Greater Noida, November 15
A six-year-old child was kidnapped by armed bandits, who came in a Maruti
car from Surajpur.

The very next day, the elder brother of the child was also abducted by the same kidnappers and taken to an undisclosed place.

There the abductors rang up the parents of the brothers and demanded a ransom of Rs 50,000 for their release. The family of the victims has accused the Surajpur police of inaction.

Jaypal Jatav of Usmanpur, Dankore, works as a mason in Surajpur. His six-year-old son Arun had suddenly gone missing on November 12.

Next day his elder son, Vijender was taken away by three persons in a Maruti car on the pretext that they had some work for a mason in their house.

All the three criminals reportedly had revolvers with them.

The bandits had snatched Rs 4,500 from Vijender. Two more children who were kept with Arun were lying unconscious.

The robbers made Vijender ring up his father asking him to arrange for Rs 50,000 else Arun would be killed by the kidnappers.

Somehow Vijender was able to escape from the clutches of the kidnappers and narrated the whole story to circle officer, police Greater Noida, but police did not take a serious note of the matter.

Now SP (Rural) A.K. Vijeta has said that the police have taken this matter seriously and soon the accused will be nabbed.

New Delhi, November 15
“Spare the rod—it won’t spoil the child” so goes the title of a book compiled by 1,591 children from four states with cartoons showing children being beaten or getting their ears pulled to highlight the high prevalence of corporal punishment in schools and homes.

Written in an easy-to-understand manner, the book released on Tuesday is a product of research carried out in 41 government schools in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

Nine-year-old Sultana of Delhi, one of the kids who was part of the book making, said that corporal punishment is very common in her school and home.

“If we don’t do our homework, then we get beaten up by our teachers. When we were drawing the cartoons for the book, a boy sitting next to me said that he has experienced similar punishment.

“That’s why our drawings depict young children being beaten up by a rod or getting our ears pulled by teachers and parents,” Sultana told IANS.

The book is based on a study conducted by Plan India, an organisation which works to secure the rights of children.

K. Kannan of Plan India said that two workshops, one in Delhi and the other in Uttar Pradesh, were held for the children and they were asked to express themselves through caricatures on what their idea was about an ideal school, how do they view their teachers and what their interaction with their teachers was like.

“The workshops were conducted after our team had visited the schools and interacted with the teachers, students and parents separately. What we concluded at the end of the study was that corporal punishment was seen as a necessary tool to bring up children.”

According to Kannan, the book would inculcate the need for “positive disciplining” among teachers and parents, and also make children aware of it.

In one school, a teacher admitted to hitting children saying she was left with no other option.

“There are too many children in my class and I have a lot of teaching task on my hands. Then, we are always running short of time to complete the syllabus. All of this leaves me with no option but to resort to corporal punishment to control the class,” one teacher said.

Randeep Kaur, children advisor of Plan India, said that there is almost always a power struggle between the teacher and the student and the parent and the child, all of which leads to the child being on the wrong side of the rod.

States like Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Chandigarh, West Bengal, Orissa and Tamil Nadu have banned corporal punishment in schools, but as the study saw, in two of the states —Delhi and Andhra Pradesh—it very much exists despite the ban.

The book is in English and will be translated into Hindi and distributed among schoolchildren in 10 states, including the ones where the study has been conducted.

The 10 states include Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.

Plan India will also launch a Young Hearts campaign in which they will launch the Model School Initiative—on creating an ideal school in which there is no violence. “In the language of the children, there are only happy faces in the school and no sad ones,” said Kannan. — IANS

New Delhi, November 15
The Delhi High Court has directed the law enforcing agencies to issue guidelines for their personnel to prevent any untoward incident during the rallies and processions in the city.

Justice Reva Khetrapal observed this while hearing a petition filed by a social activist Vimal Bhai, alleging police inaction against the Bajrang Dal and VHP activists who beat him during the ‘Trishul diksha’ programme four years ago.

The commissioner of police and other law enforcing agencies, including the directors of CISF and CRPF should issue comprehensive guidelines to the personnel working under them to ensure that no untoward incident takes place in the course of the frequent rallies and processions within the National Capital Territory of Delhi and its adjoining area, Justice Khetrapal directed.

The court also ordered to depute security personnel sporting their names and designations at a particular spot while mapping the routes for the rallies, and the named security officials shall be held responsible for any incident which takes place within the radius of that particular spot.

Those equipped with lathis, dandas, batons, short staff or any other instruments, which may be used as weapon of offence... should not be allowed to participate in the rally or procession till disarmed, the court observed asking the police to immediately seize the weapons to maintain peace.

Directing the police to give effect to the existing law, the court said, the miscreant should be arrested immediately and produced before a magistrate. The judge can release the offender on furnishing a bond after the police ascertain the real name and address of the person, the court added.

Callous and indifferent attitude and dereliction of duty by the personnel posted at the spot be dealt with by the higher authorities in a stringent manner and the promotional avenues of such personnel be blocked.

Noida, November 15
From which country did ice-cream originate? What is the recipe of your favourite ice-cream? What does your favourite flavour say about your personality?

If your ‘ice-cream quotient’ is low then a visit to the country’s first ice-cream museum, launched at Noida on Wednesday, is a must.

“Ice-cream and children have a long lasting and intrinsic relationship. This initiative is an attempt to do something unique and ever lasting for our young patrons,” Samir Kuckreja, CEO and managing director of Nirula’s group, one of country’s leading restaurant and ice-cream parlour chain, told IANS.

Located inside the company’s ice-cream factory, the way to the museum has strawberry pink and butterscotch yellow coloured walls with huge cutouts of ice-cream cones and message boards on it.

The wall facing the entrance is a colourful world map. Dotted lines and ice-cream cones trace the journey of this frozen dessert through various countries.

A flowchart of ice-cream history tells us that it is believed to have originated in Persia and even the high and mighty has fallen to its charms.

Greek king Alexander used to love his iced wines and Roman emperor Nero would send men to collect snow, which was then flavoured with honey and nuts.

The wall also tells us that the Arabs were the first to add sugar to ice-cream to make it commercial. While Chinese started freezing fruit juices and mix milk with rice for a better taste.

Ice-cream debuted in India in the 16th century when Mughal emperors asked their horsemen to get snow from the Hindukush mountains to Delhi. Mughal chefs later invented ‘kulfi’.

One of Marco polo’s find, on his trip to China, was the ice-cream, which he took back with him to Italy. Later the recipe reached France, Germany and the US.

Entrance leads to the mixing room, a heaven for the ice-cream lover. In this room thousands of litres of milk, sugar and emulsifier is mixed in huge containers and converted into ice-cream.

The room is covered with posters of the group’s every single flavour of the month since 1970.

Below the mixing room is the plant, where one can ‘play’ with ice-cream. Here one can mix the flavours, add nuts to your favourite flavour and fill them into tubs.

The posters in this room tell you that your favourite flavour is not just a matter of taste but is actually a reflection of your character, strawberry—artistic, chocolate—naughty and vanilla—sincere.

“This is the only ice-cream factory of our chain restaurant. It presently makes 10,000 litres of ice-cream every day and supplies it all our outlets. By the end of next month, we will start producing 20,000 litres of ice-cream,” said Kuckreja.

“What could have been better than an ice-cream museum, which not only indulges kids with their relished treat but also teaches them a lot more about history, culture and tradition of the ice-cream across different nations.” — IANS

New Delhi, November 15
The journey from Dwarka to Indira Gandhi Airport will soon take less time with the Delhi cabinet approving a proposal to construct a 3.5 km underground metro linking the two destinations.

The line between Dwarka sector-21 and IGI Airport would be completely underground and no additional station would be required on this extension, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit told reporters yesterday after the cabinet meeting.

The Indraprastha-Connaught Place-Dwarka corridor of metro is already operational up to sector-9 Dwarka and extension beyond sector-9 to sector-21 is already under progress, she said.

The new link from Dwarka side up to IGI Airport has been considered essential to reduce the journey time, cost and congestion on roads and to protect the environment.

The new link would cost Rs 793 crore. No check-in facilities and baggage handling system would be in position at sector-21 Dwarka since the travel time between sector-21 to IGI Airport would be hardly four minutes, Dikshit added.

She expressed confidence that the new link would provide an alternative metro route up to IGI Airport.

New Delhi, November 15
Managing director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) E. Sreedharan, today gave an award to a Metro train operator Kapil Anand for saving the life of a Metro commuter on November 13 at Seelampur Metro station.

The commuter, identified as 22-year-old Sajid, is a resident of Zafrabad in the Seelampur area.

He had jumped onto the tracks, just before the arrival of the Metro train at the Seelampur station.

Anand noticed Sajid on the tracks and showed great presence of mind and applied the emergency brakes immediately.

As a result of his prompt action, he was able to stop the train 3-4 meters before the person, thus saving the commuter’s life.

The DMRC awarded Anand a citation and a cash award.

New Delhi, November 15
The TCS IT Wiz, conducted by the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), received a massive response.

Over 1,000 students from more than 90 schools participated in this year’s Delhi edition of TCS IT Wiz—India’s largest inter-school IT Quiz which was held on Thursday at the Siri Fort Auditorium.

After some intense quizzing and a keen contest, Raghav Khullar and Vansh Muttreja from Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram walked away with the coveted winners trophy, along with a laptop each, closely followed by Saurabh Sood and Bhupendra Singh from Cambridge School, Noida as Runners-up who received their trophy along with an ipod nano each.

Prizes were distributed by the Chief Guest Kiran Karnik, president, NASSCOM, along with Debashish Ghosh, VP and Head, TCS North and Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice-president and Head - Global Government Industry Group, TCS.

The six teams which made it to the regional finals after the written prelims won a back pack, multipurpose headphones, mouse pads with USB drive, travel CD pouches, coffee table books and T-shirts from TCS and Fastrack watches from Titan. The high level competition among the six teams on stage, the innovative format of the rounds and the interactive style of quizzing by Quizmaster Giri Pickbrain of grey caps made the Quiz very exciting.

The Quiz focused on world of internet and unique websites, IT buzzwords and acronyms, IT Personalia, advertisements of IT and communication companies, software products, companies, brands, history of IT etc.

Besides, education, entertainment, books, multimedia, internet, banking, advertising and sports will also be covered during the quiz

The scale of the TCS IT Wiz has been expanded further this year with the quiz visiting 11 cities across the country starting in Chennai in August and ending in Ahmedabad in December. The Quiz which was kickstarted in Chennai moved on to Bangalore, Kochi Kolkata, Bhubaneswar. After Delhi edition, the TCS IT Wiz will move to Pune and Mumbai before culminating in Ahmedabad. This nationwide event is expected to reach out to more than 13,000 students across the country.

The TCS IT Wiz is open to school students studying from class 8-12. The Quiz strives to enhance IT awareness among students, keeping them abreast of the latest developments in the world of IT, as information technology plays an integral role in today’s society and economy.

The Quiz also acts as a catalyst to trigger a passion for technology among students, which is the objective of the program.

New Delhi, November 15
Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee would inaugurate a debate on “Media as People’s Voice–Pre and Post Independence”, here tomorrow at the Vigyan Bhawan as part of the National Press Day Celebrations, a Press Council of India (PCI) statement said here today.

Information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi will be the Guest of Honour at the function.