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Two shot at in road rage case
Cameras to check illegal buildings
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Goel’s aide in land scam
Commercial power tariff
Pleasant weather for Delhiites
Parents to blame for lifestyle disorders in kids
Police station gets notice to vacate building
900 Delhi kids to showcase cultural diversity on R-Day
Bail pleas of four businessmen dismissed
X-ray scanners to be installed at Tihar entry points
Strategy for implementing NCF 2005 outlined
Panel mooted for regularising structures
Four held for trading in illicit liquor,
Artscape
Two killed as four vehicles collide
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Two shot at in road rage case
New Delhi, January 15 Kapil (24) sustained serious injuries after some unknown persons fired at him from point-blank range. The victim’s fault was that his car slightly touched the bumper of a Santro car. The car bore Haryana registration number but the passers-by could not note it down and the culprits managed to flee from the spot. According to the DCP West district, Neeraj Thakur, “We have some clues and are working on those tips. Already investigations into the matter have been initiated and teams sent to Haryana and we are expecting to nab the culprits soon.” Police said that Kapil was coming out of his car to go to a nearby saloon for hair-cutting when his Baleno car bumper slightly touched the Santro car’s front bumper which was at speed. The Santro car occupants subsequently came outside and started abusing Kapil. Bhupender, a watchman standing nearby, was watching the entire incident. He intervened between the two. When Kapil tried to pacify the culprits, one of them whipped out his pistol and fired at Kapil and Bhupender and escaped from there. Both were taken to the Balaji Hospital where their condition is said to be serious. Police said that Kapil sustained bullet injury on his neck while Bhupender got injuries in his stomach. Police are waiting for the statement of either of the victims as one of them has noted down the car registration number of the assailants.
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Cameras to check illegal buildings
New Delhi, January 15 To begin with, cameras with very high resolution will be installed in Chandni Chowk in the walled city to keep a watch on unauthorised construction. The project, involving the use of satellite imagery, is being undertaken in association with a Russian company, according to Mr Kapil Sibal, Minister of Science and Technology and Member of Parliament from Chandni Chowk. The project is likely to be in place in six months. The project would involve installing cameras with resolutions of less than one metre in four places. These camera would convert images into three-dimensional pictures and a control room would be set up, possibly in the Delhi Secretariat, to keep a watch on unauthorized constructions which can be reviewed regularly every 15 days.
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Goel’s aide in land scam worth crores
Noida, January 15 In a clever move to save these buildings from demolishing squad, Charan Singh had filed a case in the Revenue Board about this land. He had done this just in the nick of time when SDM Sadar had initiated action on this land. Charan Singh is working on the strategy to get the case prolonged in the revenue department by getting new dates through his influence. He is capable of ensuring that the case is not pursued by revenue and district officials. According to sources, the UP state government had allotted 161 Bigha and 7 Biswa land to UP Agro in 1962. At that time, the land was covered under Khasra No. 533 which was allotted a new Khasra No 333 during consolidation of holdings. About five years ago, Charna Singh had occupied this land and got 60 shops and a marriage banquet hall constructed on 7 and a half bigha land on Bilaspur-Javer Road. The UP Agro authorities say they had complained to the District authorities a number of times, but no action was taken to retrieve their land. Charan Singh is reported to have rented out these shops for Rs 960 a month per shop. Besides, he has collected security deposits running into lakhs of rupees. Similarly, Charan Singh is earning lakhs of rupees every month from the marriage hall.
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Commercial power tariff hike likely
New Delhi, January 15 According to a senior DERC officer, a meeting in this regard had recently been convened which was attended by almost all top officials of the council and the commission. “The NDMC had submitted a proposal to the commission regarding at least 10 per cent increase in both domestic and commercial rates in Lutyens’ Zone. However, most members of the council were in favour of increasing only commercial electricity rates in the meeting,” said the officer. According to NDMC sources, the final decision in this regard is likely to be taken next month but the DERC has almost given a green light as far as the proposed commercial electricity rates are concerned. “The commission rejected the proposal regarding the increase in domestic electricity rates on the ground that there were negligible cases of power theft in the area. Due to that reason, there are few cases of transmission and other technical faults in the area. So there is no urgency of increasing domestic electricity rates,” said an officer. When contacted, the president of the NDMC Employees Federation, Mr Ganga Ram, said that NDMC area was a completely VIP area. Unlike other parts of the Capital, there are very few cluster and industrial areas here. “Due to this reason, cases of electricity theft are negligible here. So there is no need of hiking electricity rates. Despite the privatisation of the Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB), the NDMC has its own power to review electricity rates in its area.
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Pleasant weather for Delhiites
New Delhi, January 15 It is the third day in succession that the minimum temperature rose from its previous day level. On Friday, the minimum temperature rose sharply to seven degree Celsius. The warmth is expected to stay with the weather office predicting the minimum temperature tomorrow to remain steady at today’s level. They, however, have forecast a brief spell of rain in the next 24 hours. The maximum temperature is also expected to rise in the coming days with the BBC forecasting a rise in mercury to as high as 29 degree Celsius on January 18 while the night temperatures could rise to as much as 12 degree Celsius. The warmth in the air could be attributed to the decrease in the influence of the North Westerly winds which had contributed to the chill in the air during the first week of January, with the mercury touching a 70 year low of 0.2 degrees Celsius on January 8.
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Parents to blame for lifestyle disorders in kids
New Delhi, January 15 “There are times when parents send us written requests to excuse their children from whatever little physical exercises we conduct in schools. And if we try to dissuade children from consuming fizzy drinks and junk food, the parents are not too happy with it,” said Ms Lata Vaidyanathan, Principal, Modern School, Barakhamba Road. Strongly advocating a counter-campaign to fight the marketing blitzkreig unleashed by the MNCs that sell soft drinks and junk food, she said, “There is a pressing need to fight the marketing that goes into enticing children to opt for junk food”. Making a case for turning school canteens into a health food zone, she said, “Parents should not give up on children. They show a sense of helplessness, which is wrong. As for schools, the idea of cutting down on physical activities to boost academics is also wrong”. Lamenting that the need to inculcate healthy eating patterns in children was often not understood by parents as well as school administrations, Ms Alka Madan, a Home Science teacher at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, said, “I am responsible for deciding the menu in our school canteen, but I am often told to plan a menu that will sell”. With health experts having warned that lifestyle disorders and wrong eating habits are pushing children as young as five and six towards serious health disorders like depression and high cholesterol, there is a need to “market” healthy living. “Maybe we could start with short films highlighting the merits of eating well and exercising. These films shown to students in schools could promote the message of a healthy lifestyle,” suggested Mr Negi, Principal, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. “The statistics showing how susceptible young children are to heart diseases are indicative that in the coming years parents will outlive their children,” summed up Ms Vaidyanathan.
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Police station gets notice to vacate building
Greater Noida, January 15 The department has put the police department on notice to vacate its premises. In case the police fail to vacate the building complex, the irrigation department has threatened to take the matter to the court. The superintendent engineer of irrigation department, Meerut, is understood to have sent a letter to the SSP Gautam Budh Nagar to vacate the building latest by January 31. Else, the irrigation department will approach a court. According to sources, after the Chief Minister’s announcement for setting up a police station in Greater Noida, the police department had occupied an irrigation department’s complex near Dhandhola police post and converted it into a police station to meet the deadline. But ever since the police station has been set up in a hurry, controversies have dogged it. The police had indeed requested the irrigation department to allow the use of their building for police station, but this plea was rejected by the irrigation department. What is more, even the Greater Noida Authority, which had been pressing for the need of an additional police station, has refused to come to the rescue of the police department, it is learnt. SSP Piyush Mordia feigned ignorance of the irrigation department’s notice on their building, but said the building had been occupied on the District Magistrate’s instructions.
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900 Delhi kids to showcase
New Delhi, January 15 The glimpses of India’s rich cultural heritage at this year’s Republic Day will include presentation of the colourful Punjabi folk dance Bhangra to the beats of dhol and rocking steps, the traditional folk dance of Rajasthan, Ghindad Ghoomar, and Rajasthan’s famous dance, Goga Peer. Further, a band contingent of schoolchildren will play the tune ‘Ranbakure’. Also included in the parade will be girls and boys from different regions of the country bearing multi-coloured flags. Presenting the colourful Punjabi folk dance form of Bhangra, showing the Land of the Aryans, Land of Five Glorious Rivers, the Land of Makki Ki Roti Te Sarson Ka Saag’ and one of cheerful ambience where every harvest is followed by a host of festivities will be children from Shanti Gyan Niketan in Goyala. The “cultural kaleidoscope” will also have children from St Giri Senior School, Rohini, present Rajasthan’s traditional folk dance, Ghindad Ghoomar. The dance is performed by men and women together at the time of Dhulandhi in the month of Phagun. Another feature of the cultural performance by children will be Rajasthan’s famous dance, Goga Peer. Based on communal harmony and valiant deeds, the dance, to be performed by children from Vandana International school in Dwarka together with Kamal Mode Senior Secondary School at Mohan Garden, symbolises the art, culture and civilisation of India.
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Bail pleas of four businessmen dismissed
New Delhi, January 15 Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau rejected the bail pleas of accused Harish Goel, Satinder Goel, Surinder Garg and Suresh Mittal, charged with having evaded customs duty to the tune of several crores. Bail pleas of two other accused, Prakash Garg and Utpal Gupta, have been put up for further arguments on January 20. The accused continue to remain in judicial custody. Arguing on behalf of the DRI, counsel Satish Aggarwal told the court that investigation were still pending in what was nothing short of a scam, besides involving a number of very influential people. The quantum and total evasion of duty was yet to be ascertained and may go into several crores, the agency added. The six are accused under the Customs Act of making false declarations using false documents, duty evasion and acquiring possession of goods against which such duty has been evaded. They are accused of having cumulatively evaded customs duty over Rs 5 crore by importing expensive, high-quality paper, misdeclared wrongly undervalued as newsprint. Newsprint carries an import duty of 5 per cent against 40 per cent on other types of paper. Exim policy allows only actual users and holders of valid certificates issued by the Registrar of Newspapers in India (RNI) to import newsprint at such rates. The DRI has alleged that the businessmen got authorisation to import the newsprint from RNI certificate holders, including at least six vernacular dailies.
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X-ray scanners to be installed at Tihar entry points
New Delhi, January 15 The scanners will be helpful issuing identity cards with photographs to visitors coming to the jail,” said Sunil Kumar, the Jail PRO. The decision came in the wake of the Kain Committee report recommending such facility following the sensational escape Sher Singh Rana from the jail in 2004. The scanner will also detect any prohibited items being smuggled into the jail premises by anybody, Kumar said. “Passage of prohibited substance like currency notes, narcotics, cell phones and costly metals can be completely checked,” he said. The jail has procured the scanners at a cost of Rs 14 lakh, he said. About 3,000 visitors turn up every day in the jail to meet the inmates. There are about 13,000 inmates in this jail, Asia’s largest.
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Strategy for implementing NCF 2005 outlined
New Delhi, January 15 The two-day meeting organised at the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) included members of the National Steering Committee and the chairpersons and members of the National Focus Groups for NCF 2005. Putting forth his views and expressing concern over the education of children in India, Acharya Ramamurti, a Gandhian and social activist said that there was a need to bring out the culture of education. It was also put forth that the increasing number of school inspectors should be replaced by an education complex in which personnel from higher education to ECCE should be involved. Referring to the theory of correlation, Acharya Ramamurti said that connecting knowledge with life outside the school was an idea needing urgent attention. Productive work should be brought to each and every school of the country. Prof Yash Pal, Chairperson of the National Steering Committee, said each effort had a tendency to relax but efforts like the NCF induced energy in the system. Prof Krishna Kumar, Director, NCERT, stressed that the issue of learning should go beyond textbooks which demanded tremendous responsibility on the system with regard to the development of material other than textbooks, research on classroom process, teacher training in this direction. He also said that thinking was required for giving priority to health at all stages of school education. Ms Mina Swaminathan demanded that the need for a common school system should be emphasised more vehemently to bring about quality in education and equality of educational opportunities.
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Panel mooted for regularising structures
New Delhi, January 15 Participants of the meeting discussed that the MCD should demolish only the unauthorised structures being constructed now in the national Capital. There may be 80,000 such buildings in which 80 per cent population of Delhi reside. If they are demolished, entire Delhi will be finished, opined the participants. Sources said that the government would approach the Central government to constitute a committee to decide terms and conditions for regularisation of unauthorised structures. Besides the Chief Minister, the meeting was attended by Union Minister of State and MP from Chandni Chowk Parliamentary constituency, Mr Kapil Sibbal, DPCC Chairman Ram Babu Sharma and Delhi Urban Development Minister Dr A. K. Walia.
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Four held for trading in illicit liquor,
New Delhi, January 15 Police also claimed to have recovered 55,000 changed labels of different brands of whiskey and gin and label-changing instruments from their possession. Besides, the police have also recovered more than 6,000 bottles of whiskey of different measurement and one Maruti Esteem car from their possession. Police said that the kingpin of the gang was Dalbir, alias Dhalla, a native of Bahadurgarh and his nephew Sandeep, alias Mental, but both are absconding. The southwest district police nabbed the accused while they were carrying the illicit liquor in their Maruti Esteem car. Police said that during interrogation, the accused took the police party to a house in Sainik Farms where they have installed the label-changing unit.
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Behold ‘Face to Face’ at Lalit Kala Academy
Ravi Bhatia Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 15 In this exhibition, titled ‘Face to Face’, the artist explores his relationship with subjects as diverse as portraiture, the media and the landscape. The resulting painted portraits, scrolls and photographs emerge in the wake of this journey. The body of work exhibited here must essentially be described as an installation, with various traditions of image making and storytelling consumed within the display. To begin with, the portraits can at best be described as an ode to Raja Ravi Verma. Verma who used as models people who were his contemporaries, painting them as characters that existed within myths and epics towards illustrating the narrative. Using a similar conceptual premise as a point of departure, Soi takes as cues the portraits painted by 17th century Dutch painters such as Baburen, Frans Hals and Rembrandt, requesting colleagues to pose for him in similar postures, albeit with certain modifications. Praneet Soi’s paintings maintain within them a flattened visual plane which places his formal lineage firmly within a local, parochial tradition of image making. Soi uses a mat acrylic paint- paint that leans towards tempera in its visual presence and the earthy colours and technique have much in common with the pata tradition of Bengal.
‘From Samasara to Nirvana’
Arjuna’s (Arjun Kochar) week-long solo art exhibition opens at the Lalit Kala Akademi today. To be inaugurated by Maneka Gandhi, the exhibition has been titled as a “Journey from Samasara to Nirvana”. A book of poetry with the same title will also be released on the occasion. According to the artist, the purpose of this exhibition is to give people a better understanding of the human being. The poetry provides insights into how humans fall into suffering and ways of coming out of these. Arjuna is a painter whose wild pursuit of art has led him across the fences of art forms. While his primary medium is oil painting, he also pursues art through multimedia.
A women’s week
The second week of the New Year could well have been a women’s week. Shweta Talwar, a young artist, is showcasing her works at the Lalit Kala Akademi here from January 15 to January 21 Critics have described Shweta’s works as a “personalized combination of the realistic and the abstract and an amalgamation of different techniques and mediums”.
Expressions of freedom
Two women artists from the land of the five rivers brought some warmth through their creations in the other wise cold conditions prevailing in the National Capital Territory of Delhi. From January 9 to January 15, the two artists, Neenu Vij and Preeti Sahota, held a joint exhibition of their paintings entitled, “Somewhere I Belong” at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS) Gallery much to the delight of the critics as well as the viewers. While for Preeti, an alumna of the College of Art, Punjab University, who now works out of her studio in New Jersey, USA, her paintings are perceptions of the entirety of life in a fundamental way. Neenu’s paintings are expressions of freedom. Neenu, a postgraduate in Fine Arts from the Guru Nanak Dev University, has her studio in Chandigarh and her works adorn a number of collections both in the country and abroad.
Another woman artist, Sudershan Talwar is also holding an exhibition of her recent works entitled, “The Mystique Nature” at the Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhawan here from January 15 to January 21. Widely travelled in India and abroad, Sudershan Wadhwa has been painting for the last two decades now. Initiated into the art by the well-known Greek painter, Dikonomer in Cyprus, she has painted with several famous painters. This is her fourth exhibition.
Banerji’s works on show
Also at Lalit Kala Akademi, the well-known painter, Anand Moy Banerji is holding an exhibition of his recent works from January 15 to January 21. Paintings, prints and relief works will form a major part of the exhibition.
Geeta Chandran’s ‘Dance For Life’ To help the Indian Cancer Society to raise resources for its valuable work in supporting people with cancer and assisting with their cure and rehabilitation, renowned classical dancer, Geeta Chandran and her Natya Vriksha Dance Company is presenting a special performance on January 20 at the Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre here. The performance has been appropriately entitled, “Dance For Life”. Founder president of Natya Vriksha, an organization that enshrines the best philosophies of the Indian Classical culture, Geeta Chandran has often used her celebrity dancer status to espouse social and humanitarian causes.
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Two killed as four vehicles collide
Noida, January 15 At Sector-60, as he sharply turned the truck to a side, it collided with a Badarpur laden truck No.HR-38h-3105 coming from the opposite side. In another accident, the driver R.K. Sharma of a Maruti car on its way from Greater Noida, on Expressway, to Shahdara was killed when a truck coming from the wrong side hit it.
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