New Delhi, August 13
Development work in 895 unathorised colonies is affected due to tussle between the Delhi Government and Municipal Corporations of Delhi. No major development has taken place in these colonies after notification was issued by the government for regularization of the colonies.

The government seeks Rs 50, 000 for per acre development charges from Resident of Welfare Associations of the colonies that have come up on private lands. These are the lands about which the government had plan to acquire and notices were also issued to the farmers, but they were not given compensation amount, said Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel.

The Municipal Corporations empowered to make layout plan of these colonies. But they refused to do this as they were not in favour of charging Rs 50, 000 from property owners in these colonies, saying that it was private land. The people purchased this from farmers. It was basically agricultural land.

In 2008, the government had issued provisional regularization certificate, but, so far, not a single colony had been regularised. In 2009, Urban Development Minister A.K. Walia had said that the government had kept aside Rs 2, 800 crore under the 11th five year plan and about Rs 2, 700 crore had already been spent. But according to the CAG report, no basic amenities were provided to these colonies, he said. The government claims that illegal colonies have been regularized, but sale purchase is not being registered. This is basically a "mischief and a major scam" and it should be probed.

New Delhi, August 13
Taking up various issues, ABVP and Youth Against Corruption (YAC) today demonstrated outside the Faculty of Arts against "anti-student policies" of the DU administration in the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme.

Shouting slogans against the administration, they moved on the North Campus and passed through many colleges while another group Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), gathered outside the DTC bus pass centre on the campus for a protest. The KYS' protest was against the "inefficient and unprofessional" manner in which the bus pass is distributed as said by its representative Sujit.

"Though the cooperation of the officials on the given day is acknowledged, the students demand long-term solutions of having more bus pass centres, more counters and more officials in the scheme rather than stop gap measures. If immediate relief is not provided, the students pledge to undertake a more vigorous struggle," said members of KYS who earlier burnt effigy of Delhi Transport Minister Ramankant Goswami.

On the other side, ABVP Delhi state secretary, Rohit Chahal, rued that the problems of the students are being constantly neglected by the administration. There is not even a complaint box outside the Vice Chancellor's Office.

New Delhi, August 13
The Delhi Government today exhorted the Central government to curtail in onion exports in order to stabilize its soaring prices in the city.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit wrote a letter to Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in this regard. Onion are facing shortfall in arrival in Delhi due to rains in the producing states.

The arrival in Delhi used to be around 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes per day whereas it has gone down up to 800 to 1,000 tonnes per day. The issue of the prices of onion in Delhi was today discussed in a high-level meeting attended by Development Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan, Food and Supplies Minister Haroon Yusuf, Commissioner (Food and Supply) S.S. Yadav and senior officers of the department.

Chauhan and Yusuf stated that per day normal arrival in Delhi has substantially gone down. "In order to mitigate the effect of soaring onion prices, the city government has decided to arrange sale of onions at reasonable rates through 50 mobile vans across the city. The vans would be visiting various localities to ensure sale of onion at the doorstep of citizens. The Department of Food and Civil Supplies have been requested to work in tandem to start deployment of vans from August 17," said Yusuf.

The city government has warned the hoarders and black-marketeers and has decided to take action against them. The government is also going to request other states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, to take similar action against hoarders.

New Delhi, August 13
A 22-year-old youth sustained burn injuries when his wife and in-laws allegedly attacked him with acid in the Gokulpuri area, north-east Delhi.

The youth has been identified as Shahrukh (name changed), who is a resident of New Mustafabad. He is presently undergoing treatment at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital. His wife Rubina (24) and sister-in-law Chando have been arrested for the act.

Shahrukh was confined in a house for three days. He was rescued on the early hours of Monday by a beat constable posted at the Gokulpuri police station.

In his statement to the police, Shahrukh said he was confined at the house since August 10 by his wife Rubina and in-laws for allegedly causing a loss of Rs 50,000. He married Rubina, a divorcee with a five-year-old daughter, two months ago.

Shahrukh is a driver and Rubina's family financed a dumper vehicle for him after their marriage. On August 5, he informed them that he would not be able to drive the vehicle on the day, because he was ill.

"Rubina told him that they will incur a huge loss, if he refused to drive the vehicle. This led to a heated argument and Rubina abused and beat him," said a police officer.

In a fit of rage, Shahrukh left the house and went to his mother's house in Old Mustafabad. He celebrated Eid with his mother.

On August 10, Rubina came to the house with her sister Chando and took Shahrukh to her father's house. There, Rubina told Shahrukh that his refusal to drive the dumper vehicle caused a loss of Rs 50,000.

Shahrukh was allegedly beaten up by Rubina with Chando, her father Kamruddin, brother Saddam and mother Parveen Begum. Shahrukh was then held hostage in the house.

During his confinement there, Rubina took a bottle of acid and tried to make him consume it. But the acid was not strong. "She brought a strong acid and threw it on Shahrukh, causing severe burns all over his body," the officer added.

Later, Shahrukh called his friend revealing his ordeal after which he was rescued by the police. A case under relevant sections of the IPC has been registered at the Gokulpuri police station. Rubina and Chando have been arrested while a manhunt is on to nab the absconding accused.

New Delhi, August 13
The Sampark Foundation, founded by Vineet Nayar, vice-chairman, HCL Technologies, has entered into an MoU with the Punjab Government to launch a school transformation programme called 'Parivartan'.

The initiative, in its first phase, will cover 500 primary schools in Patiala district benefitting 50,000 primary schoolchildren and will expand to cover 13,500 government primary schools and impact 2.5 lakh children all over Punjab.

Nayar told The Tribune that he would now move into a non-executive role at HCL Technologies and devote most of his time to Sampark Foundation, which was founded in 2004 by Nayar and his wife, Anupama.

As he moves into the third phase of his career with social philanthropy, "Why be an ant when you can be a butterfly" is the question Nayar raised in his blog. Nayar says it is important to nurture dreams and live them.

"It was a butterfly moment for me, to see if I could challenge myself and focus on social innovation. This phase is moving from for profit to not for profit", Nayar said on the transition to the next phase of his career.

Sampark Foundation is seeking large-scale transformation in the areas of education, livelihood and social entrepreneurship projects.

Speaking on the 'Parivartan' project, he says, "I chose Punjab for the education project because I was born in Jalandhar and my family has roots there. We found the bureaucracy in Punjab to be open, aware of the problems and inclusive in partnership. We see the Punjabi enthusiasm in teachers. And the combination of these factors led us to choose Punjab".

'Parivartan' aims at improving academic outcomes through holistic adoption of large number of schools and driving change through intervention in curriculum, learning outcome assessment, headmaster and teacher training.

Nayar said the project would be funded by Sampark's own resources over the next 5 years. Sampark has tied up with the US think tank, Brookings, to measure the learning outcomes of the project.

Anjali Bhawra, Principal Secretary, Education, Punjab, said, "We are happy that Sampark Foundation has partnered with the Punjab Government to implement a new teaching methodology that promises to transform learning process in our primary schools across the state".

Nayar says this is now the third phase of his career. The first was when he spent his early 30s building a startup, HCL Comnet which is now $1.4 billion in size.

The second phase, which began in 2005, was to lead the 30,000-strong HCL Technologies team in its transformation journey. Nayar’s eight-year stint in executive leadership role at HCL Technologies saw its revenue, profit and market capitalisation grow eight-fold.