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Traffic cell set up to nail corrupt cops
After SC rap, MCD asked to raise capacity of shelters
Ignoring stray dog menace, MCD passes pet policy
Nursery admission list to be out in Feb
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Students turn green ambassadors
Moolchand-Delhi Gate BRT corridor ready
Jobless youth held selling fake meal passes
Excise officer caught taking bribe
Kidnapped child rescued
Pak national jailed for possessing classified papers
Woman raped by tantrik
Asin not bitten by size zero bug
Metro loses 13 hours due to alarm misuse
Engineer robbed of ATM card
by bikers
BRPL inks pact with Okhla plant
Implement sanitation plan, MCD told
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Traffic cell set up to nail corrupt cops
New Delhi, January 20 In order to keep an eye on its corrupt tribe, the Delhi traffic police has launched an internal vigilance cell to look into the complaints against traffic officials. The cell, which began functioning for some time, is christened as Public Redressal of Grievances (PRG). It is exclusively meant to address corruption issues related to traffic officials. Satyender Garg, joint commissioner (Traffic), said the cell was long due as several complaints regarding the highhandedness of traffic cops on the city roads were being noticed. “The PRG has been created to tackle any corruption issue by the traffic police and would work directly under the special commissioner (Traffic) and myself. Complaints could be directly addressed to us in a written letter or via an email which would then be sent to the investigating officer,” said Garg. According to joint commissioner, the PRG consists of three officers, an ACP and two inspectors who would directly report their findings to him. The PRG office has been established in the RK Puram police station and according to a reliable source, quite a few officials have already borne the burnt of its investigation. According to a senior traffic police official, a complaint regarding some officials who were allowing UP-registered auto-rickshaws to ply in the borders area of Anand Vihar was received by the PRG. “The investigation was summarily taken up in this regard and after finding the complaint true, three men were suspended,” said the officer. Besides the common man complaining to the PRG, the cell can also take up investigation on its own initiative if it feels the traffic policemen at a particular point in the city are indulging in corruption. “Sometimes a driver of a commercial vehicle or otherwise who bribes the cops does not want to complain. In such cases, the cell would take investigation on its own,” added the officer. The complaint can be emailed to satyenderkgarg@hotmail.com and ys.dadwal@nic.in besides making a written complaint addressed to the special commissioner (Traffic) and joint commissioner (Traffic) at Police Headquarters. |
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After SC rap, MCD asked to raise capacity of shelters
New Delhi, January 20 This direction has been given just hours after the Supreme Court ordered the Delhi government to shelter thousands of homeless people in the Capital by night. “The authorities must also ensure that the night shelters have basic amenities such as blankets, electricity and toilets,” the apex court ordered in the morning. At present the MCD had 27 night shelters that have capacity to accommodate 5,000 homeless. This capacity will be enhanced up to 11,000 people. The night shelters of the revenue department have capacity to accommodate 1,100 homeless. It will be enhanced to 1,600, the chief secretary said. The NDMC has not been given any direction as there is no need to erect additional night shelter in its area. At present, the NDMC has one night shelter that is enough, the chief secretary said. “The target to provide night shelters to all homeless by evening is unrealistic and impossible. However, it will certainly put pressure on authorities to work fast,” said Paramjeet Kaur of NGO Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan (AAA). The NGO at present looks after 34 of the 54 night shelters under the Delhi government and MCD. “The authorities will have to look for locations for setting up new shelters. There are a lot of factors involved which will need to be looked at,” she added. |
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Ignoring stray dog menace, MCD passes pet policy
The policy which has set standards for pet shops and pet-grooming facility, apart from other guidelines, was today passed in the meeting of standing committee. The MCD was supposed to eradicate the problem of stray dogs in the Capital before the commencement of Commonwealth Games, but the authority has not even managed to sterilize even the half of the total population of stray dogs. According to a senior leader, the figure of sterilized dogs in Delhi would be only 20,000 approximately. Though as per the survey done by the Wildlife SOS on the request of the civic body, there are over 2.26 lakh stray canines in the Capital. The MCD has been working with nine NGOs on a project to sterilize at least 70 per cent of the total stray dogs, but has failed miserably to keep pace with the increase in the population of stray dogs. However, the new pet policy passed by the MCD has set an annual licence fee of Rs 2,000 for the pet shops and banned the trade in pet animals such as dogs, cats, birds, guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, etc before they attain the age of two months. “The first two months are considered as the feeding period and is therefore, the right of an animal. Sale or purchase of pet animal below this age would be taken as illegal and suitable action would be ordered,” said Vijender Gupta, convener of the sub-committee constituted to formulate the policy. He said that the policy will ensure that animals are given adequate food and drinking
water required for that particular species or breed of animals and birds. “We have set technical guidelines for the private pet shop owners to carry this activity. The operational standards for a pet shop or pet-grooming facility, including sanitation, ventilation, heating, medical treatment, etc have also been decided,” said Gupta. He said that in case of violation of terms and conditions of the licensing policy of pet shop found during the inspection of pet shop by the veterinary officer, strict action would be taken against the owner, apart from the cancellation of his licence. |
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Nursery admission list to be out in Feb
New Delhi, January 20 Currently, informal interaction with parents is proceeding in full swing in some schools while other schools have already completed their interaction phase and are now busy finalizing their list of selected students. Principal of Springdales School, Pusa Road, Ameeta Mulla Wattal said, “Our school has been closely following the procedure for nursery admissions outlined by the directorate of education. Currently, we are conducting informal interaction with parents at the school. I feel this is very necessary for both the schools and parents. It is imperative that schools get to know parents whose wards will be joining the school. Through the interaction we can gauge the family background from which a child comes and how the family thinks and relates with each other.” Teachers at Springdales said that questions in the interaction are based on the locality from which a child comes, family background, questions targeted at checking out the thinking pattern of parents, etc. Schools right now are rushing against time to have the nursery admission procedure completed by the end of this month so that they can have the list out in February. A teacher of Vasant Valley School said, “Nursery admissions have been on at the school. We recently had the informal interaction with parents and this went on for three to four days at the school.” While schools are rushing through the last leg of the nursery admission process, tension in parents is increasing with informal interactions set to conclude in a week in most schools in the Capital. Some parents said that due to DOE intervention this time round, the nursery admission process was more organized. However, not everybody agrees with this view. Many feel that schools found ways to circumvent the DOE directions. Sumit Jain, a parent who is trying to put his son into Vasant Valley, said, “My first choice is Vasant Valley. I am trying also at DPS and a few other schools. This time I am finding the process easier, for we knew that we had to send in the forms by January 15 and we had ample time to visit different schools for both the forms and the interaction. This is a lot better than four years ago when I applied for my elder son.” Another parent Rajneesh Puri said, “We have been going through informal interactions at the two schools of our choice and I am glad that the list will be out in February. I won’t say that the nursery admissions were better this time. Though the government did make an attempt to organize schools, many of them found means of getting around the government directions.” |
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Students turn green ambassadors
New Delhi, January 20 The students, part of a programme ‘Conserve My Campus’, under way at eight schools in Delhi and national capital region, would conduct audits at their schools and thereafter prepare a green audit report card on various resources. “Besides Delhi, the drive has been taken up in Mumbai and Bangalore also,” said Kamla
T.N., director of the campaign. “We decided to introduce it in high-end schools as the consumption of energy is much more in private schools. And it is in these schools that unnecessary consumption of energy is higher,” said
Kamla. Initiated by Schneider Electric Conserve India Ltd, the purpose of the drive is to build a community that is sensitive towards energy conservation and environment. “For this, we selected students, as they are at the bottom of the pyramid and would take the message further to their families and the society,” explained
Kamla. “The programme, spread across the entire academic year, would involve grooming students in the age group of 10-12 years for conducting energy audits and evaluating consumption of resources not only in their schools, but also at their homes,” she added. As part of the drive, Aayushi Gupta, a student of Amity International School, has bagged the prize of ‘Energy Star’, as she could manage to cut down her residential electricity expenses by 47 per cent. According to her, simple ways like making use of solar energy instead of electric lights during the day, switching to energy-efficient bulbs, reducing the consumption of electricity and avoiding unnecessary use of other energy resources could contribute towards saving the planet. “Likewise, washing cars with bucket water instead of pipe water and then discharging the used water into the lawns would be of great help,” she added. “I made it sure that all electrical appliances at my house are energy efficient. By taking such small steps, I could bring down our electricity bill from Rs 10,000 to Rs 5,800,” the girl added. |
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Moolchand-Delhi Gate BRT corridor ready
New Delhi, January 20 "With the help of Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS), the Delhi government is planning to expand the BRT corridors throughout Delhi, with a new route chalked out in east Delhi from Shastri Park to Karawal Nagar. The upcoming BRT corridor will definitely help ease the traffic in east Delhi," she added. The first stretch of the Delhi BRT corridor from Ambedkar Nagar to Moolchand has been operational since April 2008. Alok Bharadwaj, head of transport, DIMTS, said on the occasion that nearly 17 lakh people enter the national Capital through the Yamuna stretch every day. Out of them, nearly 65% take motor vehicles. The BRT line in east Delhi will help divert the load to public transport, reducing pollution and easing peak-hour traffic. He, however, added that methodology for future BRT corridors would be modified, learning from past mistakes. The other proposed corridors include stretches from Tilak Nagar to Jamia, Rajender Nagar to Pragati Maidan, and Bhajanpura to More Gate. Referring to the initial criticism of the BRT systems, Dikshit said, "I can say that BRT has achieved to a very large extent what we set out do. It is doing well," she said adding, 10,000 more people are travelling by buses since the BRT was introduced." The government is going to double its green bus fleet from the current strength of 5,500 to 11,000, with all of them being low floor, including AC buses. Delhi Metro, already functional in two phases, would also be one of the largest systems in the world by 2020 with the route network extending to 413 km, said the Chief Minister. She stated, "Together with BRT, Metro and Mono rail, the objective is to encourage public transport and provide people with an efficient, safe and comfortable mode of transport. We are going to face more pressure with the Commonwealth Games being organized in Delhi. It becomes our responsibility to cater to the projected requirements." |
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Jobless youth held selling fake meal passes
New Delhi, January 20 According to Sharad Agarwal, DCP (west), the police has recovered fake meal passes worth Rs 5,88,000 in the denomination of Rs 10 to Rs. 100 from his possession. “We received a complaint about circulation of fake meal passes of Sodexo SVC India through one of the representatives of the company. Yesterday, we arrested the accused Rakesh after specific information was received that a person selling fake meal passes will be coming to Domino’s Pizza, Central Market. During the search of his bag, fake meal passes worth Rs 88,000 were recovered while more passes worth Rs 5,00,000 were recovered from his house,” said DCP Agarwal. According to information, Sodexo SVC India is into the business of printing and supplying meal passes to various corporate houses, BPOs, government PSUs and other companies. Their meal pass is honoured by various fast food outlets like McDonald’s, Domino Pizza etc. as well as Super Stores. These passes are actually issued by the companies to their employees for their personal use. During interrogation Rakesh Grover, a Delhi University graduate revealed that he was without a job for some months and one of his cousin brothers suggested that if he could sell meal passes of this company, he would earn good commission amount. “He got into the selling of fake meal passes last month. He used to target delivery boys of various fast food outlets like McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza and lured them to buying the fake passes in return for 10-15% commission. He said he had sold almost Rs 10 to 12 lakh worth of passes in the past one month,” said the officer. The fake meal passes were being provided to him by his cousin brother. |
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Excise officer caught taking bribe
New Delhi, January 20 According to information, Ravinder Mohan, was arrested on Saturday from his east Delhi residence. According to CBI spokesperson Harsh Bhal, the complainant, a CEO and executive director of a firm dealing in fabrication work, was issued a show cause notice by superintendent central excise, Sonepat, charging that the firm was a manufacturing unit and then demanded a bribe of Rs 7.5 lakh for closing the case. “However, he lodged a complaint with the CBI. A trap was laid and the superintendent, central excise, who had called the complainant to his residence at Dayanand Block, Shakarpur, Delhi, along with the bribe amount was caught red-handed while demanding and accepting the bribe of Rs1.5 lakh,” said Bhal. He further added that the searches in the house and office of accused were conducted and a sum of Rs 4 lakh along with incriminatory documents recovered. The accused was produced before the court of Special Judge, CBI Karkardooma, and has been remanded to judicial custody. |
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Kidnapped child rescued
New Delhi, January 20 Four persons , including a woman, have been arrested. The elder brother of the main accused Narender Kumar is married to the sister of kidnapped boy's father Surinder Singh Solanki. Narender's wife Santosh (26), along with one Gaurav Khatri (27), Amit Kumar (21) have been arrested by the police. According to Alok Kumar, DCP, Surinder had paid a ransom of Rs 4 lakh earlier but since the kidnappers were aware that he had recently received Rs 40 lakh after selling ancestral property, they were demanding more money. Pranjal was kidnapped from his house in Uttam Nagar on September 30 night while he was sleeping with his parents on the first floor of the house. The kidnappers called up the next morning and demanded Rs 40 lakh for the boy's release. "The kidnappers took the delivery of cash Rs 4 lakh from boy's father but did not release the child; rather kept on demanding more ransom. The case was transferred to the Special Cell on October 27," said DCP Kumar. The police identified all the PCOs located in Azadpur, Fruit Mandi, Subzi Mandi, Jahagir Puri, ISBT, Wazirabad etc from where the ransom calls were being made. The teams were deployed in all these areas to keep a close watch on these PCOs. "Yesterday the ransom call was first received from Bhajanpura area in the evening and thereafter Jahangirpuri. When the third call was being made from Fruit Mandi Azadpur by a lady later on identified as Santosh escorted by another accused Amit, Special Cell teams managed to reach there and apprehend both persons while they were trying to escape in a Honda Accord car," said Kumar. |
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Pak national jailed for possessing classified papers
New Delhi, January 20 Additional sessions judge, Vinod Kumar, held Sharif guilty under Section 14B of the Foreigners Act, Section 6(4) of the Official Secrets Act and Section 474 (possession of forged documents) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The court also slapped a fine of Rs 10,500 on Sharif. According to the prosecution, Sharif was wanted for waging war against India for acting in connivance with one Lal Singh of Khalistan Liberation Force. Sharif was arrested by the Delhi police on June 18, 1993 from Old Delhi railway station while trying to go to Gorakhpur by Shaheed Express. The police had seized a forged passport and driving license issued in the name of Pawan Kumar Sharma from his possession. He was also found to be having three papers with secret codes written on them along with hand bills asking Muslims to revolt against the Indian government. Sharif was recently acquitted of charges under sections 153 and 486 of the IPC and had pleaded guilty for rest of the charges pressed against him. Accepting his plea, the judge said, “I am convinced that this plea of guilt is voluntary and free of any coercion, force and promise. I therefore convict the accused.” Sharif is in judicial custody since June 19, 1993, which means that he has already served a period of around 16 years in jail, which is twice the imprisonment term awarded to him. |
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Woman raped by tantrik
New Delhi, January 20 A case in this regard has been lodged at the Shakarpur police station. According to the police, Deepika (name changed) had approached the tantrik for a patch- up with her husband who is staying with another woman since last one year. “This man who claims to be a tantrik called the woman on the pretext of puja and after making her unconscious through some gas raped her. We have lodged a case and are hunting for
Nizam,” said the police. Deepika stays with her sister in Laxmi
Nagar. Vehicle thieves held
The south district police has claimed to have arrested four members of a gang of carjackers allegedly involved in several cases of jacking of luxury cars in Delhi and NCR and several other serious offences. According to the police, two stolen Skoda cars, one Indica car, four mobile phones have been recovered at the instance of the accused. “The gang adopted a unique modus operandi. They used to purchase the scrap of vehicles involved in accidents with papers from local car dealers and insurance companies and then robbed the same type of vehicles and put the details of these scraped vehicles on the robbed vehicles and sell them,” said the area
DCP. Minor girl kidnapped
A 14-year-old girl student of Class VIII has been allegedly kidnapped by two persons in the Shakurpur area of east district. According to information, the girl went missing on Sunday evening.
Sanjeev Kumar Gupta, the father of the victim, Neha (name changed), is a security guard and is currently posted at the Delhi secretariat at ITO. “Sanjeev lives in H-Block of
Shakarpur. He suspects that some labourers who were constructing a building in his neighbourhood could be behind the incident, as they are also missing since the incident. We are investigating the matter,” stated a senior police officer. According to a police source, the kidnappers have been identified and the police is zeroing in on them. |
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Asin not bitten by size zero bug
Asin was in Delhi today to announce the launch of Filmfare Awards for 2010. The actor had received last year’s Filmfare award for best debutant actor for her refreshing portrayal of a simple and innocent girl in Amir Khan’s Ghajini. The South Indian actor, who last year made her transition to Bollywood with one of the most successful money-spinners of all time, Ghajini, looked straight out of a Hindi film in her purple dress, a colour she had flaunted during her last Delhi visit as well. However, she dismissed the repetition of colour as “mere coincidence”, saying her favourite colour was red. Asin gave politically correct answers to all questions asked by the media. She refused to name any actor whom she would like to be nominated for the awards this year. “I just hope to have myself nominated, and in that sense I am the favourite of myself,” she said with a wink. When asked about updates on her love life, Asin said she was still single She said “integrity of character” more than the “physical appearance” is what she would look for in her man. Asin became a film actor after starting with modeling assignments while she was still in Class IX. Had she not been in the film industry, she said, she would have followed the footsteps of her parents and would have got into academics. |
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No relief from fog
New Delhi, January 20 The minimum temperature recorded today was 6.6 degrees Celsius, two notches below from yesterday’s minimum of 8.4. The weatherman attributed the dense fog to lack of winds. “The fog is likely to persist with no winds prevailing,” said an Indian metrological department official. The weatherman predicted similar conditions for tomorrow, with fog likely to descend on the Capital early morning and the temperature oscillating between 6 and 19 degree
Celsius. |
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Metro loses 13 hours due to alarm misuse
New Delhi, January 20 Passengers pressed the PEA button 260 times delaying train services from two to five minutes every time this button was misused. As a result, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) had to cancel 200 trips, thus affecting three lakh passengers as each trip can carry up to 1,500 passengers. Every misuse of the button caused bunching on the line as the trains behind are also held up till the affected system is reset. The DMRC officials requested the passengers not to misuse the service as it is provided only for emergency conditions. “Any passenger found misusing the PEA can be prosecuted under the DMRC’s Operations and Maintenance Act 2002 for interfering with the means of communication in trains,” said Anuj Dayal, spokesperson,
DMRC. |
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Engineer robbed of ATM card
by bikers
Noida, January 20 Rajiv Kumar was returning home from office last night in his car. Near Fortis hospital, a bike overtook him and forced him to halt. As he stopped, a youth from the bike gained entry into his car. He told Kumar that he had hit his bike for which he had to pay money otherwise he would lodge an FIR. While speaking to him, he snatched his purse and mobile phone and took the pass word at pistol-point. The youth then got off the car and rode on bike and escaped. The victim went to the Model Town police chowki and informed the police who advised him to block the ATM first. When he called to block the ATM, he was shocked to see that Rs 23,000 had been withdrawn via the card. An FIR was lodged at Sector 58 police station. “Through ATM CCTV, we are trying to get clues to the criminals,” said Ambesh Tyagi, deputy superintendent of police. |
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BRPL inks pact with Okhla plant
New Delhi, January 20 Under the agreement, BRPL will procure 50 per cent of the exportable electricity that will be generated by the under-construction 16-MW power plant in Okhla. The agreement allows the promoters to sell the balance 50 per cent electricity through an open access mechanism. The power plant at Okhla is the second such project in the national Capital that will utilise the city’s solid waste to generate clean and renewable electricity. |
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Implement sanitation plan, MCD told
New Delhi, January 20 The minister told the civic body that no leniency in sanitation arrangements would be tolerated. The MCD will be responsible for collecting waste from different sites and assembling the collected waste in bags and putting them in the bins installed by the corporation. And then, in the night, the civic body will collect the waste from the bins and transport it to the dumping facility. The MCD is also responsible for the sweeping of the area around the sports venue sites and its premises. For the collection of waste, the MCD is supposed to install deep collection system bins, which will be partially above and partially below the ground. This will ensure that the waste is not available to the rag-pickers and stray animals. The waste from these bins will be collected mechanically through cranes. |
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New Delhi, January 20
New Delhi, January 20