the Indian audience would like to be completely sure before they buy our work. This is the first time that we are here so we are just happy to get ourselves familiar to the Indian audience," said the official of the Stark+Granit Gallery. -- IANS

New Delhi, January 23
An 87-year-old war veteran will be the oldest participant in the Republic Day (R-Day) Parade this year which will display sophisticated military equipment like shipborne radar and naval underwater weapon system.

The full-dress rehearsal held in Delhi today gave a preview of what is in store for the R-Day celebrations which would showcase country's cultural diversity and military might.

Armed forces and paramilitary forces marching to the tunes of bands and tableaux depicting the country's culture will be part of the parade passing through an eight-km route from Rajpath to Red Fort during which India’s weaponry will also be displayed.

Marching down from the Raisina Hills will be N.N. Shukla, 87, who will be leading a contingent of ex-servicemen. Shukla, the flying officer based in Rawalpindi during the World War II, will be the oldest participant this year.

In the parade led by General Officer Commanding (Delhi) Maj Gen Manvendra Singh, DRDO's active phased array radar, shipborne multi-function radar and naval underwater weapon system will be displayed for the first time.

The tableaux will provide a view of India’s vibrant culture. Rabindranath Tagore, Lord Buddha, J&K Bandh Pandher, Tripura's Kharchi festival, Punjab's Mehandi ceremony and Bihar's Maner Sherif will be on focus in their tableaux.

The parade will start with four MIG-17s showering flower petals and the first to walk in would be the Param Vir Chakra and Ashok Chakra award winners followed by mounted columns of 61 Cavalry and Army's weaponry.

The next to follow will be smartly-dressed 148 Navy personnel along with a tableau of INS Virat and then the Air Force personnel will come in.

The marching contingents will give way to tableaux. The first to be rolled out will be one on 'Gurudev' Rabindranath Tagore on his 150th birth anniversary. A big bust of Tagore forms the foreground of the tableau with Santiniketan in the backdrop and depiction of a meeting Mahatma Gandhi had with the poet.

Orissa's float depicts Jayadev and his Geeta Govindam with paintings on Krishna while Assam's Ankiya Nat shows a scene from Bhagavata Purana on Bhakt Prahlad. -- PTI

New Delhi, January 23
A Delhi court has awarded life term to a HIV-positive man who killed his friend in a drunken brawl two years ago. Additional sessions judge Kamini Lau awarded the prison term to the convict, who used to work with the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on contract, and also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on him.

The court directed that the fine of Rs 50,000 would be paid to the victim's family as compensation.

The plea of public prosecutor Taufiq Ahmed for granting capital punishment to the convict was not accepted by the court.

Lau, in her order delivered on Friday, awarded life imprisonment to convict after considering the fact he was a HIV-positive person and committed the crime on the spur of the moment under the influence of alcohol.

"No doubt, all murders are most degrading and depraving but the case in hand certainly does not fall within the category of rarest of rare or even in the category of rare case," the court said while pronouncing the order.

While sentencing the convict, the court noted that victim Rajbir was murdered because he tried to intervene in a quarrel going on between his friend Ravi Kumar and the convict.

The convict hit Rajbir on his neck and face with a broken glass bottle on December 19, 2008 at Ashok Vihar in north Delhi, resulting in his death. -- IANS

New Delhi, January 23
Unidentified men made way with a computer and some documents from a bank in south-west Delhi early this morning after making a hole in its wall, the police said today.

The incident was reported from the branch of Syndicate Bank in Bharthal village in Dwarka. A villager who was passing by this morning noticed a "big hole" in the wall of the bank and immediately informed the police.

"The manager Dheeraj Jain was also informed who came to the spot and opened the bank. We found a computer and some documents missing. But no cash was missing," a senior police official said.

The robbers tried to open the lockers but could not manage to do so. They ransacked the bank, the official said.

"All the files were taken out of shelves and thrown around," the official said adding it appears that there were more than two persons involved in the crime.

Investigators suspect that some local criminals were involved in the incident. "We have detained some people. We are questioning them," the official said.

There was no guard or CCTV at the bank, the official said. "We have been telling banks across the capital to install CCTVs. It could help in cracking such cases," the official said. -- PTI

New Delhi, January 23
The Delhi Election Commission (DEC) has launched an interactive and youth-friendly campaign beginning from January 21 to mark the National Voters Day. The week-long awareness campaign will create interest among the youth towards exercising their franchise, says the DEC.

For this, a series of street plays will be held across the city. The areas covered by the theatre groups have been broadly divided into four zones - New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area; Urban, Slum and Rural areas; North Campus and South Campus of Delhi University. A total of 106 plays will be enacted at 106 venues.

The theatre groups, which consist of young actors, will perform an average of three to four skits from 11 am to 5.30 pm everyday.

The groups are Raas Kala Manch (director-Manish Joshi); Chitralekha Arts (director-Sumit Sharma); Astha (director-Kailash Joshi) and Black Entertainment and Media (India) (director-Chandra Bhushan Singh).

The DEC has sought the support of the Sahitya Kala Parishad to coordinate the cultural aspect of the campaign.

First such campaign was launched before the Delhi Assembly election in 2008.