Greater Noida, July 16
After Moti Goel’s infamous land scams in Ghaziabad and Greater Noida, another major land scam has come to light in Surajpur town. A land mafia, in connivance with the revenue department officials, has usurped 750 bighas of land belonging to Gram Samaj and Pokhar land—land under a pond—near district headquarters.

The market value of this land is estimated to be over Rs 1,000 crore. The district magistrate, Gautam Budh Nagar, Sharwan Kumar Sharma has ordered a probe into the scam.

According to available information, Gram Samaj’s land in the town was registered under Khasra No. 1 to 9 and again Khasra Nos 16, 19, 98, 100, 178, 179, 121, 142, etc. But the land mafia is reported to have got this land transferred in its own name with the connivance of revenue department officials.

The fraud was committed through a sleek operation and with such finesse that scamsters could not be caught in a probe even. Then the tricksters took out the old Khatauni and pasted an order on its page. This order was shown to have been issued on August 14, 1967, March 4, 1968 and May 22, 1968.

Besides about 30 bigha land registered under Pokhar land vide Khasra No. 184, 181, 246, 251 and 253 was shown in the name of half a dozen persons by making fictitious entries under 1362 crops. This land is adjoining the district headquarters. Therefore, its current market value runs into crores of rupees. An important fact in this connection is that the apex court has issued orders to get the Pokhar land vacated.

Despite the apex court’s order, the district administration has never initiated action to get this land vacated. The land mafia has minted crores by cutting colonies and plots on this land. SDM, Sadar,

Shailender Kumar said this case had not come to his notice.

District magistrate Sharvan Kumar Sharma, however, said this case had come to his notice a few days ago.

The DM said Additional DM (Finance) has been asked to conduct a fresh enquiry into it and he will submit his report in a week.

Interestingly an inquiry was ordered in this case in the past, but before it could be completed, the enquiry officer was transferred to another place and the probe was abandoned.

Ghaziabad, July 16
New circle rates have been introduced in Ghaziabad with effect from today. The rates registered an increase of 25 to 50 per cent over the old rates.

According to informed circles after the relief given to people in stamp duty rates for registry of property, the government has neutralized it by announcing a hike of 25 to 50 per cent in circle rates.

From July 16, people will have to pay stamp duty as per the enhanced rates.

According to the new rates also, Kaushambi tops in higher residential rates. A sum of Rs 32,000 has been fixed per sq mt as against previous rate of Rs 25,000 per sq mt. For Vaishali and Indirapuram a rate of Rs 26,000 and Rs 28,000 has been fixed which is the second highest rate. Vasundhra is at third place with a rate of Rs 20,000 to Rs 22,000 per sq mt

Though the administration had heard suggestions and objections, it stuck to the rates finalized. Joint commissioner, Stamps, K.P. Yadav kept telling people till the last moment that the rate list has not been implemented.

When the authorities felt that the stamp duty was coming down, new rates were made operative on Tuesday.

ADM (Finance) Sarvjit Ram said if the people do not take advantage of the relief given by the government, old stamp duty could be restored.

It shows the property prices are on an increase. For Partap Vihar the rates are from Rs 12,000 to Rs 16,000 per sq mt. The Shastri Nagar rates have increased from Rs 12,000 to Rs 18,000.

Land rates in Nehru Nagar have increased from Rs 50 to Rs 1.30 crore an acre. Mehrauli rates increased from Rs 1 crore to Rs 1.25 crore.

Dunda Heda land is hiked from Rs 80,000 to Rs 1 crore and Brahm Hota land has touched Rs 1.20 crore from Rs 1 crore per acre.

New Delhi, July 16
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today told the Delhi High Court Bar Association members that she would write to the Union law ministry for extension of jurisdiction of the High Court to the entire National Capital Region (NCR).

Present jurisdiction of the High Court is restricted to localities of union territory of Delhi.

This assurance was given to the bar association members at a meeting held yesterday.

The concept to extend the jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court was mooted by the Delhi High Court Bar Association president, K. C. Mittal.

The residents of Sonepat, Rohtak, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Palwal, Rewari, Panipat, Jhajjar districts in Haryana and Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Bagpat, Meerut districts in Uttar Pradesh are forced to approach their respective high courts to seek justice resulting in huge expenditure and long travelling.

Making delivery of justice more expensive is against the natural principle of justice, he said.

With the extension of territorial jurisdiction of the Delhi High Court, it would become easy and convenient to legal fraternity and residents of these districts.

Moreover, the court with extended jurisdiction would become convenient for all parties to approach in no time with transport facilities including Metro being made available.

The Chief Minister appreciated the concept and assured to make a beginning to achieve this ultimate goal for the betterment of people living in Delhi and National Capital Region of Delhi. The Chief Minister promised to take up the issue, and write to the ministry of law and justice, Chief Justice of India and Chief Justice of Delhi High Court.

K.C. Mittal, president, Delhi High Court Bar Association, greeted the Chief Minister and expressed the Bar’s gratitude for providing Rs 122.69 crore for automatic multilevel parking at the Delhi High Court. 

New Delhi, July 16
The current craze among women to attain size-zero figure by any means has serious medical implications often leading to irreversible infertility.

Never would have anyone imagined that skipping a meal, working out extensively in a gym or taking those weight reduction pills in quest of a perfect figure could have disastrous results. But studies have revealed that in a bid to attain what is now being referred to as size-zero figure (extremely slim), women might be courting infertility.

Dr Shivani Sachdeva Gour, gynecologist and fertility expert, Phoenix Hospital here said, “Size zero is a new dangerous trend, the pursuit of which can lead to several gynaecological problems including infertility. It can lead to hormonal imbalance and problem in conceiving in future.”

“Last year I had an NRI patient. She had anorexia when she was very young. She became size zero, her periods stopped, she realised something was terribly wrong, she got counselling and then she regained her lost weight but her periods still would not come naturally. She got married and tried to have a baby but in vain. She lost the chance of motherhood in her quest for size zero,” Dr Gour said.

“Girls going for size-zero figure usually suffer from low self-esteem and confidence. Besides that it is quite harmful. An alternative to size-zero figure is a balanced diet with proteins and regular exercise,” said Dr Jyoti Sharma, consultant obstetrician and gynecologist, Umkal Healthcare, Palam Vihar, Gurgaon.

Dr Samir Parikh, HOD, dept. of mental health and behavioural sciences, Max Healthcare says, “Films, ads and media have highlighted the importance of size-zero figure so much that young girls feel compelled to attain that figure to look like their idols. But this can lead to severe disorders like depression, anorexia, excessive vomiting and so on.”

Body weight and its constituent components of fat mass and lean tissue, play an important role modulating reproductive development and functioning. Body weight influences the timing of menarche and the capacity to achieve a pregnancy. Extremes in body weight are associated with infertility and a range of adverse outcomes for both mother and baby during and after pregnancy, say these experts.

According to these doctors, whereas underweight is associated with poor fetal growth and elevated pregnancy loss, overweight is more strongly associated with diseases in pregnancy, pregnancy loss and stillbirth and high birth weight. An emerging area of interest is the role of obesity on fertility, and the intergenerational ‘tracking’ of high maternal body weight into the second and subsequent generations, resulting not only in an increased risk of metabolic disease, but also perturbed reproductive functioning in the offspring.

New Delhi, July 16
Walking past the anti-ragging rally in Delhi University’s north campus, Archita Kumar, a first year student, felt relieved that she didn’t have to face any humiliation while interacting with her seniors in college.

“I was a little nervous about my first day in college since I had heard horror stories about the kind of things that seniors make the freshers do. Thank God, my seniors were not like that. It was actually quite a fun-filled interactive session that we, the first year students, had with them,” Kumar, who has taken admission in Hansraj college, told IANS.

“We were asked to come to the Lovers Point, the famous hub of Hansraj and made to sing and dance in front of all the students. Initially we hesitated but then the ball got rolling and it was great fun.

“I wouldn’t call it ragging, it was more like an ice-breaking session. We can now just walk up to our seniors and ask their help on anything,” she added.

Like Hansraj’s buzzing Lovers Point, right in front of the college canteen, Kirori Mal College campus was also alive and kicking with the students’ happy chatter.

Anubhav Goel, a first year student of Kirori Mal, said although he enjoyed the harmless interactive session with his seniors on the first day of college, he was actually looking forward to some twisted ragging!

“Our seniors asked us to introduce ourselves before going on to some requests like singing and jiving to some Hindi songs. It was fun, but I was actually looking forward to getting ragged!” he laughed.

For those like Tushar Bedi of Keshav Maha Vidyalaya college, the interactive session was not confined to simple things like singing and dancing. But he found it good fun nonetheless.

“Doing provocative dance moves, getting married to trees and running around the college screaming ‘Inquilaab Zindabaad’ - we were made to do crazy things by our seniors but we took everything in the right sprit and enjoyed it all,” Bedi said.

Although the new students seemed to have had great fun interacting with their seniors, care was taken that nothing turned into an ugly ragging session.

Amrita Bahari, president of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU), led a rally through the campus along with the anti-ragging squad of students and the Delhi Police on Wednesday morning, reinforcing the message that ragging is banned on the campus.

“We don’t discourage healthy interaction between seniors and juniors in the colleges but ragging is strictly prohibited. College principals, wardens of the college hostels and one student representative of each college who is a part of the anti-ragging squad will ensure that ragging doesn’t take place in their respective colleges,” Bahari told IANS.

The squad, which constitutes 16 students in the north campus and 10 in the south, will be doing the rounds of all colleges for at least two weeks to ensure that no ragging takes place. —IANS

New Delhi, July 16
The first day at St. Stephen’s College has proved to be no walkover with agitated faculty members boycotting the orientation programme organized for newcomers, the issue being their strong disagreement with the college administration’s decision to implement Christian quota in the appointment of teachers to the History department and also the manner in which admissions were conducted this term. Through the admission season, St Stephen’s College has been in the thick of controversy.

Teachers at the college made it a point to refrain from the special assembly and lunch organized for the new students expressing their unhappiness over the pro tem administrator M.S. Frank’s decision to appoint Christian teachers in ad hoc positions. “This has happened for the very first time in the history of the college,” said A. D. Mathur, Head of Sanskrit Department at St. Stephen’s College. Teachers are candid about mentioning that their fight is with the acting principal M.S. Frank and the college administration and not with the students. Among other means teachers are deliberating on resorting to strikes if the administration does not pay heed to their demands.

This is simply one more red-herring after a rather tense and confusing admissions season at St Stephen’s College. Tempers remained high among the faculty and controversy boiled as the college’s Governing Body and Supreme Council or teachers and the administration were at loggerheads with one another.

This has been an admission with a difference at Delhi’s premier educational institution. Not only has there been the induction of a 50% Christian quotas in addition to the SC/ST quota but merit has also been compromised in a big way with the new admissions policy of taking in students with extremely low merit (60%) into the Christian quota (Church of North India sub-category) in addition to the 15% cut for Christian students and this has already been implemented.

A.D. Mathur, a representative of the Governing Body at Stephen’s, says that some 9 such students have been taken in the Mathematics department out of 50 students.

Mathur stresses, “There is great consternation among the faculty that merit is being compromised and the college will not be able to maintain its past high standards. However, we are not opposed to the increased intake of minorities. We welcome this and it is their legal right at Stephen’s. However, we do not want academic excellence to be compromised at the college by the intake of students with extremely low merit. This admission policy has been forced upon us by the bishops and the Supreme Council and we are going to take care that this is not repeated next year.”

New Delhi, July 16
Chief of the Delhi unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party Harsh Vardhan has alleged that Blueline buses are being operated in an uncontrolled manner. He said that the operators are flouting rules in connivance with the officials of the transport department.

More than five dozen people have lost their lives this year in accidents involving Blueline buses.

Harsh Vardhan has demanded from the Delhi government to grant a compensation of Rs five lakh and Rs two lakh to the kin of the dead and injured victims of the Blueline buses respectively.

Blueline buses, in the last two days have claimed three lives. The bus that killed a person at Krishi Bhawan on Monday allegedly did not have the red sticker issued by the transport department. The speed governor of the bus was also tempered with. The bus was being driven by a person whose name was not in the list of the drivers of the bus.

The person killed by the bus was an engineer. He was the only bread earner of the family.

Harsh Vardhan claimed that during the last two years the Blueline buses have killed about 300 people. The number has crossed 60 this year. Despite this, the Delhi government seems so unconcerned about the menace.

He has demanded from the government to frame a transport policy for Delhi and a policy for providing compensation to the family members of the victims of Blueline buses. 

New Delhi, July 16
Indiscriminate firing by unidentified persons in the National Capital Territory of Delhi continued with two more such incidents reported from East Delhi yesterday night.

According to the police, in the first incident, Javed, alias Romy, a resident of Sarai Rohill, had come to meet his relatives in Jaffrabad. He was hit by a bullet when he along with his cousin was returning home after buying a pair of slippers from the market.

The police said that Javed was not seriously injured and was admitted to a nearby hospital. Efforts were being made to trace the suspects.

In the second incident, Abid, a 21-year-old youth was found bleeding near his motorcycle in the Welcome police station area. A bullet had apparently pierced his head from the rear.

The police said that the victim was not in a state to make a statement and efforts were being made to trace the suspects.

Incidents of indiscriminate firing by motorcycle-borne youths in various parts of the city have caused considerable panic among the people.

About half a dozen similar cases have been reported from different parts of the Capital in the last two weeks.

Meanwhile, the police said that efforts were on to trace the suspects. Based on eyewitness accounts, the police has released sketches of two of the suspects involved in the Kalakji and Amar Colony incidents.

The police has also claimed that mobile and foot patrolling had been intensified in all the police stations to instil a sense of security among the residents.