New Delhi, January 13
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is facing one of the worst-ever hostel crises in its history.

With more than 400 students living without accommodation, it’s the girls who are suffering most.

Agitated over the crisis, students have put all their belongings in front of the administrative block and started an agitation called “Dera Dalo” from today.

“JNU is facing an acute hostel crisis with hundreds of students not allotted hostels for past six months and the JNU administration is delaying the construction of new hostel,” said Sandeep, president, JNUSU.

“Out of total 400 students who haven’t got campus accommodation, 80 per cent are girl students. This is obviously one of the worst crises faced by JNU,” said Anand, president, Students’ Federation of India (SFI).

The students complain that the university was not prepared to deal with the number of students admitted this year.

“How are we supposed to attend classes when we haven’t got rooms on campus? JNU is not very well connected with the rest of the city,” said Ketaky enrolled in political science, M.Phil.

“The gender ratio has changed dramatically this year. Never before were so many girl students admitted to the university in one year. The university should have made special arrangements for the girl students,” said Shoranya, a student of MA, English department.

The university administration was counting on the new hostel Koyna, the construction of which has been delayed by more than four months.

“We were told that Koyna would be ready by October 2008. However, the hostel is still not ready. The authorities are renewing the contract with the construction firm after every one month,” said Sucheta of All India Students’ Association (AISA).

JNU had signed a multi-crore contract with one of the biggest construction firms, Rites, for the hostel that was to be completed by October 2008. The firm has been giving fresh deadlines to the administration ever since.

“The Rites officials have told us now that the work would finish by February this year,” said VK Jain, dean of Students’ Welfare, JNU.

However, the students blame the administration’s attitude for the delay. “Things are moving at a very slow pace. The administration should feel the pain of the students who are living in dingy places around JNU. The university administration is not going to take the responsibility of girl students living off campus,” said Garima Shrivastava, M.Phil. student of the School of Social Sciences.

Many students are staying with seniors on campus as second and third roommates.

“Students are not able to pressurize the administration as the union elections have been stayed by the Supreme Court. The acting JNUSU is not doing anything substantial. There is no one to represent us,” said Rohini from department of social medicine.

Once constructed, Koyna would accommodate 544 students. “The hostel would solve problems of maximum students. We think that the university should allot the rooms if the main work is over. The rest of the work can be finished with the students residing in the building,” said Rajiv, Ph.D. student.

“We understand the problems of the students, but there is a lot of work that needs to be completed before allotting the rooms. Some wings are yet to be provided with the basic facilities,” said Jain.

Meanwhile, the JNU administration also blamed the students for twisting the facts and undermining the problems faced by the university.

“There are only 41 male and 126 girl students, who are left to be allotted hostels. The university is trying its best to get the ongoing construction as fast as possible, but there are certain unavoidable problems, including provision of infrastructural facilities,” said Poonam Kudaisya on behalf of JNU administration.

In the past, JNU has witnessed student unrest on the hostel issue. In 1999, 63 students were arrested during the hostel agitation. 

Gurgaon, January 13
The heat of the global economic meltdown has taken its toll on the industry of this millennium city as well. With the garment exporters and automobile part manufacturers having been worst hit by the economic recession, the local industry now pins its hopes on the government.

As an obvious fallout of the downward trend in the international markets, a number of local manufacturing units have been forced to close down operations and lay off staff.

“While the garment and auto-part manufacturers suffered most as a result of cancellation/reduction of orders from the US and European markets and low sales in the domestic ones, the BPO, IT and IT-enabled sectors have also been adversely affected,” observe Rahul Kakkar, president, and S.K.Ahuja, general secretary of the Gurgaon Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI).

The other industries have also begun to bear the brunt of the slowdown though it is not so pronounced in their case.

Usually, in a bid to achieve the targets, the industrial units try to boost the sales towards the closing of financial year. However, according to industry sources, it would be almost impossible for most of the units to achieve their targets this time due to recession.

“As of now, nearly 100 buildings are lying vacant in the local Udyog Vihar for want of customer or tenants,” maintains A.P.Jain, founder general secretary of the Udyog Vihar Industries Association.

Inquiries made by The Tribune also revealed that widespread resentment prevails among the industrialists over the “high-handedness” and “industrialist-unfriendly” policy of the Haryana State Industry and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC).

Most industry leaders feel that the red tape in the functioning of the HSIIDC should be done away with at the earliest.

“In sharp contrast to the functioning of the state industries department, a lot of complicated formalities are to be observed in dealing with HSIIDC,” asserts Jain, adding that the transfer rates of leasing out industrial plots are also unreasonably high.

The GCCI has urged the government to initiate bailout measures to provide some solace to help the industry tide over the rough patch.

Their demands include reduction of rates of interest on the loans provided by the HSIIDC and HFC, realignment of loan repayment instalments, lower rates of land in the new industrial estates of the HSIIDC, cutting down the minimum monthly consumption charges of electricity, and provision to pay sales tax in quarterly instead of monthly instalments.

Gt. Noida, January 13
The district election office, Gautam Budh Nagar, received over 300 applications for inclusion of their names in the voters’ list and issuance of photo ID cards.

However, the applications have been rejected as the applicants gave fictitious addresses.

Authorities have rejected forms of 300 applicants suspecting them to be either terrorists or foreign nationals living in the district illegally.

On scrutiny, the addresses given by the applicants were found to be incorrect or fictitious.In the rejected lot, 90 per cent of applicants were from Noida.

Some of them could be foreign nationals like Pakistanis or Bangladeshi who might have crossed over illegally, authorities suspected.

Gautam Budh Nagar’s additional election officer Shiva Kant Divedi said since Noida is adjacent to Delhi and happens to be a safe haven for terrorists, it was considered advisable by election office to check the addresses given by all the applicants in their forms.

On enquiry, it was found that over 275 applicants from Noida were found to be such as had given fictitious addresses.

Divedi said that a safety verification campaign was under way in Gautam Budh Nagar for the last one and a half months for amending and updating voters’ list.

Under it 1.70 lakh applications had been received for inclusion in voters’ list and issuing of new identity cardscards.

According to central intelligence agencies, there are thousands of Pakistani, Afghani and Bangladeshi families which have their relatives living in Delhi and NCR. Terrorists are known to use these families as their base for spreading the terror framework. These people also become a tool in spreading terrorism in the area, sources said.

New Delhi, January 13
After a brief spell of respite, dense fog returned to the Capital’s skies early this morning and threw the air traffic at IGI airport out of gear.

With the runaway and the minimum visibility plummeting to less than 50 metres and the general view dipping to almost zero, 30 flights were delayed by up to two hours and eight others diverted to Jaipur, Lucknow and Ahmedabad.

“With heavy fog enveloping the airport at around 6 am today, the visibility dropped to a near zero; consequently the entire flight movement came to a standstill at the airport from 7 am till 9 am,” said an airport official.

Sources said, “The flight operations could be restored only after 11.30 am when the runaway visibility range increased to 1,000 metres for the main runway. Over 750 flights were delayed and about 100 cancelled due to the fog which has been engulfing the national airport almost every alternate day since December 29.”

With fog suddenly descending in the Capital, an Air India flight kept hovering over the airport for over 90 minutes, before the conditions could improve for it to land using the category-iii b at 10:20 am instead of its normal 08:50 am. In fact, conditions were so adverse that fully manned IC-939, from Hyderabad and its crew could not control it initially, informed airport officials. Besides, giving a harrowing time to the passengers in the Capital today, the winter has taken a heavy toll on most of the north India, which is reeling from extreme cold conditions, and the death toll has surpassed 100 till the latest reports.

Meanwhile, Delhiites woke up to a chilly morning today with the minimum taking a dive to five degrees Celsius, which is supposed to be two notches below normal for this time of the year and the third lowest temperature recorded in the city for this season. The Met department weather report for tomorrow says that the morning might be foggy with low visibility, but mainly the day would have a clear sky. The maximum and minimum temperatures would be 22 and 5 degree Celsius. 

Gurgaon, January 13
Mahatma Gandhi visited Haryana 19 times during the freedom struggle, stated the Governor of Haryana, AR Kidwai, while inaugurating a seminar on ‘Freedom Struggle in Haryana, 1857-1947’ here today.

The seminar was organized by department of archives in collaboration with Centre for Studies of Haryana History, Culture and Social Development

of Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA). He also inaugurated an exhibition in HIPA complex in which rare documents from India’s freedom movement were displayed.

Highlighting the contribution of Haryana in the freedom struggle, Kidwai said that in 1803 when Delhi surrendered before the Britishers, people of Haryana took the lead and did not stop revolting. He said that the first war of independence actually started in Ambala of Haryana on May 4, 1857.

Haryana played a significant role in this movement and people of Rohtak, Panipat along with this entire region made great sacrifices. The history is full of heroic deeds of people of Haryana, he said.

Kidwai lauded the work done by the department of archives and hoped that the contribution of Haryanvis in freedom movement would be brought out not only on documents but also be put on the website so that anybody can see it in any part of the world.

He said that even private documents with families should be preserved. The families can keep those documents with them but a copy of that should be given to the department of archives.

He said that one third of Haryana is considered part of National Capital Region (NCR) so it has to play an important role in development of economy of the country.

Kidwai underlined the economic development of Haryana and said that Gurgaon has emerged as the second largest software generating centre next to Bangalore in the country.

He said that not only in the field of information technology and industrialization, Haryana has excelled in agriculture also and contributed 80 per cent of rice exported from the country.

Earlier, minister of state for archives Meena Mandal said that the aim of exhibition was to preserve the national property in shape of valuable documents. She said that the archive documents were used as testimonial for proving the truthfulness of historical facts. The documents are also helpful in writing history.

Mandal said that these documents also provide help in political, social, economic and religious analysis of the past activities and added that the documents were laminated and preserved for 500 years.She also appealed to the people to submit old valuable documents with the archives department so that those can be preserved for future generations. 

New Delhi, January 13
A major fire in the Tilak Bazar took the lives of two persons in the afternoon today.

The fire was reported at around 2.30 pm in an office on the second floor of a building in Katrapran.

Fire officials said three fire tenders were rushed to the spot which controlled the fire in around two and a half hours.

Two badly burnt bodies of 22-year-old Rohit and 63-year-old Madan Prakash were recovered from the central hall of the office.

The bodies were given to the SHO of Lahori Gate police station. According to the police sources, the owner of the office is absconding.

The fire officials said the cause of fire was yet to be ascertained, but there are reports that the fire was first noticed in some chemical powder. 

Ghaziabad, January 13
A woman worker of a Noida call centre hanged herself in Sahibabad on Sunday night. Her body was recovered from the attached bathroom of her room. She was living in Shalimar Garden, Sahibabad with her father, Verinder Singh, who had retired from service three months ago. No suicide note has been recovered from the room.

Twenty-three-year-old Pratima, alias Arti, was preparing for M.Com. Her mother had died many years ago. She hanged herself on Sunday night with her dupatta. When her father got up to go to the toilet at night, he found that his daughter was dead.

He informed the police in the morning who sent the body for autopsy.

Pratima was managing the house with her salary. According to police, the deceased might have been upset with some problem in her office.