New Delhi, September 3
Observing that “there cannot be any sympathy for students,” the Supreme Court here today dismissed a petition of NSUI candidate Deepak Negi and another student who had challenged the rejection of their nominations for tomorrow’s Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) poll.

A three-member Bench, headed by Justice BN Agarwal, also felt that the student petitioners had committed “grave violations” of the model code of conduct.

Senior counsel Rajiv Dutta, appearing for the students, however, maintained that his clients had not pasted the posters or taken out rallies as contended by those conducting the elections.

At this, the Bench, which included Justices GS Singhvi and Aftab Alam, wanted to know whether the aggrieved students were also denying the audio-tapes.

The Bench also wondered whether contesting the election was the “primary activity” of the students.

Counsel Dutta argued that the nominations had been rejected in gross violation of the apex court guidelines for the conduct of elections to students’ bodies.

The charge of exceeding the prescribed limit for expenses should have gone to the grievances cell, he contended.

The Bench also observed that the students should have challenged the rejection of their nomination papers through an election petition, rather than through a writ petition.

Earlier, the Delhi High Court had refused to interfere with the Delhi University’s step, debarring five candidates from contesting the elections, including Negi and ABVP’s Rohit Chahal.

New Delhi, September 3
On his first day in office, Jamia Millia Islamia’s new vice-chancellor Najeeb Jung today said there were huge “challenges” before him to make the university “one of the best in the world.”

Jung, a former Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer, took over as vice-chancellor from Mushirul Hasan, who was also on the panel of those shortlisted for the post.

A known energy expert, Jung believes, “the post of vice-chancellor comes with a lot of challenges.”

“I will give my best to carry forward and improve the academic culture and standard of the university. I will make the university one of best in the world as it has the potential,” sadi Jung.

Jamia teachers also hope the university will benefit from Jung’s versatile experience.

“His multi-faceted experience from his jobs in the bureaucracy and the corporate sector will definitely help in taking the university to new levels in the academic world,” said Arshad Alam, a teacher in Jamia.

Alam, who teaches in the Centre for Jawaharlal Nehru Studies, said, “Jung is pursuing his Phd in energy economics from Oxford University, and is well aware of the needs of the academic world. We are hopeful.”

Jung, a 1973 batch, Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer, studied at St. Stephen’s College here and London School of Economics.

He left the civil services after serving as joint secretary in the petroleum and natural gas ministry.

Jung had also played a major role in the privatisation of ONGC’s Panna Mukta oilfield that went to a consortium of Reliance-ONGC and British Gas.

He worked with Manila-based Asian Development Bank before joining the Observer Research Foundation as director of energy research. Jung was chosen over outgoing vice-chancellor Hasan and Bihar’s principal secretary (home) Afzal Amanullah. — IANS

New Delhi, September 3
Here’s good news for 2.5 million students of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). Their exam results are set to come faster and they won’t have to travel to Delhi in case they have a complaint.

IGNOU will soon decentralise its evaluation process CBSE-style, says a top official.

“We are putting in place a CBSE-style decentralisation procedure to provide examination results within 60 days,” said Srikant Mohapatra, registrar of IGNOU’s student evaluation division.

“Like the CBSE zonal system, we are dividing our student evaluation process into five zones — north, south, west, east and north east. What we have realised is that bringing in all answer papers to Delhi, evaluating them here and sending them back to regional centres takes a lot of time,” he said.

Mohapatra said, “Currently, students come to Delhi or write to us complaining about many things, but with the zonal system student grievances can be solved at the zonal level.”

IGNOU authorities said they were also contemplating starting a grading system in some of the courses instead of giving marks to students. — IANS

New Delhi, September 3
Techweek 2009, the exhaustive annual technical festival organized by the Delhi Technological University (DTU), was inaugurated by Dr Indu Gupta, scientist of DRDO, ministry of defence. The four-day festival will be on till September 5. Techweek is designed to bridge the knowledge and skill gap between the world of academics and the world of profession of engineering and technology. The idea is to prepare engineers of tomorrow, capable of working in the connected economy of the new knowledge age.

The festival was organized by the IEEE-DTU, which is the mentoring branch for 12 students’ chapters in colleges of engineering and technology, which include BITS Pilani and BK Birla Institute of Technology, among others.

The festival will showcase the current trends and future technologies through the eyes of the industry experts from the renowned IT majors as well as the intelligent student community of DTU and colleges of engineering in the Capital. The purpose is to enthuse the young student minds about the exciting horizons of IT and computation technologies and to inspire them to engage in developing capabilities of tomorrow’s knowledge society.

The experts from the hardware industry such as Freescale Semiconductors, CISCO, Yahoo India, Metawing, to mention a few, and India’s leading R&D organizations such as DRDO, ISRO and ST Microelectonics have been invited to interact with engineers from IEEE’s vibrant student chapter in India’s premier institution.

“Our purpose is to create the ‘Panchamrit’ of academia, industry, R&D organizations, government and society so that the benefits of innovations and creative minds in academia could draw inspiration and respond to create technologies and their applications to address the current and future problems of society,” said Prof. P.B. Sharma, vice-chacellor of DTU, in his presidential address at the inauguration of Techweek.

“A unique feature of this year’s Techweek is a workshop on the latest convergence technologies in robotics and autonomous systems to be delivered by the students of DTU,” informed Rohit Singh, chief coordinator of Techweek 2009.

New Delhi, September 3
Senior BJP leader and former BJP MLA Vijay Jolly today alleged that city government had betrayed and humiliated the poor slum dwellers in the Capital by formulating a scheme to hide Delhi slums with bamboo trees during the Commonwealth Games 2010. This is a temporary and cosmetic beautification exercise.

This is nothing but humiliation and attack on the self pride of the hard working poor people in Delhi, Jolly said.

He pointed out that Delhi has a population of 1.5 crore. Out of this, nearly 40 lakh live in slums and jhuggi clusters. Poor people living in these clusters are denied basic civic amenities like drinking water, electricity, sewerage etc. People are forced to live in inhuman conditions.

The poor are repeatedly betrayed either in the name of BPL (Below the Poverty Line) ration cards or in the name “Antodhya Ann Yojna”. They do not get their monthly ration supplies from government shops. Ration meant for them is sold on the black market. And even the available ration supplies are of inferior and substandard quality.

He stated that Delhi government has always promised a “slum-free Delhi”. Instead of providing succour, the government now proposes to hide slums from the eyes of international tourists, behind bamboo trees.

The government is in consultation with the agriculture department of Mizoram government to seek help in providing bamboo plantation trees around Delhi slums soon.

The Congress in its manifesto assured to allot flats to slum dwellers in high-rise building.

The buildings will be constructed at the place where slums exist. But still it is on record, he said.

Instead of constructing buildings, the government is planting saplings of bamboo tree. This should not be done, Jolly said.

Noida, September 3
A first year B.Tech student of Aerospace Engineering, Justin John Xavier, 18, drowned in the swimming pool of Amity University in Sector 125, Noida, around 8 a.m. today.

That Justin John, a six-footer, had drowned in 4-ft-deep pool on campus of the university while a coach, three to four lifeguards were present in the pool area, appears suspicious.

About 10 other students were also swimming in the pool at that time.

According to Prof. V.P. Sandlas, director- general, school of space science and technology, Amity, Xavier was a brilliant student and good swimmer. He was swimming along with some other friends. He had earlier gone jogging in the morning.

According to Prof Sandlas, a student noticed something unusual—John was sitting in the pool. He called some other students and the lifeguards. John Xavier was pulled out of the pool and rushed to the Kailash Hospital in Noida where doctors pronounced him “brought dead”.

“Justine had conveyed to his hostel mates 2-3 days back that he was suffering from some chest pain. He could have died perhaps due to a cardiac arrest inside the pool. But the exact picture would be clear only after the postmortem report is received,” Amity University vice-president (Corporate Communications) Savita Mehta said.

Justine was admitted to the college in the last week of July and had been staying in the college hostel since early August.

Justine was pursuing a dual degree (B. Tech and M. Tech combined) in space and avionics engineering programme. His father works with a private firm in Saudi Arabia and mother lives in Mumbai.

“A postmortem is yet to be conducted on Justine’s body as his parents are yet to arrive. His father has been informed. One of his uncles staying in Maharashtra is expected to arrive. His mother is also expected to reach,” said superintendent of police (city) A.K. Tripathi.

Gurgaon, September 3
Gurgaon has traditionally been a Congress stronghold in Assembly elections and non-Congress stronghold in Lok Sabha polls. However, caste and other calculations have changed the scenario in various constituencies, post-delimitation.

In Lok Sabha polls also, the Congress candidate secured lead.

With the Assembly polls scheduled for October 13, lobbying has started in Congress, BJP, INLD and Haryana Janhit Congress for tickets.

The Congress is likely to feild its sitting MLA Dharambir Gauba, who had won several times from Gurgaon. Post-delimitation, the seat has become Punjabi-dominated. The young generation feels the seat should be given to some other candidate as Gauba is not done anything for youngsters.

Moreover Gauba, while campaigning in the last Assembly polls, had requested people to vote for him as it would be his last election. Gurgaon figures on the world map and it is on the Congress high command to decide whether it should field a youth from this millennium city or retain him.

Other claimants for the Congress ticket are K.L. Yadav, an old party worker and G.L. Sharma, senior vice-president Gurgaon Congress. Punjabis as well as Brahmins seem to be in favour of Sharma as they feel he is young and can do much better.

According to sources, many people from the Punjabi community had written to Sonia Gandhi that they wanted some young candidate.

INLD is likely to field Sukhbir Kataria as its earlier candidate Gopi Chand Gahlot, ex-MLA and former deputy speaker of Haryana Vidhan Sabha, has shifted to Badsahpur, a new constituency.

BJP has many who have never contested MLA election and one of the contenders among them is Kulbhushan Bhardwaj, an advocate. It also has old-timer Sita Ram Singla who won in 1987.

HJC has a string of Punjabi and non-Punjabi leaders and hot favourite among them are Kanahiya Lal Pahwa, a socially active Punjabi leader and a businessmen, Kulraj Kataria, a Jat leader actively involved in the party affairs since the origin of HJC.

The real battle would start once the tickets are declared and the contenders, who fail to get the tickets, may belittle their own party candidates. This would make the scenario even more complex.

A survey conducted by SND detective agency shows that there are approximately 2,06,323 voters in the Gurgaon vidhan sabha constituency.

According to them, there are 35,250 Punjabis, 10,059 Sikhs, 31,913 Brahmins, 14,277 Yadavs, 10368 Thakurs, 5,999 Gujjar,, 18,834 SC/STs, 14,429 Bania, 15,930 Sainis (Jangid Brahmin), 17,720 Jat,, 2,878 Christians, 8,043 Muslim,, 5,420 Sunhar, 3,341 South Indians, 1,092 Bishnoi,, 5,709 Biharis, 2,810 Bengalis and 2,252 Nepalis. This survey shows that the number of Punjabis is more than others and it can be expected that this time also, the Gurgaon seat might again go to some Punjabi.

New Delhi, September 3
As the spree of influenza A (H1N1) infection continues across the country, 37 fresh cases of the viral disease surface today in the national Capital, and among them six are children.

In view of the upcoming Navratras, the government has urged people to cooperate by abstaining from participating in large gatherings and keeping the festival a moderate affair.

Meanwhile, among the new cases of H1N1, seven are admitted in Airport Hospital, five each in Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, three each in Guru Tegh bahadur Hospital and Pt. Madan Mohan Malviya Hospital, two in Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital and one each in Safdarjung Hospital, Hindu Rao Hospital, Lok Nayak Hospital and Sanjay Gandhi Hospital.

Besides, eight people, who have tested positive for the virus, have been home-quarantined, informed an official from the city Health Department.

Till date, the city has recorded a total of 722 cases.

Greater Noida, September 3
The unbridled rise in Gautam Budh Nagar’s crime graph seems to have worried the Noida and Greater Noida authories.

According to sources, the authorities fear that the alarming rise in crime would frighten prospective investors from the satellite towns. Incidents of kidnapping for ransom, extortion, loot, theft and way-laying have not only unnerved the business community but have also spoiled the district’s image.

Sources said chairman of Noida, Greater Noida and Taj Expressway authorities Lalit Srivastava has written a letter to the Uttar Pradesh government requesting that only honest and highly competent police officials be posted in the district as the present police set-up in the area has failed to curb or control crime. While criminal gangs are moving scot-free, television footages of the crime taking place in the area are creating a negative image of the district.

Expressing anxiety over Noida and Greater Noida being recognised as crime cities, Srivastava said it would dampen the spirit of investors. If crime is not controlled, it will thwart development of the area. No body would like to invest here.

Srivastava said it is the responsibility of Noida and Greater Noida authorities to provide safety and security to people living here. Every body expects safety and security from the authorities. Therefore, it is desireable that only smart, intelligent, honest and highly competent police officials are posted in the district. The force should also have the infrastructure and the latest equipment, Srivastave has stated in the letter.

Greater Noida, September 3
Bikers seem to have spread anarchy in Noida and Greater Noida. Bike-borne robbers targetted three women, including the chief medical officer of a private hospital, in the last 24 hours.

Two men riding a black Pulsar bike robbed a woman of her gold chain at gunpoint outside Kasna Kotwali yesterday. The incident took place in presence of some policemen who did not offer any help to the hapless woman. After robbing the victim Santosh Badana, resident of Sector Bita-I, they left firing in the air.

Badana had gone out to get her mobile phone recharged when the incident took place.

The second incident took place near Sabka Bazar where two youths on a black Pulser bike snatched the gold chain of Dr Meena Gupta, chief medical officer of Sharda Hospital. By the time Dr Gupta could realise her loss, the bikers had sped past.

While in another similar incident in Noida, robbers snatched a woman’s mangalsutra yesterday evening. The victim, Rachna Singh, is a resident of Barnala in Sector-49. She was robbed in Sector-27. The Sector-20 Kotwali has lodged her complaint.