New Delhi, May 21
Hundreds of HIV positive patients marched to Jantar Mantar today and urged the government to act on the HIV/AIDS Bill. The demonstrators included AIDS patients, activists, legal experts and NGO activists.

The march was organised as part of the Global AIDS Week that is being celebrated from May 18 to May 24.

A memorandum was submitted to the health ministry at the end of the march. According to the memorandum, the Bill was drafted after lengthy consultations with civil society and reflects the needs and aspirations of those living with HIV/AIDS in the country.

A fax campaign targeting the Prime Minister, Congress president and the leader of opposition has also been launched to push for the bill.

“Reports of discrimination and human rights violations against people living with HIV/AIDS are widespread,” said K.K Abraham, president of the campaign. “The HIV/AIDS Bill has been pending with the government from 2005 and has not been tabled in the Parliament,” he added.

Abraham said that the National AIDS Prevention and Control Policy recognises the rights of people living with AIDS but, a policy is not enough. “The Bill can provide the necessary legal protection to uphold the fundamental rights of those affected by AIDS,” he said.

The Global AIDS Week has started two weeks before a high-level meeting at the United Nations, which discusses the progress made by governments in the fight against AIDS.

New Delhi, May 21
Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) organised a function to mark the 17th death anniversary of Bharat Ratna and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at Rajiv Bhawan here today.

Thousands of Congress workers and senior leaders of the party attended the function to pay homage to the late leader.

DPCC president Jai Prakash Agarwal said that the late Rajiv Gandhi, with his foresight and imagination, took India to the heights of a modern world power, and gave a new direction and hope to the youth and women of the country.

Besides J.P. Agarwal, prominent among others who paid homage to Rajiv Gandhi were MP Sajjan Kumar, Delhi minister Yoganand Shastri, DPCC office-bearers Om Prakash Bhiduri, Dhirender Tyagi, Deepak Ghoti, Mahmood Zia, Sulekh Chand Jain, Naresh Kumar, Darshna Ramkumar, Prahlad Singh Rana, Ratan Jain, AICC secretary Alka Lamba.

On the occasion, a 30-minute documentary on the life of Rajiv Gandhi was screened at the Rajiv Bhawan hall. 

New Delhi, May 21
The Special Staff team of East District has arrested Anil Gupta and Sanjay Sharma last night for running a high-tech satta racket on IPL cricket matches which was being run from Anil’s house in Old Arjun Nagar, Krishna Nagar in East Delhi.

The duo were arrested while running the racket during the match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals yesterday. The police team has recovered 24 mobile phones, one laptop with hard disk recorder, two voice recorders, one colour TV and some registers.

A case under section 3, 4, 5, 9 of Gambling Act, 1955 was registered against the duo at Krishna Nagar police station.

According to Ajay Chaudhry, DCP, East District, the accused were running the racket with the hi-tech gadgets. They were receiving the phone calls of the clients and recording the conversation in their laptop with hard disk recorder as well as feeding the data in their laptop through special software designed particularly for IPL matches. The accused frequently changed their base to avoid detection. They used mobile phones to operate satta on cricket matches and used to record the conversation in laptop, so that the client could not take the benefit of the doubt and back out later. Accordingly, they maintained data in their laptop so that the amounts can be tallied later with figures in their notepads.

At the time of raid, betting of Rs 1 crore had taken place.

The DCP revealed that by going through data fed in the laptop of previous 39 matches of IPL, betting of Rs 30 crore had taken place in the last month.

New Delhi, May 21
For the third day in a row, Delhiites woke up to yet another pleasant morning thanks to the freaky overnight thunderstorms and widespread showers which continued well into the day today.

The temperatures remained well below normal for this time of the year. The Met office said that the minimum temperature today plummeted to 17 degrees Celsius which is almost six to seven degrees below normal. A total of 13 mm of rain was recorded

till this afternoon. The record for the month of May in recent times was in 2002, when the Capital received 129 mm of rains on a single day.

What has added to the cheer of the residents of the national Capital is the prediction of the Met office that this pleasant spell is going to continue for at least another couple of days.

Old residents of the city are unable to recall any other May in the last few years which saw such pleasant spell. The fifth month of the year is generally dry and scorching. Yesterday’s maximum of 29 degrees Celsius, which is 12 degrees below normal, was the lowest for the day in the past five years, the Met office said.

The high frequency thundershowers, however, continued to take a toll on the Capital’s greenery. A large number of trees have been uprooted during the last two days causing traffic jams in various areas. There have been reports of waterlogging from many areas in the East, West and Central Delhi. In the New Sultanpuri area in East Delhi, water even entered some of the shops in the main market. This was largely because of the choked drains as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) was yet to carry out its annual pre-monsoon drain-cleaning exercise.

Traffic snarls were also reported from many areas of the National Capital Territory of Delhi because of uprooting of trees and waterlogging. A large number of telephones of the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) also went dead due to the rains and waterlogging.

The pleasant weather has also brought some relief to the beleagured government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi on the power and water front. Owing to the comfortable temperatures, the demand for power was considerably reduced enabling the authorities to meet the daily demand of the sprawling city comfortably.

The demand for water was also reduced. Officials said that the position on both these fronts was now comfortable. 

Noida, May 21
In 203 accidents, including 91 major and 99 minor, that took place in Gautam Budh Nagar district during the past one year, 94 persons lost their life. Out of these 36 deaths were due accidents involving mini buses.

Action was taken against five buses and 54 taxis during last two months. According to transport department sources, the drivers of chartered buses and city buses are always anxious to complete maximum number of trips and therefore tend to drive recklessly, causing most of the accidents.

The drivers of mini and private buses are not properly trained and the situation is such that nobody can exercise control or make them drive as per traffic rules. They readily accept employment on low salaries and even when they are arrested they are sure they can manage to get a bail. So their aim is to complete maximum number of trips, violating all traffic rules.

They also pack their buses with double the allowed number of passengers and ply the buses at a fast speed usually overtaking other buses.

Says a mini-bus service organiser, buses are normally hired and the aim of the transport companies is also to make maximum number of trips so that they can earn handsome profit after paying the driver, conductors and the traffic cops their normal cut. The drivers have a collusion with the department officials so that cases against them are kept under wraps.

According to the Noida asstt regional transport officer, Anil Kumar, “We are short of staff. We have only four TIs while the requirement is for 10. There is no traffic superintendent. Shortage of the staff is the main reason.”

He said he had seized five mini buses and 54 taxis and taken action against them.

Greater Noida, May 21
The body of a youth was recovered from Kasna police station area yesterday. Exactly a month ago, the body of a young girl was recovered from the same spot. That case has not been worked out by the police yet.

Another young woman’s body was recovered in Dadri from near the railway line. The police have failed to trace the killers of another youth who was killed in Knowledge Park, Greater Noida. Yet another youth was murdered in Javer.

According to the residents, situation is so alarming that a body is recovered every third day. These murders have left the local population in a panic while the police have failed to solve any of the murders so far.

The body of an identified woman was found in Surajpur a month ago. She had been raped before she was killed by slitting her neck.

The body of a Delhi woman was found on the same spot and the police suspect that the deceased had been raped before she was murdered. On May 1, the body of a woman was found near railway line with her neck slit. She had been raped before her murder. In Knowledge Park, a youth has been killed by severing his head with a sharp-edged weapon. Another person, an employee of the union energy ministry, was killed in a similar way. Many murder cases are pending with none of them having been solved.

SP rural, Babu Lal, however, said that efforts were under way and all the cases will be solved soon. But a spate of murders, with practically one murder every third day, has brought a sense of insecurity among the people. 

Ghaziabad, May 21
The UP health department has prohibited the use of 52 brands of medicines in the state which have been manufactured and marketed by 39 drug companies.

The director general, Health services, has asked all addl directors at divisional headquarters to take necessary action on the banned medicines. The addl directors, Health at Meerut and Saharnpur have ordered all CMOs and chief medical superintendents at districts levels to ban the medicines mentioned by the DG Health in the list.

However all chemists and druggists in the state are not aware of the order so the sale of the banned medicines is reportedly continuing across the counter.

The medicines include tablets, injections, tonics, syrups and eye and ear drops. Prohibited medicines include all pain-killers, and anti-cold and anti-fever medicines.

State director of stores, Hari Om Agrawal, has conveyed all relevant information to CMOs and CMSs viz name of the medicine, batch number, the manufacturing pharmaceutical company and the companies which have marketed them.

One Meerut pharmaceutical company has been blacklisted for having supplied the medicines which did not meet the norms and standard specifications. Dr G C Chaturvedi, director, medicine health and family planning, said he had effectively banned the use of all the banned medicines with immediate effect.