New Delhi, December 22
Delhi Police on Saturday filed a supplementary chargesheet against Tariq Ahmed Dar, Mohd Hussain Fazali and Mohd Rafiq Shah in connection with the Sarojini Nagar blasts which rocked Delhi two years ago.

The chargesheet was filed in the court of Additional Sessions Judge Babulal, who posted the matter to January 4 for consideration.

In the chargesheet, police said Tariq Ahmed Dar was in contact with Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Abu Alqama, Abu Zefa, Rafiq and Zaid before the blasts through his mobile phone.

The phone numbers, 9906719815 and 9906773692, which Dar was using were registered in the name of Khurshid Ahmed and it was proved through investigations that no such person existed in that area.

Police have made the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) report the basis of the supplementary chargesheet, which clearly indicates the role of Dar.

Police gave a clean chit to the owner of the truck in which the explosive was to be brought to Delhi. They said it was brought in a Maruti Zen registered in the name of Dar’s brother with registration number JK 01 H 6731.

On February 8, 2006, Delhi Police had filed the first chargesheet in the case. It had named Dar and Rafiq Shah as prime accused. Both had been named as prime accused in the Govindpuri and Paharganj blasts cases as well.

According to the chargesheet, the serial explosions were intended by Pakistan-based LeT terrorists to spread panic.

“This incident is caused knowingly by some terrorist organisation with the intention to wage war against the government to spread a sense of fear in the people in general and with the intention to cause serious injuries and to kill people,” the chargesheet said.

Mohammad Hussain Fazli, who was named in the FIR and is at present lodged in Gurgaon’s Bhondsi jail, is not named in the chargesheet. He had been named in the FIR for transferring money to Dar and Shah.

Sixty-two people were killed in the bomb explosions at the bustling Sarojini Nagar market a few days before Diwali in 2005. — IANS

Ghaziabad, December 22
A man in Garh Mukteshwar, whose wife had left the house two days ago, found the chant of his three minor daughters for their mother so annoying that he took them to the middle of the river Ganga and drowned them one by one in the strong current.

He also tried to drown himself in the river. But hearing the cries of the girls, some people rescued them and brought them to the river bank. In the meantime, two girls died due to suffocation and asphyxia.

The angry people who had rescued the girls beat up the man Sompal. The surviving daughter Minakshi was admitted to a hospital. Sompal, a resident of Amroha, said he was married 10 years ago to Lakshmi, a resident of Haldwani, near Naini Tal. She had walked out of the house two days earlier after a tiff with him.

Worried at wife’s leaving him, Sompal was further upset by his daughters’ constant chant for bringing their mother back. To add to his problems, his landlord also asked him to vacate the house.

He then thought of killing his daughters by drowning them in the Ganga.

He took his daughters Minakshi, 8, Deeksha, 6, and Suman, 3, and reached Brij Ghat, Garh Mukteshwar at 12 noon on Friday and stayed at the river bank till 5 p.m. when the tide became low.

He took them to the middle of the river and started drowning them one by one. Some daring people jumped into the river and somehow rescued the three girls.

But by that time Suman and Deeksha had died but Minakshi was still breathing. She was rushed to a hospital where she is out of danger. Sompal was thrashed by people and later handed over to police.

New Delhi, December 22
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today called for security to Jasbir Singh, a US-based witness of a 1984 anti-Sikh riots case against former union minister Jagdish Tytler.

“It is quite intriguing that the Congress-led centre has not yet come out with any statement over the revelations about alleged complicity of a senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in the riots in the aftermath of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination. More so when another riot victim Surinder Singh claimed to be an eyewitness to Jagdish Tytler leading a mob lynching three Sikhs on November 1, 1984. The government should have ensured protection to Jasbir by now. It would have helped him depose before the court hearing the case,’’ said SAD Delhi chief Avtar Singh Hit, a close lieutenant of Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal.

He said the centre should take the responsibility of Jasbir Singh’s security to ensure that he deposes in the case as soon as possible.

A local court last week ordered the CBI to reinvestigate the anti-Sikh riots case against the former union minister and ensure speedy questioning of Jasbir Singh, presently settled in the US.

A CNN IBN investigation yesterday claimed that a person Surinder Singh allegedly saw Jagdish Tytler lead a mob which killed three Sikhs on November 1, 1984.

“While Jasbir Singh only heard Tytler inciting the mob to kill, Surinder Singh, hiding on the fourth floor of Gurudwara Pulbangash, actually saw the macabre killings,’’ the report said.

‘’I saw three killings by a mob led by Jagdish Tytler,’’ the report quoted Surinder as saying.

Tytler is said to have submitted to the CBI officials a CD yesterday. The CD is reported to have shown him present at funeral pyre of Indira Gandhi at the time when he was accused by Jasbir of leading the rampaging mob in Pulbangash area.
— IANS

He told the police that he had been living in Delhi for the past seven years. Here also Ishtiaque was caught with fake currency and sent to jail.

New Delhi, December 22
The Congress government in Delhi has called the winter assembly session only for three days. This is the smallest session in its history.

There are a number of burning issues to be raised by the opposition in the session. But in a three days session, these issues cannot be discussed.

The BJP MLAs demanded that the winter session should of 10 sittings at least. The government is suppressing the voice of Delhiites and does not want their grievances to be raised in the House, leader of opposition, Jagdish Mukhi said.

After returning from the campaign in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, BJP MLAs opined that people were fed up with the Congress government now and victory in both the states is almost assured.

BJP MLAs pledged that they would jointly throw away the corrupt Sheila government in the ensuing assembly elections in 2008.

Mukhi said for the last nine years, the Delhi government had been showing dreams of wonderland to the citizens of the Capital.

As the elections are coming closer, the government has started making tall promises to the public.

In spite of repeated announcements and promises for regularization of unauthorized colonies, the government has failed to regularize them.

Lakhs of people living in these areas are living in a pitiable condition due to lack of civic amenities.

The Delhi government has again asked the residents of unauthorized colonies to form the society and also impose unpractical conditions for the regularization of unauthorized colonies. Due to these conditions it would be difficult to regularize them, Mukhi said.

New Delhi, December 22
The Delhi Police on Saturday moved an application before a local court recommending narco-analysis test of three persons - including of the victim’s husband - in the death of designer Mona Suri.

In an application before metropolitan magistrate Tarun Sehrawat, the investigating officer asked for the narco-analysis test of husband Naveen Suri, his friends Rajeev and Rachna for further investigation.

The 36-year-old Mona was set on fire allegedly by two motorcycle borne men, who poured kerosene on her outside her South Delhi home on August 12.

She succumbed to her injuries on October 21. Naveen was apparently having an affair with another woman to which his wife objected.

The court asked the investigating officer to submit a detailed report by January 22. It said that a decision on the narco-analysis tests would be taken on the same 
date. — IANS

New Delhi, December 22
A city court today expressed its dissatisfaction over the probe into the alleged gang rape of a woman, by four officials of the Delhi Jal Board, last year, and asked the joint commissioner (crime) of the Delhi Police to supervise the investigations.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate A.K. Kohar directed the police to file a fresh status report by January 18 on the investigations under the supervision of the joint commissioner.

The victim, an executive with a private firm that did contract work for the Jal Board, has accused four persons, including a retired engineer, of assaulting her on October 8 last year.

The investigating officer in the case, Jaswant Kaur, said that in the earlier status report the clothes allegedly worn by the complainant during the incident and the bed sheet on which the incident reportedly happened had been taken into custody.

They had been sent to the forensic science laboratory (FSL), Delhi, for examination.
— IANS

New Delhi, December 22
Members of various industry and trade associations have joined the chorus of objections to the Multi Year Tariff (MYT) proposal of DERC to hike tariffs for the combined four-year term.

“We have been informed by various trade and industry bodies that they support our demand to scrap the MYT proposals and instead demand a reduction of at least 25 per cent in power tariffs based on the profits collected by the Discoms over the last five years,” said Sanjay Kaul, president of People’s Action.

Calling the proposal a ‘death-knell’ for industry due to the high cost of power in Delhi, members of industry have expressed dismay at the regulator’s disdain for consumers, particularly bulk and commercial users.

S.K. Maheshwari, gen. secretary of the Patparganj F.I.E. Entrepreneurs Association, said, “In the last tariff hike which was withdrawn, industry was left out of any relief and this new proposal is contrary to expectations of industrialists. We were now waiting for a reduction in tariff based on the handsome profits collected by private Discoms in the last five years thanks to highly beneficial terms of the contract.”

He confirmed, “Many of our members have submitted objections as scheduled and we hope that the DERC will finally act in favour of consumers this time.”

Secretary general of Confederation of the All India Traders (CAIT), Praveen Khandelwal has also expressed support to the RWAs demand for a reduction of tariff based on the last five years performance and the exorbitant commercial rates being collected by the Discoms for the last five years.

“We have already expressed our support to the demand for reduction of tariffs and we comprehensively reject the MYT concept,” said Khandelwal.

RWAs and NGOs involved in the sector have in the meantime argued for an extension of the last date for filing objections based on the complex nature of the calculations required to analyse the Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) filed by Discoms.

Residents have expressed doubt over the speed with which the DERC is trying to finish off the public consultation process.

“If the tariffs had to be decided in January, why were the ARRs not filed in October and notices issued by DERC then,” asked B.S. Sachdeva, former executive director, Power Finance Corporation.

New Delhi, December 22
Dr Ashok Kumar, Chief Medical Officer in Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been selected for “Vivekananda National Award for excellence in human resource development and training” by Indian Society of Training and Development (ISTD).

The ISTD is a premier national body for promotion of training and human resource development in the country, an MCD spokesman said.

This is the most prestigious national award in field of human resources development and training. The special award has been conferred for the first time on a medical doctor for excellence in training and HRD.

Dr Ashok Kumar has been working as Training Programme Officer in India Population Project-VIII under the MCD.

He has conducted more than 800 training programmes in the field of maternal and child health, adolescent health and training technology, etc. for doctors, nurses, health workers and community health volunteers.

He has been associated with various training activities in the corporation, state and national level.

Dr Kumar is well known for introducing innovative and participatory training practices in health. He has also been awarded “Dr AKN Sinha National Award for Distinguished Services to Medical Profession” by Indian Medical Association in 2004, the spokesman said.

Three .315 live cartridges along with ‘katta’ were also recovered from his possession.

New Delhi, December 22
Memories of partition are perhaps the most defining moments in lives of those, who have lived through the cataclysmic event.

While it is still possible to hear the first-hand account from the families, who survived the traumatic experience of moving from one place to another during the period of unprecedented violence, it is not easy to find pictorial expressions.

The exhibition of paintings by Sardari Lal Parasher at the India Habitat Centre makes one feel the pain and anguish of the artist during the dark days of partition.

The exhibition, which is a part of the partition series, explores relatively the unadressed dimensions of the issue.

Parasher’s daughter Prajna Paramita Parasher said it was not a conscious effort to paint but reflected the pain and despair of the artist.

“Trauma brings with it the need to speak, to somehow make an impression on the world that records the outrage of the moment. But trauma also stuns, dazing us into silence. When there is the most to be expressed, we are least up to the task. The traumatised carry an impossible history with them or they become the symptom of a history that they cannot possess because it is intimately bound up with the question of truth,” she said.

Speaking from both a historical and theoretical point of view, Prajna who is an associate professor at Catham College in the US, imbued her lecture with several anecdotes concerning the life of the self-effacing artist, whose work was admired by former Prime Minister Pt Jawaharlal Nehru.

The artist lived in a camp, after coming to India from Pakistan. “It is record of the moment, much like a photograph,” she said later.

New Delhi, December 22
The billion-dollar Indian film industry is reinventing itself to get the maximum out of digital proliferation in mass media. And, the role model is Hollywood.

It is preparing to go beyond the diaspora audience in the West by making full use of digitised distribution networks, which are gradually replacing traditional methods. Digital distribution has an edge in terms of cost and speed.

Efforts are on to work out a two-edit format for Indian films especially those from Bollywood that are distributed abroad.

“There is a lot of curiosity about Indian films from the mainstream audience abroad. But, the novelty factor wears off very soon. There has to be a mechanism to make Bollywood cinema compatible with the Western audience,” said a Mumbai-based film marketing giant, Navin Shah, CEO, P9 Integrated.

Films will be edited twice - once for the audience in India and, then, for the ‘white market’ abroad. For the foreign audience, the duration of Indian films will be cut short. According to Shah, the time will be reduced from two-and-a-half hours to roughly 90 minutes.

“Indian films are full of song and dance sequences, but the white audience is not used to it. The number of songs and dances will be cut down,” Shah told IANS.

‘Alam Ara’, the first talkie film in Hindi, reportedly, had seven songs and many films that followed it were musicals. Early productions sometimes featured as many as 40 songs. However, the number of songs and dances, on an average, now is restricted to six.

The industry is even planning to change the nature of promotionals. Bollywood film promos are mostly collages - a jumble of shots and snatches of dialogues, whereas Hollywood promos usually convey the stories in a nutshell.

“The industry will employ people to design promos and media footage like those in Hollywood so that the audience abroad gets an idea what the film is all about,” Shah said.

Another medium that distributors intend to use is YouTube.“It is one of the top 15 popular sites in the world. Indian films can be uploaded on YouTube to build a movie library and viewed by users for free. It will check piracy,” said Marcus Stuart, executive vice-president, Eros International, Britain, a content distribution firm.

Outreach tools in the entertainment media have been morphing for some time. At least 50 top Indian brands are talking to the global audience.

Banks like — ICICI and companies like — MDH and firms that make tobacco products are using local content for brand promotion abroad.

“This helps small-time filmmakers market their wares to the mainstream audience in the West,” Shah said.

Tourism boards are also promoting Bollywood abroad in a big way. “I have at least nine foreign tourism boards on my list of clients, who sell Bollywood destinations and also push Indian content in their respective countries. The Singapore tourism board is one of them,” Shah said. NTOs like Visit Britain have unveiled special Bollywood tourism maps this year.

The popularity of Indian film events, featuring Bollywood stars abroad and live telecasts of the same, has also taken Indian mass entertainment beyond the Asian audience in the West. — IANS

All parents want their children to be toppers. Therefore, there is no place for
slow learners.

Nobody has the time or tolerance to cope up with kids suffering from dyslexia and Aamir Khan smartly tackles this issue in his first directorial venture ‘Taare Zameen Par’.

Some films are meant to entertain and inform. However, this one is an eye opener and a must watch.

Bullying of children by their parents is a shameful thing and as the story unfolds, you begin questioning your treatment with your child. As the film shows, the same yardstick cannot be used for every child.

The film is well scripted and all actors have done a good job although some dialogues are too heavy and preachy.

‘Taare Zameen Par’ would make for a good film for teachers and parents as well as kids who might be able to relate to the protagonist.

Emotions shown in the film are real and often strike the right chord. So don’t forget to carry tissue papers. Humanely covered in ‘Taare Zameen Par’ is the dilemma of Ishaan Awasthy (Darsheel Safary) - a child suffering from dyslexia.

His parents demand excellence from him in every aspect of life. When he fails to live up to their expectations, he is subjected to punishment and sent to a boarding school.

He begs them to not send him away, but the over ambitious father ignores him. Life becomes more difficult for little Ishaan in the boarding school. He is left alone to fend off bullies in the form of teachers.

The insensitivity of his peers, rough treatment by teachers and his parents’ inability to understand his problems take their toll on the nine-year-old boy.

Eventually, he loses interest in everything, including his favourite hobby —painting, and stops interacting with the outer world.

And, then, enters an unconventional art teacher Ram Kumar Nikumbh (Aamir Khan), who had faced a similar problem in his childhood and is able to connect with Ishaan. Nikumbh’s gentleness and devotion helps Ishaan overcome the trauma that he has suffered.

Though Ishsaan never expresses his fondness for Nikumbh, emotions reach a high point in the climax, when Ishaan’s painting fetches him the first prize.

For the first time, he is appreciated and applauded and, this sudden fame makes
him emotional.

Unable to hold his emotions, he runs up to Nikhumbh and hugs him in a touching revelation of his overwhelming gratitude.

A brilliant script by Anil Gupte and matured handling of a sensitive subject by Aamir leave viewers overwhelmed with tears rolling down their eyes.

If Darsheel’s name comes first in the credit, he deserves it. The gifted child artist demonstrates every nuance of a kid faced with such trauma, torture and humiliation and you feel like reaching out to him and comforting him. Aamir fits the bill of an art teacher.

If ‘Chak De! India’ highlighted the problems plaguing women’s hockey in the country, ‘Taare Zameen Par’ tackles a more sensitive social issue and ends the year on a positive note. — IANS