New Delhi, May 22
There has been a marked improvement in pass percentage of students of Delhi government schools in CBSE class-XII results declared today whereas there has been a decrease in pass percentage of students from public schools in Delhi.

Overall pass percentage of Delhi government schools has gone up by 1.44 per cent compared to last year, said Delhi education minister Arvinder Singh.

He stated that as a matter of fact the government schools in Delhi have bridged the gap with public schools and performed equally well.

He further stated that the pass percentage of government schools has gone up from 85.70 per cent to 87.14 per cent whereas the percentage has decreased from 78.61 per cent to 75.68 per cent in case of aided schools and in case of public schools from 87.81 per cent to 87.17 per cent (-0.64 per cent). Last year there was difference (2.11 per cent) between pass percentage of public schools (87.81 per cent) and government schools (85.70 per cent).

It is creditable that this year the pass percentage of government and public schools is the same, the minister said.

Delhi government schools have secured the highest position amongst all CBSE regions in three successive years though the pass percentage of Chennai regions is the highest among all other regions, but in case of government schools it is two per cent behind the Delhi government schools.

The number of students appeared from government schools increased by around 15,000 whereas in case of aided schools around 1,300 and in case of public schools around 2,650 only. The increase in number of students in case of government schools is more than 20 per cent than last year. This year 87,235 students appeared from Delhi government schools against 72,253 last year.

The minister said that the number of merit certificate winners in government schools has gone up from 98 in 2008 to 124 in 2009 which is also a big achievement.

The result proves that the Delhi government schools have also been imparting quality education to special children.

Anuj Goel from Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya, Shalimar Bagh, who is visually impaired, has topped all over India with 96.4 per cent among special children in Class-XII with commerce stream.

New Delhi, May 22
Class XII students of Delhi finally heaved a sigh of relief as the results for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination were declared on Friday.

The CBSE helpline has been flooded with calls all day as anxious students and parents rang up incessantly for all kinds of enquiries.

The Delhi region topper of the exam is a DPS R.K. Puram student Subhashish Bhadra who scored 98 per cent. He is currently vacationing with his parents in Kolkata.

Bhadra has scored a perfect 100 in mathematics, 99 in economics, 98 in both English and chemistry and 95 in physics.

While his school DPS R.K. Puram has put up a record result this year with a majority of students getting distinctions and many scoring over 90 per cent. Close to 16,000 students across the country have scored over 90 per cent marks this year.

Another school that got a highly satisfying result is Bhatnagar International School, Vasantkunj. School’s 97.4 per cent students passed the examination, with 340 of them getting distinctions. Seventy three students secured above 90 per cent in individual subjects. School toppers include Aksheev Bhambri (98 per cent in bio-technology), Akshadha Krishanaswamy (98 per cent in computer science) and Manish Shukla (97 per cent in mathematics).

Meanwhile, the branches of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) in the Delhi region have also performed rather well, with 94 per cent students passing the exam. JNVs are autonomous schools under the ministry of human resource development.

The pass percentage of the branches of Navodaya Vidyalaya is 94.09 per cent, which is 2.65 per cent higher than last year. Of the total 21,692 JNV students who appeared for the exam (13,946 boys and 7,746 girls), 371 scored 90 per cent and above marks.

The Navodaya Vidyalayas were followed by Kendriya Vidyalayas with a pass percentage of 91.32, an increase of 0.32 per cent from last year.

Gurgaon, May 22
People visiting the Gurgaon mini-secretariat building housing various government offices are a harried lot. For a change, the government officials posted here are also at the receiving end.

The problem: The lifts don’t work. Most of the six lifts installed in the six-storey building have been lying unmoved ever since their installation. The only “working” lift also developed some snag and has not been working since the past several weeks.

Thanks to the non-working lifts, the visitors as well as officials posted here are left with no alternative but to climb the stair to reach their “official” destination.

Especially the elderly and physically challenged persons find it quite difficult to climb the stairs.

“We have to go to the ground floor several times during the office hours for various official works, which drains out body’s energy,” says a government employee who works on the fifth floor of the building.

According to construction experts, there should also be a provision for some ramp for the convenience of the physically challenged persons, but the mini-secretariat building is devoid of any such provision.

Inquiries made by this correspondent revealed that the mini-secretariat building was constructed by the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) and handed over to the PWD (B and R) for maintenance.

However, the PWD wing refused to take the responsibility of the lifts, stating that these were not in proper working condition. It was around 2004. Since then, the departments have been trying to evade their responsibility by passing the buck at all occasions whenever some corrective action is required.

Deputy Commissioner Deepti Umashankar told The Tribune that the PWD had sought a certain amount from the HUDA authorities to assume charge of the lifts; and the payment had been made recently.

“The lifts will be got repaired soon and it will be ensured that these continue to work smoothly and efficiently. We are in the process of constituting a committee for the purpose,” she maintained.

New Delhi, May 22
The much-hyped chase and challan scheme launched by the Delhi traffic police last year is putting the dutiful policemen in an awkward situation.

This bunch of traffic policemen armed with Pulsar bikes and licences to go after a traffic violator is often seen driving at dangerous speed. In the process, not only are they putting their and fellow commuters’ life at risk, but also end up having arguments with the violator who charge them with breaking the laws.

“You can find them driving much above the speed limit to challan an offender. Aren’t they breaking the law?” asks Ranjit Tomar, an MNC executive who drives to his office in CP and almost collided with a speeding traffic policeman’s bike a few days ago. He claims to have witnessed the same traffic policemen hurting themselves after their bike skidded a week earlier. “They are no Formula-1 drivers and I have reasons to believe some of them do not even have the basic road sense,” he said.

Speaking to The Tribune after one haggling session on the UP link road last night, the traffic policemen, on the condition of anonymity, accepted that needless argument by violators was the worst part of their job.

“Chasing is the easiest part of the deal. The problem comes when the offenders say we drove above speed limits to catch them and refuse to hand over the papers. It is only after much threat that we challan them,” said a traffic policeman.

S.N. Shrivastava, joint commissioner of police (traffic), however, expressed ignorance about his men driving dangerously. “I have not received any complaints in this regard. Moreover, you cannot decide speed limits for ambulances or other such vehicles engaged in emergency service or law implementation,” he said.

In principle, the scheme has been a huge success with motorcycle-borne traffic policemen managing to challan close to 3.84 lakh traffic offenders last year. Happy with the success, the traffic police added 200 more bikes to the fleet in February this year.

New Delhi, May 22
Goods worth lakhs were gutted when fire broke out in a shoe factory at Peeragarhi in Outer Delhi last night.

Fire officials said they received a call around 11:30 p.m. that a two-storeyed shoe factory had caught fire. The situation came under control only after 5 in the morning.

Ghaziabad, May 22
Two armed robbers looted Rs 6 lakh from a bank here this afternoon.

According to the police, robbers barged into a Syndicate Bank branch in Sector-3 of Vaishali at around 3 p.m. when cash was being transferred to the currency chest.

While one of the robbers overpowered the bank security guard and took his gun, another snatched the bag containing cash at gunpoint from the cashier.

Before fleeing, the robbers disabled the bank guard’s gun by disassembling it into two pieces due to which the guard could not use the weapon for a few minutes.

Although the security camera footage showed the criminals robbing the cashier, the criminals could not be identified as they wore helmets fitted with dark glasses, the police said.

Bank manager Jeet Singh said although the currency chest had more than a million, the robbers could pick only Rs 6 lakh.

The entire heist was over in minutes, he added.

District police chief Akhil Kumar said, “The bank security guard was at fault. He was so lax in his duties that the criminals could snatch his gun and separated it into two. We have registered the case and would soon arrest the criminals.” — IANS

Noida, May 22
A fast-track court in Noida has awarded life sentence to a youth of Nangla Parihi village in Javer for raping a girl child.

Judge Narinder Kumar Singh also slapped a fine of Rs 20,000 on the culprit. The court said that in case the culprit failed to pay the fine, his tenure of imprisonment would be prolonged by three months.

According to prosecution, on September 10, 2008, Harbeer had abducted a sleeping girl child from his neighbour’s house around 2 am. He then took the child to the village’s outskirts and raped her.

The child was later rushed to hospital where rape was confirmed. A report was then lodged against Harbeer who was nabbed by the police.

New Delhi, May 22
Damage to two high-power poles in the Shastri Park area of Trans-Yamuna due to the storm caused loadshedding for four hours today in central and northeast district. Power supply from Mandola power station was snapped for more than four hours, sources said.

Employees of the power department were put on work just after the incident. But it took four hours to make the poles in normal position. The power supply was normalised after 6 p.m.

Rajghat power station and Indraprastha gas-based power station were also closed due to technical reasons which affected the power supply.

Offices located in central Delhi used their power back-up during the loadshedding.

The case in northeast Delhi was totally different as the lower middle class people are in a majority in the district. They do not have power back-up arrangement in their houses.

Rajiv, a resident of Ghonda, said that power supply in the area was snapped around 2 p.m.

A number of calls were made in power office, but the official concerned did not pick up the receiver.