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SOL students find migration to DU colleges tough
‘Delhi govt schools better than other states’
Kalmadi promises ‘green’ Games
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Holidays galore as varsity teachers plan strike
Partial Metro services on Jan 26, 29
Girl Child Day
Sandhya captures essence of music
Delhi Diary
Games Gurgaon drivers learn English
2 killed in mishaps due to fog
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SOL students find migration to DU colleges tough
New Delhi, January 24 Traditionally, students with lower scores got themselves enrolled in the School of Open Learning. But after scoring good marks in their first-year exams, they were allowed to migrate to a college of their choice. But the precedents seem to be changing over the last year. According to sources, the future of hundreds of students is in jeopardy due to the DU administration developing cold feet on letting them migrate to colleges. Students at SOL said that migration was no longer a choice for them. They are in a fix due to the university’s reluctance to extend the date of applying for migration to regular colleges. According to sources, the change in DU migration policy started in during 2009. Last year, the last date for applying for migration to a college under DU was set at October 16. Unfortunately, the results of students at SOL were declared on October 20. Therefore, no student could apply for it. However, students at SOL allege that their results were delayed purportedly. DUSU president Manoj Chaudhary said, “Migration is becoming a major problem for students at SOL. Despite the provisions laid in DU prospectus, the university administration is reluctant to let students shift to any college. The faculty perceives that students with lower marks get admitted to SOL. Their migrating to a regular college is not encouraged, despite the fact that it was allowed earlier.” The university administration is trying to ensure that the provision regarding migration from SOL to regular colleges is taken off the prospectus soon, say sources. However, as per the university regulations if a student at SOL scores above 40 per cent in BA/ B.Com, he/ she becomes eligible for transfer to a college. Mukesh Aggarwal, a B.Com student at SOL, who had scored good marks in his first year exams, had applied for migration to Hansraj College. He even got a no-objection certificate from the college. But he had to suffer as the migration procedure had closed by then.
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‘Delhi govt schools better than other states’
New Delhi, January 24 However, few days ago, a senior official of the Union human resource development ministry had claimed that Delhi’s secondary and primary schools suffered due to bad infrastructure. Singh said that according to the DISE (District Information on School Education) report 2008-09 Delhi stood in a much better position. There would be some mistakes in the details provided to the officer concerned. He said that five parameters– pupil-teacher ratio (PTR), female teacher ratio, girls’ toilet, common toilet and drinking water facility– were set for ranking a state. Delhi is up to the mark in all these parameters. According to the government’s norms, there should be one teacher against 40 students. Delhi has 1,100 public schools. Earlier, in 25 per cent schools one teacher had to look after more than 40 students. Now it has reduced by seven per cent. As far as women teachers are concerned, earlier, it as 68 per cent. Now it has increased to 71 per cent. Common toilets in government schools have decreased. Now most schools have separate toilets for boys and girls. Singh said that all government schools have adequate drinking water facilities. A report of HRD ministry said that Delhi had lost its rank in the top five states on the national education development index (EDI). |
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Kalmadi promises ‘green’ Games
New Delhi, January 24
The committee is cognizant of the large environment footprint of the games and is taking proactive strides towards mitigating such impacts.”
— TNS
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Holidays galore as varsity teachers plan strike
New Delhi, January 24 On the call of the Federation of Central Universities Teachers’ Associations (FEDCUTA), teachers from Delhi University (DU), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Jamia Millia Islamia are protesting against the proposed implementation of the career advancement scheme for the university teachers. After the recent approval of the University Grants Commission (UGC) to the draft of the Thyagarajan committee on service conditions of the central university teachers, the teachers have decided to come all out against the proposal before it gets the final nod from the ministry of human resource development (MHRD). |
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Partial Metro services on Jan 26, 29
New Delhi, January 24 Train schedules of line 2 from Central Secretariat to Jahangirpuri, line 3 from Noida City Centre to Dwarka Sector 9 and line 4 from Yamuna Bank to Anand Vihar have been modified in this regard. On January 26, there will be no service available at Central Secretariat and Patel Chowk Metro stations of line 2 and Mandi House and Pragati Maidan stations of line 3 till 12.30 pm. On January 26, services on line 2 will be available only from Rajiv Chowk to Jahangirpuri from 6 am to 12.30 pm and on line 3 there will be two short loop services wherein, train services from 6 am to 12.30 pm will be running in two sections— from Dwarka Sector 9 to Barakhamba Road and back and from Noida City Centre to Indraprastha station and back and, on line 4 between Anand Vihar to Yamuna Bank and back. Passengers can avail themselves of connecting services towards Dwarka after 12.30 pm only. Thereafter, normal Metro train operations will be resumed on lines 2, 3 and 4 with a headway of four minute and 6.12 minutes on all lines. Services on line 1 from Dilshad Garden to Rithala would be normal with a six-minute headway. On January 29, Metro services will not be available at Central Secretariat and Patel Chowk stations of line 2 from 3.30 pm to 6.30 pm. Thus, services on line 2 will be available only between Jahangirpuri and Rajiv Chowk during this time. Services on line 1 from Dilshad Garden to Rithala, line 3 from Dwarka Sector 9 to Noida City Centre and line 4 from Yamuna Bank to Anand Vihar would operate normally. All Metro parking lots will remain closed from 7 pm on January 25 to 1 pm on January 26.
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Girl Child Day
New Delhi, January 24 Director of Centre for Social Research (CSR) Ranjana Kumari said that girls have been denied the right to live due to the existing social mores. “This has led to a staggering rise in cases of female foeticide in the country’s rural as well as urban regions,” added Kumari. Kumari goes on to say that those who manage to survive see their lives gripped in the cruel clutch of society, which imposes several restrictions on the female section. “The bias in treatment is evident, starting from education, health and marriage aspects,” she said. Hence, to improve the condition of girl children, child rights activists call for an urgent redressal of the grievances of poor families, which most of the times prefer sons when it comes to sending one of their children to schools. So, majority of girls are compelled to stay indoors and help in household errands and hence, are forced to live a marginalised life with lack proper grooming and education. To mark the day, CSR has taken forward an awareness campaign ‘Meri Shakti, Meri Beti’ to Ambala and Kurukhestra districts in Haryana. Last year, the campaign was carried out in three lowest sex-ratio districts of Delhi— Narela, Najafgarh and Punjabi Bagh.
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Sandhya captures essence of music
New Delhi, January 24 “Music, with its eternal bliss, has been a soul of life to me. I am fascinated by music and its extraordinary, almost divine power to soothe, regale and support. My fascination for music turned into inspiration to capture its simplicity, harmony and rhythms through the medium I knew best, my canvas.” Her collection, “Rhythms” is currently showcased at the AIFACS Gallery in the Capital. Overwhelmed by the response to her weeklong exhibition, Sandhya said, “The satisfaction one achieves when your work is recognized is just brilliant. I have held four solo exhibitions in Delhi in the last one year. All these exhibitions featured my works on music and musicians, and received wide acclaim from critics, peers and viewers.” While renowned critic, Keshav Malik describes the rhythms of Sandhya’s musical moods as alive and lively, RS Yadav, another art critic, finds, “In Sandhya’s works, musical notes, emerging from the depths of her mind that strike immediate chords in the mind of a viewer providing a feeling of endless joy and a lasting impression.” Explaining one of her paintings, Sandhya said, “In my works, I attempt to recreate the rhythms and the moods of music on my canvases through juxtaposition of lines, forms and colours, in tune with the above understanding. The works on show here merge the rhythms of dance and music on canvas. In capturing the essence of music on canvas, I utilized a harmonious mixture of colours to represent tonal harmony and the illusion of repetitive motion to represent musical rhythm. I use wave motion to represent the progression and the eventual merging of the notes into the infinity of time and space.”
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Delhi Diary There are umpteen stories of people, including the famous, finding themselves at the receiving end of that infamous Salman Khan temper. The Capital’s press corps got to see that not-so-charming side of the beefy actor. At a press conference to promote his latest release Veer, Salman took it upon himself to bring some order to question-answer session and allowed one reporter after another to throw queries at him. When one scribe accused Khan of having copied the costumes for Veer from the Hollywood blockbuster Troy, an angry Salman first explained the different costumes worn by his character and Brad Pitt in Troy and then blew his top when the reporter, whose one hand was in a cast, continued to hold forth. “How many questions will you ask by raising one hand,” he asked and then commented sardonically that it was good for him! The reporter was suitably silenced. Cell stolen in police meet
The last place where you would expect your pocket to be picked is a press conference organised by the police and, that too, when the police commissioner is addressing the media. But that’s exactly what happened recently. The minute reporters disgorged out of the crowded conference, a scribe rushed back to complain that he felt a hand slithering down his pocket in the milling crowd and found his cell phone missing. Cops duly registered a complaint, but the advice dished out to him by a seasoned official was quite revealing. “The thief is either among you or us. I don’t think either of us is that stupid to use the mobile and then get caught. Don’t have any expectations,” he said. The journalist had no choice than to agree with the officer. When CEO wasted his breath
Delhi Metro is credited with making harried lives of Delhiites a bit easier. So it came as a shocker to one and all when CEO of a pharmaceutical company recently claimed at a press conference that electromagnetic radiation emitted by high-voltage Metro lines and its massive apparatus could be a serious health hazard for people living here. He reeled out the ill-effects of these machines which, he charged could cause any number of diseases, ranging from cancer to neurological imbalance. Everybody heard his completely unsubstantiated claims with a mix of surprise and horror. His fear-inducing speech was meant to sell his company’s “radiation safety devices” but it backfired as nobody seemed pleased with his below-the-belt tactic of selling his wares. Students do their bit for the poor
Students at Delhi Technological University recently made a special effort to reach out to the underprivileged. They organised a special four-day clothes donation camp when students and faculty members were encouraged to donate their clothes, especially woollens, to the poor. A student group, The Urge, coordinated this effort. Abhishek Bindal, a third year student from computer engineering, said they had been reading almost every day about people dying of cold. “So we decided to come together and make some small contribution,” he explained, adding that the entire collection was handed over to the Navjyoti India Foundation, a local NGO), which will in turn distribute the garments among the needy. Catching beggars, a sweaty job!
Ministers of the Delhi government have been given responsibilities of various projects of Commonwealth Games which have to be completed before a deadline. PWD minister Raj Kumar Chauhan has the responsibility for construction of roads, flyovers, stadiums while transport minister Arvinder Singh has been asked to improve the public transport system with the implementation of modern technology. Health minister Kiran Walia is looking after health facilities for sportsmen, dignitaries and other visitors. Social welfare minister Mangat Ram Singhal, who has been has been given an unusual task, remarked that these responsibilities are “sweets” given to them by the government. When somebody asked what kind of “sweets”, he had been given, Singhal replied with a straight face. “I have to catch all beggars in the city.” Not such a sweet job really! MCD licence fee for cattle
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) recently announced that it would charge a licence fee of Rs 100 per cattle imported from the neighboring states ‘in vehicles’ into the areas falling under its jurisdiction. When asked whether the fee would be charged if the cattle are herded into the Capital, Corporation leaders replied in the negative. This has baffled everybody as most of the stray cattle in the Capital are herded illegally and not transported in vehicles. Even otherwise people don’t need to transport cattle in the Capital except the ones taken to the abattoir for slaughtering. Mother of accused mouths mumbo-jumbo
We are a superstitious nation and the mumbo-jumbo has made its way to our courts too. You can often spot fistful of grain, rice or sand spread around the parking lot of Tis Hazari court complex and they are there for a reason. Judicial staff say these are ingredients used for rituals performed by litigants to appease gods into blessing them with a victory in court. And the fact that cases in our courts stretch from one generation to another makes even the most rational person into invoking the power of unknown. On the day of a judgment recently, a mother of an accused was seen mumbling something in a corner of a court room. She held something in her hand and sprinkled it around when the judge took a seat and ordered the proceedings to commence. She was ordered out of the room and the judgment was kept pending. (Contributed by Akhila Singh, Sandeep Yadav, Rashi Agarwal, Ananya Panda, Charu Singh, Syed Ali Ahmed, Himani Chandel) |
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Games Gurgaon drivers learn English
Gurgaon, January 24 The training is being provided by Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) here. HIPA will train around 3,500 taxi drivers and 8,000 autorickshaw drivers before the Games. The training is already on and each participating driver is being given Rs 200 per day. “These drivers would be our ambassadors, as foreign guests would have to deal with them as soon as they reach Delhi airport. This exercise will ensure courteous and friendly behaviour of auto and taxi drivers with foreigners coming here,” HIPA director Rajni Shekhri Sibbal said on Saturday. “We are imparting training in speaking English, stress management, first aid and the methods of practising yoga while sitting in the vehicle. The drivers would be provided four, three and two stars as per their performance,” he added
— IANS |
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2 killed in mishaps due to fog
Greater Noida, January 24 The incident took place near the Jhatta Badoli area around 8 am when a dumper truck was hit by another dumper truck which in turn was hit by a Scorpio car. The car was then hit by a bus coming behind it. The accident reportedly took place due to poor visibility caused by fog. The Greater Noida police said the drivers of the dumper truck and the car suffered minor injuries, while other persons involved were unhurt. In another incident reported from near Dadri railway crossing, a JCB machine ran over a pedestrian who was crossing the road late last night. The driver could not see the victim due to fog. The victim was identified as Anil Sainger. He died at hospital today. Other incident took place in the Ajaibpur area. One person was killed when a truck hit him while he was crossing rail tracks. He died on the spot. He could not be identified till late evening. Further, at Noida, a Maruti van rammed into a road divider near Spice Mall, today morning. Five children were hurt, but were discharged from hospital after first aid. Three other vehicles were also damaged as they rammed into road divider in different areas. However, no injury was reported in these accidents.
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