Ghaziabad, March 10
The whereabouts of 1,335 Pakistan citizens, who came to Uttar Pradesh, are not known. In Delhi also, 31 such visitors from across the border are reportedly untraceable.

The authorities in the state have failed to trace them despite making some concerted efforts. Not to lag behind, 16 Bangladesh citizens are also reportedly missing in UP.

The government has reportedly reprimanded the officials of the intelligence department and ordered them to launch a new campaign to nab the foreign citizens who might have gone underground and might be working as conduit for terror activities.

After recent terror attacks in UP, the state government had asked the intelligence agencies to trace the whereabouts of the missing visiting citizens from the two neighbouring countries.

The intelligence sleuths had reported back to government that out of 1335 only 16 Pak citizens could be accounted for. Over 370 Pakistanis have reportedly gone missing for the past 20 or even more years in the state. Some of them had come to UP as back as 1960 or even earlier.

The intelligence department had some time back suggested to government that the names of such people may be taken off the list of missing foreigners as most of them would be quite old by now. But this proposal did not find favour with the state administration, it is learnt.

Some 980 Pakistanis in this category were such who soon after entering UP had gone underground.

According to Intelligence Department, neither the relatives of such people were ever interrogated nor any information was collected about these foreigners.

Similarly, the state administration has no clues about 16 Bangladeshis who had vanished soon after entering the UP. This is the scenario in spite of the fact that the intelligence department had launched a campaign for past some time to identify such Bangladeshis who had illegally entered the state and were not traceable now.

A senior officer of home department had made his annoyance known to senior officers of police and intelligence wings. These two departments have been ordered to launch a fresh and systematic campaign to procure information about such a large number of foreign citizens illegally living in the state for decades.

The Pak and Bangladesh citizens had gone missing from the following places in UP: Saharanpur-3, Kanpur city-22, Meerut-20, Lucknow-31, Ghaziabad-9, Muradnagar-16, Bijnore-2, Muzzafarnagar-7, Allahabad-13, Gorakhpur-4, Varanasi-13, Jaunpur-10, Sitapur-21, Pratap Garh-8, Fatehpur-7, Mathura-7, Agra-30, Aligarh-10, Azam Garh-11, Ambadekar Nagar-101, etc.

New Delhi, March 10
The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) has asked the government for more manpower and resources to guard Delhi’s sensitive Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport and to facilitate smoother passenger movement.

“The civil aviation industry has registered a growth of over 40 percent in the past few years, but there is no rise in the number of personnel guarding the airport,” said Director General of CISF RK Das.

“Since the Delhi airport is expanding to cater to more passengers in the near future, there is a dire need of more personnel and the government is aware of the situation. We have asked for an increase in strength,” Das said on the sidelines of the force’s annual media conference.

The manpower shortage has put an extra strain on the force, the director general said adding that the staff was working over time to meet the requirement.

“We have not made any compromise with the security requirements,” Das said. Over 12,000 CISF personnel provide security to over 54 domestic and international airports across the country.

Of these, nearly 2,300 CISF personnel are posted at the IGI Airport’s both domestic and international sections, which handle 20.4 million passengers annually. And the number is expected to rise to 37 million by 2010 and 100 million by 2030.

CISF officials admitted that shortage of staff at the IGI Airport had led to the recent chaos at the security counters, resulting in many people missing their flights.

And with the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), which is developing a new terminal and modernizing the existing infrastructure, announcing that more security channels would be opened for frisking and baggage screening, the CISF is set to take up the matter more seriously with the home ministry.

Das acknowledged that instances of CISF personnel misbehaving with passengers at Delhi airport and at metro stations, used by over 600,000 commuters every day, were on the rise.

“There have been occasional complaints of misbehaviour with passengers. Such incidents take place due to language barriers. Our security staff use their regional languages most of the times, without knowing that some words mean different (things) in other languages,” Das said.

“Language barrier gives rise to (such) situations and these at times have resulted in arguments and fights. But now we have prepared and given a list of words to be used and not to be used with the public,” he added.

Asked about the recent security lapse at Delhi airport when a teenaged boy scaled the periphery wall of the airport and hid behind a plane’s wheel, Das said the force was investigating the matter.

“We are not justifying the lapse, but it happened due to poor lighting arrangements and ongoing construction work. In the recent past, number of slum areas and residential colonies have mushroomed near the airports and it is the responsibility of local authorities to keep a check on them,” the CISF chief said.

Meanwhile, another CISF official told that the number of personnel required for the Delhi Metro, which covers over 65 km of tracks, was inadequate.

“Delhi Metro has always been a soft terrorist target and soon its network will be spread to neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The number of security officials is already inadequate at the present. The number must be increased,” the official said, declining to be named.

At present nearly 1,633 CISF officials are deployed for the security of the metro. The CISF was formed in 1969 with about 3,000 personnel to primarily provide security to India’s state-run industrial units.

The force has moved to other fields like securing airports, government buildings, nuclear stations, oilrigs, museums, monuments, and VIP security and disaster management.

Its 105,000 personnel provide security cover to 269 government establishments, including 54 domestic and international airports, and fire protection to 77 undertakings. — IANS

New Delhi, March 10
A city court today sent 14 activists of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), accused of attacking the headquarters of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) here, to judicial custody for 14 days.

Metropolitan magistrate Sudesh Kumar refused to pass any order on their bail plea and reserved the ruling till Tuesday.

The clashes between CPM and RSS workers in Kerala found an echo in the national Capital on Sunday when a 250-strong mob attacked the CPM office, injuring 10 communist party members and eight policemen.

The attack took place when top CPM leaders, including party general secretary Prakash Karat and politburo member Sitaram Yechuri, were holding the party’s central committee meeting at AK Gopalan Bhawan on Bhai Mahaveer Singh Marg here.

The rampaging mob damaged four cars, including those of Karat and Yechuri, parked outside the building.

The police had to burst several rounds of teargas shells and deploy water cannons to control the mob. — IANS

New Delhi, March 10
A delegation of the Delhi unit of Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) today met Delhi police commissioner YS Dadwal and demanded to lodge an FIR against the CPM workers in connection with yesterday’s incident.

The delegation led by Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan sought stern action against the guilty. According to Udaya Sharma, Delhi BJP office secretary, the delegation also appealed to the President, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and chairman of the Human Rights Commissioner to issue orders to the ministry of home affairs to lodge an FIR in the case.

The delegation consisted of leader of opposition in Delhi assembly Jagdish Mukhi, Mayor Arti Mehra, Leader of the House, MCD, Subhash Arya and Delhi BJP secretaries Alok Kumar and Pawan Sharma.

New Delhi, March 10
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) unit of Students’ Federation of India (SFI) has condemned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) attack on the Communist Party of India’s (Marxist) head office.

It SFI has appealed to students to unite against such violent and fascist attacks and defeat the ‘communal fascist designs of the RSS’.

“We appeal to students across political affiliations to join us in a protest against the RSS and BJP,” said Roshan Kishore, secretary, SFI.

“We condemn the attack on AK Gopalan Bhawan by the semi-fascistic RSS goons,” said PK Anand, president, SFI. “Such politics is not new on part of the ‘sangh giroh’.

On many campuses including JNU, the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has often indulged in violence and has attacked students,” said he.

The SFI has used posters to remind students about the ABVP attacks on the University campus during last year’s presidential debate.

Gurgaon, March 10
Gurgaon has once again earned the distinction of garnering the maximum revenue from the allotment by draws of liquor vends in Haryana.

The revenue of Rs 124.69 crore has been collected through auction of 292 liquor vends here on Monday.

One of the senior officials said that draw of 292 vends was undertaken in the district under the new excise policy of the state for the financial year 2008-2009. Out of 292 vends, 159 are meant for sale of foreign-made liquor, which earned the revenue of Rs 95.29 crore and of 133, vends for sale of countrymade liquor, which earned Rs 32.40 crore.

He said that as compared to last year, the revenue of Gurgaon district has increased by around 12.5 per cent. As many as 267 vends were allotted by the department last year earning revenue of Rs 111 crore.

While revealing about the applications for vends, he said that this time the department received 22800 applications for vends of both foreign-made liquor and country-made liquor whereas last year, the number was only 17,000.

He said that this year the department earned Rs 11 crore only from the sale of application forms for vends as compared to Rs 8 crore in the previous year.

He revealed that the department received maximum application forms ranging to 700 for the liquor vend near Signature Tower. He said that the only shop in Sahara Mall was also auctioned at a good price.

The official said that after the new excise policy, the price of the liquor has declined. He said that the demand for the foreign-made liquor is more as compared to the country liquor due to many MNCs here in the district.

While talking to The Tribune Ashok Sharma, deputy excise and taxation commissioner, Gurgaon, said that this time individual vendors have also got a chance to participate in allotment of vends and get vends at suitable locations.

New Delhi, March 10
About three decades ago a young computer science graduate from Bangalore came across a job advertisement, which said Telco (Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company) wanted bright young graduates, followed by a footnote “female candidates need not apply”.

Deeply annoyed, she wrote a postcard to the Tatas, asking the business house how it could put such a restriction.

A telegram soon arrived asking her to appear for an interview with the promise of reimbursement of first class train fare both ways. The woman who questioned the Tatas was Sudha Murthy, an author and philanthropist in her own right and the wife of NR Narayan Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys Technologies.

She eventually became the first women employee of Telco. But even when she played a key role in the formative days of Infosys, Sudha chose to be in the background and subsequently resigned from the company’s board of directors.

In 2008, as India celebrated yet another Women’s Day on Saturday, the discrimination against women at work continues in corporate boardrooms — they are still not entrusted with many jobs.

“The number of women entrepreneurs is still very low, only 13 per cent of the total number,” says a study by the Confederation of Indian industry (CII).

“While there is a healthier ratio of women in junior management, this ratio declines in senior positions, coming down to almost universal levels of male leadership in the topmost positions,” the CII study reveals. “A recent survey shows that only 13 per cent of Indian women are working and, thus, the rest is wasted potential,” says Swati Piramal, director of pharmaceuticals giant Nicholas Piramal.

“One can only imagine how much India will progress if the percentage of working women increases. As far as the discrimination faced by women at their work places goes, it will decrease with time,” she told IANS, on a positive note.

In many organisations, women are not preferred for some functions, such as the manufacturing or production-related areas, according to several women IANS spoke to. The main reason given to them is security concerns and a perception that women may not be competent enough for these positions.

“Your degree, your hard work, does not always pay. Even when we work at par with male colleagues, we are not given due credit. When it comes to promotions, male counterparts are given preference,” she adds. — IANS

Ghaziabad, March 10
A software engineer was found dead in his home here on Monday, the police said. According to the police, the body of Amogh Dubey, who worked with Koral Telecom Pvt. Ltd., was found hanging from the ceiling fan in the bedroom of his house in Vasundhara, by his father.

No suicide note has been found but the police are suspecting it to be a case of suicide. “Prima facie it is a case of suicide,” said superintendent of police Vijay Bhushan.

Dubey was in love with a girl in his neighbourhood and his family had disapproved of it, which allegedly forced him to take the extreme step, the police said.

They said Dubey committed suicide on Sunday evening when his family had gone to visit a relative in Delhi.

His father and sister returned home late on Sunday but his son did not open the door and they had to return to Delhi. They thought Dubey was angry and did not open the door, said the police.

Upon returning home on Monday morning, the father again getting no response
from inside broke open the door to see his son’s body hanging from the ceiling
fan. — IANS

Ghaziabad, March 10
A 3-year-old girl in the Nurpur village under Musssori police station in the city was killed on Sunday when one of the gunshots fired in the air by the friends of the groom during a marriage celebration hit her in the chest.

The girl was rushed to a city hospital in an ambulance but she died during treatment. The incident happened while the girl’s mother Rajni, wife of Pramod, holding her in the lap, was watching the marriage procession from the terrace of a nearby temple.

The groom, Bobby, son of Ashok, had just mounted the mare and the marriage procession had started for the village temple to seek blessings of the gods.

In the confusion after the incident, the gun-toting youth succeeded in fleeing on a motor bike along with a friend.

The grandfather of the deceased girl Anushika has filed a report with police naming the accused. There is lot of resentment in the village. SP rural, Jagdish Sharma said that efforts were being made to nab the accused.

New Delhi, March 10
Déjà vu! That’s what your friends and family members call it when you express a sense of having seen or experienced in the past a situation that occurs in the present.

‘Déjà vu’ is a French word that literally means ‘already seen’. But doctors and experts believe that it is only a false impression and has no such clinically alarming psychological implications.

According to Amitabh Saha, a consultant psychiatrist at the VIMHANS Hospital here, almost 70 to 75 per cent of the general population will report having experienced déjà vu at least once in their lifetime.

“It is the experience of feeling sure that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously,” Sanjay Chugh, leading psychiatrist and founder chairman of the International Institute of Mental Health, told IANS. Bhawna Sharma, 21, a student, says that she often experiences it.

“Once I was discussing something with a friend and, suddenly, I felt I have been in the same situation before and that the same discussion had led to a fight previously. So I consciously changed the topic to avoid any argument,” she narrated. This, doctors say, is a valid example of déjà vu.

Saha told IANS that out of 1,000 patients in a year, less than five report extreme cases of déjà vu. “Since it is considered a normal phenomenon, most people do not seek assistance. But if a person experiences it frequently, I suggest it should be examined by a specialist,” he added. — IANS

New Delhi, March 10
The West District Police has rescued the minor girl, who was kidnapped on Saturday from Virender Nagar Colony under the Hari Nagar police station area, in less than 48 hours.

Four persons including, a female accomplice Shilpi Rathore have been arrested
in this connection.

They were arrested on Vasant Kunj Road near Mahipal Pur red light at around
5 am today.

The victim’s neighbour Jatin Sharma, 23, along with Suraj Bhatia and Vipin Verma had planned the crime.

Shilpi Rathore had called up at the girl’s house by the name of her
friend — ‘Pooja’.

She asked her to give some notes to their friend living near the victim’s house, as she was not well.

The victim, 13, is a student of class VIII in Happy Modern School. After receiving the call, she left her house in the evening, but did not return for hours.

At around 7:15 pm her father Rajeev Wallia received a call that his daughter had been kidnapped and she would be freed only after he paid a ransom of Rs 50 lakh.

He had recently received Rs 26 lakh after selling off an ancestral property. Soon he lodged a police complaint.

The victim’s family could not provide any clue except the mobile number of the ransom caller.

The police developed certain clues on the basis of the number. Raids were conducted at all possible hideouts of the suspects.

The kidnappers evaded the police for more than one day, as they used different mobile numbers.

Finally, a trap was laid at Vasant Kunj Road near Mahipal Pur red light. The police team signaled a white Lancer car to stop but it sped fast.

After a brief chase, the vehicle was intercepted and Vipin Verma and Shilpi Rathore got out of the car and started running in different directions.

SI Gagan Bhaskar and HC Rishi Raj nabbed the culprits and rescued the victim who was in the car.

In the melee that ensued, Suraj Bhatia almost trampled HC Rishi Raj and SI Gagan Bhasker under the wheels of the car.

They clung to the vehicle for almost 20 to 25 meters. They were finally able to stop the car and nab Suraj Bhatia.

New Delhi, March 10
The BSES has launched a duplicate bill service for all categories of its customers, including, domestic and commercial (KCC) customers.

Earlier, it had launched bills on e-mail and SMS. Through the duplicate bill service, customers can obtain a duplicate copy of their electricity bills from their homes or offices.

All they need to do is simply log on to the BSES website — www.bsesdelhi.com, click on ‘print duplicate bill’ and enter their CRN number.

“This is yet another initiative to empower customers. The website has been made more interactive and is capable of solving more customer queries,” said a BSES official.

New Delhi, March 10
The Faculty of Architecture and Ekistics at Jamia Millia Islamia university in continuation of its various outreach programs and in association with the Indian Institute of Architects is hosting the ‘Students Forum’ of South Asian Association of Regional Co-operation of Architects (SAARCH-2008) at the university from March 12-14.

The SAARCH-2008 provides an opportunity to the architecture professionals and students of the SAARC countries to come together and initiate a dialogue and engage in debates to ponder over the issues common to the countries of the region.

The outcome of the conference and forum will help establish the relations among architecture professionals of fellow countries of the region.

The Students Forum will be held concurrently with the conference SAARC-2008 at India Habitat Centre. The theme of the SAARCH-2008 is a “Safe Built Environment in the Region”.

The forum will see an overwhelming participation of 50 student delegates from SAARC countries and the same numbers from India.

The three-day Students Forum will be inaugurated on March 12 at the Ansari Auditorium, Jamia Millia Islamia.