New Delhi, June 16
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) today pulled down seven properties in various parts of Delhi as part of its demolition drive.

On Tuesday morning, municipal officials entered residential colonies under various municipal zones with bulldozers, trucks and tractors to raze any illegal construction in sight. The civic agency teams were accompanied by police personnel.

According to MCD officials, two properties were demolished in Jungpura, one in Bhogal, two in Okhla Extension, one in Greater Kailash-I and one in Chattarpur.

The crackdown by the MCD on illegal constructions and encroachments was opposed by the residents, who protested against the drive in central Delhi, causing traffic jams and forcing civic officials to suspend its activity.

However, the officials claimed that the drive was peaceful. “The drive was overall peaceful and will continue as we have planned routine checks in many parts of the city,” said a MCD official.

“This is a routine action to check the ongoing illegal constructions in places from where there have been complaints,” he said.

But, the scene on the ground appeared to be in contrast to the officials’ statement. The residents of Paharganj, near New Delhi Railway station, put up fierce resistance against the MCD’s action, forcing officials to suspend the demolition drive by noon.

The residents said they were not issued any prior notice before demolishing their properties. “We have not been given any information regarding the demolition. They are just bullying us,” said one of the shopkeepers.

The drive is likely to continue in other areas like Jehangirpuri, Bhogal, Hari Nagar, Ashram, Mehrauli, Khirki Extension, Mohammadpur and Chittranjan Park, a senior MCD official said.

New Delhi, June 16
In the recent years Delhi University (DU) has laid stress on increasing the academic and professional options for students interested in non-formal education at the university.

While the Campus of Open Learning has opened broader avenues for undergraduate students by tying up with private firms, the School of Open Learning offers honours courses in English and Political Science.

“Courses offered by the School of Open Learning have been popular with students since their inception. Students who wish to take up more than one course at a time or want to work and study, used to take admission here,” said an official in the administration of the school.

He added, “However, with our results improving, we are gaining more credibility and the school has become a choice for students and not a compulsion.”

The graduation certificates given out by the school are exactly similar to the certificates given to the students of full-time courses. The school has its own faculty of professors that develops course material and sends it to the students.

All class XII pass-outs can enrol for the School of Open Learning without age being a consideration. The school offers BA and BCom courses. Honours courses in English and Political Science are also offered. The application forms for the school can be collected from the campus. The last date of applying for the school is August 27 and October 31 with the late fee of Rs 200.

DU has another set of options for girl students offered by the Non-Collegiate Women’s Education Board. The board has both BA and BCom courses for girl students.

Unlike the School of Open Learning, Non-Collegiate classes are held at 12 centres across the university colleges over the weekend. Here, the students get the campus experience and still do other things.

The office of the board is located at the Tutorial Building in the Arts Faculty of DU North Campus. The forms would be given out till June 19.

For the non-formal students enrolled with the DU, the university has introduced the Campus of Open Learning that provides students with hand-on professional training.

“We launched our courses last year and got tremendous response from the students. This year we have tied up with five more private firms and the total number of courses offered by the campus now is 25,” said Mamta Bhatia, officer on special duty, Campus of Open Learning.

The campus offers 25 seats per course and the last date of filling the applications is July 9.

The forms for the courses can be collected from the campus in Keshavpuram or downloaded from the university website. Classes for all the courses take place at its campus.

New Delhi, June 16
Leader of opposition in Delhi Assembly, Vijay Kumar Malhotra said that Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit in her statements had demanded that the Delhi police, the DDA and the MCD should be under the city government, but the demand was not mentioned in the budget speech of Lt. Governor Tejendra Khanna.

He said that on the one hand, state home minister Ajay Maken said that there was no question of handing over the police to the Delhi government, on the other hand, the Chief Minister said that she had written a letter to the LG, demanding that the agencies should be placed under the state government.

He said that this was a question of privilege and this should have been mentioned in the Lt. Governor’s speech.

He said that Lt Governor claimed that water and power supply had been improved in Delhi. However, in some areas of west Delhi, six to eight hours while in south Delhi four to six hours of loadshedding has been reported. The same condition prevails in many other areas of the Capital.

As far as Commonwealth Games are concerned, they were awarded to India due to the efforts of NDA government in 2003 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister.

He said the Congress has been in power in Delhi for more than 10 years, but no new government hospital has been opened. Only private hospitals are coming up in the Capital.

Appreciating the Delhi Metro Rail services, Malhotra said that it had given relief to the citizens of the Capital, but bus services were still not up to the mark.

New Delhi, June 16
It has been more than two weeks, but the 36 bonded labourers, rescued from the zari industry of Seelampur area on May 28 by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), are still waiting for their release certificates.

After the kids were rescued with the help of Delhi police and the district magistrate, they were taken to the Mukti Ashram, a rehabilitation centre of BBA.

The founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, Kailash Sathyarthi said that these children were entitled to a rehabilitation package for around five days after which they would receive their release certificates and go back home.

The sub-divisional magistrate of the Seelampur area, A. K. Sharma, also confirmed on the same day that these children would get the required certificates within a week.

At present, these 36 children are still in Mukti Ashram under the Bachpan Bachao Andolan waiting desperately to go back home.

The co-director of BBA says, “We want to send these children home as soon as possible. Their rehabilitation period is over, but until they get their certificates by the district magistrate, they will remain here.”

Surprisingly, neither parents nor any relative came to visit these children yet. The officials of BBA say, “BBA is not responsible for making a contact with the parents of these children. It is the duty of district magistrates of Delhi and Bihar, the states to which they belong to inform their parents.”

Meanwhile, a health check-up of the children was done. The reports were normal and apart from fever and cold, none of the children had any serious problem.

The officials claimed that as some of the addresses were incorrect, it was taking them longer to complete the process of issuing the release certificates.

Sources in other NGOs working for child rights in the city claim that BBA is just raising the issue and is not taking any serious step to stop the children from working again.

A socialist says, “The aim of any organization working for child rights should be to eradicate all the problems and social evils linked to children. It is not enough to just point out an evil and then leave it to the government officials.”

Gurgaon, June 16
Here is some good news for the patients who want hassle-free surgical treatment by trained doctors but cannot afford to pay the charges of private hospitals.

The civil hospitals across the state will soon provide for comprehensive surgery packages at nominal charges.

A scheme to this effect will be launched by Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on July 1.

After the implementation of the surgery package programme, a fixed amount for surgery would be charged from the patient. After that, the civil hospital administration would bear the entire responsibility of conducting pathological tests and surgery, besides providing the required medicines and other necessities to the patient.

“The patients or their attendants will not be asked to bring anything from outside. Even if the facility of any pathological test is not available at the government hospital, it would be the hospital administration’s duty to get that test done from outside without charging any extra money from the patient,” said Dr S.S.Dalal, civil surgeon.

An amount of Rs 10,000 would be made available to each operating surgeon for meeting out any expenditure in case of emergency, he added.

As per the provisions under the scheme, the patient would be given a date for surgery, by which he/she would have to deposit the package amount.

The below poverty line (BPL) families and residents of urban slums notified by the state department of urban local bodies would be entitled to free surgeries. For this, the BPL families would have to submit a copy of their BPL card, while the residents of urban slums would have to submit a copy of their ration card as proof of their residence.

Similarly, as per state government’s policies, no charges would be taken for the deliveries of pregnant women, caesarian, eye surgeries, cleft lip, cleft palate and paediatric eye surgeries even after the implementation of surgery package programme and these surgeries will remain free of cost.

Apart from providing smooth and affordable surgical facilities to the patients, the programme aims at curbing the possibility of any underhand dealing between the doctors and medicine vendors.

New Delhi, June 16
The South East district police has arrested a person operating in the name of ‘Chota Rajan’ on charges of extortion. The accused has been identified as Aslam Firoz (32).

Three mobile phones, seven SIM cards and currency notes of Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and Japan have been seized from him.

The Badarpur police received a complaint from a factory owner on June 12 that a person called Chota Rajan had demanded Rs 50 lakh from him. The accused had threatened to kill him if he failed to pay the amount by June 15. He fixed up the time and place where the money had to be paid.

A special team was formed and policemen were deployed to apprehend the accused. Chota Rajan was later identified as Aslam Firoz, a resident of Railway Bridge in Badarpur.

Aslam Firoz said he came from a poor family had nine siblings. He had done his matriculation from a government school in his native village. With the help of an agent he went to Saudi Arabia in 1999 to earn a livelihood and worked there as an electrician. But he returned to India in 2008 and stayed in his village till March 2009. Then he came to Delhi to earn a living and even planned to go to Saudi Arabia. But in the meantime he saw footage of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his associate Chota Rajan on TV and decided to adopt their modus operandi of extortion to earn easy money.

Therefore, he decided to operate in the name of ‘Chota Rajan’ and hence called up a businessman and demanded an extortion of Rs 50 lakh.

New Delhi, June 16
A team of the special cell of the Delhi police has apprehended a criminal Kishan Pal, alias KP, alias Raju Fauji, (37), who is allegedly involved in more than a dozen cases of murder, kidnapping and robbery in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

The Hauz Quazi police had announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for any information leading to his arrest in connection with a sensational murder case in the area.

Ghaziabad, June 16
Two minor girls drowned after the car in which they were travelling with their parents fell into a canal near Ghaziabad on Tuesday afternoon.

Police officer Kamal Singh said a family of five, including three children, was travelling in their Maruti car alongside the Masoori canal when their car plunged into the canal after the driver lost control after a tyre burst.

On hearing their cries, people rushed to their help and saved the couple — Mohammed Zakir and Shameem Bano and their eight-month-old child Isha.

“The locals saved the couple and their infant daughter. But their two daughters, Nisha (6) and Muskan (8), died due to drowning,” the official added.

The victims’ bodies has been handed over to their parents. — IANS

Faridabad, June 16
An ex-serviceman has been arrested for allegedly killing his neighbour, a final year engineering student yesterday.

According to the police, the accused Subhash Chand was produced before a local court today and has been sent to 14 days’ judicial custody.

According to the SHO concerned, the accused has confessed to his crime. He stated to the police that he had lost his temper following altercation with the victim, Sunil Singh, a native of Hanumangarh district in Rajasthan. The police has booked the accused under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The altercation between them had taken place with regard to switching on an electric motor to pump in water from a storage tank in the building. The accused had objected to switching on the motor. Following the heated exchange, the accused allegedly fired a shot in the chest of Sunil from his double-barrel gun from a pointblank range.

Meanwhile, the relatives of the deceased took away his body from the Badshah Khan Hospital after the postmortem this afternoon.

New Delhi, June 16
The CBI today registered a case against the deputy general manager (finance) and the chief accounts officer of MTNL for allegedly demanding a bribe of Rs 60,000.

The complainant, a contractor, was given a contract for house keeping at the general manager’s office in Rajouri Garden from July 8, 2008 to May 13, 2009.

The officials had allegedly demanded the bribe to release the payment of pending bills and also to extend the contract.

The accused were caught red-handed accepting Rs 32,000 — the first payment of the bribe. “Rs 16,000 was seized from each of the two officials and they were arrested,” said a CBI official adding that searches were also conducted in their residences.

Noida, June 16
After taking a lift in a cab, four persons allegedly robbed its driver on Monday evening. They beat him up and sped away with his cab. The incident took place a few metres from a police post.

Cab driver Sanjay Sharma said he was going towards NIB police post on Monday evening when four persons requested him for a lift near Khoda colony. After boarding the car, the hitchhikers pulled out guns and started beating up Sanjay. The four then dumped him on the road and sped away towards Ghaziabad.

Sanjay reported the matter to the police post. The police carried out a vehicle check, but could not nab the car-jackers.