New Delhi, May 26
The Centre today admitted that a large number of law abiding citizens were affected by the decisions relating to unauthorised constructions in the Capital but justified enactment of Delhi Laws (Special Provision) Act, which puts one year’s moratorium on demolitions and sealing of illegal shops, citing divergent public opinion as a reason.

The government, however, said that the relief provided was “temporary” so that the development of Delhi would take place in a sustainable and planned manner.

“While a large number of persons would be affected by the decisions relating to such unauthorised development, at the same time, there is a wide divergence of public opinion and views on how best to deal with these issues… they have to be taken into account while finalising a comprehensive and balanced strategy on each of these complex issues,” the Law and Justice Ministry said today.

The one year moratorium on demolitions and sealings, as provided in the Act, was aimed at to involve a process of ground-level survey, collection of requisite data, its analysis, consultation with residents’ welfare associations by local bodies like the MCD, the government said.

The government had felt a need to take all possible measures to finalise the norms, policy guidelines and feasible strategies regarding the unauthorised development in respect of the “mixed land use” and construction beyond the sanctioned plans and encroachment of public land by slum dwellers, hawkers and street vendors in major markets.

“While this exercise is taken up by the government and its agencies, it has become necessary to maintain status quo in respect of these categories of unauthorised development existing as on January 1, 2006,” the government said, referring to the circumvention of the court ordered sealing and demolition drives.

The government said that its efforts to give one year’s relief to those who had been engaged in commercial activities in residential areas or illegal constructions was a “temporary relief” to enable the government to enact a law to “take a balanced and well-considered view on policies involving such unauthorised development.

“…till such time as the policy or strategy is finalised, the government, therefore, considered it necessary and desirable to make a special law for this purpose in the National Capital Territory,” the Ministry said, adding that the government was hopeful of achieving this objective.

New Delhi, May 26
The much awaited and state-of-that-art Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system was inaugurated today in a simple but impressive ceremony by Ms Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister of Delhi.

Those present on the occasion included Mr Haroon Yusuf, Minister for Power and Transport, Prof Vijay Kumar Malhotra, Member of Parliament, Mr Subhash Chopra, MLA, MCD councillors Mr Khavinder Singh Captain and Varinder Kasana, senior government and BSES officials.

Complementing BSES on introducing SCADA, Ms Dikshit said “I am delighted. Delhi is going world class. By adopting this advanced technology, Delhi has finally joined the league of global cities like Singapore, Hong Kong and Stockholm. I sincerely hope that SCADA will bring about visible improvements in power distribution and reduce the incidence of outages. We are all committed to ensure Delhi tops the list of great cities by providing good public services to its residents”.

The SCADA system, estimated to cost around Rs 153 crore, will change the face of power distribution in BSES’ licensed area and benefit all its 23 lakh customers. The SCADA Control Centre, situated at Balaji Estate in South Delhi’s Kalkaji area and resembling a futuristic space centre with massive screens and an intricate web of computer desks will monitor power distribution system and supply on a real time basis. Any abnormalities in the system will be immediately flagged and corrective action taken.

Operations of all the 117 Grid Stations in BSES areas would now be remote controlled through the SCADA control centre. Of the 117 Grid Stations, over 60 are already online. The remaining grid stations will also come in the SCADA fold over the next few months.

While the first phase of SCADA will cover all the 66/33 KV Grid Stations, the second phase will cover the 11 KV distribution network comprising of 11 KV transformers, feeders, lines etc. “The communication between the Grid Station and Control Centre is being established and optic fibre network with ring loop formation will ensure online connectivity at all times,” said a BSES official.

New Delhi, May 26
Delhi Urban Development and PWD Minister Dr A K Walia today called for a coordinated effort and a workable action plan to overcome the acute problem of traffic congestion on city roads and determination of sites for construction of foot over bridges and zebra crossings for the convenience of pedestrians.

Dr Walia was sympathetic to the demand raised by Resident Welfare Associations and trade organisations of New Rohtak Road to construct an elevated road from Liberty Cinema Chowk to Anand Parbat, which is most of the time found to be locked in long traffic jams.

Dr Walia said that the issue of an elevated road on New Rohtak Road was part of proposed seven new corridors to be constructed in the run up for 2010 Commonwealth Games. —TNS

New Delhi, May 26
The Delhi High Court has held that the private power distributors in the Capital are the successor entities of the government-owned Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) in Delhi and are bound to take care of the liabilities, proceedings including contingent liabilities in respect of the employees.

In a landmark judgement, Justice S Ravinder Bhat said, “The private power distributors are the successor entity in relation to pending proceedings as also claims for satisfaction of liabilities arising prior to July 1, 2002 in respect of such past employees, or employee related claims which arose after transfer scheme”.

While dismissing the petition of the BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd, the Judge said the letter served on all the power distributors was valid and not arbitrary.

According to the Delhi Electricity Reforms Act, 2000 and Delhi Electricity Reforms Transfer Scheme Rules, 2001, the discoms — BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd, North Delhi Power Ltd and BSES Yamuna Power Ltd — would take care of all the employees.

“By virtue of various provisions of DERA and the transfer scheme, the discoms are successor entities in relation to liabilities and proceedings as well as contingent liabilities, in respect of employee related/past employee related claims, issues and order that are not covered by the Sections 16 and Rule 6,” the order said.

New Delhi, May 26
In a bid to fill all the sanctioned 36 posts of judges in the Delhi High Court, appointment of five Additional Judges has been cleared by President A P J Abdul Kalam.

All the five judges, appointed from the bar, include former Delhi Bar Association president Kailash Gambhir, Gurinder Singh Sistani, Election Commission counsel S Murlidhar, Hima Kohli and Vipin Sanghi.

Their appointments in that order of seniority was made for two years and would be affective from the day they assume the charge of their office, it was announced.

With the elevation of High Court Chief Justice Markenday Katju to the Supreme Court and two of its judges retiring recently, the strength of judges, which was already short of the sanctioned strength, had drastically come down, having an adverse affect on the disposal of cases.

With the induction of the new judges, the pressure on the High Court might ease to some extent.

The government is yet to appoint the Chief Justice of the High Court. The senior most judge, Justice Vijender Jain, is currently holding the charge as Acting Chief Justice. 

New Delhi, May 26
The Delhi High Court today issued notices to the Centre and others on a PIL which sought dissolution of the Delhi Development Authority on the ground that its continuance was unconstitutional.

The petition filed by ‘Society for Safe Structures’ claimed that the very existence of DDA has become infructuous in the wake of the 74th Constitutional Amendment, which empowered panchayats and local municipalities to frame building bye-laws and development plans.

A Division Bench of
acting Chief Justice Vijender Jain and Justice S N Aggarwal asked the respondents to file their replies and posted the matter for further hearing to October 7.

Faridabad, May 26
An aged person lost his life at the hands of his own kin last night. While the accused, including the wife and two sons of the deceased, have fled after the crime, the police have registered a case of murder against them.

According to police sources, the incident took place in a house in the SGM Nagar locality of NIT here last night when there was an altercation between the victim, identified as Sukhwant Singh, 60, and his family members. The former had allegedly imbibed liquor and subsequently thrashed and abused one of his close relatives who had come over to his place. It is learnt that Sukhwant was allegedly beaten black and blue by his sons, identified as Sawarjit and Sahib, after a heated argument. The accused were helped by their mother.

Sukhwant Singh’s habit of drinking daily was a cause of frequent quarrels in the family.

The matter was reported to the police this morning by the neighbors who had heard the quarrel last and had gone to make inquiries this morning.

The police have booked a case under Section 302 of the IPC and launched a hunt to arrest the accused. 

Gurgaon, May 26
INLD workers today gheraoed the Sohna police station, about 20 km from here, early this morning and took away a party man who had been taken there.

A police team took away Satbir Singh, an INLD worker, from his residence at Damdama village to the police station at about 5 am. Immediately, at least 100 workers of the INLD thronged the police station and also held a demonstration against the Chief Minister and the government as well as the police authorities.

The district president of the INLD, Mr Aant Ram Tawar, and the former Deputy Speaker of the Haryana Vidhan Sabha, Mr Gopi Chand Gehlot, were among the party men who laid siege to the police station.

The agitation by the INLD workers outside the police station continued for about an hour. Apart from the SHO, an officer of the rank of DSP was present at the police station at the time of the agitation by irate INLD workers. The DSP left the scene in the midst of the agitation. Thereafter, the workers took away the detained party worker with them.

Singh alleged the police personnel had been harassing him since the past few days. Their motive was to make him sign on a document stating that he was with the government and had nothing to do with the meeting of the office-bearers of the Haryana Olympic Association (HOA) which was convened by its ousted president, Mr Abhay Singh, son of former Chief Minister, Mr Om Prakash Chautala on April 14.

Recently, a group, which included officers of the Haryana Government, considered to be close to the ruling Congress, had held a meeting of the HOA and declared Congress MP Naveeen Jindal the president of the body by ousting Mr Abhay Singh. The INLD leaders had reacted to this, saying that the Congress supporters misused the official machinery and acted in an unconstitutional manner. They alleged that the quorum for the meeting convened by Congress supporters was not complete.

The INLD leaders today said the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) had refused to accept the legality of the meeting convened by the Congress supporters which had ousted Mr Abhay Singh from the post. 

Ghaziabad, May 26
The worst does not appear to be over in Ghaziabad which has been rocked by the cow slaughter issue for the past two days. The administration has ordered an inquiry by a magistrate into incidents of arson in Dhaulna over the last two days.

The BJP has embarked upon a movement to court arrests. While BJP supporters took out a rally along with cows in Hapur to show their solidarity and demand a ban on cow slaughter, hundreds of party supporters who had gone to the jail to meet the arrested leaders raised slogans against the administration and the state government and created a furore on the jail premises.

At the Ghaziabad Collectorate, while jhuggi dwellers of Dhaulna, who were victims of arson, were demonstrating, BJP supporters also raised slogans against the arrest of their leaders.

Meanwhile, former Ghazibad MP and UP BJP vice-president Ramesh Chand Tomar and Ghaziabad MLA Nainder Singh Shishodia have accused the administration of letting go of the real culprits of cow slaughter.

Both of them have also rejected the accusation that they were involved in the arson in Dhaulna.

In Hapur, BJP supporters took out a rally in the town to demand the arrest of those who were actually guilty of cow slaughter as also freeing of all BJP leaders and activists. Hundreds of activists of the BJP, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal and the RSS collected at Janki Devi Dharmshala on the Garh road and took out a rally along with cows.

They went around the town to register their resentment at the cow slaughter in Salarpur Kotla. 

New Delhi, May 26
A police constable died after being hit by a speeding bus on Indraprastha Marg today, police said. The constable, Dilawar Singh, posted with the Secretariat Security Force, was hit by a bus plying on route number 720 from Shahdara to Janakpuri as he was crossing the road on IP Marg at around 2 p.m.. The policeman died on the spot. —TNS

New Delhi, May 26
A rather unusual combined effort is underway between Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) and Jamia Millia Islamia University to create brigades of sensitized men to act as rescuers for women in distress, especially women who have suffered from different kinds of marital and societal violence.

The DCW has tied up with Jamia to conduct a training workshop to train master trainers from at least 18 NGOs in Delhi on women’s issues.

Once trained, these master trainers would sensitize, educate and put in place brigades of dedicated male workers who will help to alleviate the suffering of women in Indian society.

Initially, these brigades will be put in place in slums and will act in such localities where the position of women is vulnerable.

Professor Kiran Walia, chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women says, “We reached a conclusion sometime back that we cannot bring in any real change at the grass-roots level by just involving women; you have to understand that women are the victims and it is not always possible to create a break through for them by just using women. Men simply have to be involved and this is what gave us the idea of creating youth brigades involving young men who are more open to new ideas.”

Prof Walia further informed that Jamia
has produced a module for the training which has already begun. She stressed that the training is aimed at increasing male involvement in gender sensitization programmes, bringing about a change in their attitudes and behaviour and then equipping them with knowledge of the legal system to effectively combat violence. 

New Delhi, May 26
Technological advances have increased the pace, reach and access of media and significant events occurring in any part of the world are now viewed by audiences across continents.

Participating in an interactive session on ‘Impact of Globalisation on Journalism’, organised here on Thursday by the British Council, speakers, including senior journalists and academicians from Cardiff University, drew attention to the emerging trends and underlying paradoxes in the rapidly expanding media scenario.

Mr Rajdeep Sardesai used the term “glocalisation” to describe how TV channels in India were absorbing the latest technology while meeting the demand of the audience for local content. Touching on the growth of business journalism in India in the past two decades, Ms Sushma Ramachandran said stock markets in India were now being impacted by trends in international money markets.

New Delhi, May 26
Amity Institute for Competitive Examination (AICE) which provides training to IIT JEE and medical aspirants organized Valedictory Function of the unique 10-day and night Mathematics Olympiad Workshop jointly conducted with Amity Centre for Olympiad for Science & Technology (ACOST) and in collaboration with Srinavasan Ramanujan Institute for Mathematical Sciences, SASTRA Deemed University, Kumbhkonam.

In all, 33 students from 18 schools participated.