New Delhi, July 9
Private educational institutions relying on glossy brochures and colourful pamphlets to advertise tall claims, in terms of infrastructure or other resources, will need to do more than that to keep in business.

The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has made it mandatory for all institutions running PGDBM/PGDM/MBA programmes to make all relevant details available to the AICTE every year well before the admission process as well as display them on their websites.

“This is an attempt to place the onus with the institutions. They have to become self-regulatory and we have made it obligatory for them to put their details in the public domain,” said AICTE Member Secretary, Ms Anuradha Gupta.

The move will benefit students, many of whom are cheated each year by institutions claiming to have not just expert faculty and world class infrastructure, but also recognised degrees.

“For want to information, students sometimes end up making the wrong choices. But now they can make an informed choice. They can find out whether or not the colleges actually have what they have put up on their website and whether they are authorised to run certain courses,” said
Ms Gupta.

And to ensure that institutions do not exaggerate their claims, the AICTE has spelt strict action for the defaulters. “They cannot lie; the information that is on the website will be open to all. If discrepancies are brought to our notice we will take action,” she pointed out.

Apart from the usual details about the academic session and the admission procedure, all institutions will have to declare the names of all people associated with it, the members of the governing body, academic advisory body, frequency of the Board Meetings and Academic Advisory Body, organisational chart and processes, and the nature and extent of involvement of faculty and students in academic affairs.

Other information includes the full details of the various programmes and placement facilities including campus placement over the last two years mentioning minimum salary, maximum salary and average salaries earned by students.

Name and duration of programmes having affiliation/collaboration with foreign universities or institutions and being run in the same campus along with status of AICTE approval also needs to be mentioned.

Foreign universities will have to mention whether they are accredited in their home country, ranking of the institution/university in the home country and whether the degree offered is equivalent to an Indian degree.

They will also have to specify the nature of collaboration, conditions of collaboration and the complete details of payment a student has to make to get the full benefits of collaboration.

“All institutions will also have to make disclosure about the faculty, including the adjunct and guest faculty. The profile of each faculty with qualifications, total experience, age and duration of employment at the institute concerned and whether student assessment of faculty is in force,” said Ms Gupta.

She said in an attempt to make the admission process more transparent, institutions will have to spell out the criteria. “They will have to mention the minimum level of acceptance, if any, for any criteria, the cut-off levels of percentage and percentile scores in the admission tests for those who are called for group discussions and interviews and display marks scored at all three levels for all the candidates,” she said.

New Delhi, July 9
The Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police have arrested four persons for their alleged involvement in a cheating case in which Maruti Udyog Limited was cheated to the tune of Rs. 1.94 crores.

The accused have been identified as Ajay Kumar Kohli (35), Ajay Kumar Verma (22), Uttam Kumar Chandra (25) and Monica Sharma (34).

Police already have another two persons – Raj Kumar Singh Chauhan and Naveen Chauhan, both brothers – in custody in this case.

Police said that Raj Kumar, a chartered accountant by profession, was working as Deputy manager (Finance) in Maruti Udyog Limited. He allegedly prepared three forged purchase vouchers of the company in January, March and May 2004, and issued several cheques amounting to Rs. 1.94 crores against the same.

These cheques were issued in favour of several fake companies and their accounts were opened in several banks including PNB, Nehru Place, J&K Bank, Greater Kailash etc.

Raj Kumar Singh Chauhan did his B.Com. in 1989 from Sri Ram College of Commerce and did his CA in 1992 from CA Institute, Delhi. He joined MUL as Assistant Manager in 1996, and was promoted to Dy. Manager rank last year itself.

New Delhi, July 9
Hundreds of BJP workers were today arrested by the police following an agitation by them against the recent power tariff hike in the Capital.

After the demonstration, several BJP leaders like Dr Harsh Vardhan, Vijay Goel, Shati Desai, S S Bajwa, Ram Bhaj, Neera Shastri, Pawan Sharma, Vijender Gupta, Yogendra Chandoliya, Sahab Singh Chauhan, Anil Sharma, Subhash Arya, Surender Pal Ratawal, Moti Lal Sodhi, Karan Singh Tanwar, O P Babbar, Ravinder Bansal, Dharam Dev Solanki, Puran Chand Yogi and Mewa Ram Arya, were arrested by the police for blocking traffic and burning effigies.

Earlier, speaking on the occasion, state BJP president Dr Vardhan said that the BJP workers would continue to protest against the power tariff hike over the next 10 days.

He said that the hike was being implemented only to benefit private power companies in the city.

Faridabad, July 9
As cow slaughter has been on the rise in the district and parts of Mewat region, the encounter between the cow smugglers and the police has also become quite common.

However, in this game of encounters, the criminals usually give the police the slip. This is what happened in the incident that took place near the border in Hodal subdivision yesterday. Though one of the accused drowned in a well while trying to escape, his other three accomplices fled and the police managed to seize only the mini-truck carrying 10 cows.

The accused threw stones and used firearms to escape.

This is not the first such case in the district. At least three such incidents have taken place during the past nine days.

The modus operandi of the smugglers is almost the same. They usually keep a heap of stones in their vehicles and do not hesitate to pelt their chasers with stones, when asked to stop for a check.

On July 3, when the residents of Kondal village in the Hodal sub-division tried to stop a mini-truck carrying cows, the persons sitting on the rooftop of the vehicle started throwing stones and fled with the truck, even though the villagers had put a blockade there.

According to a resident of Hodal town, smuggling of cows and illicit trade of their skin goes on on a regular basis, though the police check many vehicles daily on the border and other parts.

On June 30, several police teams, who had chased a truck carrying beef, could not stop them and the criminals fled towards Gurgaon district passing through several police stations. The teams chasing them were also subjected to stone-throwing by the smugglers.

According to police sources, there are several villages in the district where cow smuggling is rampant, though the centre of cow slaughter seems to be in Mewat.

It is reported that stray cows and cattle are lifted by people who roam in the city and nearby areas. The animals are taken to some of the villages in the region or even in neighboring UP and Rajasthan, where they are slaughtered and their skin and meat is taken for sale at destined places, including Delhi and other cities.

Social activist K.L. Gera blames the owners of these cattle. He claims that hundreds of cows could be noticed roaming in the streets of the city at any time and these animals normally eat unhygienic things and garbage strewn in open places.

Some of the animals even die a painful death as the residents dispose of eatables or household garbage in plastic and polythine bags, he said.

Perhaps some social organisations could come forward to take care of these animals.

New Delhi, July 9
One of the problems of the national Capital is unavailability of adequate and well-provisioned housing for poor people which results in a mushrooming of slums, JJ clusters and unauthorised colonies, the Chief Minister, Mrs Sheila Dikshit, said in a meeting of the National Capital Region Board held here today.

Domestic helpers, hawkers, low-paid workers in the industrial and commercial enterprises live in unauthorised colonies.

She said that considering their significant contribution to the city life and the economy, it becomes the responsibility of the planning and implementation agencies to provide adequate and well-provisioned housing at affordable prices at convenient locations. This is the only way to check further proliferation of slums and unauthorised colonies.

If this is done in near future, the national Capital will be a slum-free city, she said.

She suggested that an NCR-level comprehensive strategy regarding housing for the urban poor might be evolved on the lines of the National Slum Housing Policy. The Delhi government has taken certain initiatives in this direction and is organising slum relocation through the formation of multi-purpose cooperative societies which will not only take care of their housing needs but will also help them in the related developmental activities.

She added that it is a long-term goal to create a slum-free city, which needs to be pursued with the development of other concepts such as “Holding Areas”.

Under this concept, a developed area can be reserved for migrants for a specified period. This enables them to integrate with the formally developed areas afterwards.

Such areas should be identified primarily on the outskirts of the city as well as at such locations in the NCR, which have economical and fast connectivity with the main city.

The Chief Minister further said that it should be the employer’s responsibility to provide accommodation to his employees.

Gurgaon, July 9
Member of Parliament and All India Trade Union Congress general secretary Gurudas Dasgupta would sit on a daylong dharna at Gurgaon Divisional Commissioner’s residence on July 11 in support of the agitating workers’ demand even as Deputy Commissioner Sudhir Rajpal has imposed Section 144 in the VVIP residential areas.

The workers of four leading companies: Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, Remsons, Omax and Speedomax have been on strike for the last fortnight here.

Mr Dasgupta has also written a letter to Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in which he has mentioned that he was left with no other option than to sit on dharna as he wanted the administration to intervene and stop violation of labour laws and large-scale victimisation of workers.

The MP had alleged that the management with the help of police and its musclemen is terrorising workers just to disband the union. Several false cases have been registered and office-bearers of the union were arrested.

However, a Honda company spokesperson said that the company is ready to take back all employees except those dismissed or suspended.

The fate of these employees would be decided by the labour department, added the spokesperson.

New Delhi, July 9
A Delhi court has framed charges against a Lieutenant Colonel posted in the Ordnance Wing and two others for forging purchase sanction orders causing a loss of Rs 22 lakh to the Army.

Lt Col P R S Rao, along with his personal assistant B D Mudgal and another official R D Mudgal have been accused of forging signature of a superior officer on purchase sanction notes and also for issuing fake bills while they were posted at the office of Controller of Defence Accounts (CDA) at the Army Headquarters here.

Observing that ‘a prima-facie case’ existed against the three, Special Judge Dinesh Dayal framed charges against them.

New Delhi, July 9
The police have busted a flesh trade racket operating from a house in Shakurpur in Northwest district and arrested seven persons, including four women, in this connection.

The accused have been identified as Renu (39), Rani (19), Monica (22), Pooja (30) Anoop Yadav (35), Gulshan Kumar (35) and Prakash Chand (27).

Police said that Renu,was allegedly running the flesh trade business in her house in the garb of a plastic polythene packing unit.

Gurgaon, July 9
An undertrial committed suicide at Bhondsi Jail in the morning here today.

As per a police spokesperson, Sikander alias Bholu, was arrested under Sections 380 and 402 of IPC, FIR No. 108, 2005, in Faridabad district.

He had been in judicial custody and was put up at Bhondsi Jail. The undertrial used his pyjamas to hang himself in his ward early this morning, said the police. — TNS