New Delhi, November 11
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has suspended the controversial apex court ordered sealing of commercial establishments in residential areas for two days, claiming that enough police force could not be made available for various reasons.

The suspension of the sealing, which has evoked considerable protest from all sections of the traders, has brought some relief to a few who can now take this opportunity to clear away their goods as they wait for the inevitable.

The sealing drive was resumed on Wednesday after the Supreme Court refused to grant any relief to the traders running commercial establishments in residential areas. The drive, which had been concentrating on the South Delhi areas of Lajpat Nagar, Amar Colony and Greater Kailash, has been more or less peaceful with stray incidents of stoning and protests.

Meanwhile, the traders, whose premises had been sealed, are running to the courts to get their properties desealed by swearing affidavits that these will now be strictly used for residential purposes.

Most of the markets in the National Capital Territory of Delhi reopened today and carried on business as usual. Some of the schools which had to close down because of the bandhs also remained open to make up for the lost time. The police, however, continued to keep a vigil in the sensitive areas.

Various trade bodies and their leaders were huddled in meetings for the best part of the day trying to evolve a strategy that could lead them out of the present imbroglio. Most of them agree the only way out is for the government to implement the Delhi Master Plan 2021 at the earliest.

Traders were also bitter with the political leaders who, they claimed, misled them. They termed the so-called resignations by 20-odd members of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi to protest against the sealings a “drama”. The traders alleged local politicians, including councillors and MLAs, had abandoned them when their support was most required.

Both the ruling Congress and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party have come out in support of the traders.

New Delhi, November 11
In a campus where America is the touchstone for consumerism and neo-colonialism, the victory of an American national in the Students’ Union election is more of a shock than a surprise.

Tyler Walker Williams of the All India Students’ Association has become the first foreigner to win the post of vice-president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union. Although a frontrunner and a favourite, Tyler, who spouts the ideology of AISA and speaks Hindi with remarkable ease, has left many stupefied with his win. He beat his nearest competitor by 340 votes.

The tough fight put up by the new entrants, the Youth for Equality (YFE), notwithstanding, it was the Left and the radical Left that claimed all four seats of the central panel at the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union elections.

The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) walked home with two seats, the president and the joint secretary, while AISA’s candidates have won the post of VP and general secretary.

The SFI’s Dhananjay Tripathi is the new president with 909 votes, while AISA’s Tyler Walker Williams is the vice-president with 1,078 votes. Sandeep Singh, also of AISA, is the general secretary with 943 votes and the SFI’s Jyotsna is the new joint secretary with 800 votes.

This year, the students’ union poll at JNU recorded 65 per cent polling with more than 5,000 students casting their votes amid high security. Giving the SFI, AISA, the NSUI and the ABVP a tough fight, the YFE, which is known for its stand against the reservation policy, bagged six out of the nine schools and the winning five councillor seats in its first ever election. More than 45 students from 14 panels fought for the four important posts of president, vice-president, secretary and joint secretary.

The NSUI and the ABVP, which tried to cash in on the fact that apart from raising issues of national importance their manifestos spoke of campus related issues, had to remain content with winning a few councillor seats. The SFI has won 10 councillors’ posts, the ABVP seven, the YFE six, AISA two and the NSUI one.

New Delhi, November 11
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) today demolished portions of a building under construction, which had been constructed without the requisite sanction, in the Karol Bagh area of the Capital.

Property number 8/6 WEA in Karol Bagh, which had a plan sanction for residential apartments with a provision for shops on the ground floor, was demolished as the owners were trying to build it into a guest house, MCD officials said.

The demolition was carried out using high-tech equipment like excavators and loaders from the disaster management department. 

New Delhi, November 11
The Delhi Metro today opened the Barakhamba Road-Indraprastha section, linking faraway Dwarka to the heart of the city, bringing with it the promise of fewer parking blues and less traffic chaos for visitors during the forthcoming India International Trade Fair (IITF).

The opening of the 2.81-km section, which has three stations, Mandi House, Pragati Maidan and Indraprastha, marks the completion of Phase I. The section, spanning 65.1 km across the city, was thrown open to the public with the inaugural run of the Metro train from the Indraprastha station at 11.30 this morning.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) Chairman and Managing Director E. Sreedharan called the opening of the new stretch “a milestone” after Indraprastha station manager Pushpendra Kumar flagged off a train at a rather low-profile function here.

Dr Sreedharan said whatever had been achieved was purely the result of team effort and completely indigenous effort. “Of course, we got some help from others,” he added.

The Barakhamba Road-Indraprastha section is part of Line 3, the longest stretch of the network with a length of 32 km, having 31 underground and overground stations between Dwarka, Sector 9, and IP estate.

As many as 25,000 persons were expected to commute on this route daily and the ridership was likely to increase to 42,000 once the section extended to Noida by 2009, the officials said. The total cost of the Barakhamba Road-Indraprastha section was estimated to be around Rs 500 crore. Coming as it does just before the start of the IITF on November 14, the new section is expected to lessen the parking blues and traffic chaos generally witnessed during the IITF.

The Delhi Metro has also made special arrangements to facilitate the movement of visitors to the IITF. The existing 10 ticket operating machines at the Pragati Maidan station will be increased to 16 on the days of the fair depending on the number of commuters.

Besides, the station has been equipped with 16 automatic fare collection gates and has two entries and exits. A temporary walkway is also being constructed from behind the Pragati Maidan Metro station so that visitors can directly go up to Hall 12 of Pragati Maidan without having to use the busy Mathura Road. The walkway will be about 300 m long. The DMRC would sell the IITF ticket five rupees less than the normal rate to encourage more people to use the Metro. With the completion of Phase I, the focus would now shift to the Shahdara-Dilshad Garden section of Phase II. “We would try to finish it by the end of 2008,” Dr Sreedharan said. The Metro line to Noida is expected to be completed by 2009 and the extension from Central Secretariat to Qutab Minar by the end of 2010.

Seeing the success of the Delhi Metro, various state governments have approached the DMRC and cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Chennai are planning to start metro rail networks. Dr Sreedharan said cities with more than 30 lakh population would have metro networks in the near future.

The special feature of the section was the country’s first extradosed bridge. The main span of 196.3 metre bridge, 93 m long and passing over busy railway lines, does not have any piers to support it.

Metro officials said it was a unique feature and out of 400 designs proposed for the bridge, the DMRC selected this on Only 22 such bridges exist across the world and most of them are in Japan.

Faridabad, November 11
The issue of the ongoing agitation and the opposition by the employees of the state power department regarding the outsourcing of certain services has now reached the office of the Chief Minister, Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda. A delegation of the employees’ union leaders met Mr Hooda in Chandigarh last night and announced to postpone the proposed march of the All Haryana Power Corporations Workers’ Union to the Secretariat building to November 15.

The union leaders claimed that the meeting was a ‘success’ and the CM had assured them that the government would take proper action and stance over their longstanding demands.

According to Mr Subhash Lamba, general secretary of the union, the meeting was convened by the office of the Chief Minister, who had reportedly invited them to discuss the matter before taking on to the agitation. He claimed that the government had directed the Secretary of power department to hold a meeting on November 14 to discuss the issues in details and sort out the matter.

He said the union was expecting a positive development as the problems had been lingering on for the past several years due to “indifferent and non-cooperative attitude” of the previous governments.

Mr Lamba said that the union had told the CM that the government’s policy of outsourcing the services in the power supply department was not acceptable to the staff, as it was ‘anti-employees’ and against the interests of the consumers as well.

He pointed out that the privatisation and the contractor-ship adopted several years ago in the department had only resulted in irregularities and sufferings of the customer. This had neither improved the services nor increased the government’s revenue, he added.

Gurgaon, November 11
The Chief Minister Flying Squad has initiated a probe into the alleged move by land mafia and residents of Babupur village near here to grab and encroach upon about 40 acres of prime land belonging to the Gram Panchayat of the village.

The team headed by the DIG, CM Flying Squad, Mr S. S. Rao, is camping here for the past three days and met the complainants to investigate into the case.

As per the complaint, several residents of the village in collusion with some vested interests were trying to claim the Panchayat land as their own with the motive of selling it to land mafia later. The vested interests, including the government officials, misinterpret laws and poach on the panchayat’s land, the complainants alleged.

In 1956, when land consolidation in Haryana was effected, lands of various farmers in villages was brought under a common pool ‘Samlat Deh’ and was handed over to the concerned Gram Panchayats for public use. However, with the price of land escalating manifold in Gurgaon, the descendents of those whose lands were brought under the ‘common land’ have started claiming the land as their own.

Aided and abetted by land mafia and a section of the government machinery, they take recourse to wrong interpretation of law.

The land mafia here has allegedly entered into an agreement with those claiming the Panchayat land to be theirs, and bear the expense of the legal battle. The mafia pays some token money with the agreement for purchase of the land after winning the legal battle. The mafia also takes possession of the land while the litigation goes on. The mafia gets General Power of Attorney from those claiming the Panchayat Land, and in many cases, the land is being sold, sources say.

Mr Rao said that similar land grabbing cases were also reported from Baghera, Jahajgarh and Begumpur Khatola villages. In a similar case, in which Mr Rao carried out the investigations, an FIR was registered against a former Sub Divisional Magistrate of Gurgaon. Also, a Patwari, who was allegedly involved in the case, was dismissed. The government had received several complaints of land mafia trying to grab Panchayt land in Babupur village. The Deputy Commissioner had also marked the case to the police.

New Delhi, November 11
A consumer forum has held the MTNL-owned Garuda mobile services guilty of deficiency in service to a subscriber who complained of weak signals and defective handset given to him and asked the service provider to get the instrument repaired.

“There was some network problem in the area of the complainant which affected the service adversely. There also appeared to be some problem with the handset. Hence, the service provider is held guilty of deficiency in service,” said Mr G. D. Dhanuka, president of the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum (South-West).

He directed the General Manager, Headquarters Wireless Services, of Garuda to get the handset repaired to the satisfaction of the complainant and further awarded a compensation of Rs 4,000.

The forum also expressed its unhappiness over the attitude of the defendant and said, “The attitude of the service provider does not appear to be consumer-friendly in view of its statement that the complainant could surrender the handset if the same had become a liability.”

It further noted that the service provider took a contradictory stand when it initially submitted the complainant never approached the designated Garuda Service Centre but later said the handset was duly attended to whenever he visited the service centre for repairs of the handset.

The complainant substantiated his case by filing an affidavit of another subscriber of the same area who had stated he had to surrender the connection due to poor signals.

Wing Commander H. S. Sharma, a resident of Swaroop Nagar, was a subscriber of mobile service, “Club Garuda,” since December 29, 2003. He complained though the service was poor yet the service provider did not rectify the problems. 

New Delhi, November 11
Seven persons, including a former NDMC employee, were arrested on charges of auto theft in separate incidents in East and North-West Delhi, the police said, claiming to have solved more than 10 cases of vehicle theft.

Three persons, who were earlier working as recovery agents of a private bank, were arrested yesterday in Narela after the police received specific information about them. A stolen motorcycle was allegedly recovered from their possession.

On interrogation, the three, identified as Sumit, Rakesh and Raj Mohammad, confessed to their involvement in three other motorcycle thefts. A mechanic, Kuldeep, was also arrested on the basis of their interrogation, the police said.

In another case, two youngsters, Ashok Kumar and Rajesh, were arrested in Preet Vihar in East Delhi while they were travelling on a stolen two-wheeler. Their questioning led to the recovery of one more motorcycle.

Ashok Kumar had earlier worked as a class IV employee of the NDMC.

In the third case, Noor Mohd, a resident of Noida, was arrested at a checkpost in Mayur Vihar Phase III when he was travelling in a stolen car. On interrogation, he confessed he had stolen four two-wheelers, the police claimed. 

Noida, November 11
A woman was allegedly gangraped by around six persons in Phalauda village in Rabupura on Thursday.

The armed persons intruded into a brick kiln of one Rajinder’s and looted Rs 22,000 from the safe of the unit. Later, they abducted a worker’s wife who was reportedly sleeping in the premises at gunpoint and gang raped her.

When the victim’s family went to the police station to file a report, it was allegedly shooed away.

However, on Friday when a large number of local people met the SSP, a case was registered by the police in this connection.—OC

Faridabad, November 11
Two persons were killed after they got trapped in a 15-16 feet burrow while they were digging it for boring a tubewell in a village in Hodal subdivision this morning. Three others were rescued by the villagers.

According to reports, the incident took place around 11 am when a farmer, Ombir Singh (32), and a labourer Gopal were boring a tubewell in his fields at Soruka Nangla village, about 56 kms from here.

Ombir and a labourer Gopal were working at a spot about 15 to 16 feet in depth, while Ombir’s mother and daughter, along with a few others, were working at the shallow region inside when the earth suddenly caved. Hearing the cries, villagers came to their rescue. Ombir died on the spot, while Gopal succumbed to his injuries in the hospital a few hours later.—TNS

New Delhi, November 11
More than 90,000 pirated CDs of Hindi blockbusters and a huge quantity of inlay cards worth around Rs 20 crore have been seized during a raid at a factory in South-West Delhi.

Dugobs Replication Company, functioning in Naraina Industrial Area, was sealed after a raid on Thursday night.—OC

New Delhi, November 11
Taking a significant step forward, the Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI) on Friday announced their first national ‘Golden jubilee film festival’ which will be held in Delhi from November 14th – 18th. This will coincide with Children’s Day celebrations across the nation.

This novel children’s film festival will be held at Siri Fort Auditorium and inaugurated on November 14th by Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance. The Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Mr Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, and the Chief Minister of Delhi, Mrs Sheila Dikshit, will also be present on this occasion.

Nafisa Ali Sodhi, Chairperson of the Children’s Film Society of India, informed that, “Till now, the CFSI has only conducted international festivals and it is only now that we are able to work on a national film festival. After taking over at CFSI, over the past year I have come to realize the massive gap in children’s cinema and other cinema. It is ironical that when over 15% of the population comprises children, Indian cinema produces only 1-2 children’s films in a year.” Nafisa further commented, “This festival is really the launch of competitive children’s cinema in India. We have invited all schools whether government or private to participate and are hoping to collect a good crowd of children who benefit from the festival.”

The executive director CFSI, Mike Pandey, further elaborated, “The real need right now is for value-based films for kids and for films with a powerful message, for instance on environment. Cinema plays a great role in influencing opinion and thought, the need right now is not merely for fantasy and good entertainers but also for some realism. That is for value-based children’s films that side by side entertainment has a strong message for the future generation of the nation.”

An independent film-maker, Colonel Kapoor seemed equally concerned. He said, “It is really a question of what you are leaving behind for children. We seem to be ruining this planet in every possible way. What is the future we are building for our children? Cinema can accomplish a lot if handled right. We have to first hook the children into seeing such films, which have a good balance of entertainment and a strong message. I would go one step further and say that the message is equally important for both children and their parents.”

Some of the films to be screened at the festival are: Jaldeep by Kedar Sharma, Dak-Ghar by Zul Vellani, Charandas Chor by Shyam Benegal, Aasman se gira by Pankaj Parashar, Chutkan Ki Mahabharat by Sankalp Meshram and Kabhi Pass Kabhi Fail by Veerandra Saini etc ….

New Delhi, November 11
A book, “Jawaharlal Nehru and the Status of Women in India — An Analytical Study,” authored by Ms Viond Tagra was released in the Capital recently. Ms Tagra has worked at Nehru Memorial Library and on selected works of Nehru under Prof S. Gopal. She has also edited “Jawaharlal Nehru — The Architect of Modern India.”

Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh talked about equality of women and Nehru’s ideas against superstition but not against astrology. He said Nehru’s important contribution was towards universal adult suffrage.

Dr Ranjit Sinha, Director, ICSSR, said the book authored by Ms Tagra would be useful to scholars and was based on the topic of women’s empowerment, which is of great relevance today. He said the role of Nehru in raising the status of women on a par with men politically, socially and educationally had been depicted interestingly in the book.

New Delhi, November 11
Expressing concern over fresh cases of polio being reported from the Capital, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today appealed to parents to administer polio drops to their children during the immunisation drive tomorrow.

“As many as 26 lakh children from newborns to five-year-olds would be administered drops tomorrow at 7,500 booths,” Ms Dikshit said after launching another phase of the Pulse Polio Immunisation Programme (PPIP) at her residence.

More than 23,000 personnel, including volunteers, will be involved in covering families in all parts of the Capital.—TNS