New Delhi, July 30
The Delhi Cabinet today gave its approval to a special voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for employees of Indraprastha Gas Corporation Limited (IPGCL) whose four coal-based units at I.P. Thermal Power Station and I.P. Station are to be decommissioned after the commissioning of 750 MW Gas-based power plant at Bamnauli and 500 MW units at Badarpur power station. Apart from this, the union ministry of health and family welfare's recommendation to constitute a separate health services cadre for Delhi, was also accepted. The cabinet was also apprised of the latest situation in respect of implementation of high capacity bus service (HCBS) route from Ambedkar Nagar to Delhi Gate. Interacting with media after the Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit stated that decommissioning of four coal-based units presently in operation at I.P Thermal Power Station and closing down of IP Station would affect 2,100 employees working in these plants. The units are to be decommissioned after commissioning of 500 MW units at Badarpur Power Station. The loss in installed capacity would also be compensated by the capacity addition of around 750 MW gas based power plant at Bamnauli.

It is expected that about 700 employees may avail the benefits of the VRS. The scheme would remain open for three months. Necessary funding arrangement of approximately Rs 116.75 crore initially would be made available for the VRS. The funding would be subsequently increased if the scheme has larger response. The cabinet had earlier taken a decision on May 7 this year to decommission the coal-based units at I. P. Thermal Power Station.

She added that two units at I. P. Thermal Power Station had outlived their lives as they were in operation for about 40 years and the union ministry of environment and forest had permitted continuation of the existing coal-based I. P. Power Station till December 31, 2010. Even consultant appointed by the Department of Power, has concluded that the plant has become unviable for further operation in its present condition and any investment for improvement of generation level of the plant will not be techno-economically feasible. Dikshit further said that in view of decommissioning of the existing coal-based units her government would initiate action for capacity addition by 750 MW Gas-Based Power Plant at Bamnauli.

She said that her government had in principle accepted union ministry of health and family welfare's recommendations on the issue of constitution of a separate health services under the Delhi government for effectively managing the health delivery system in the city. The department had been authorised to take consequential steps including holding of consultation with the UPSC either for the purposes of the framing of service regulation or seeking assessment of the suitability of the persons to be appointed under initial constitution. The initial constitution of service will provide for appointment by transfer from Central Government Health Services and absorption of those who have been appointed by the city government on contract basis on or before April 10, 2006.

The cabinet was also apprised of the latest situation in respect of implementation of a 14.5 kilometer HCBS route from Ambedkar Nagar to Delhi Gate at a revised cost of Rs 215.19 crore. There would be a delay of four months in commissioning of this project as shifting of the Delhi Jal Board pipeline falling in the section of the route will take more than six months and shift over from concrete pavement to bituminous pavement beyond Chirag Delhi flyover. 

New Delhi, July 30
Social Justice Minister Meira Kumar has said that despite progress towards social equity, the weaker sections were far away from realising their full growth potential.

Speaking on 'Inclusive Growth' at the national convention of International Goodwill Society of India here yesterday, she said caste system was still strong in the country. The minister said that as disparities persisted, task of inclusive growth was a challenege.

Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman K Rahman Khan said that private sector had a duty towards the less privileged sections of society. Rajya Sabha Secretary General Yogendra Narain, who is president of the International Goodwill Society, said social tensions can arise if growth is not inclusive.

He said despite the progress made by the country, nearly 25 crore people were still living in extreme poverty. Narain said there was need to improve access of the poor to the basic services such as primary education and health.

He said weaker sections of the society should be educated about their constitutional rights and programmes launched by the 
government.

New Delhi, July 30
Delhi unit BJP president Harsh Vardhan today held Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit responsible for the chaos in Delhi with regard to the public transport buses.

"The government's attitude towards the issue will lead to a rise in accidents and corruption," he alleged.

He said that for the last many weeks, the citizens of the Capital and NCR were facing acute shortage of buses.

"The Chief Minister and the transport minister who have stopped the private buses from operating in order to avoid accidents are actually increasing the accidents.

The arbitrary manner, in which the buses were taken off the roads without increasing the number of DTC buses, have resulted in the suffering of the general public," he alleged.

He alleged that the transport department was misleading the general public by giving false data on the DTC buses plying on the roads.

"There were about 3,100 buses in the fleet of DTC buses. Of these, about 1,000 buses are not able to come out of the depots because of lack of maintenance, shortage of spares and their unfit conditions.

Harsh Vardhan said that the Chief Minister had announced earlier that she would not allow the 'killer' Blueline buses to operate on the roads.

Afterwards it was announced that big corporate houses should be given the responsibility of operating buses in Delhi. "Now, the Chief Minister is saying that the Blueline buses will continue to operate on the roads. If these buses were to be allowed to operate, what was the justification in stopping them for some weeks," he said.

In the special testing campaign started from July 28, about 2,900 buses were declared fit. "It is surprising that even after being declared fit these buses are causing accidents. The same old buses are plying on the roads with red stickers," he said.

Harsh Vardhan alleged, "The buses which have been found fit are not according to the standards. Its bodies, seats, driver and conductor are all the same.

The suffering of the passenger has increased further because due to the scarcity of buses the people have to travel on the foot boards of the buses." 

New Delhi, July 30
Lack of cancer awareness that restricts the timely treatment has emerged as one of the greatest public health hazards.

Hence in an effort to arouse healthy cancer awareness, concerned doctors of the city like Dr Ajay Dewan, senior cancer surgeon, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre have put up a special helpline where formidable answers to suggestions will be relayed to clear all cancer curiosities during the entire cancer week from July 31 to August 7.

Elaborating on the campaign, Dr Dewan said, "There has always been a problem in identifying the disease early because of the lack of clear cut symptoms. But even more so lately it seems that individuals who do identify the likely symptoms avoid timely checks because of lack of awareness and thus risk a fatal cancer death."

However, the only thing that can put a stop to this alarming trend is the generation of healthy cancer awareness which include better knowledge of symptoms to active pursuit of medical help, he added.

Moreover, people should refrain from a range of certain avoidable

circumstances that could keep them safe from cancer. Leaving apart a range of unavoidable criteria such as age, genetics and environmental exposures, limitation of tobacco consumption and addiction that's on a rise today could bring forth remarkable results.

The persistence of its use alone has resulted in a rise of around 2.5 lakh cases of lung, throat and oral cancer, making it the leading killer of the times.

A healthier twenty-first century surely demands an urgent societal assurance to reducing and eradicating tobacco addiction for which awareness is a must, according to Dr Dewan.

The cancer expert says, "Tobacco and tobacco smoke contain at least 4,000 chemicals, of which 55 are known carcinogens.

A substance that leads to malfunctioning of the cancer resistant genes forms an easy bed for cancer aggravation in our bodies. Although nicotine does not cause cancer, addiction to nicotine exposes the user to carcinogens, which ultimately risk us to face a cancer death."

New Delhi, July 30
Artists today vehemently defended their right to freedom of expression and made an appeal to the civil society to be more tolerant to works of art.

Speaking at a panel discussion on 'Artistic Licence and Moral Policing' organsied by the Indian Women's Press Corps here today, art critic Suneet Chopra argued that the expression of an artist or a painting does not lead to a riot. "It is what others see in it. The intent of the interpreter is what has created chaos." Chopra said that the law enforcement agencies should be discerning in taking up complaints against so-called vulgar artwork. "Who is to blame when a private exhibition is roughed up and becomes a public issue?" Chopra asked.

Noted painter Nand Katyal said, "It is a national shame that a final year student of fine arts was jailed for his paintings."

Actress Nandita Das who has had an unpalatable taste of moral policing following screening of 'Fire', a film on lesbian relationship and during shooting of 'Water', a film on widows, observed, "All our private spaces are being attacked. Films we could do 50 years ago, paintings we could do 100 years ago, sculptures we could do 2000 years

ago, we cannot do any more."

Das said, "there are democratic means of disliking something but intolerance is dangerous. Let there be space for a voice of dissent."

Referring to the recent arrest of Chandra Mohan, a final year postgraduate student of Fine Arts in M.S. University in Baroda, Das said, "The fact that Chandra Mohan cannot come back (to the Faculty of Fine Arts) shows that something is wrong with our system."

Dancer Uma Sharma said that while exercising freedom of expression, artists should ensure that they don't offend religious sentiments by painting Gods and Godesses in the nude.

Parul Dev Mukherjee, dean, School of the Arts and

Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, who happened to see Chandra Mohan's paintings, while visiting the faculty on May 7 as an external examiner for theory papers, said that there was nothing offensive about them.

The paintings had been displayed at the annual exhibition in the Faculty of Fine Arts. Mukherjee said, "It was a large-sized painting of a nude female form with multiple arms giving birth to a fully grown male foetus and trying to kill it with a 'Trishul'. The general basis of anxiety about this painting is not so much nudity but the fact that the image projected a general anti patriarchal stand. Nudity is being used as an excuse. Another painting showed Jesus Christ on the cross with a three-dimensional commode." Mukherjee said, "it is regretful that Professor Pannicker, acting dean, in-charge, Faculty of Fine Arts at M.S. University has been suspended and charges against Chandra Mohan are yet to be withdrawn."

Tarun Vijay, editor of RSS publication 'Panchjanya', objected to noted artist M.F. Hussain's nude paintings of Hindu Godesses.

Noida, July 30
A Noida resident, who runs a call centre in Delhi, has not returned home for the past 10 days. He had reportedly gone to Moradabad to observe the death anniversary of a friend's father. On his family filing a missing report in the Sector-49 police station, a police team is understood to have left for Moradabad to trace him, SP city, Paresh Pandya said.

Ajay Malik, a resident of Amarpali Apartments in Sector-50, Noida, runs a call centre in Okhla Phase-I, Delhi. He had left home on July 20 saying that he was going to

Moradabad to observe the death anniversary of a friend Dharminder Nagar's father. The family has not heard from him since then. According to his family, his call centre has been running in losses for past few months. Ajay Malik, according to his family, was under a debt of Rs 30 lakh out of which Rs 20 lakh was a loan advanced by one, Ajay Khatri while Rs 10 lakh was on account of wages of company employees. Manjit Malik, brother of Ajay Malik, had filed a missing report in Sector-49 police station. He told the police that his brother looked quite normal when he left the house for Moradabad and as such no untoward incident could be suspected.

S.P. City Paresh Pandya said the case was being investigated. The police team sent to Moradabad reported that Ajay Malik had never reached the house of his friend. This has deepened the mystery of the case. S.P. City Pandya said police were keeping all possibilities in view while investigating. A police team was despatched to his company, 'Achiever Solutions' in Okhla Phase I, Delhi. An SOG team has also been involved in the investigations of the case, S.P. City added.

New Delhi, July 30
Her romance with India began when she came across a picture of the Taj Mahal in her social studies textbook at the age of 13. Twenty-one years later, as Masako Ono of Japan gracefully moves her hand during an Odissi dance movement, you know the romance is still on and in full swing.

A professional Odissi dancer, Ono has dance ingrained in her--Western classical ballet, flamenco, African, hip hop, contemporary, chhau, kalaripayattu and, of course, Odissi.

"It's in my genes," smiled the 34-year-old. With a thick stroke of eyeliner decorating her eyes and making them look large and "more Indian", Ono revealed that she has been dancing ever since she was four. "My parents met at a modern dance class. Although they are not professionals, they love to dance and used to take me along to all their classes. That's how it all began," Ono, who runs a dance school in Orissa, told IANS during a visit here.

While Ono did learn a variety of dance forms and attended different dance workshops, it was a video dance performance of Odissi dance maestro Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra at Tokyo that changed her life forever. "While I learned different dance forms, Odissi touched me like nothing else had or will ever have. After watching the video, I made up my mind to learn Odissi and rushed to the Indian embassy there and asked for its help.

"They directed me to Protima Bedi's dance school Nrityagram in Bangalore. The year was 1996 and there has been no looking back since then," Ono said.

All of 22, Ono packed her bags and came to India. Since she had visited the country earlier with her friends to see the Taj Mahal and had studied Hindi, Urdu and all about Indian culture as part of her India-Pakistan studies in college, she was confident of taking the trip alone.—IANS

Faridabad, July 30
A young married woman died under mysterious circumstances in her house in Sector-11 here this morning. She is reported to have died after consuming a poisonous substance. While her parents have alleged that she had been killed by her husband for dowry, it is reported that the husband of the deceased had already been admitted to local hospital since last night.

In a complaint lodged with the police yesterday, he had alleged that her wife had given him milk laced with poison in order to kill him.

It is learnt that while a case has been booked against the woman and her family, the police found the woman dead in her house this morning. The body has been sent for postmortem. The police have launched an investigation into the matter.

It may be recalled that another married woman had been killed under mysterious circumstances in Sector- 3 here a few days ago. While the husband had claimed that she was killed by the robbers who had burgled their house, the police claimed that the woman was stabbed to death by her husband who then staged a drama to befool the police and the neighborhood.

The police have claimed that the complainant had killed his wife as he was having an affair with his sister-in-law and wanted to marry her. 

Faridabad, July 30
In view of the reported slow work in the plantation during the rainy season, the district authorities pulled up the heads of various departments and directed them to speed up the pace to achieve the target this year.

The forest department plans to supply about eight lakh saplings to be planted in the city and the district this season. Faridabad is among the top 10 most polluted cities of the country and the plantation of trees is seen as a major way to tackle pollution.

Though the target of plantation this year has been lower than what it used to be earlier, the authorities have now perhaps recognized the fact that achieving high figures of plantation was not important, but what was necessary was to ensure the survival of the trees planted in a season.

Officiating Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Joon held a meeting of the officials of various departments this morning and directed them to ensure that they take up the work of plantation seriously and achieve the target, besides taking steps to ensure that the majority of the saplings survived.

It may be recalled that the survival rate of the trees planted each year had hardly been between 10 and 15 per cent, though the department concerned claim it to be over 80 to 90 per cent. A majority of the saplings or plants die due to lack of care, including lack of safety from stray animals and watering at proper intervals, said an employee of the district horticulture department.

He claimed that unless the plants were provided with treeguards, it was difficult to ensure their survival.

It is reported that the forest department which had been supplying the saplings to all the department free of cost had informed the office of the deputy commissioner that various departments had not been showing a proper interest in the work and the plantation had been rather slow. According to details, the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA), Agriculture, and the education department had been asked to plant 40,000 saplings each this season.

The Municipal Corporation Faridabad (MCF), Industries and the Haryana Financial Corporation have been given the target of 30,000 trees this year. The other departments which have been asked to plant a certain number of plants include Pollution Control Board, Nehru Yuva Kendra, mining, irrigation, PWD, veterinary, police, horticulture, technical education, women and child development, tourism, sports and the power supply department, among others.

The departments have been asked to take help of social welfare bodies, NGOs and business houses to ensure the upkeep of plants.