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Police claim breakthrough in
UGC approves increasing autonomy to colleges
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Councillor embezzlement case: Court pulls up CBI
Punish employees for absenting themselves, HC tells MCD
JNUSU unhappy with panel probing clash
Motherhood may elude the figure-conscious, says study
‘Power privatisation not a success’
Developers asked to follow norms
Foundation hails govt initiatives
Plan to spruce up industrial sectors in Noida
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Police claim breakthrough in double-murder case
New Delhi, August 3 Sikander alias Prakash Kujoor, who was arrested yesterday from the Assam-West Bengal border, allegedly told investigators that he had bludgeoned Dev Raj Grover (74) and his wife Vimla (70) to death on Sunday night, a senior police official said here. The iron pipe used by the accused to kill the aged couple has been recovered from the East Park residence of the Grovers at the instance of Sikander, who had escaped after the murder. A mobile phone and Rs 1,000, which he had allegedly stolen from Grover’s residence, have been recovered from his possession. Sikander, in his early 20s, allegedly told investigators that the couple used to torture and humiliate him and they used to lock him inside the servant’s quarters in
the night, which police said was the motive behind the murder. He was arrested from the Alipur Dwar railway station by a Delhi police special team when he came out of the Awadh-Assam Express. The police personnel were also travelling in the same train. The Grovers had hired him from a Green Park placement agency four days before their murder. He was their fourth servant in a month and all of them had left alleging torture by them, the police said. Sikander was produced before a court here, which remanded him to two days police custody. Meanwhile, Opposition BJP in Delhi today demanded the resignations of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Police Commissioners K K Paul over failure to arrest the culprits in the Inderlok mass murder case. Lamenting the deterioration in the law and order situation in Delhi, hundreds of BJP workers, led by party MLA Vijay Goel held demonstrations, claiming that the crime graph in the Capital had gone up since the UPA government came to power. “By handing over the case to the crime branch, the police thinks the matter has been solved,” Goel said adding the home ministry should supply data on the rise in criminal activities in the Capital. “An ordinary citizen can’t even get an FIR registered in any case,” he said. |
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UGC approves increasing autonomy to colleges
New Delhi, August 3 The commission has altered the composition of the committee that reviews the functioning of autonomy in an autonomous college at the end of the fourth year. This committee, called the ‘Joint Expert Committee’, will now consist of two representatives each from the affiliating university and the state government concerned and three representatives from the UGC out of which one shall be the convener of the committee to examine the proposal of the colleges for extension of autonomous status after completion of first and subsequent tenures of autonomy. Earlier, the committee consisted of a nominee of the UGC, one nominee of the parent university, one nominee of the State Council for Higher Education or the state government where such a council does not exist and two experts from outside the state to be nominated by the university. The commission has also allowed colleges to dispense with the practice of having one expert to be nominated by the Vice-Chancellor from a panel of six recommended by the college Principal. The expert can now be nominated by the Vice-Chancellor from a panel recommended by the college Principal or from a self-chosen panel. The scheme of autonomous colleges was formulated by the UGC in the fourth Five Year Plan under which colleges are allowed to prescribe their curriculum and conduct the evaluation of their students through a system of continuous evaluation. An autonomous college has the freedom to prescribe rules for admission in consonance with the reservation policy of the state government also. The commission provides financial assistance under this scheme to autonomous colleges to meet their additional and special needs. |
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Councillor embezzlement case: Court pulls up CBI
New Delhi, August 3 “None appeared on behalf of CBI despite waiting. If no one appears on the next date of hearing on August 23, appropriate order will be passed,” said Additional Sessions Judge Veena Birbal, adding that “copy of this order be sent to the Director, CBI”. The court was to hear an application filed by one of the accused R C Garg, a retired Sanitory Inspector of the MCD, seeking release of his Bank pass book and other investment documents, seized by CBI, alleging probe in the case was over. The anti corruption wing of CBI, on September 27, 2005 received a complaint from the MCD Director, the Vigilance Department, that some of the officials were embezzling money by employing sanitary workers on daily wages after fudging the attendance records of regular workers. Two days later, the agency sleuths raided the MCD office at Shahdara and also searched the houses of 12 accused including its Councillor Praveen Messy and allegedly recovered several incriminating documents. A case under various provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act including section 120B (Criminal Conspiracy), 420 (cheating) and 471 (using forged document as genuine) of the IPC was lodged against them. |
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Punish employees for absenting
New Delhi, August 3 A division bench of acting Chief Justice Vijender Jain and Justice Kailash Gambhir asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Commissioner to initiate criminal proceedings under the MCD Act against the sweepers and supervisors who absented themselves deliberately. The Court was not happy with the status report filed by the MCD Commissioner, which stated the sweepers and supervisors were fined Rs 50 for not reporting to their duties. “Why not to initiate criminal proceedings, if there is a provision in the MCD Act?” asked the Bench. In an explicit order on July 27, 2005, the High Court had asked the MCD Commissioner to initiate action against the sweepers and the supervisors who wilfully neglected their duties. Noting that the matter was very serious, the court observed the MCD could mechanise the cleaning system if 60,000-odd safai karamcharis did not discharge their duties properly. Retired Lieutenant Colonel B B Sharan, president of NGO ‘Nyayabhumi’, in a PIL alleged that the MCD was spending Rs 400 crore to pay salary to the safai karamcharis who did not discharge their duties properly. They in turn deploy proxy staff paying less amount from their own pocket to do the job in their absence, the petition alleged. |
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Hooda flags off new
CNG bus service
New Delhi, August 3 Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda flagged off the CNG bus service from Haryana Bhawan which will run initially between Gurgaon and the capital. AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi was present on the
occasion. Haryana Transport Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala told reporters later that state roadways proposes to have 150 CNG buses during the current financial year to improve connectivity of satellite towns of Haryana with Delhi. He said 150 new CNG buses will be added annually to its fleet during the nest few years and the buses would ply from various NCR tows in Haryana including Gurgaon, Faridabad, Sonepat, Bahadurgarh, Jhajjar and Panipat to the interior areas of Delhi. He said nearly five lakh people travel everyday between Delhi and Gurgaon while passenger traffic at Faridabad, Sonepat, Bahadurgarh and Rohtak was also increasing by the day. The bus service started today will ply on normal fare. It has 46 fire resistance 2X2 seats with ample space for 40 standing passengers and FM radio. The Minister said the 15 air-conditioned and CNG were also being procured with funds given by HUDA for operation between Delhi and Gurgaon. The minister said the replacement age of HR buses has been fixed at seven years. He said average age of fleet was amongst the lowest in the country. During the current financial year, 313 buses would be replaced with new ones. Mr Surjewala said Haryana Government was entering into an agreement with Maruti Udyog Ltd (MUL) and Ashok Leyland Ltd (ALL) to set up driver training institutes for the safety of passengers. He said that due to concerned efforts and strict road safety measures, the state roadways has been able to bring down the accident rate which is less than the national average. The Minister said the Volvo bus service on Chandigarh-Delhi-Gurgaon route, which was introduced a few months back, had earned profit of Rs 80.82 lakh in the last nine months. |
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JNUSU unhappy with panel probing clash
New Delhi, August 3 The JNUSU, alleging that the clash between students in Lohit Hostel on the campus took place over caste-based remarks, wants the administration to take severe action against the accused and file an FIR. “We have been trying to get the police to file an FIR, but they have been refusing to do so. We want them to note that the clash took place over caste remarks,” said Arani Sinha, joint secretary of the JNUSU. She said the JNUSU was planning to meet officials from the Home Ministry, the Human Resource Development Ministry, the SC/ST Commission and the National Human Rights Commission to draw their attention to the caste-based violence in JNU. The JNUSU, in its statement, said the refusal of the Vice-Chancellor to include a member from the Equal Opportunities Office was a cause for concern and completely against the socially sensitive character of the university. Pointing out that the students involved in Tuesday’s clash had been named in various others complaints, the JNUSU, in the statement, further says, “Since the announcement of the 27 per cent OBC reservation in all central educational institutions the very same students have been repeatedly indulging in different instances of caste abuse and violence in JNU. Unfortunately, the administration has failed to initiate action against these elements despite complaints”. |
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Motherhood may elude the
New Delhi, August 3 Dr Archana Dhawan Bajaj, a fertility expert with the Global Fertility Centre, has prepared a consolidated report on underweight as well as overweight women facing problems in conceiving, based on facts and figures culled from various international scientific studies and the Internet. She explains that while overweight women having infertility problem was always a well-known fact, during the past couple of years the number of anorexia nervosa or bulimia-related infertility cases are on the rise among the figure-conscious Delhi women. It seems that as the desire for making the body more shapely aggravates the city chic fertility experts in Delhi are now faced with an increasing number of potential mothers ejecting their foetus “as something foreign” to their shapely bodies. This is the case particularly among the younger generation in the age group of 22-27 and among those women who are heavily into exercising as when the fat percentage gets too low the level of fertility-related hormones also goes topsy-turvy,” says Dr Bajaj, adding that extremities in body weight and size get manifested in severe gynaecological disorders. In the past year or so, several women suffering from anorexia nervosa and bulimia, both lifestyle related disorders, have approached Dr Bajaj, complaining of inability to conceive. “Women who are excessively underweight or overweight are at increased risk of amenorrhea or cessation of menstruation. Women need to have certain body fat in order to menstruate and conceive. Since these are not just physical but mental illnesses as well, anorexics, bulimics and compulsive overeaters are likely to suffer from stress, anxiety and depression,” she says. But those women who are able to conceive while suffering from anorexia end up seriously jeopardising their own health and that of their foetus. “Pregnancy presents an enormous strain on a woman’s body as developing the foetus will take nourishment from the mother. Women suffering from eating disorder can seriously deplete their own scant reserves and may begin to experience exhaustion and depression that accompanies malnourishment. Women with such disorders have higher rates of miscarriage, pre-eclampsia, low amniotic fluid, placental separation and increased risk of giving birth to low-weight babies. Bulimics are especially vulnerable to post-partum depression, Dr Bajaj says, suggesting that any woman struggling with eating disorder should delay pregnancy until she is healthy. But eating disorders are a serious marker for failed conception and Dr Bajaj’s research is “pregnant” with hope as it also underlines that conception is restored with the correction in weight. “Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia are the two conditions of eating which have been found as hindering the way to motherhood. But the cause of concern is that women are hardly aware that eating disorders could also be the cause of infertility.” |
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‘Power privatisation not a success’
New Delhi, August 3 The statement of the minister has been confirmed by the Member (Planning), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), Mr V. S. Verma, who said Delhi would continue to reel under severe power crisis for the next few months as its distribution system was so faulty and inefficient that it would take longer to absorb power transmission through various generating units. There are still some problems with the distribution of power in the national Capital. Inaugurating a seminar on “Software Solutions for Power Utilities” organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and Global Energy Decisions, Mr Verma said, “Even if the Delhi Government puts up a 500 MW new power plant in and around Delhi, it would be extremely difficult to meet the peak power requirement of Delhi because of its inefficient power distribution system”. The only solution to the problem was improving the distribution system, he said. Mr Verma, however, added that on an average the power shortage of Delhi was to the tune of 300 MW for the peak period. Efforts were on to curtail it but these would pay provided the distribution network absorbed capacities for power transmission. |
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Developers asked to follow norms
Gurgaon, August 3 Raising some serious objections, the official team, led by Joint Director, Environment, Government of Haryana, Mr A. K. Mehta, directed the two developer companies to follow the eco-friendly guidelines before starting the construction work. Talking to The Tribune, Mr Mehta said that as per the notification, an environmental clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests was required for any construction project of either (a) costing more than Rs 50 crore, or (b) a project which discharged 50 kilo litre of water per day or (c) a project where more than 1000 persons were expected to be visited per day. A public hearing with a live video recording was executed at the site of the proposed project to redress the public grievances concerning the environment of the surrounding areas before granting the environmental clearance, Mr Mehta added. The Vatika group, which was doing the excavation work for its five star Vatika Hotel at site number 1 in Sector 29 measuring 4.2 acre, had been asked to stop the work immediately and take the environmental clearance from the concerned ministry before re-assuming the work. However, the officials were surprised to notice that the work of super delux five star hotel equivalent to seven star hotel, costing around Rs 280 crore was on without taking the prior approval from the ministry. The officials took the senior officials of the Vatika group to task for violating the prescribed rules and regulations. In the residential project, Park View Residency apartments, constructed by Bestech India Private Limited near Palam Vihar, the environment team directed the developer to take the NOC from the forest department and compensate the uprooted trees as per their directions. |
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Foundation hails govt initiatives
New Delhi, August 3 Apart from this, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs recently approved a one-time grant of Rs 65 crore towards the initial corpus of the Foundation. The approval follows the deputation of Professor K. Srinath Reddy as President of the foundation. The Head of the Department of Cardiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Professor Reddy is a founding member of the PHFI Governing Board. He was actively involved in the evolution of the PHFI with Rajat Gupta, Senior Partner Worldwide, McKinsey & Company. Mr Gupta, Chairman of the Board of the PHFI, told mediapersons here that the approvals were a reaffirmation of the government’s confidence in the Foundation. He said the Foundation had a total corpus of Rs 200 crore following approval by the CCE and contributions from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and private donations. |
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Plan to spruce up industrial sectors in Noida
Noida, August 3 Encroachments on vacant plots will also be removed and systematic parking lots created for vehicles. The services of the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, are being utilised for making a survey and planning the whole project for which Rs 16 crore is estimated to be incurred. The Noida Authority complex in Sector 6 will also be spruced up and the parking lot for vehicles organised better. |
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