New Delhi, June 28
Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today directed the BSES to improve power situation by procuring power from wherever possible. At a high-level meeting, the Chief Minister directed the BSES to normalise power situation in city within four days and to treat the present situation as an internal emergency.

The BSES has been asked to purchase power at any rate to meet the gap between demand and availability. At the meet it was said, if the situation did not improve within the given time, the government would be forced to take strict actions against the discoms.

The meeting was attended by chief secretary Rakesh Mehta; principal secretary to CM P.K. Tripathi; power secretary Rajender Kumar; chairman of BSES Lalit Jalan; CEO of BSES Arun Kanchan and many other senior officers.

Jalan was summoned to personally intervene in the matter.

The CM has specifically asked the BSES to improve its redressal system, reduce load shading, increase staff to take care of break-downs, ensure proper coordination with the power department and display information about break-downs, duration of power cuts on local TV channels and cable TV network.

Besides, the power department has been directed to monitor the SCADA system of the BSES to immediately take corrective measures. It was also underlined that the duration of power cut should not go beyond one hour at one time. Dikshit stated that the improvement must be visible.

The BSES was asked to take all possible measures to rectify local faults within shortest possible time so that its response time could improve substantially.

At the meeting, it was reported that the BSES had not been getting its due share of power from Uttaranchal. It was also stated that this year the demand of power had gone up 15 per cent, when a rise of only 8.5 per cent was anticipated.

Talking to the reporters after the meeting, the Chief Minister said the government had been able to get an additional 150 MW power from the central pool which is expected to be available within next two- three hours.

In addition, the Mandola power station, which was shut down, is now giving 300-325 MW. This should provide some relief, said Dikshit.

Meanwhile, the issue of long hours of load shedding was raised in the Delhi Assembly, where the members complaint that in many areas people were facing six to eight hours of power cuts. 

New Delhi, June 28
Delhiites heaved a sigh of relief on Sunday as brief showers brought the temperature down in the city that has been reeling under long power cuts. The drizzle promised the onset of the monsoon in the coming days.

According to the Met department, the maximum temperature recorded on Sunday was 41.8 degrees Celsius, while the minimum was at 29.3 degrees Celsius.

The maximum temperature was notably down from the past few days when the mercury hovered above 43 degree Celsius - it was 43.7 degrees on Saturday.

The Met department also predicted a cloudy sky on Monday with a possibility of rain coupled with thunderstorms and thunder squalls.

“The maximum and minimum temperatures on Monday would hover around 39 and 30 degrees Celsius respectively,” a Met department official said. “Today 3.6 mm of rainfall was recorded in Delhi. The humidity level was at 72 per cent,” the official added.

“Duststorms and mild thundershowers like what Delhi experienced today are precursors to the advancing monsoon,” said India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Ajit Tyagi.

“Northern India is also likely to witness pre-monsoon showers in the next couple of days or the start of July. The monsoon is expected to reach Delhi by the first week of July,” he said. — IANS

New Delhi, June 28
Delhi University (DU) would close admissions for the first cut-off list tomorrow. “Most of the students who come for admissions on the last day are those who failed to submit their certificates on the previous days or are ones who could not decide which college to choose,” said an admission counsellor at the university dean’s office.

The counsellors advised students to ensure admission in the first list even if the college or the course was not their priority.

“Students should take admission even if the college and course that they are getting in the first list is not their priority. This way they will at least secure an admission,” said Kopal, a counsellor.

She added, “The original documents submitted at the time of admission could easily be taken back if the student wants to shift to another college after the declaration of the second list.”

In case the students do not have all their documents ready, they can submit provisional certificates. An application signed by the students saying that the original document would be submitted by the last day of admissions could be deposited with the college authorities.

The documents needed at the time of admission are: Marksheet of class X, passing certificate of class X, marksheet of class XII, passing certificate of class XII, character certificate, migration certificate, transfer certificate, five passport size photographs and OMR acknowledgements given to them at the time of filing the forms.

New Delhi, June 28
Taking the struggle for the rights of queer people a step ahead, Capital’s second queer pride parade also raised issues of other “repressed communities” in the country.

The coulorful parade started from Barahkhamba Road and culminated at Jantar Mantar today. Thousands of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people celebrated their identities by blowing whistles, singing songs and poetry with their rainbow flags.

Dressed in colourful dresses, these people demanded that Section 377, which declared “unnatural sex as criminal offence”, be taken out of the Indian Constitution.

“A case against Section 377 has been pending in the Delhi High Court since long. Any consensual sexual activity between two adults must be legal,” said Punney from the Alternative Legal Forum.

One of the organisers of the parade, Gautam Bhan, said lakhs of people across the country were being repressed because of the Section 377. “Like so many other communities are being oppressed in one name or the other, the sexual minorities are also being targeted,” said Bhan.

He said many gay couples were being forced to commit suicide, as they had no space of expression.

The queer pride parade saw the parents also coming out on the streets this year to support the decisions taken by their children. Kanta Adwani whose son was gay, said it felt great to see so many people standing to claim their identities.

“Everyone should join this celebration. I feel the Section (377) should be taken off. These parades happen all over the world from long, however, in India they have started recently. We are proud of my son,” said Adwani, who participated in the parade with her elder son.

Many gay rights activists and organisations were seen participating in the parade including academicians from the universities.

“The parade is an opportunity to celebrate in a country where we do not have any rights. It is like participating in history,” said Amrit, fashion designer.

Pointing out that Delhi has evolved over time in its outlook towards queer communities, famous fashion designer Varun Sardana said, “Relatively, we see more acceptance in Delhi than other cities in the country. However, Section 377 is a big hurdle in the way of our struggle of equal rights.”

Celebrating the united movement of queer communities wearing a beautiful Red hat, Sardana said, “This is what freedom feels like.”

The queer pride parades are held internationally to commemorate the revolt from the sexual minorities against the police attack on a gay club in the Greenwich Village of New York City.

The DCE faculty has withstood all these to create a name for itself. The Government has not bothered to seek the opinion of the faculty before initiating such an ill-thought step. The DTF agrees with the Teachers’ Association of DCE which has argued against the proposed conversion and has asked for changing the status of the College to a constituent college of the University of Delhi like the University College of Medical Sciences.”

New Delhi, June 28
Mock drills were conducted at Delhi metro stations today in scenarios depicting terrorist attacks and serial bomb blasts created simultaneously on five different metro premises.

“The exercise started at 8.01 am, when the DMRC operations control centre (OCC) received messages from the Delhi police and stations concerned that supposed bomb blasts have taken place in the last coach of a metro train at Dwarka station on the Nawada and Dwarka track,” said DMRC officials.

Subsequently, information was received that mock serial blasts had taken place at the parking of the Yamuna Bank station, a feeder bus and a coffee shop. Five supposed terrorist attacks were then reported at Kashmere Gate station, where the “terrorists” even enacted capture of the station control room.

Personnel of the DMRC, Delhi police, Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Delhi Disaster Management Authority, Civil Defence, Delhi Fire Services and Medical Services rushed to the location to bring the situation under control, take the supposed “victims” to hospitals, tackle the terrorists and evacuate commuters. The National Security Guard (NSG) was also observing the mock drill.

“The situation was brought under control at 8.43 am when the last mock terrorists at Kashmere Gate were neutralised,” announced Anuj Dayal, spokesperson, DMRC.

Between 8.01 am and 8.43 am, all Metro train operations remained suspended and entry into stations was closed as a part of standard emergency procedure. Announcements were made urging commuters to remain calm.

Drills are regularly conducted on metro premises to check preparedness to tackle emergency situations. Since 2005, 15 mock drills have been conducted, in which scenarios like terrorist attacks, evacuation of trains and stations, derailment and fire, were created.

New Delhi, June 28
Thousands of children below the age of five years were today administered life-saving anti-polio drops at 8,200 polio booths across the Capital. Reiterating the goal of eradicating polio from Delhi, health minister Kiran Walia urged everyone to work towards keeping polio virus out of the state and the neighbouring areas.

“The two cases that have come up here this year are quite likely the result of the frequent visits of people from other states, and hence the government now is going to keep a strict vigil on the front,” she said.

Pointing at a decline in the number of cases this year vis-a-vis last year, Walia said this year, till now, the country has seen 49 polio cases as against 559 cases reported last year, out of which 75 were due to P1 virus. Last year Delhi had five cases, including four due to P1 virus.

Urging parents to come forward in the fight against polio, she said all parents should bring their children till five years of age to the nearest polio booth and help in making the Intensified Pulse Polio Immunisation Programme successful.

As a part of the immunisation campaign, she added that the Delhi government, during a week-long programme, would go from door to door to look for children who were not vaccinated, and in the course it targets to reach out to as many as 48.3 lakh households.

Noida, June 28
The Government of India has issued a notification entailing 34 corrections in the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005, thanks to a consistent campaign by a senior citizen of Noida and retired defence officer, Commodore Lokesh Batra.

Changes have also been incorporated in pages 685 and 709 of the RTI Act, according to Batra.

The Right to Information Act, as an effective weapon in the hands of public, has been hailed as one of the important achievements of the UPA government in its last tenure. Batra who has been pursuing this case for the last 14 months had to use the very same RTI for effecting these changes and corrections in the RTI Act.

A Noida resident, Batra had on April 3, 2008 written a letter to the Chief Information Commissioner (RTI).

He followed it up with a letter on April 10, 2008 to the PMO inviting attention to a number of serious mistakes in the Hindi rendering of the Act.

When he did not receive any response from both offices, Batra sought information through an RTI application from the PMO. After three months of this RTI, PMO sent a communication to Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT), Government of India. On March 12, 2009 it became known that PMO’s email system had been affected by virus.

After a relentless struggle, a notification of 34 corrections/changes in the Hindi version of RTI Act has been issued by the government. Equipped with a copy of this notification, Commodore Batra said he will continue to serve the public by raising important issues through the RTI.