New Delhi, January 8
Delhi shivered to the bone today on the coldest day in the last five years as the day temperature dipped to nine degrees below the average for this time of the year. The maximum temperature today hit at the lowest of 12.1 degree Celsius, the lowest in the last five years.

The day remained engulfed in fog with no trace of sun. However, the minimum temperature rose slightly to 8 degree Celsius, a notch above average.

“Last year on this day, the maximum temperature was 22 degree. In 2008, it was 27 degree, 18 degree in 2007, 19.9 degree in 2006 and 21.7 degree in 2005,” said a Met official.

According to the Met department, the city will have to brace itself for severe fog conditions on Saturday. The minimum and maximum temperatures tomorrow are expected to hover around 9 and 14 degree Celsius, respectively.

Meanwhile, the traffic moved at a snail’s pace throughout the day today. “It was difficult to drive in the fog ,” said Kaushik Pratap who was caught in a heavy jam at Preet Vihar in the afternoon.

The visibility dropped to less than a meter or two in the early hours and remained below 50 meters till 10 a.m. Even by 5.30 p.m., it had improved to only 500 meters.

Thousands of air and rail passengers also had a harrowing time as the fog disrupted train and flight services for hours in the Capital. Hundreds remained stranded at railway terminals, most of them unaware of delays and cancellations.

New Delhi, January 8
The Delhi government has made registration of private security agencies mandatory. They have been operating without licence so far in the Capital.

This has been decided today at a meeting of the home department of the Delhi government.

Principal secretary, Home, G. S. Patnaik said that a number of private security agencies were operating in Delhi, but they had no licence. To make them accountable, the city government had formulated a rule for the registration of security agencies. The rule is on the basis of the Private Security Agency Act 2005. This rule has been implemented in the city.

Some states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Punjab have already implemented it.

Around 1,000 security agencies are operating in Delhi, employing around three lakh guards. They all have to get registered within 60 days. Once they are registered, they will be issued licence by the home department.

There are certain conditions for registration like submission of details of owner, training of security guards, etc. The guards will be trained by the Delhi Home Guards. They will be trained to tackle rush, violence, firearms, etc.

The agency owners have to pay a registration fee between Rs 5,000 and Rs 25,000, depending on their area of operation, Patnaik added.

New Delhi, January 8
In its attempt to make issuing trade and storage licence simple, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has said that trade licence will be issued within 30 days of application.

The Delhi mayor Kanwar Sain said that the applicant would just be required to submit a declaration in the form of an affidavit for the issuance of a new trade licence instead of multiple documents certified by an architect. The site plan can also be submitted either self-attested or through an architect. The key plan will remain the same for all shops in the area.

To make easy identification of all licensed units, the licence will be in the format of a biocryptics bar coded certificate and all licensed units will have to necessarily display the certificate.

“In order to streamline records of trade licence and ensure transparency, all the applicants of new trade and storage licences will be issued a provisional licence by the zone concerned. This is similar to the practice in factory licensing department,” said Sain.

He said that according to an estimate, there are eight lakh traders out of which only 55,000 are registered with MCD. “It is felt that most of the traders find the procedure for obtaining licence cumbersome and time-consuming and are, therefore, hesitant to obtain licence. It also affects the revenue generation of the civic body to the tune of Rs 100 crore,” he said.

Under the DMC Act, it is obligatory on the part of traders to obtain licence for running trade.

New Delhi, January 8
To disseminate information and generate awareness among people on the issue of sexual harassment at workplaces, Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), an NGO, today launched a website.

The website marks the launch of Campaign Against Sexual Harassment (CASH) at workplace. The initiative is the first attempt of the kind.

Through the website, the campaign aims to highlight an organisation’s responsibility towards creating a conductive workplace environment for both women and men.

The portal also will generate awareness about how organisations need to deal with issues of sexual harassment.The website would also provide a platform for women and men to break the silence on sexual harassment.

“The issue of sexual harassment at workplaces has to be spoken about openly and with the view to prevent its occurance,” said Martha Farrell, director, PRIA.

New Delhi, January 8
Students at Delhi University are in for a pleasant surprise. The new year brings with it a faster and updated web on campus. The varsity plans to introduce Wi Fi in all its constituent colleges and plans are afoot for an upgradation of its Internet connection from 100 mbps to 1 gbps over the next six months.

Dr Rajiv Kumar Verma, academic council member at DU, said, “There are plans to upgrade the web in a major way and the upgradation is expected to get over by next session, i.e. July 2010. The varsity will introduce Wi Fi in all its colleges and the Internet connection will also be upgraded substantially. The superior band width should be a big asset for both the students and faculty.”

“The idea is to have a uniform Internet network for all the DU colleges through a dedicated fibre optic network,” added Verma.

The upgradation is already on at the varsity. In the last week of December, some 40 computers were distributed in different colleges. Forty computers had earlier been distributed. The university will also get two servers later this year. Data for the website is being provided by the faculty which has also been asked to compose a three-page detailed document which can be downloaded from the website.

Noida, January 8
The families of the victims of the Nithari killings have expressed deep shock over the Supreme Court order staying the death sentence of accused Surinder Koli.

Jhabbu Lal, father of one of the victims, Jyoti, said, “I was very shocked to hear the news. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has spoiled the case. Pandher’s family was helping Koli. The death sentence had shattered Koli. He might have told the court what he told the Noida police soon after his arrest. He had told the Noida police that whatever he did was his master Moninder Singh Pandher’s orders.”

Ashok Kumar, father of Max, another victim, said, “Poor people should not expect justice. The biggest fault of the victims in this case is that they are poor and the accused rich and influential. The SC stay has further shaken our trust in judiciary.”

Pappu Lal, father of a victim, Rachna, said, “Our main concern was to get death penalty for Pandher whom the CBI was shielding, as we feel that he is the main culprit and Koli was only following his orders. Earlier, a high court acquitted Pandher and now the SC has provided relief to Koli.”

Social worker S. C. Mishra said, “While Nithari serial killings accused are getting relieves from courts, the high court has refused to quash the abetment to suicide and attempt to suicide case lodged against me and Nithari victims. A case of attempt to suicide was lodged against the families of the victims when they had gone on an indefinite hunger strike to press for the speedy trial of the case.”

New Delhi, January 8
The crime branch of the Delhi police has claimed to have busted a gang of truck robbers active in different areas of Delhi.

According to information, the crime branch sleuths apprehended three persons— Gulzar, Samiruddin and Salim— from near Bhalswa Lake, near Outer Ring Road, on Wednesday night.

“A truck loaded with 20 gunny bags of copper was seized from them. On their disclosure, 52 more robbed gunny bags were recovered from godowns in Bhalswa Dairy farm and Haiderpur,” said additional CP (crime) Neeraj Thakur, adding that the value of the recovered copper was Rs 60 lakh.

One man named Sabir was also apprehended from the godown at Haiderpur.

During investigation, the accused disclosed that on December 31, Sabir along with Salim and four other accomplices looted a truck loaded with 15 tons of copper at Roshanara Road.

The copper was being transported to Gujarat.

The accused said they had overpowered the driver and thrown him out of the moving truck in the area of Subzi Mandi police station.

New Delhi, January 8
A 35-year-old woman, employed with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), committed suicide in her residence in the Hari Nagar area of west Delhi. She had allegedly been harassed by a colleague.

According to police, Sarita was found dead on Wednesday night after her in-laws who stay on the first floor of the same building reported the matter to the police.

“The postmortem report is awaited. It seems that Sarita consumed something poisonous. We have recovered a suicide note in which she has accused someone in her office of harassing her over some financial issue,” said a police official refusing to divulge more.

According to reliable sources, Sarita was stressed as she had lent a major part of the couple’s savings, around Rs 4-5 lakh, to a head clerk in the CBI, and now he was not returning the money. Police is interrogating the person accused in the note.

Sarita worked as an upper divisional clerk with the CBI headquarters at Lodhi Complex. “Her husband Kishore Kumar is a civil engineer and has been posted in Moscow for the past three years. We have sent the body for postmortem today at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital,” said the police.

Sarita’s body was found after her father-in-law informed the police that her room was bolted from inside and that she was not responding to her mobile or knocks on the door.

A police team then reached the spot and broke open the door. “We found the body lying on bed with a suicide note,” said a police official close to investigation.

He added that suicide was attempted two days earlier and since Sarita did not have good relations with her in-laws, they did not notice her absence. Sarita’s children had gone to their maternal grandfather’s house when she ended her life.

Meanwhile, Sarita’s father has alleged some foul play. “She was not the one to give up her life. Something is wrong,” alleged Mool Chand, her father who lives in west Delhi.

Noida, January 8
Two persons have died and four sustained injuries in road accidents here since last night. Fog is said to be the reason behind the accidents.

“A a speeding dumper truck hit a tractor in sector-125 on Expressway this morning. Four persons who were travelling on the tractor were injured. They were rushed to the Bhardwaj Hospital. One of them identified as Gajraj Singh died within few hours. While the condition of the other three was stable till late evening,”said A.K. Tripathi, superintendent of police.

“Another accident was reported from Expressway near Sector-93 under Noida phase-II police station area. A dumper truck collided head on with a WagonR car,” said Tripathi adding, “The car driver was critically injured. His relatives took him to a private hospital.”

At Dadri near the Beel Akbarpur village area, a speeding bus hit a motorcyclist.