New Delhi, March 10
With the inclusion of Jagdish Tytler’s name in the list of expected Congress candidates from the Northeast Delhi parliamentary constituency, it seems the seat will see a triangular contest among the Congress, BJP and BSP.

According to sources, the BSP has decided to field Haji Dilshad, while the BJP’s expected candidate for the seat is B.L. Sharma (Prem), a strongman in the area and also a former MP.

Jagdish Tytler earlier used to contest from Sadar parliamentary seat, but after delimitation, the seat has been dissolved. Now, majority of the Sadar area has been included in the Chandni Chowk seat.

Sources say that as Sandip Dikshit, sitting MP from erstwhile trans-yamuna, had been given green signal to fight from East Delhi, newly-created Northeast constituency has fallen vacant. As the constituency has large number of Muslims and backward voters, the party plans to field its seasoned leader Jagdish Tytler. Muslims and Dalits have always been considered as Congress vote bank.

But sources say that if the Congress gives ticket to Tytler, it would mean that the party would ignore two factors. First, Congress MLA Chaudhary Mateen is also interested in contesting parliamentary election from Northeast. If he is not given the ticket, there are chances that he may work against Tytler to make sure that he gets the seat in future.

Secondly, the BSP has decided to field Haji Dilshad. And Muslims and dalits have been the vote bank of both, the Congress and the BSP, and so in such a case, their votes will be divided between the two and there will be no trouble in the BJP fort.

Haji Dilshad may damage Congress party as he is a strong contender. He had earlier fought assembly elections from Babarpur constituency, where he had secured second position by bagging 12,000 votes.

In the Northeast parliamentary constituency, Muslims constitute 21.4 per cent of the voters, scheduled caste and other backwards castes 38 per cent, Brahmins 11.6 per cent and middle-class and others 29 per cent.

If Muslims exercise their franchise in favour of the BSP candidate, it will be a tough fight for the Congress. 

New Delhi, March 10
The young residents of CanSupport, an NGO, which pioneers in home-based palliative care programme for children, have set novel trends of celebrating Holi.

The children, who are cancer patients and undergoing treatment for cancer, had a fun-filled celebration of Holi at their Day Care Centre, but sans the usual water, colours and “pichkari”. It was a unique way of living the happiness of the festival of colours with flowers of numerous hues.

The excited children, immersed in the joy of the festival, were apprised about the significance of Holi by the volunteers of the NGO.

This session was followed by the traditional “tikka” with “gulal”, after which the kids played Holi not with colours or water, but with different flowers, said Harmala Gupta, founder of CanSupport.

She went on, “Why should these children be deprived of the pleasure of celebrating a festival due to illness? It was a delight to watch the children forget about their sickness and get into the spirit of the event.”

Thus, these kids battling with cancer have set a new model for the rest of Delhi’s youngsters, especially when youngsters in many colonies have adopted an indecent mode of playing Holi with water balloons or even rotten eggs. 

New Delhi, March 10
It seems that BJP national general secretary Vijay Goel has been given the party’s nod to contest from New Delhi constituency. Goel had organised a meeting in Punjabi Bagh today. Punjabi Bagh has become a part of New Delhi after delimitation.

Addressing the meeting Goel said Delhi voters had recognised the real colours of the UPA government. He expressed confidence that the saffron party would win all seven seats in Delhi in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP leader alleged the Congress had not only cheated the middle class, it had also made false promises to the poor living in JJ colonies.

Goel asked the government to clarify the status of 5,000 DDA flats that were to be allotted. He also asked the government to return the money to 6,00,000 applicants with interest for three months.

Goel claimed that in 1981 too the DDA had bungled the allotment of 5,411 plots in Rohini Residential Scheme. It had sold the application forms for Rs 100 each under the Rajeev Ratna Awas Yojana to the lower middle class applicants. Nobody, including the DDA, knows what has happened to the scheme, he added.

Last year too, the Congress government gave provisional certificates to 1,400 irregular colonies, but so far not even one colony had been regularised. The Blueline menace remains unchecked. People are dying but the Congress is just not concerned, he alleged.

He has appealed to voters to dethrone the Congress. 

New Delhi, March 10
“We are not fools that we will pay a penalty of Rs 500 every time the Delhi traffic police picks our car for being parked on road. There is no parking space here, and so we have no choice but to park our vehicles on road,” said a regular visitor to Jagatpuri market.

Almost every commuter trying to park his or her vehicle at Jagatpuri Sanitary Market, the biggest sanitary market of East Delhi, faces a tough time. With around 50 wholesale shops, there is always a huge rush in the area.

Moreover, the Jagatpuri road also connects Karkardoma, Shahadra, Vivek Vihar with Laxmi Nagar and ITO. So, it is a common route for many buses. During peak hours, vehicles, especially cars, parked on the road create a big nuisance for commuters.

“It is very tiring. One can always see huge jams in this part of the city. People honk, shout, while the traffic police is helpless, as there is no parking space in the area,” said Reena Chawla, a daily commuter.

“The root-cause of jams is the lack of parking arrangement. I don’t know what the MCD is doing. People have filed thousands of applications to the civic body, as well as to the area MLA , but the government has been turning a deaf ear to all of them,” says a shop owner in the market.

Selling chola-batura at the marketplace since the last two years, Ravinder Das said, “People regularly face jams on this road. Sometimes it is so big that it takes almost two hours to open. Also, most of the cars hit each other while trying to move back, resulting in fights.”

President of the Yamuna Development Board and MLA Narendra Nath said, “I am trying to solve the problem.”

The traffic police also sounds helpless, “With no parking slots, people start fighting with us when we try to penalise them for parking on road. We too don’t have answers to their question. Their demand is genuine. The area usually has heavy traffic; a parking space will improve the condition.”

New Delhi, March 10
After offering a scenic feast for over a month, the Mughal Gardens, basking in royal glory, is all set to have an exclusive rendezvous with the differently abled people of the Capital from March 12 to 15.

The lush-green gardens would remain open for the people with visual impairment, defence and para-military personnel and farmers on March 13, March 14 and March 15 respectively.

All the interested visitors under the above-mentioned special categories who want to have a day out from their busy schedule can visit the gardens, which promises to be an absolute relaxing retreat. 

New Delhi, March 10
The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA) have initiated a two-year study on saving fuel and ways to achieve better traffic management. The study will assess fuel emission by vehicles under different driving conditions and ways to save fuel in Delhi and Mumbai.
The research will focus on assessing the current status of fuel emission and consumption by vehicles in different driving conditions and the impact of traffic management strategies on emissions by vehicles and the fuel economy.

The study will be conducted by S. Kale, Geetam Tiwari, R.R. Kalaga and Dinesh Mohan.

The study is likely to be conducted in three stages. The first stage will be of 10 months, in which the driving cycle of vehicles will be studied.

In the second stage, vehicles will be selected by type and age for dynamometer testing, and in the third stage, dynamometer will be used to check the emission of suspended particulate matter (SPM), hydro carbon (HC), carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2) and other hazardous particles.

A budget of Rs 38 lakh has been estimated for the study. Out of this amount, Rs 20 lakh will be utilised in the first year and the remaining Rs 18 lakh will be used in the second year.

A study conducted two years back on the same issue had revealed that nearly half to one litre of fuel was wasted every hour.

Saving the limited fossil fuels and keeping a check on global warming has been the priority of climate scientists in recent years.

New Delhi, March 10
Hundreds of Tibetans marched in the capital today shouting “Free Tibet” slogans and a majority among them began a fast for 50 hours, 50 minutes and 50 seconds to mark the completion of five decades of the Tibetan uprising against China.

With slogans such as “Human Rights don’t exist in Tibet” and “Indian government, support us” ringing loud in the air, the Tibetans marched from Rajghat to Parliament Street about six kilometres away.

“On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising, we want to stress again that there should be an immediate dismantling of the colonial occupation of Tibet. The Chinese Communist regime’s occupation since 1959 has led to the death of over a million Tibetans and the torture continues,” said Lepchang of the Tibetan Youth Congress.

The marchers demanded the immediate release of Tibetan political prisoners arrested after the March 2008 uprising against the Chinese regime.

“Brutal force can never overpower truth. As the world comes to know about the Tibetan cause, our resilience has become stronger. Whether it is someone who was born in Tibet and later escaped, or somebody else like me who has been born and brought up here in exile, the passion for a free Tibet is equally strong,” said Shelly Norbu, a school student taking part in the march.

Wearing T-shirts, caps and bandanas with “Free Tibet” and “See you in Tibet” written on them and holding their red-yellow-blue flags high, a number of marchers also held banners saying “Middle way approach will ensure peaceful coexistence between Tibet and China”.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has been championing the “middle way approach”, which seeks autonomy for Tibet within China.

The marchers had a message for the Indian community – “Thank You.”

“We want to thank India for its hospitality. There are many Indians who support our cause and have walked with us during our protests,” Norbu said.

India is home to the Dalai Lama and his government in exile, which is based in the northern town of Dharamsala. About 1,00,000 Tibetans also live in India. — IANS

New Delhi, March 10
As many as 90,000 kidney transplants are required per year. 0nly 2.5% of the patients receive transplants, while an overwhelming majority need dialysis (in the absence of a renal transplant). Only 22.5% of the patients receive dialysis .

These disturbing facts have been provided by Dr A.R. Dutta, HoD of nephrology, Wockhardt Hospital & Kidney Institute, Kolkata, on the eve of World Kidney Day which falls on March 12.

Doctors say that after cancer and cardiac ailments, kidney diseases are the third most prevalent life-threatening illnesses. As far as the treatment options are concerned, a kidney transplant is the best wayout for people in kidney failure. However, the bitter truth is that only 2.5% of the patients in renal failure receive transplants. This can be put down to various infrastructure-related, financial and social factors.

Whatever the reasons, the fact is that most of the patients in kidney failure have to depend on dialysis to survive. For most of these people, the picture is not very rosy. Less than a quarter of the patients requiring dialysis actually receive it. Here again economic and infrastructure-related factors come into play. In the light of this, it is quite surprising that only 6% of the patients undergoing dialysis in India are on Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) even though it costs less and is arguably more effective compared to Haemodialysis (HD).

Although the theme of World Kidney Day this year is ‘early detection and prevention’, it would probably be as prudent to dwell on the treatment modalities (especially dialysis) in view of the large number of people with End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).

Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) uses the abdominal lining or peritoneal membrane as a natural filter to remove waste from the bloodstream and therefore works inside the body. A small tube called a catheter is surgically inserted into the abdominal cavity and through it dialysis fluid is injected into the abdomen. The dialysis fluid then draws body waste and extra fluid across the peritoneal membrane. The mixture of body waste, extra body fluid and dialysis fluid is finally drained from the abdomen.

Haemodialysis, on the other hand involves drawing the patient’s blood out of the body through a dialysis circuit containing artificial filters. The filters remove the waste products and return the blood to the body.

CAPD (Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis), the most widely employed form of Peritoneal Dialysis offers the advantage of being self- administered and therefore completely precludes the need of travelling to and from dialysis centres.

This also means that it can even be employed by people in remote areas. Moreover since it does not require an elaborate set-up, the costs are significantly reduced. In contrast to Haemodialysis there is no re- use of disposables in peritoneal dialysis. Haemodialysis requires the patients to travel to the dialysis centres at least three times a week. Also the elaborate set-up requires means that the costs are significantly inflated.

As far as the efficacy of the two forms of dialysis, studies seem to suggest that here also Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) holds the upper hand. Since PD is a continuous dialysis, it allows for better preservation of residual kidney function.

A study conducted by Rubin et al. reports that patients receiving PD rated their care higher than those receiving Called CHOICE (Choices for Healthy Outcomes In Caring for End stage renal disease). The study appeared in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) in February 2004. 

Gurgaon, March 10
The millennium city gets more than 300 cases of chronic kidney disease (CKD) every day and the country develops about 1.2 lakh kidney patients every year who need transplantation and dialysis. The number is nearly one billion worldwide.

For each patient coming to dialysis programme, around 100 are in various stages of kidney disease. Only 10% of them receive some form of treatment and the rest of the patients die for want of therapy due to poor health care facilities, illiteracy, heavy financial involvement and lack of donors.

India is experiencing some of the world’s sharpest increase in CKD especially due to diabetes and hypertension. The prevalence of this in developing countries has reached epidemic proportion. Up to 30% to 50% of patients of CKD have diabetes as a major cause of kidney disease.

The specialists feel that various symptoms in kidney disease are weakness, swelling of the body, loss of appetite and loss of protein in the urine. Malaria, typhoid, dengue and acute gastroenteritis may cause sudden decrease in renal function.

“This type of renal failure is called Acute Renal Failure and can be managed either conservatively or through dialysis and most of the times kidney function improves,” Dr Anurag Khaitan, renowned urologist of Gurgaon mentioned and added that some other systemic diseases like vaculitis and lupus may also cause Chronic Kidney Disease. Further some of the over the counter available pain killers, obstructive uropathies and polycystic kidney also cause CKD.

He said that one can prevent or delay progression by doing aerobic exercises, weight reduction, regular medical checkups, avoiding smoking and nutritive food intake.

Dr Khaitan, who had treated more than 15,000 kidney stone cases, tells, “High mineral content in water, high environmental temperature and poor eating habits are main culprits of kidney stones. Thus, one should take lots of coconut water, balanced vegetarian diet, lemon juice and fibre diet to prevent kidney stones.”

Dr LK Tripathi, DM nephrologist, Paras Hospitals, said, “The main factor leading to stone formation is reduced water intake, urinary tract infections and obstructive uro-pathies. In Haryana, transplant facilities are far from adequate.” 

New Delhi, March 10
A large number of inmates in Tihar Jail belong to the minority communities and most of them are Muslims. They have been languishing in the jail as they do not have enough financial support for litigation, sources said.

In 2008, the percentage of male Muslim inmates was 28.61 while that of female was 25.59. Now there are 27.26 per cent male and 25.53 per cent female inmates. The reason for a slight decline in their number is that they have been released on the basis of self-bond, sources said.

According to sources, most of the inmates had indulged in domestic violence.

A delegation of the Delhi Minorities’ Commission, including its chairman Kamal Faruqui, members Pushpinder Singh and Arnold James yesterday visited Tihar Jail to monitor the condition in which the inmates live and the basic facilities provided to them.

They were taken to a jail where criminals of East Delhi were lodged. Around 500 inmates were lodged there. Of them over 300 were Muslims. They had indulged in petty criminal cases.

The Commission members observed that the inmates be provided Punjabi and Urdu newspapers, things like mats, jugs and things required for their worship. They should be allowed to celebrate festivals jointly. Religious books other than the Quran, Guru Granth Sahib and Bible be kept in the jail library.

The Commission has decided to provide such books.

The delegation also suggested the jail authorities to improve the elementary education of the inmates, their daily necessities and medical treatments. 

New Delhi, March 10
A 15-year-old girl has alleged that she was raped by president of Residents Welfare Association (RWA), Avantika Enclave in the Mangolpuri area of Outer Delhi.

The medical test has confirmed rape. Besides, the girl is pregnant.

A case has been lodged in Mangolpuri police station. The accused Pradeep Dabas (40) has not been arrested so far.

The victim’s father who works in a furniture shop in the same locality has alleged that Pradeep Dabas had raped his daughter at gunpoint over a month ago when she was alone in the house.

According to the police, Pradeep Dabas is a bad character of the Kanjhawala police station area. He is a property dealer and lends small sum on interest. While the victim is a student of class IX in a government school.

The police said Pradeep had become friends with the victim’s father about a year ago. Soon he became a frequent visitor to their house.

He allegedly visited their house over a month ago and raped the girl at gunpoint. She was alone in the house. He raped her several times in absence of her parents.

The girl told her mother about the incident yesterday.

Local residents, including the friends of the victim’s family protested against the incident and broke the accused’s car.

Meanwhile, according to sources, Pradeep is allegedly pressurising the police so that the case is dismissed.

“Pradeep claims to be a close friend of a Delhi government minister. He further said his political rivals have framed him,” said a police official from Mangolpuri police station.

However, when Pradeep was asked to come to the police station and explain his point of view he refused. 

Noida, March 10
Two bike-borne bandits robbed a woman by taking captive her eight-year-old daughter late on Sunday evening in Noida’s Sector-28.

They first pointed a gun at the daughter and then asked her mother to part with her jewellery.

The Sector-20 police has registered a case of snatching.

It may be recalled that two bikers had similarly looted a woman at Nithari Crossing on February 8 by taking captive her one-year-old daughter.

Rashmi Singh, a resident of Sector-29, was going to Atta market around 8 pm on a cycle-rickshaw. Her eight-year-old daughter was also with her. As their rickshaw reached near Vishwa Bharati School, two goons on a motorbike slowed down near it, and pointed a gun at Rashmi’s daughter.

Threatening to kill her, the robbers asked Rashmi to hand over to them all her jewellery. Meanwhile, as the little girl started crying, the bandits sped away. After this, Rashmi informed her husband, who then rang up the police control room.

However, the police has still not been able to nab the bike-borne bandits who had snatched jewellery from BSNL officer’s daughter Meena at Nithari crossing on February 8.

New Delhi, March 10
Depressed with prolonged sickness, a 45-year-old man set himself on fire after pouring kerosene today morning in the Sabzi Mandi area of North Delhi.

The deceased Vijay Prakash was a resident of Hasan Lal Katra in the Malkaganj area of Subzi Mandi. He had been suffering from asthma since the last 12 years.

The deceased’s wife said that his condition had gone from bad to worse in the last few years making Vijay weak and bedridden. He remained upset, as his health did not permit him to work. His medical expenses were high and he felt he was a burden on his family. His wife worked and supported the family.

He locked himself in his room around 5:30 a.m. today and burnt himself after pouring kerosene. He was found dead when the door was broke open.

Vijay’s wife told the police that she and her two children were beside him till 2 a.m. But they went to another room after some time. She woke up on hearing Vijay’s screams for help around 5.30 a.m. But she could not save him as the room was locked from inside. By the time neighbours rushed in, Vijay had died of burns.