New Delhi, February 15
BJP leader Vijay Goel was hurt when the police used water cannon to control a crowd demonstrating against the price hike of petroleum products at Jantar Mantar today.

Organised by the Delhi unit of the BJP, the demonstration started at 12 Noon and was led by Delhi BJP president Dr. Harshvardhan. Leader of opposition in Delhi assembly Professor Jagdish Mukhi and almost 2000 workers also participated.

Condemning the use of water cannon on a peaceful demonstration, Goel said the police were targetting him for the reasons best known to them. He was badly hurt in the process.

“The demonstration was peaceful and required no police intervention. There should be an inquiry into the police conduct,’’ he demanded.

The protest is part of the BJP’s decision to take the issue to the streets across the country against the eighth hike imposed by the UPA government at centre.

Dr. Harshvardhan said that government had no justification for increasing the price of oil. This should be withdrawn immediately. Terming the protest of left parties as ridiculous drama, he said that the price of oil had been increased for the eighth time under the Congress rule. Petroleum minister Murli Deora has clearly stated that the price of oil has been increased with the consent of the left parties.

He demanded clarification from both the parties.

Addressing the rally Prof. Jagdish Mukhi said the hike in prices of petrol and diesel was not a result of the hike in prices of crude oil in the international market. This was due to the wrong policies adopted by the Central government. The main reason for petrol and diesel being dearer in the country was due to high taxes.

Prof. Mukhi said that inflation and the Congress were synonymous. Whenever Congress was in power inflation peaks, black-marketing of rations started, kerosene and LPG goes out of market, and the daily use goods for “aam aadmi” become dearer.

He said the LPG supply was in excess than the demand. Despite this the gas cylinder was available only in black market for Rs. 600 instead of its actual price of Rs. 295.

New Delhi, February 15
About 62 per cent of Indian women who smoke will die in their productive age as compared to 38 per cent of non-smokers, indicating that women smokers will lose about eight years of their life, says a new study.

The study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and was conducted by Indian, British and Canadian scientists, said women smokers are at a much higher risk of getting respiratory, heart and tuberculosis diseases as compared to non-smokers.

“For both men and women, the risks of smoking are evident even before age 50. Around 15 per cent of women smokers would die in the age of 30-49, as compared with seven per cent of non-smokers,” said the lead author of the study Prabhat Jha.

“While women smoking is not as common as men smoking, we have found that smoking by women in urban areas is on the increase,” Jha told IANS.

The study said one million smokers would die per year during the 2010s of which 700,000 would be men and 100,000 would be women.

The study said that 20 per cent of women smokers are at the risk of getting respiratory diseases as compared to seven per cent who don’t smoke.

“It has been found that alcohol consumption affects women more in comparison to men. In the same manner, tobacco affects women more. Quitting smoking is the only way of living a long life,” Jha said.

About 12 per cent of women smokers are at the risk of dying of heart attack as compared to seven per cent of women non-smokers. While about nine per cent women smokers are under the threat of dying of tuberculosis, the figure is three per cent for non-smokers, the study said.

About 66 per cent of men and 13 per cent of women who die of tuberculosis are smokers, said Jha, director of the Centre for Global Health Research (CGHR), a research institute that is co-sponsored by St. Michael’s Hospital (Toronto) and University of Toronto.

Over half of the tobacco deaths occur in illiterate men or women and nearly 80 percent occur in rural areas. “Smoking does not just take away life, it takes away many years of good life,” Jha said.

“One in five of all male deaths and one in 20 of all female deaths in India in the 30-69 age group will be caused by smoking in the 2010s,” said the report, adding that India is in the midst of a “catastrophic epidemic”. — IANS

New Delhi, February 15
International tour operator Cox and Kings has been directed by the Delhi Consumer Commission to pay Rs. 8.2 lakh as compensation to 10 tourists whose dream holiday in Europe was turned into a nightmare by it.

“If any kind of deficiency or inadequacy in performance of tour operator occurs at every step, right from the commencement of the tour and continues during its duration, the mental agony, emotional sufferings, harassment, physical discomfort are unfathomable”, said Justice J D Kapoor in the commission’s decision.

Dismissing the appeal of Cox and Kings, the commission said that whenever any person undertakes a tour the expenses involved are considerable.

The tourists alleged there was frequent rescheduling of the travel plans without their consent and the entire itinerary was thrown into disarray under a command of an inexperienced guide. They alleged they were not given an opportunity to shop in different countries. The commission also snubbed the operator for challenging the damages on the ground of being unreasonably high and said that for such trips the tourists were entitled for adequate compensation irrespective of its cost paid by them.

As many as 10 persons had filed complaints alleging that their 10-day Europe tour had gone haywire from day one. They had to board a different flight, delaying their arrival at Dubai by more than 10 hours. The tour leader was also highly incompetent who knew nothing about tour rules, maps and places.

New Delhi, February 15
‘HOTS’ or ‘Higher Order Thinking Skills’ is the new concept that class X and XII students are going to have to master in order to crack the board examinations from now on. CBSE experts inform that the new format for the boards has been specially designed to hone the analytical and evaluative abilities of students rather then mere old fashioned stress on memorizing.

This step has been taken by the board especially to differentiate the cream from the rest. Students and teachers alike are going to have to re-programme their entire teaching and learning process with a new emphasis on understanding.

The idea is to inculcate originality in thinking among students from the beginning and make this the keynote of education.

The CBSE chairman, Ashok Ganguly, announced earlier this week that, “besides testing understanding of information, the focus will be on measuring students’ ability to reason, justify, analyze, process and evaluate information.” Only 10% of the questions will be very short answer types and 20% questions will analyze HOTS.

Ganguly added that, “sample question papers developed on the new design have been published. They are also available on the CBSE website. The format of the question paper will include very short answer type, short answer type, long answer type questions.”

HOTS will be implemented in almost all subjects including physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, political science, history and economics in Class XII and languages, social science, mathematics and science in Class X.

Teachers are going to have to re-think their entire teaching module as the paper could get more tricky testing the students’ analytical ability. This should be a major challenge for teachers, parents and students in the coming years and should produce an entire new breed of students coming out of Indian schools.

The CBSE examination for both Classes XII and X will begin on March 1 with some 13.13 lakh candidates participating for both the senior school certificate examination (Class XII) as well as secondary school examination (Class X) this year, eight per cent more than in 2007. The number of students appearing for Class XII alone is 5.48 lakh, while that for Class X is 7.65 lakh. Some 160,414 and 219,796 children from Delhi are scheduled to appear in Class XII and X CBSE examinations and there will be 2,394 examination centres for Class XII and 2,624 for Class X in the entire country. Ninety-one examination centres will be set up in foreign countries for their schools affiliated to CBSE.

Ghaziabad, February 15
The District Magistrate summoned additional CMO Dr M.M. Agarwal, lady Dr Usha Lal and staff nurse Kamlesh in connection with a case in which a woman’s hand was amputated due to doctors’ negligence during her treatment in Hapur government hospital on January 12.

This was brought to the notice by the victim’s husband recently.

Maya, wife of Charan Singh in village Tawala in Hapur block, had undergone a tubectomy operation in government hospital, Hapur. As Maya was given an injection in the left forearm, she started feeling a piercing pain. Maya was then hurriedly discharged from the hospital. Next day when she came to hospital, she was given some pain-killing medicines.

Two days after tubectomy, Maya’s condition started deteriorating, Charan Singh said. She was then referred to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi. Here doctors amputated her right hand and forearm.

According to doctors, Thomas which is a sort of gangrene had affected her arm. It could have spread to the other parts of the body and ultimately caused her death.

CMO Dr Subodh Kumar said one in ten thousand patients develop this type of infection, called Thomas.

District Magistrate Deepak Agarwal was apprised of this case on Tehsil day who ordered the CMO to conduct an enquiry into the case. The CMO had in turn asked the Additional CMO Dr S.S. Agarwal to carry out the probe. Action against those guilty of negligence will be taken after the probe report is made available, the CMO said.

Faridabad, February 15
The ministerial staff—clerical staff cadre—of the Excise and Taxation department of the state today warned that they would intensify their agitation if the government did not annul its decision to scrap quota for their promotion to the post of inspectors.

The state president of Excise and Taxation Ministerial Staff

Association and also the Chief Convenor of the Joint Action Committee, Amar Singh Yadav, today served an ultimatum of the employees on the issue.

He said the ministerial staff get the opportunity to be eligible for promotion to the post of inspector through quota system after putting in 31 years of service. The abolition of the quota will dry up the source of promotion to the post which is a kind of incentive and motivation for the ministerial staff.

At a high level departmental meeting in April last year, a proposal was accepted to abolish the practice of filling up the post of inspectors through quota and resorting to direct recruitment.

There are presently 2,500 ministerial staff both in the field and at the state headquarters.

The staff members, before the agitation, had met the minister concerned and also lobbied with MLAs and MPs of the state by giving them memorandum on the issue. So far they have not had a positive response. The staff members have staged dharnas at all the district headquarters which formed the first spell of agitation, ending on February 13.

According to Amar Singh Yadav, the employees will go on mass casual leave on February 22, before resorting to indefinite strike from the next day. Presently, the employees are resorting to “work to rule” mode of agitation.

He lamented that even though the ministerial staff account for about 83 per cent of revenue collection for the department, it was now trying to adopt a “misguided” policy.

New Delhi, February 15
The BSES’s zero tolerance policy against corruption has again resulted in the termination of two officials — Raj Kumar and Manohar Lal, employed by a contractor engaged by the BSES. The contractor has also been put on notice.

The duo had connived with a consumer and installed a meter on his premises, despite the fact that the consumer was facing charges for misusing a domestic connection for commercial purpose and for owing Rs 2.5 lakh as dues. The BSES had disconnected supply to this consumer and had removed his meter in July 2006

A BSES spokesperson said, “The BSES vigilance team began to investigate the case following a tip off. Raghubir, a resident of 12/7 Dakshin Puri Extension, had connived with the two, after paying a bribe of Rs 10,000 to get a meter installed on October 26, 2007. This was done without obtaining the mandatory re-connection order (RCO). The two did this by forging a RCO entry into the system and by procuring and fixing fake meter seals.” Meanwhile, the BSES has disconnected supply to the consumer and has sent him a notice to clear the dues. It has also asked him to get his connection category changed within a stipulated period or face action as per the provisions of the Indian Electricity Act, 2003. The BSES has put in place a stringent mechanism of checks and balances to unearth corruption and catch those involved. The latest initiative to check corruption and non-compliance is the constitution of flying squads. These squads manned by officials from BSES’s vigilance department carry 50-60 surprise checks daily. Members of the squad also take feedback from customers about the conduct of BSES employees. The BSES has urged its customers to guard against unscrupulous elements out to make quick buck.

New Delhi, February 15
Deepa Sharma, ASJ, Tis Hazari Court held Suresh and Subhash guilty of kidnapping a minor girl and raping a minor girl respectively.

Suresh is a resident of Ashok Nagar while, Subhash hails from Wazirpur Industrial Area.

New Delhi, February 15
The Delhi government today appealed the Centre to take stern action against erring gas dealers, involved in black marketing of LPG meant for domestic use.

“During a raid conducted in hotels and restaurants, we found they were using domestic cylinders. They were doing this in nexus with the gas dealers of their area,” Delhi food and supplies minister Haroon Yusuf said. He added that at least 12 agencies were found involved in the malpractice.

“Since we have no power to take action against them, we have asked the petroleum ministry to cancel the registration of unscrupulous dealers and have demanded appropriate action against them”, the minister said.

Following complaints from consumers regarding acute shortage of cooking gas, food and supplies department officials have launched a drive against hoarders and illegal LPG users to curb the menace.

New Delhi, February 15
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today said that the government is committed to develop Delhi as a tech-savvy city. With upgrading of polytechnics, more engineering and medical colleges would be set up in the Capital in coming years, she said.

She was speaking at the concluding session of Takniki Shiksha Sansthan Kalyan Samitis at Sri Satya Sai International Centre. She said that technical education played a vital role in a nation’s social and economic development.