New Delhi, June 16
There is something fundamentally wrong the way we are managing our river cleaning programmes.

As per Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) director Sunita Narain, the country has already spent close to Rs 1,500 crore on cleaning the Yamuna, and the river has become dirtier.

"Our planners believe in spending money without understanding the connection between sewage and its disposal and river pollution," Narain said at a media briefing workshop 'The State of Our Rivers, workshop on rivers- river pollution and cleaning strategies', organised by the CSE.

The workshop brought together river pollution experts, civil society representatives and the national river cleaning bureaucracy to brief the media and demystify the key issues. About 30 journalists from leading media houses and publications from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand participated in the workshop.

Suresh Babu of CSE's River Pollution Unit says that the Yamuna is an apt chronicler of the state of our rivers. "Delhi, of course, is its biggest polluter -- followed by Agra, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. Pollution levels in the river have risen. BOD load has increased 2.5 times between 1980-2005. DO levels in the upper segments, considered pristine, are dipping -- indicating an increase in organic pollution. By the time the river is midway through Delhi, the total coliform count is so high that it is difficult to count the zeroes."

Narain pointed that "water stress" was bound to grow in coming years, and that cities of the future must be built without using more water. Rivers and the way they are used, naturally, acquire critical dimensions in this context.

The current river-cleaning paradigm, which relies almost entirely on hardware-based solutions, also indulges in a mindless game of treatment and re-treatment.

The challenge, said Narain, was not the treatment of waste, but how capable are our cities of reusing the treated waste.

As per the CSE, the aim of the workshop was to understand the condition of our rivers and the levels of pollution they face, examine existing river cleaning programmes and try to derive lessons from them and discuss the alternate strategies that could give our rivers a new life - with a special focus on the Yamuna as a representative case.

New Delhi, June 16
After sweeping cinegoers across the world off their feet, the charm of South India's biggest superstar Rajnikanth is swaying the Delhiites too, with the actor's latest release 'Shivaji' opening to packed houses in the city theatres.

'Shivaji', which hit cinema screens worldwide yesterday to an overwhelming audience response, has evoked tremendous curiosity among the cinegoers in Delhi, who are normally cold to films featuring regional superstars.

Trade sources said the cinema halls screening the Rajnikanth-starrer in the national Capital region- Delhi and Gurgaon was witnessing record crowds of cinegoers with a huge clamour for tickets of the movie.

The sources said the overwhelming response to the film in Delhi came as a surprise considering that the film was in Tamil with subtitles inserted for the benefit of non-Tamil audiences.

Also striking was the fact that the film was attracting not only South Indians, among whom Rajni has a huge fan following, but also a large number of North Indians and local Delhiites, many of whom were drawn to the theatres due to the tremendous hype around the film in recent weeks.

Going by the huge audience response for 'Shivaji', PVR cinemas, which is screening the film at its two audis in Gurgaon and one each in Naraina and Vikaspuri, is planning to double the number of audis screening the film from next week.

In fact, trade analysts say that the huge response generated by 'Shivaji' in Delhi, considering that it is releasing alongside the hugely-hyped Yash Chopra production 'Jhoom Barabar Jhoom', featuring an ensemble of Bollywood stars like superstar Amitabh Bachchan, his son and current teenage heartthrob Abhishek Bachchan, the perky Preity Zinta, the debonair Bobby Deol and the ravishing Lara Dutta, is an evidence of the huge fan following commanded by Rajnikanth among the Indian cinegoers.

Touted as the costliest Indian film to hit the silver screen in recent times, 'Shivaji' has been released over an estimated 850-900 screens worldwide, the largest for an Indian film.

Gurgaon, June 16
Taking cognisance of the crime following a report in 'The Tribune' on June 11, the Chief Administrator (CA), Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), Panchkula, has cancelled its order of allowing the transfer of institutional plot no. 45 in Sector 32, Gurgaon.

On the basis of incomplete and manipulated reports of the Estate Office, HUDA, Gurgaon, the CA had transferred the plot, worth more than Rs 15 crore to a company illegally via memo no. A-5-2007/18922, May 23.

Anurag Aggarwal, administrator, Head Quarter, HUDA informed that the order dated May 23 had been withdrawn via memo no. A-5-2007/21412, June 13.

Senior officers at HUDA, Gurgaon have been directed not to implement the decision regarding change of constitution till further orders in this matter.

All the original record concerning the plot including original plot file has been sought by the headquarter, informed the sources.

It may be recalled that M/s Inertia Industries Limited was allotted this plot in June 1995. Sunil Kumar Tandon was managing director of the company at that time.

However, he suffered losses in business and sold all his shares of Inertia to the famous liquor UB group which renamed it as Millennium Beer Industries Limited (MBIL).

The MBIL, formerly Inertia Industries Limited, requested to HUDA to surrender the plot and refund the amount deposited so far with it.

However, Sunil Kumar Tandon allegedly fabricated the records and other documents in collusion with senior officer of Estate Office, HUDA, Gurgaon. and ultimately got it transferred to his another company M/s Icon Investment Limited on May 23 whereas he has no legal locus standi on the said plot.

Govind Iyengar, assistant vice-president (AVP), Legal and Secretarial, MBIL informed that Tandon had nothing to do with the plot as the UB group had bought all assets of Inertia Industries Limited and taken over the company.

"We are contemplating of taking legal action against all the concerned persons including HUDA officials who tried to transfer the plot illegally to a third party without seeking our consent. HUDA must refund our amount immediately as we had requested them numerous times," demanded Iyengar.

The Estate Office, HUDA had not mentioned the fact to his seniors that the new original owner (MBIL) of the plot had requested to surrender the plot and rather on the other hand, had recommended the transferring of plot to M/s Icon Investment Limited putting all rules and regulations at bay, alleged a senior officer of HUDA.

No officers of HUDA came forward to reply if any action would be taken against the erring officials who tried to grab the institutional plot.

New Delhi, June 16
If you have recently taken to gulping chilled beer to beat the scorching heat and at the same time flushing your kidneys of toxins and stones to make them stronger, you have a surprise coming.

Exhaustive research carried out by urologists now claims that this is at best a misconception and a myth.

Beer has no such healing power of flushing out crystallised stones from the kidneys. In fact, drinking an equal amount of water could be better since beer increases the amount of uric acid and toxins present in the body.

Dr B. S. Bansal, head physician and chairman, RG Stone Urological Research Institute, here says there is no doubt excessive beer consumption results in heavy urination because of the enormous pressure built after taking the drink in such large quantities.

But the catch lies in the fact that beer which is in fact just barley water gives the same effect as that of normal water.

So had our water intake been the same as beer the effect of water, for that matter any liquid, would have been the same, causing our bodies to expel 2-2.5 litres of urine per day which in any case would definitely help us flush out the smaller stony particles from our system.

Possibly, the most unfortunate part of all this is that people unwittingly go beer drinking because of the myth and adversely affect their health as it contains high content of oxalates and uric acid.

Moreover, beer and other alcoholic beverages also contain purines which further increase the amount of uric acid in urine, which may further increase the risk in susceptible people.

As blood already contains some amount of uric acid and oxalates when beer, high in these contents, comes into contact with these, the risk of kidney stones along with various other medical problems just intensifies.

Hence, it should be noted that beer drinking binges in any case increase uric acid and the risk for stones so it is always better to drink water than gallons of beer.

According to urologists, the trouble starts then when though the smaller crystallized particles get washed out of the system because of high intake of liquid diet as beer.

The bigger ones get stuck and block the uretric passage in between, giving way to excruciatingly painful effects as the stone gets larger (due to more deposition of silts) and urination becomes difficult.

Worse happens still when the uretric passage gets totally blocked and soon results in bleeding accompanied by vomiting, fever and sometimes even serious infections in the urinary tract, all of which are extremely agonising conditions that need immediate medical aid.

Both Delhi government and NHRC have launched probes into the deaths, while the Delhi High Court has set up a committee to look into the matter.

Gurgaon/Delhi, June 16
Just two days of moderate rainfall has taken a toll on roads here, which were repaired recently.

Almost all old colonies sloshed. The Civil Lines, which has the residences of the Deputy Commissioner, the Commissioner of

Police and other departmental heads, had accumulated water compelling pedestrians to wade through it.

The HUDA's Sectors 31 and 32; the road connecting Jal Vau Vihar and national highway from Sector 56 were in a mess. The posh Sector 14 also had its share of problems.

Urban minister Savitri Jindal, who came here to preside over the monthly District Grievances and Redressal Committee meeting, was openly critical of both the Public Health Department and Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) on the plight of the city. Her remarks came right in the midst of the meeting.

A resident of Sector 23 alleged that the residents of the city were already reeling under shortage of power and potable water

 Now they fear floods. Heavy showers lashed Delhi for a second consecutive day today, plummeting the mercury and maintaining coolness in the Capital.

Following heavy rains last evening, which the weatherman said could be the first pre-monsoon showers to hit Delhi, the city was lashed by another spell of heavy rains this morning.

The showers, which hit Delhi at 8 am, brought down the mercury level by several degrees. The minimum temperature dropped to 23.5 degrees Celsius, six degrees below normal.

About 25 mm of rainfall was recorded this morning. With, this a total of 65.3 mm of rainfall has been recorded in Delhi in the last 24 hours. The weatherman said these showers were an offshoot of South-Easterly winds blowing through the Capital for the last few days.

With the influence of the Easterlies prevailing, more showers are expected in the coming days. The Met office has forecast a cloudy sky in Delhi during the next 24 hours with a few more spells of rain and thundershowers accompanied with squalls in some areas.

They also predicted a fall in the maximum temperature in Delhi to 35 degrees today.

The BBC also forecast some heavy rains in the Capital in the next two to three days.

Ghaziabad, June 16
The pradhan of Bhanera village was shot dead by four armed assailants.

Muradnagar's Bhanera village pradhan Babloo Tyagi was going to Kidwainagar from his residence in Satyanagar to make payments to the workers.

Four assailants came from behind the T crossing and sprayed bullets on him.

One of the assailants shot at his head from point blank range. Villagers rushed him to Yashoda Hospital at Ghaziabad, where doctors declared him brought dead. SSP Deepak Ratan and senior police officials rushed to the spot.

Police suspected the motive behind the murder could be political enmity. The police has detained several persons for questioning.

Further, the INSO spokesperson Amit Sahni said if students come across any such tout, they should report the matter to the police and the university authorities. The INSO helpline numbers are:9868708236, 9212513500, 9868407007, 9213663322.

"One needs to know the actual hike to negotiate with the drivers", says Meenakshi Shrikhand.

Faridabad, June 16
Three incidents of crime, including bag snatching ,in Ballabgarh town has made the residents insecure.

Several residents have met the police authorities demanding steps to check such incidents.

A bag containing an amount of Rs 91000 was snatched from a trader in Ballabgarh town by three motorcycle -borne youths.

Victim Kailash Gupta was going on a two-wheeler to deposit the amount.

Residents of Mastana Chowk allege that the police post in the area didn't register a report regarding an attempt to break into a jewellery shop on Friday night.

A delegation of the locals met the SSP .Youths came in a jeep and a motorcycle and tried to break open the lock of the shop, but had to abort it after the residents challenged them at about 3.30 a.m yesterday.

Thieves stole 350 cans of refined oil from a shop in the same market on Thursday night.

At least five bodies were found by the police from various spots in the district in the past 24 hours.

New Delhi, June 16
The DDCA Hot Weather Cricket Tournament matches got wet in the heavy downpower in the morning.

All the five matches scheduled for the day were decided through the spin of coin.

Delhi Police proved lucky with the coin against Youngsters Club to move into the pre-quarter-final at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground, while Mishra Sports beat S.B. Youth at the St.Stephen's ground.