TOP STORIES

Fire Department blacklists government hospitals
New Delhi, June 12
The Fire Department has issued notices to 69 state government high-rises, including major hospitals such as Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan, GB Pant, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Deen Dayal Upadhaya and Sushrut Trauma hospitals here for not following fire safety norms.

Qualis for PCR duties: The Lt-Governor of Delhi, Mr Vijai Kapoor, today flagged off Toyota Qualis vehicles for PCR duties at India Gate. With this, the Delhi Police are phasing out Maruti Gypsies. It was an old project of the Delhi Police, Commissioner of Police R. S. Gupta said. Two Qualis vehicles were initially deployed in New Delhi district on a trial basis. When found successful, 20 more vehicles were inducted. The vehicle would be able to accommodate a stretcher, enabling the cops to ferry injured persons. An oxygen cylinder and a fire extinguisher have also been installed in the vehicles. The PCR staff have been trained in handling oxygen cylinders. — Photo by Kamal Singh

POINT...
Congress asks EC to ban razing of slums
New Delhi, June 12
The Congress Legislature Party on Wednesday made a written representation to Chief Election Commissioner J. M. Lyngdoh requesting the Election Commission (EC) to ban demolition of slums in the NCT of Delhi at a time when the Assembly elections are only months away.

COUNTERPOINT
Vikas and su-raaj are BJP mantras
New Delhi, June 12
The election campaign committee of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which met today to firm up its strategy for the Assembly elections in the NCT of Delhi and elsewhere, has drawn up the broad contours of its campaign, which would revolve essentially around development and good governance.

CREMATORIUM DRAMA
15-yr-old girl’s body taken into custody 
New Delhi, June 12
The West district police took into custody the half-burnt body of a 15-year-old girl, who was consigned to flames in Uttam Nagar crematorium yesterday; the police suspect foul play in her death.

TURNING THE HEAT
Police file dowry death case on court’s order
Noida, June 12
The Dankore police have been forced by a court order to register a dowry death case against the in-laws of Pinky, who was allegedly poisoned to death on April 14. She was married to Pawan Kumar of Kumharan mohalla on only January 22.

Want to do MSc, move out of south Haryana
Faridabad, June 12
Faridabad, the district with the largest population in Haryana, has no college offering post-graduate courses in science subjects. As a result, the students of this district, wishing to do MSc, have to run to Delhi or other faraway districts.

• Be at Gurgaon law college, if your calling is German

DSGMC schoolteachers below par: internal review
New Delhi, June 12
The first-ever performance review of teachers handling board level classes in the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management-run schools in the Capital has revealed that they are worse than expected. In the performance appraisal, they did not fare well.

Chautala playing politics of fodder: Vidrohi
Sonepat, June 12
The president of the Haryana Pradesh Janata Dal (U), Mr Ved Parkash Vidrohi, accused the Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala, of playing political game in sending fodder to the drought-hit Rajasthan.

SYL canal to be completed soon: Chautala
Narnaul, June 12
Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala has said that SYL canal will soon be completed. It is the verdict of the Supreme Court. The canal will cater to the need of 7.5 lakh acre arid land, with the result that South Haryana’s land will produce gold crops, he added.

CAS in the interest of TV viewers: I&B Minister
New Delhi, June 12
The primary concern of the government in tackling the cable TV issue is to safeguard the interests of TV viewers all over the country, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, told a deputation of the Delhi Residents Welfare Associations Joint Front last evening.

CM asked to end repression of BKU activists
Rewari, June 12
Expressing grave concern at the turn of events arising out of the ‘Rasta Roko Andolan’ of the Bharatiya Kisan Union activists in various parts of Jind, Kaithal and Hisar districts, the Haryana Janata Dal (U) has held the “inept handling” by the Chautala regime squarely responsible for the situation.

Politicisation of Punjabi language decried
New Delhi, June 12
Paying tributes to Bhai Vir Singh on his 46th death anniversary, the noted journalist, Mr Kuldip Nayar, warned against the politicisation of the Punjabi language. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Nayar mentioned how through his writings Bhai Vir Singh brought much required respectability to the Punjabi language.

Dr Manmohan Singh presenting a model of the Golden Temple to Mr Kuldip Nayar at a function at Bhai Vir Singh Sadan in the Capital. 

SPECIAL FOCUS ON ROHTAK
Rohtak Co-operative Bank to establish new counters, MDU, PGIMS to benefit 
Rohtak, June 12
The Rohtak Central Co-operative Bank proposes to expand its operations with the establishment of new extension counters in the city. The Chairman of the Bank, Mr Jagjit Singh Suhag, said that an extension counter is being set up in the Maharshi Dayanand University and another in the Pt B D Sharma Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), as also at the new bus stand site and in Sector 2, Sector 3 and Sector 4.

SONEPAT
Trader attacked in grain market
Sonepat, June 12
A large number of traders rushed out of their shops in panic as five armed youths forced their way into a trader’s shop and assaulted him in the grain market here yesterday.

• Bike stolen

• Nine injured

NCR BRIEFS
Woman immolates herself
New Delhi: A 26-year-old woman died, and her two children were seriously injured after she had set herself and children afire last night in the Sangam Vihar area in South district.

• Woman drug peddler held

• Motorcyclist crushed

• Aluminium items looted

• Two killed in jeep accident

DELHI DIGEST
DDA launches housing scheme
New Delhi, June 12
The DDA has announced a new housing scheme, ‘Jasola Janta Tenement Housing Scheme 2003’. Under the scheme, applications will be invited from the wait list registrants of Janta Housing Registration Scheme 1996 for allotment of one-room tenements in Jasola.

• Engineering exam results

CULTURE

ARTSCAPE
Art galleries – Protecting & promoting culture
Every artist aspires to attain fame and admiration and wants his work to reach the widest audience. For one segment of the artist community, namely painters and sculptors, art galleries provide the perfect platform to exhibit their works. Great works combined with perfect ambience spell magic and one transcends into an altogether different world.

MUSIC ZONE
Retaining the purity of ragas, he makes the sarangi sing
Chewing a paan and dressed up in a kurta pyjama with a sarangi in his hand, his is a face which expresses the ups and down of life. World renowned musician Ustad Sabri Khan literally makes the sarangi sing with a skill that keeps audiences spellbound even today.

Another star on the Indipop horizon
Twentyone-year-old Raghav Sachar is probably Indipop’s first multi- instrumentalist who can do a bit of singing too. He can play three kinds of saxophones, the flute, the harmonica, the keyboard, the clarinet, the recorder, the blues harp, the guitar, the digeridoo and percussion.