Ghaziabad: Fulfilling its poll promise, the Aam Aadmi Party government on Monday announced 667 litres of free water daily for domestic consumption to each household having metered connection in Delhi.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the Delhi Jal Board chaired by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal at his residence in Ghaziabad in Kausambi.

“All the domestic consumers having metered connection will get 20 kilolitres of water free of cost from January 1. We will not even levy any existing charges such as water cess and sewerage charge,” newly-appointed Delhi Jal Board CEO Vijay Kumar told reporters.

He, however, said if the consumption limit crosses 20 kilolitres, then the consumer will have to pay for the water and other charges.

Kumar was appointed CEO of DJB on Saturday evening in place of Debashree Mukherjee who is understood to have reservation over supplying water free of cost.

In its election manifesto, the Aam Admi Party had announced that 700 litres of free water will be supplied daily to each household if it comes to power.

Last month, the Delhi Jal Board had planned to increase the water tariff by 10 per cent from January to improve its finances.

It is not immediately clear whether government will charge for water being supplied to over 1,600 unauthorised colonies across the city as in most households in these settlements water metres are yet to be installed. — PTI

Indian student assaulted in Australia

MELBOURNE: A 20-year-old Indian student in Australia suffered serious injuries after he was brutally attacked with stick and robbed by a gang in Melbourne.

Manrajwinder Singh from Reservoir landed in the hospital with serious injuries after a gang attacked him on Sunday.

According to local police statement on Monday, the man was sitting near the footpath with two other friends, east of Princess Bridge, when they were approached by eight men, perceived to be of African appearance.

The offenders assaulted Singh by kicking him on the head and hitting him with a stick.

The group then punched his friend on the face, the statement said, adding the offenders stole the victims' mobile phones and fled.

The third man, a 20-year-old from Noble Park, was not assaulted and managed to run away to seek help.

Singh was taken to the Alfred Hospital where he remains in an induced coma.

Another man suffered swelling and abrasions to his face. He was treated by paramedics at the scene.

Melbourne detectives have released the CCTV images of eight men and a woman who they believe may be able to assist with their investigation.

Singh was here to study accounts.

The incident has been described as a cowardly attack by the detective senior constable Adam Foley.

Foley said, "It was just an opportunistic target from the offenders, they've just seen them there and approached them and done what they've done."

Meanwhile, victim's brother Yanwinder Singh has pleaded for justice.

"He said 'I want to see the city, I haven't seen Melbourne city I've been working and studying,'" his brother was quoted by 'The Age' report today.

"He said I want to see the city I'm not a child and I said ok then go."

"I just want these culprits to be punished, that's all, they should get caught so that my brother, he should get justice." — PTI

NCP backs Rahul’s stand on Adarsh report

NEW DELHI: NCP on Monday backed Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s pitch for reconsideration of Maharashtra government’s decision rejecting a judicial panel’s report on the Adarsh scam which had indicted some senior Congress leaders, including former chief ministers.

“We will support any decision to review the state Cabinet’s decision. The decision to reject the report was apparently taken in a haste....It was not proper to reject the commission’s report. There is a need to review it,” NCP MP and senior party leader Tariq Anwar told PTI.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi had on Saturday indicated that the Maharashtra government would reconsider its decision to reject a judicial commission’s report on the Adarsh housing scam, a day after Rahul Gandhi ticked off the state government over the issue.

Disapproving of the Maharashtra government’s decision to reject the report, Rahul had said on Friday, “Personally, I don’t agree with that decision. They (Maharashtra) should reconsider that”.

The very next day when asked about the rejection of the Adarsh scam report by the Maharashtra Cabinet, Sonia Gandhi had said, “That has been decided....and I think it is going to be resolved.”

Noting that the Congress high command has instructed its leadership in the state to review the decision, the NCP leader said that “it’s a right decision (to review the report). The line taken by the Congress vice-president is very correct that it should be reconsidered.”

Anwar also recalled that Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has already said that he will consult his Cabinet colleagues on the matter. “A meeting of Maharasthra Cabinet is going to be held to take up the matter,” he said.

Congress and NCP have an alliance government in Maharashtra which is headed by Congress’ Chavan.

The report of the two-member commission headed by retired high court judge J.A. Patil has indicted several politicians, including three former chief ministers for “blatant violations” of statutory provisions in the Adarsh housing project.

On December 20, the Maharashtra government had rejected the report. — PTI

MOSCOW: A bomb blast ripped a trolleybus apart in Volgograd on Monday, killing 14 persons in the second deadly attack in the southern city in two days and raising fears of further violence as Russia prepares to host the Winter Olympics.

Investigators said the explosion on the bus a Volgograd was carried out by a male suicide bomber. They also said that the blasts in Volgograd station and the trolleybus bombings may have been planned together.

The morning rush-hour bombing, which left mangled bodies in the street, underscored Russia's vulnerability to militant attacks less than six weeks before the Sochi 2014 Games, a prestige project for President Vladimir Putin.

The blast came less than 24 hours after a suicide bomb blast killed at least 17 persons at the main railway station in the same city, a major transport hub in southern Russia.

A Reuters journalist saw the blue-and-white trolleybus reduced to a twisted, gutted carcass, its roof blown off and bodies and debris strewn across the street. Federal investigators called the blast a "terrorist act".

"For the second day, we are dying. It's a nightmare", a woman near the scene said, her voice trembling as she choked back tears. "What are we supposed to do, just walk now?"

The consecutive attacks will raise fears of a concerted campaign of violence before the Olympics, which start on February 7 in Sochi, about 690 km southwest of Volgograd.

In a video posted on the Web in July, the leader of insurgents who want to carve an Islamic state out of the North Caucasus, a string of Muslim provinces south of Volgograd, urged militants to use "maximum force" to prevent the Games from being held.

"Terrorists in Volgograd aim to terrorise others around the world, making them stay away from the Sochi Olympics," said Dmitry Trenin, an analyst with the Moscow Carnegie Centre.

A female suicide bomber from the North Caucasus had killed seven persons on a bus in Volgograd in October.

A spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, said: "Our condolences go to all those affected by today's bombing in Volgograd. Unfortunately, terrorism is a global phenomenon and no region is exempt, which is why security at the Games is a top priority for the IOC. At the Olympics, security is the responsibility of the local authorities, and we have no doubt that the Russian authorities will be up to the task."

Biggest security challenge
In power since 2000, Putin secured the Games for Russia and has staked his reputation on a safe and successful Olympics, even freeing jailed opponents including oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the Pussy Riot punk band to remove a cause for international criticism at the event.

Putin was first elected after winning popularity for a war against Chechen rebels, but attacks by Islamist militants whose insurgency is rooted in the war have clouded his 14 years in power and now confront him with his biggest security challenge.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the Volgograd attacks, which left dozens wounded in addition to the deaths. Health Ministry spokesman Oleg Salagai told Rossiya-24 TV that 14 persons were killed in the attack and 28 wounded.

Putin ordered law enforcement agencies to take measures to enhance security after Sunday's attack when a bomber detonated explosives in front of a metal detector at Volgograd station.

Police said additional officers were being deployed to railway stations and airports nationwide, but the attacks raised questions about the effectiveness of security measures.

The police force in Volgograd has been depleted in recent months as some 600 officers were redeployed to Sochi to tighten security around Olympic sites, a local police officer told Reuters.

More attacks can be expected before the Olympics and cities in southern Russia where the Games are not being held are easier targets than Sochi, said Alexei Filatov, deputy head of the veterans' association of the elite Alfa anti-terrorism unit.

"The threat is greatest now because it is when terrorists can make the biggest impression," he said. "The security measures were beefed up long ago around Sochi, so terrorists will strike instead in these nearby cities like Volgograd."

Monday's blast was so powerful it blew out the third-storey windows of a nearby apartment building, and witnesses said passengers were flung from the bus by the blast.

"We ran outside. There was smoke and people were lying in the street. The driver was thrown far. She was alive and moaning ... Her hands and clothes were bloody," said Olga, a clerk in a shop near the scene of the blast.

A city of about 1 million, Volgograd is one of the venues for the 2018 soccer World Cup, another high-profile sports event Putin has helped Russia win the right to stage, and which will bring thousands of foreign fans to cities around Russia.

Sunday's attack was the deadliest to strike Russia's heartland since January 2011, when a male suicide bomber from the North Caucasus killed 37 persons in the arrivals hall of a busy Moscow airport.

Investigators initially said a woman set off the bomb that filled the front of the railway station building with a massive orange fireball on Sunday, but later said the bomber could have been a man. — AP

MUMBAI: As the general election draws closer, the Reserve Bank has warned that any political instability after May 2014, post-results, will drag the beleaguered economy further down, and that a stable new government would be desirable.

"A potential additional source of uncertainty is the coming general election. A stable new government would be positive for the economy," RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said in his foreword to the eighth edition of the RBI's Financial Stability Report 2013, released on Monday morning.

Warning that any political instability will lead to further erosion of investor confidence in the economy, Rajan said, "With confidence in the financial system still fragile, six years into the crisis, policy certainty is something that investors look for in the current environment."

Though the government is claiming that GDP will grow at over 5 per cent, many analysts peg it at a little over 4 per cent this fiscal.

The warning from RBI comes as some political observers are expecting a hung Parliament after the Lok Sabha elections. — PTI

Schumacher undergoes surgery, still 'critical' after ski accident

PARIS: Seven-time Formula One champion Michael Schumacher was in critical condition after undergoing brain surgery following a skiing accident in the French Alps on Sunday, doctors said.

The Grenoble University Hospital Center said the retired racing driver arrived at the clinic in a coma and underwent immediate surgery for a serious head trauma.

It was not clear whether the 44-year-old Schumacher was still in a coma but the hospital statement, which was signed by a neurosurgeon, an anaesthesiologist and Marc Penaud, the hospital's deputy director, said "he remains in a critical condition".

Schumacher fell while skiing off-piste in Meribel earlier on Sunday and hit his head on a rock, according to a statement from the resort. Resort managers said he had been wearing a helmet and was conscious when rescuers first responded to the scene.

Earlier in the day, the Meribel resort said Schumacher had been taken to Grenoble for tests and authorities said his life was not in danger.

But the situation began to appear more serious when the resort said that orthopaedic and trauma surgeon Gerard Saillant had travelled from Paris to the hospital in Grenoble to examine Schumacher. German news agency dpa said it was Saillant who operated on Schumacher when he broke his leg during a crash at the Silverstone race course in 1999.

In an email to The Associated Press, Schumacher's manager Sabine Kehm said the champion German driver was on a private skiing trip and "fell on his head".

"We ask for understanding that we cannot give running updates on his condition. He wore a helmet and was not alone," Kehm said. Schumacher's 14-year-old son was skiing with his father when the accident happened, the resort said.

As news of the accident spread, Formula One drivers used social media to wish Schumacher a quick recovery.

His former Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa, who recovered from life-threatening injuries sustained at the Hungarian Grand Prix in 2009, wrote on Instagram: "I am praying for you my brother!! I hope you have a quick recovery!! God bless you Michael."

The Twitter feed of Germany's Adrian Sutil, who drives for Sauber, read: "I hope Michael Schumacher will get well soon! All my best to him and his family." Romain Grosjean of Lotus tweeted: "All our thoughts to Schumi and his family! Hope you will recover soon (hash) legend (hash) Schumi."

Support also came from leading German sports personalities, ranging from the NBA to soccer. Dallas Mavericks power forward Dirk Nowitzki said his thoughts were with Schumacher, while Lukas Podolski, who plays for Arsenal in the English Premier League, tweeted: "Bad news from Switzerland: please get well soon, Michael Schumacher. All the best for you, my friend! (hash) getwellsoon (hash) MichaelSchumacher."

In addition to the crash at Silverstone, Schumacher was hurt seriously in a motorcycling accident in February 2009 in Spain when he suffered neck and spine injuries. He recovered sufficiently from those injuries to make a comeback in F1.

Schumacher initially retired from F1 in 2006 after winning five straight titles with Ferrari following two earlier ones with Benetton. He returned to the sport in 2010 and drove for three seasons for Mercedes without much success before retiring again last year. — AP

NEW DELHI: Delhi recorded the lowest minimum temperature in a decade for the month of December as mercury dipped to a chilling 2.4 degrees on Monday morning.

Monday's minimum was five degrees below normal. The minimum temperature on Sunday was recorded at 4.5 degrees celsius.

A thick blanket of fog accompanied by icy winds left people in the city shivering in the early hours.

The maximum temperature in the last 24 hours was recorded at 19.5 degrees celsius, which is a degree below normal.

"Today's minimum of 2.4 is the lowest in a decade in the month of December," an official at the Met office said.

The weatherman has predicted similar weather conditions for Monday with morning fog giving way to a clear sky later in the day. The temperature is likely to be between three and 18 degrees celsius. — PTI