New Delhi, May 25
The empowered committee of Delhi University has finalised its report today, suggesting measures for making the new Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) inclusive for the visually challenged.

In view of the concerns raised by the section, the 14-member committee has proposed two alternative papers - history of science of mathematics and communication skills - in place of mathematical ability and science and life in the foundation courses under the new format. A budget of Rs 1 crore for facilitating visually challenged students with special assisting devices, gazettes, reader convertor software, etc., has also been proposed.

And this, sources from the committee maintain, will allay the fears expressed for the concerned section owing to the fact that majority of those with visual impairment and print disabilities are deprived of studying science and maths after Class VIII in some cases and after Class X in most of the cases.

The report will be tabled before the Academic Council on Monday when the Supreme Court will hear the special leave petition filed by NGO Sambhavana against the Delhi High Court's order following its refusal to stay the implementation of the FYUP.

"The report is finalised by the empowered committee and would be going to the Academic Council. The matter is the last item in the agenda of the council meeting scheduled for Monday," sources told The Tribune.

When it comes to other differently abled sections, such as that with locomotive disabilities and hearing impairment, they generally do not face pedagogical problems but those with visual impairment could be affected.

In this regard, the NGO challenging the FYUP filed up public interest litigation in the high court in the first week of May, said Nikhil Jain of Sambhavana and a teacher of political science at Dayal Singh College. In the petition, the NGO had submitted before the court that if FYUP with multiple degrees is introduced in the current form, the students with vision impairment will suffer irreparable loss as they will be deprived of the mainstream education system.

As such students will not be able to meet the requirements of the mandatory foundation course in the first year which has 11 courses, including building mathematical ability and science and life. The NGO had asked the court to direct DU to introduce a "bridge course programme" for maths and science for visually challenged students.

However, the expert committee of DU still is of the view that the foundation courses under the new structure may not pose any hindrance to either who are physically challenged or visually impaired as argued by the NGO as the contents involves basics up to standard VIII.

New Delhi, May 25
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that it will declare the results of the Class XII examinations on May 27.

The results will be declared at 10 am on Monday and students can check either by logging on to official websites, results.nic.in, cbseresults.nic.in and cbse.nic.in, or through SMS and over Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS).

The schools can get the entire results by giving their school code and email address by registering themselves on the websites.

Through IVRS, students can get their results at a charge of Re 0.30 per minute and if they wish to receive it directly in their e-mail inbox they can also register on the CBSE  website.

As per previous years, this year also the CBSE is hosting its results with the technical support of National Informatics Centre, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India on net.

The Class XII board exams were conducted between March 1 and April 17 this year.

New Delhi, May 25
After crossing several hurdles, Chandni Chowk, an ancient market of Delhi, has finally been given a shape by the Public Works Department (PWD) which is likely to start the work in next four months.

The revised Rs 40-crore project of restoring the glory of Chandni Chowk has not put any restrictions on vehicular movement of either big or small vehicles. PWD Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan said that the tenders of the project are almost ready and the work will start within next three-four months.

After the redevelopment project of the historic commercial place shifted from erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to the PWD, Delhi government, a new policy has been framed which has made significant changes to the previous plan. Chauhan said that the changes have been made to bring back the original Mughal impression of the area.

Giving details, he said under phase-I of the project, the existing major road running between Red Fort and Feteh Puri Masjid will be converted into a two-way royal passage with the addition of a small walk-way of around 4 m in width on both sides of the roads to help pedestrians and tourists enjoy the heritage characteristic of the area.

It will be separated form the main road with the installation of aesthetical iron grills. "To make the area look like from the era of Mughals, ethnic streetlights will be erected on middle of the roads and also on the walk-way. Lightings will add to the beauty of the ancient market," said Chauan. However, the proposal of building a central verge has been untouched by the department.

Granite will be used as material for flooring on the walk-way. "We cannot put much decorative things in the market as it also has an ecological importance and is home to various birds. There is a possibility of them getting disturbed with too much beautification," Chauhan added.

Under phase-II, the road leading to Old Delhi Railway station from the Chandni Chowk market will be rebuilt and beautified.

New Delhi, May 25
Though the government claims that it has surplus power, load-shedding for hours are reported from various areas of Delhi. It happens during night. People come on roads during the night as they are unable to sleep due to heat and suffocation.

Last night load-shedding was there in the Seelampur area, north-east Delhi, from midnight to 3 am, the peak hours when people sleep. Same had happened in the Abul Fazal Enclave area of the Jamia Nagar police station.

A few days ago, the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, had said that the government had sufficient power and there would be uninterrupted power supply in the national Capital.

Giving clarification about the load-shedding, an official of the Delhi Transco said that government was not lack of power. Load-shedding could be happened due to technical faults.

Director (Operations) of the Delhi Transco Limited A.K. Haldar reviewed the power supply position in Delhi, especially west Delhi where the problem occurred two days ago. The power in west Delhi was affected due to snapping of a 220 KV transmission conductor on Thursday evening. The situation was normalised by Friday morning.

The conductor (live wire) had expended due to high temperature and a high streetlight pole on the central verge of the main road came in its clearance zone, resulting in its snapping at 3.16 pm on May 23. The Operations and Maintenance team of the Delhi Transco started the work for replacement of the broken wire. As the location of the incident was the main road and that was the peak traffic hour at that time, it created hurdles in carrying out the maintenance. After continuous midnight operation of 10 hours repair operation, the system was rectified and now the power position in west Delhi is normal. The entire operation work was supervised by the senior officials of the Delhi Transco.

New Delhi, May 25
With the arrest of four accused and recovery of pistols, the Delhi Police today said that weapons used to attack Najafgarh MLA Bharat Singh was brought from Munger in Bihar.

Price of weapons has been estimated between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20, 000 per pistol, Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) S.N. Srivastava said.

Bharat Singh was attacked near his office in Najafgarh last year and sustained serious injuries. He was admitted to a nearby hospital. The incident had happened when the house proceedings of the Delhi Legislative Assembly was going on. The Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, had taken this case seriously when the MLA across the party line had raised the issue in the House.

The police have arrested four persons regarding this case. The accused have been identified as Allauddin, Shakir, Shahzad, all belong to Meerut and the fourth one, Mohammad Rustam, alias Raju, belongs to Munger. Allauddin was arrested a few months ago. He came out on bail and again started the smuggling of the illegal weapons. The weapons are of good quality, he said.

Srivastava said, "In the past eight months we have caught such weapons about 10 times. Every time the suspect had disclosed that they had smuggled the weapons from Munger. Thereafter, the SSP, Munger, was contacted to arrest the manufacturers and suppliers.

He said that earlier there were factories of weapon manufacturing in Munger. People had licence to manufacturer weapons. Now the factories are closed. But skilled workers are still there who illegally manufacture them.