New Delhi, November 19
Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president Jai Prakash Agarwal today said that the saffron party was misguiding citizens of the Capital by making false promises. He said this while responding to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) election manifesto.

Full statehood is not feasible to Delhi, as it is Capital of the country and comes under the union government. The police, land and building are under the centre.

Important national and foreign dignitaries stay in the Capital. Therefore, the police comes under the centre’s periphery. It cannot be given to the state, he explained.

Though the Congress had promised full statehood in its last manifesto, it was found technically not feasible when discussed with experts, Agarwal said.

The BJP high command is also aware of this but it is playing with the sentiments of the citizens.

The BJP is fighting a lost battle in the assembly elections, he claimed.

Integrated development was possible only when the MCD, DDA and the NDMC came under the direct control of the Delhi government, said Agarwal.

He stressed that the Congress was talking about the problems being faced by the residents and remedies to solve them.

Chandni Chowk MP Kapil Sibbal who was also present in the conference said that the BJP leadership was unaware of statistical data of Delhi’s development and that was why it claimed to develop Delhi like Gujarat. Delhi is more developed than Gujarat, he claimed.

The literacy rate of Delhi is 81.67 per cent while that of BJP-ruled states is less. Giving the literacy rates of BJP-ruled states, he said that in Gujrat it is 69.41 per cent, Rajasthan 60.41 and Madhya Pradesh 63.74.

The per capita income in Delhi is Rs 49,172 while in Gujarat it is only Rs 24,308; Rajasthan 15, 219 and Madhya Pradesh it is only 12, 566.

When asked about employment, he said that Delhi has been given a special status. Here the government is creating self-employment that is why better education arrangement is made.

New Delhi, November 19
Despite the fact that the Hari Nagar constituency has been with BJP’s heavyweight Sardar Harsharan Singh Bali for last 15 years, Congress candidate Ramesh Lamba is confident of winning it this time.

Lamba started his campaign three days back, with a padyatra from Sudarshanagar to Arya Samaaj. He then covered Hari Nagar Market, A, B and C and Swarg Aashram on Sunday and Monday, respectively.

Confident of his win, Lamba commented, “This campaign walk was historic as this time the people of Hari Nagar wanted a better leader who could raise their issues of concern and work for the development of the entire area. Moreover, we will be going door-to-door to ask for voters support and blessings.”

Continuing with his padyatra on the fourth day, Lamba and his supporters walked from Subhash Nagar’s Beriwala Bag and covered 11 blocks of the constituency. Taking the development plank of the party forward, Lamba and his supporters tried to woo the voters with assurances of fulfilling all unfulfilled promises made by the BJP MLA over 15 years.

“The people of Hari Nagar want a change, as the BJP has failed to live upto the expectations of the people. The people here are unhappy, as many of the poll promises made during the last assembly elections have not yet been fulfilled. The are lot of issues concerning the area, like, bad roads, improper sewerage, lack of pure drinking water and improper electrification in most of the primary schools,” said Prakash Chauhan, a Congress party worker.

Meanwhile, the Harsharan Singh’s camp is also equally confident that the people of Hari Nagar still have faith in the BJP and would definitely vote it back to power.

New Delhi, November 19
They gave up plush jobs to jump into politics two years ago — something not too many Indian professionals do. The party that 20 alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) floated has now fielded two candidates in the November 29 Delhi assembly polls.

After all, both techies and politicians are harbingers of change, say the founder members of Bharat Punarnirman Dal or India Rejuvenation Force.

“Good politicians can change the face of a country and that is why educated and professionally qualified people should come forward,” said 30-year-old Ajit Ashwalayan Shukla, the organisation’s founder president.

The party aims to fight against corruption and caste-based politics in the country. With over 15,000 members, all professionals and some even settled abroad, today it receives funds from former IIT students working across the world.

“Enough of drawing room and coffee house discussions. It is time qualified professionals rose to the occasion and made an effort to put the country’s politics on the right track,” he said.

Shukla himself passed out of IIT Mumbai and was working with Indian IT giant Infosys. He then went on to study further, but instead of taking up a well-paid job after that he decided to float the Bharat Punarnirman Dal in 2006.

In the Delhi polls, the Dal has fielded Vijay Kumar Sharma, a lawyer from Jangpura and Surya Prakash Loonker, who did his business graduation from the US, from Greater Kailash. The party’s agenda for the Delhi elections is abolition of caste-based reservation in the country.

“Believe me, political parties are dividing the country by doing caste-based politics. We are not against reservations but it should be on the basis of economic status of the individual,” said Shukla.

According to Loonker, the party has started its door-to-door campaign and is meeting people daily to ask them to vote for change.

“We are not discouraged by the fact that we are contesting against big political parties and people are more inclined towards them. We are quite optimistic and working for big change in the country’s politics,” Loonker said.

Bharat Punarnirman Dal made its debut in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh elections when 10 candidates from various constituencies contested, though no one won.

The party is also planning to field some 20-25 candidates in the general elections due next year. “We have professionally qualified people from the country’s best engineering and business schools and they have left their handsome, salaried jobs to fight for change in the country,” Shukla said.

For instance, Omendra Pratap Singh, who passed out of IIT Kanpur in 2006, was working with TCS. But he left the job and joined the party in 2007. He is in charge of the party’s affairs in UP.

But recourse to politics was not an easy task for these qualified professionals as they had to face a lot of resentment from their families. — IANS

New Delhi, November 19
The Malviya Nagar constituency is among the tough electoral battle grounds between the two leading parties, Congress and BJP.

The Congress candidate Kiran Walia and the BJP contender Ram Bhaj are the two key persons in their parties who are locked in a keenly watched contest.

Both these candidates have also gone through strong resistance within their party to get the ticket.

As the Delhi mayor Arti Mehra had been lobbying for a party ticket from this seat, but could not get it. Bhaj has to ensure now that his chances are not sabotaged by her. Similarly, Walia is to deal with internal dissidence led by the party leader Aman Verma and supporters of Delhi health minister Yoganand Shastri, who had been vying for a ticket from here.

Walia is a two-time MLA though her earlier constituency Hauz Khas got deleted in post-delimitation exercise, while Bhaj is a former MLA and was elected from Sarojini Nagar in 1998.

Walia has also served as the chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women.

Both the candidates belong to the Punjabi community, which constitutes a total of 21 per cent of the total voters in the area. Malviya Nagar is also interesting with the BSP having emerged as the

third force from here in the last year’s municipal polls.

The BSP had got a total of 4,499 votes in the municipal elections, while the BJP, which had won three seats from here had got a total of 20,885 votes, and the Congress had bagged one seat with a total of 16,200 votes.

Sripal Saini is the BSP candidate from this seat. Bhaj has, however, strong roots in RSS, which is likely to provide wholesome cadre support to him.

On the flip side, he had not been active in politics in the last five years and is considered an outsider in the area.

Malviya Nagar has a total of 1,27,173 voters, with 10 per cent being Muslims along with 12 per cent Vaisyas, nine per cent Brahmins among others.

It has a total of 128 polling stations.

Noida, November 19
Marvel the ingenuity of the one who stole a cheque from an ATM drop box in a New Delhi bank and en-cashed Rs 7.5 lakh from a private bank in Sector-16 here.

Jugal Kumar, the accountant of an IT company here had been doing rounds of the bank and the Noida police Kotwali when he realised that his company’s cheque issued in the name of Super Self, a Ghaziabad-based firm, was stolen and Rs 7.5 lakh were withdrawn from the company’s account.

The IT company had issued a cheque for Rs 7.5 lakh to Super Self on Vijaya Bank.

Jugal Kumar had dropped this cheque in the drop box of Axis Bank, Barakhamba Road, New Delhi on November 1 because the company had an account with Axis Bank only.

When the amount was not credited into the Super Self’s account even after about 15 days, Jugal Kumar inquired about it. He was shocked to learn that the cheque had already been encashed from Noida Sector-16 branch of Axis Bank on November 3.

He lodged a complaint with Barakhamba Road police station, which started investigations in the cheque theft case.

When the footage of the CCTV fixed in the ATM booth was reviewed, a youth was found tampering with the ATM drop box at 12 midnight. As the Delhi police team reached Axis Bank in Noida it found that Avanish Kumar had encashed the amount.

When bank officials reached his residence in Kalyanpuri, Avainsh agreed to return the amount. But as he failed to reach the bank the next day, the officials went to his house again and found that he had vacated the house.

Avainsh, originally from Bijnore, used to work for a finance company in Noida. The police is trying to nab him.

Faridabad, November 19
Two youths robbed a businessman of more than Rs two lakh on the national highway near Sector 16 this evening.

The victim, Pawan Kumar, who runs jewellery shops in Faridabad, was returning to his shop after withdrawing Rs three lakh from ICCI Bank in Sector 16. He had kept the money, wrapped in a newspaper, on the desktop of his Honda City car.

Kumar had parked his car on the highway to answer a call of nature, when two youths came on a Pulsar motorcycle, smashed the glass panes and took away the money. While they were taking out the money, one bundle of notes amounting to Rs 50,000, fell down near the seat which the criminals failed to notice. This saved this amount.

Kumar tried to raise an alarm, but the criminals had fled the spot.

The police has registered a case and has launched a manhunt to nab the criminals.

It is being said that perhaps the criminals were following Pawan Kumar right from the beginning.

The incident has caused anxiety among the business community here.

Noida, November 19
SSP R.K. Chaturvedi has ordered a probe into the allegations that policemen had kicked Dr Awana’s pregnant daughter when they had gone to paste a confiscation notice on his house.

The Noida police has initiated action under Section-82 (confiscation of property) against Dr Rajpal Awana who is absconding after his alleged clash with some patients along with some doctors when the patient’s family protested negligence in treatment.

The son of a local leader, Mahipal Singh of sector-52, had been admitted to the private hospital for dengue. Mahipal’s family alleged that there was negligence on the part of Dr Awana in the treatment of his son. Dr Rajpal Awana had allegedly threatened the patient’s family with a revolver during the clash.

A notice to confiscate Dr Awana’s property has been issued. The policemen who went to paste the notice had a clash with the doctor’s family members who have alleged threat the police party had manhandled and beaten them up including a pregnant daughter of Dr Awana.

Anurag Dixit, in charge Sector-29 police post and some constables had reached Dr Rajpal Awana’s house in Nithari in the evening. At 6 pm Dr Awana’s pregnant daughter Priyanka had to be taken to a district hospital where the family alleged that as the policemen had kicked Priyanka in stomach and her child had to be aborted. The daughter was then taken to a private hospital.

SSP R.K. Chaturvedi, taking a serious view of the matter, has ordered a probe in to the alleged misbehaviour of policemen with women in Dr Awana’s house.

Meanwhile, Dr Awana has secured a bail from the Allahabad High Court. 

New Delhi, November 19
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) organised an e-learning platform on ‘Sustainable Action and Virtual Education’ (SAVE) on its 23rd foundation day today in the Capital.

Two special booklets were also released.

One of the booklets was titled ‘IGNOU in Printline’, which recorded what the media wrote about the university over the past two years. While the second booklet recorded IGNOU’s vision and was titled ‘IGNOU — All Times, Everywhere.’

“If nature is to be understood, you have to understand what Mahatama Gandhi said about it — Nature provides for everyone’s need but not for anyone’s greed,” said celebrated agricultural scientist and Rajya Sabha member M.S. Swaminathan.

He further said, “Agriculture is applied ecology. It depends on the sustainability of land, water, biodiversity and climate. Settled cultivation or agriculture began over 10,000 years ago, when women grew crops while men gathered food. This eventually marked the shift from food gathering to food cultivation.”

Before giving his insight for a plausible sustainable approach to agriculture, he said, “With the increase in population, it has become necessary for men to adopt intensive systems of agriculture involving the use of mineral fertilisers and chemical pesticides. Green Revolution of the 1960s was the product of interaction between improved generic strains and better soil nutrients with irrigation availability. Unfortunately, Green Revolution gradually became Greed Revolution.”

Swaminathan said that in India, nearly 80 per cent of farm families owned one hectare or less of arable land. Therefore, there was a need for higher productivity in small farms in order to ensure adequate marketable surplus to earn income. “Organic farming will be easier to adopt, if a farmer has several farm animals. It is particularly important in vegetable crops and medicinal plants, in order to avoid pesticide residues in the edible market,” he said.

Abid Hussain, a former ambassador to the USA, expressed his shock at the missing vision in India that always nurtured the culture of pluralism and liberal education. “Education has to be liberal to be effective. Liberal education is knitted into a plural and diverse societal culture that is India. Education should be able to foster a liberal and sympathetic heart and develop a society for culture, beauty and aesthetics,” Hussain said.

Gurgaon, November 19
The first war for the country’s independence started in Ambala prior to Meerut. This is indicated by a copy of an electric telegraph message written by the then Ambala deputy collector, T.D. Forsyth to the then chief commissioner of Punjab, John Lawrence on May 10, 1857.

The aforesaid telegraphic message was sent at 5 pm. 

This rare document forms part of many such testimonials displayed at an exhibition put up by the Archives Department on the premises of Government Women College here.

The three-day exhibition was inaugurated by deputy commissioner, Deepti Umashankar, today. Mridulla Bhargava, assistant director (archives), and Ranjana Lal, principal of the host college, were also present on the occasion.

The contents of the telegraphic message sent by Forsyth are as follows: “This morning, the 60th and 5th regiments were in an excited state and under arms on their parade ground. Cavalry and artillery ordered out, but no actual row ... I ordered the police corps to be in readiness and in their own lines”.

The attack on Meos at Barota, Rewasan and Ghasera by the British troops to suppress the revolt in 1857 has also been highlighted through a letter from Lt. H. Grant of Kumaon Battalion, a copy of which has been displayed at the exhibition. This shows that a large number of Meos from Gurgaon district participated in the first war of independence and they were executed for this revolt against the British Empire.

Not only this, one also finds the name of certain political leaders of Gurgaon who were on the target of Britishers for their “anti-government” activities.

The documents displayed in the exhibition show that the last fight against the Britishers in Haryana region was fought at the ground of Nasibpur under the leadership of Rao Tula Ram on November 18, 1857. Similarly, the chivalry of Raja Nahar Singh of Ballabgarh — who was executed on April 13, 1858 — has also been exhibited at the exhibition.

A letter dated November 1, 1857, from the officiating commander to the chief commissioner at Lahore also finds place at the exhibition, in which murder of a civil servant— Clifford — at Sohna was reported.

Similarly, when the British Government stopped Mahatma Gandhi from going to Punjab fearing that it would aggravate the agitation against the then government, the Mahatma was arrested at Palwal on April 10, 1919. This news about Mahatma’s arrest was published in Bombay Cronicle on the next day and the copy of that news item with the Mahatma’s remarks in his own handwriting that he was unable to abide by the direction given by the British government also forms a part of the exhibition.

The deputy commissioner observed that the exhibition would enrich the knowledge of students about the country’s rich past. 

Gurgaon, November 19
Playing games with your friends may sometimes prove to be risky for your life leaving behind just the memories of yours. This is what happened with the 22-year-old Saurabh Sabarwal who died here today evening after consuming pastries with his friends. He and his family never even dreamt that the competition with his friends might take away his life.

His friend Jatin brought him to the hospital after finding him unwell.

Saurabh, resident of Patpatganj, New Delhi, was working with the Nokia Seimens Company in Udyog Vihar as a solution engineer here.

Jatin told the police that they were 16 friends who were competing with one another in eating pastries in less time and ordered around 200 pastries. After consuming a few pastries, Saurabh went to the wash room and when he did not return, his friends went after him and found him lying in an unconscious state.

The police said that all the other friends ran away from the spot and it was only Jatin who brought Saurabh to Max Health Care Centre in Sushant Lok, where doctors declared him brought dead.

Saurabh’s father R K Sabarwal is working with Punjab National Bank at Rajinder Nagar in Delhi. He told the media that police informed him that his son was in a serious condition and admitted to hospital. However, when they reached there, they found him dead.

Saurabh had done a year’s course before joining the company and was about to go abroad within a few days. His family was busy making the plan.

Dr Sushuan Sharma told The Tribune that Saurabh died because along with the throat the pastries entered his veins, making him unconscious.

Satinder Singh, SHO, Udyog Vihar, said that until now they have not received complaint from anyone. It was just Saurabh’s father who wanted to know from the doctor in what condition his son had been brought to the hospital. He said that they have not registered the case but are still looking into the matter.

Gurgaon, November 19
Col. Public School today paid tributes to Capt. Umang Bhardwaj, who sacrificed his life while fighting in Jammu and Kashmir.

He died on November 19, 2002 while encountering the terrorists.

He was working with seven Jat Regiment and was serving in Operation Rakshak and Operation Parakram on line of control as the Ghatak Platoon commander.

His father Col Kanwar Bhardwaj said, “In three operations, 15 terrorists were killed by the Ghatak Platoon under his command. My son noticed terrorists approaching the site but held fire till they were as close as 10 metres and himself sprung the ambush killing the leading terrorist instantly. While killing the second terrorist he sacrificed himself.”

“Umang had been awarded with the gallantry award for his sacrifice by the President,” he added.

“Since then we pay tribute to him at the school every year,” Col Bhardwaj mentioned.