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Commuters suffer as Metro snaps feeder bus contract
Ensure safety of women, HC tells DTC
Anti-smoking drive goes up in air
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East Delhi gets Archery Stadium
Kidney racket kingpin gets bail
IGNOU offers free education to jail inmates
Tailor held for fraudulent withdrawal from ATM
Matchgate: TV footage shows cop selling tickets
3 hang selves in 1 day
CM promises help to crane accident victim’s family
2 held for kidnapping
Realtor shot dead
Car robbed in Gt Noida
MCD signs Tech Mahindra for e-governance
Undertrial dies in Gzb jail
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Commuters suffer as Metro snaps feeder bus contract
New Delhi, March 5 The contract has been terminated due to complaints received regularly against inefficient services of the transport company, DMRC said. Though the Metro officials claim that the step was not taken in a hurry, hundreds of passengers would suffer now for want of an alternative service. “We had been receiving complaints against the contractor since the beginning of our contract, but this got worse in the last few months,” said DMRC sources adding that another contract could not be signed until the contract with the present partner stayed. “Alternative arrangements are being made and we expect normal services to be resumed in a week,” said Anuj Dayal, spokesperson, DMRC. The officials said fresh tenders would be issued inviting the private contractors to run feeder buses. The feeder bus services ran on 15 routes and the Rajasthan Bombay Transport Limited was provided with 120 feeder buses to shuttle between different Metro stations across the city. Besides the passengers who were not satisfied with the bus services, employees of the private contractor had also gone on a total strike a few months ago demanding implementation of labour laws. There were also complaints that the feeder bus staff did not give receipts to passengers even after charging them the fares. To ensure frequency of the feeder service, DMRC had installed Global Positioning System (GPS) on the buses. “Even though there was a provision of tracking the movement of buses, their frequency was abysmal,” the sources said. The contract has been called off at the time when DMRC is planning to pool in 300 new air-conditioned feeder buses by the end of this month.
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Ensure safety of women, HC tells DTC
New Delhi, March 5 Justice Kailash Gambhir directed the DTC to file an affidavit spelling out the steps taken by the transport authority and what mechanism they propose to have in place to ensure complete safety of women in DTC and other buses. Citing how harassment of women go unreported, the court said, “The immeasurable damage that eve-teasing does to a woman’s self-esteem and the subsequent avoidance of public places by single women could hardly take us on the way to achieving gender equality.” “Even today one cannot ignore the reality that an overwhelming majority of women in Delhi do not feel safe. One does not need hard hitting statistics to prove this, but a daily scan of the newspapers would give a reality check as to how a women face violence in the city on roads, buses or at market places,” the court said while hearing an appeal of DTC challenging a labour court’s order of cancelling the termination of a conductor and driver, accused of harassment. The court directed the DTC to file a compliance report by April 7. “It is common knowledge that most of the women rely on public transport, especially buses, for day to day travel due to their vast reach. It is often seen that the females feel threatened not only from anti-social and gross elements travelling in the bus but equally from persons manning the bus. The drivers and conductors who are supposed to act as saviours of passengers are often found themselves indulging in acts of indecency, if they get such an opportunity of finding lone female passengers in the bus,” the court said while upholding the DTC order of terminating the services of the conductor and driver following a case of eve teasing in their bus in 1993. Criticising the role of the driver and conductor in the present case, the court said, “The case exemplifies the irresponsible and pathetic behaviour of the employees of the public transport department. Had the driver immediately applied the brakes and halted the bus, the gruesome situation could have been avoided. Both the conductor and the driver not only failed in their duty, but were hand in glove with the boys who were indulging in behaving indecently with the female passengers.” Stressing the need of sensitisation of public transport staff, the court said, “The only remedy to eradicate this venomous practice is to have an informed and sensitive citizenry. The drivers and conductors should be sensitized towards issues relating to gender violence and women security on regular basis.” — IANS
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Anti-smoking drive goes up in air
New Delhi, March 5 The data collected since October 2008 till January 2010, suggests that much lesser number of places are being raided now by the officials to check smoking in public places as compared to the initial months of the campaign. The first six months of the campaign (October 2008 till March 2009) saw the anti-tobacco enforcement drive raiding a total of 11,402 public places. However, in the next six months (April-September, 2009), the enforcement drive could raid only 1,971 public places, while in May there was not a single raid anywhere in the Capital. The drive had fined a total of 7,457 people smoking in public places in the first six months (October 2008 till March 2009), which went down to a mere 2,473 in the next six months, which marginally picked up to 2,855 in the last four months. In the last four months, however, there has been a little improvement, with a total of 5,548 public places having been raided, which still remain far behind from the initial part of the campaign. The Delhi cabinet in its decision in 2008 had approved a proposal for making the city smoke-free by 2009 through a project in collaboration with Bloomberg Global Initiative (BGI), which was to be implemented in two years with effect from October 2008 to September 2010 at an estimated cost of Rs 10 crore. Similarly, the number of raids carried out in public service vehicles like buses, autos, trains, in the first six months (October 2008 till March 2009) was 36,561, which went down to 12,874 in the next six months. The state tobacco control officer, Dr RP Vashist, attributed slackening of the drive against smoking to the medical officers, who spearhead the campaign. They were deployed to deal with the swine flue scare, which affected the Capital last year. So, their performance on this front slowed down. “The anti-smoking drive is led by medical officers at our disposal but they were given the task to deal with the swine flue outbreak in the Capital and hence there was some slackness in the enforcement drive,” explained Dr Vashist. The drive has so far netted Rs 12.73 lakh through fines imposed against erring people and vendors.
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East Delhi gets Archery Stadium
New Delhi, March 5 He said this today while speaking at the inauguration of Archery Stadium at Yamuna Sports Complex in Surajmal Vihar, east Delhi. The stadium is spread over 4.8 hectares and has been developed by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) at Rs 25.00 crore. The stadium has a capacity to seat 1,500 spectators and park around 500 cars. The preliminary rounds in archery during the CWG will be held here from October 4 to 6. The ground floor of the stadium has spectators seating, air-conditioned lounges, change rooms, facilities for medical and physiotherapy, doping control, logistics and cafeteria. It is easily accessible for differently-abled persons and ramp provisions have been laid for their easy movement. Though the foundation stone of the Yamuna Sports Complex was laid by late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on June 13, 1989, Reddy said there would be no let up in the completion of Games-related projects and all work will be done as per the deadline. "The ministry has made a provision of Rs 837.85 crore for CWG-related projects. Besides, it has provided Rs 79.20 crore for security. The DDA will spend Rs 500.46 crore on the Games," said Reddy.
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Kidney racket kingpin gets bail
New Delhi, March 5 The accused has been granted bail on a surety bond of Rs 50,000. Chief metropolitan magistrate Kaveri Baweja allowed the plea of Dr Kumar where he stated that the entire story had been created by the CBI and he had not committed any offence. The defense counsel said that during the process of investigation Dr Kumar had never been arrested, so he deserved bail. Dr Amit Kumar, alias Santosh Rameshwar Ratu, has been involved in the business of illegal transplantation of kidneys. Many cases have been registered against him. In order to get rid of his infamous identity and for obtaining passport, he changed his name from Santosh to Amit. The accused managed to obtain many passports by submitting fake documents supporting his date and place of birth, father’s name, educational qualification and non-pendency of criminal cases. Three criminal cases in Jaipur and one in Mumbai are pending against him. The 40-year-old tainted doctor was flown from Kathmandu to New Delhi on February 9, 2008, by a CBI team. He was arrested at Chitwan in Nepal on February 7 and is wanted by the Haryana and Uttar Pradesh police in connection with an inter-state and international kidney transplant scam. The CBI went through every transplant case and found that many patients were killed in the process of transplant. The police raid was prompted by complaints from locals in Moradabad. Dr Amit Kumar has been charged under several sections, including violation of the Human Organ Transplant Act. He has been accused of having forced or duped around 500 people, mostly from the underprivileged sections of society, into donating kidneys.
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IGNOU offers free education to jail inmates
New Delhi, March 5 The initiative was launched in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in 1994, but as a special gesture, the university has given the project a major impetus by declaring that the education it offers to jail inmates will, henceforth, be free. “All jail inmates in the country will now be able to access free education as per their choice,” the university informed in a statement. Students do not even have to pay examination or late fees. “They can enrol themselves any time of the year, appear when they are ready to take their examinations and get certificates which will ensure them vocational advantage as well as access to quality life,” the statement said. The results of the new initiative are already visible in Jabalpur, where the university has opened a special study centre inside the Central Jail. As many as 115 prisoners have taken admission to various programmes in the academic session that began in January. IGNOU’s regional centre, Cochin, is also gearing up for a surge in students. Through its network of special study centres under the Council of NGOs of Rural India (CNRI), it had enrolled 57 jail inmates for the computer literacy programme (CLP) in 2008. Thirty-four inmates from central jail, Thiruvananthapuram, and 23 prisoners from sub-jail, Kozhikode, took admission in CLP. Forty-one inmates successfully completed the programme and were given certificates.
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Tailor held for fraudulent withdrawal from ATM
New Delhi, March 5 The accused Miraz Khan is a tailor and hails from Gaya district in Bihar. HGS Dhaliwal, DCP (south), said that Miraz Khan was arrested on March 1 near the State Bank of India ATM in South Extension-II. The arrest came after five persons who had been cheated by the accused complained about seeing a person near the ATM while they were transacting money. On the basis of the complaint, policemen in plain clothes were deployed near the ATM. The police said that Khan employed a unique method to cheat people. He had learnt some where that money could be withdrawn from others account by fixing ‘X’ button on the ATM with fevi-kwik. The users insert their ATM cards in the ATM and after taking it out, they fill details like password/ PIN code. But due to the jamming of X button, the withdrawal could not be affected. Then, the customer used to leave the ATM cubical after cancelling a withdrawal option, thinking that the commands given had been cancelled. But Miraz would then de-fix the X button and withdraw the amount. “He selected timings from 5 to 8 pm when there was least crowd and no guard was present outside the ATM. Once the customer went out after failing to withdraw money, Miraz used to enable it with the help of a small screw driver and take out the money,” said Dhaliwal adding that Rs 12, 000 had been recovered from Miraz.
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Matchgate: TV footage shows cop selling tickets
New Delhi, March 5 According to Network 18, their team captured on camera Rohtas, a policeman posted outside the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi, selling tickets in black for a match on Thursday. “The incident was captured minutes before the scheduled match between India and Spain. The footage shows the policeman Rohtas taking people inside the stadium without tickets or checks so that he could sell them the tickets,” the channel claimed on his website. A senior Delhi police official said that this was a serious breach of security. “We have asked for the footage from the news channel to identify the policeman. Strict action would be taken against him,” said the officer. Security at the Hockey World Cup has been of prime concern to India and 12 participating countries, especially in the light of intelligence inputs about possible terror attacks. |
3 hang selves in 1 day
New Delhi, March 5 A 28-year-old property dealer allegedly hanged himself as he failed to recover Rs 11.5 lakh that he had lent to two persons. The incident took place in the Keshavpuram area of north-west Delhi yesterday evening. According to the police, Ram Gopal Gupta committed suicide in his shop around 3:30 pm. Gupta left a four-page suicide note in which he blamed two residents of the area who were threatening him with dire consequences if he demanded his money back. “In the note, Gupta has stated that Raj Kumar Goyal and J.P. Goyal ran a ‘satta’ racket in the area. He had lent them Rs 11.5 lakh and had been asking them to return his money. But they threatened him with dire consequences, if he demanded the money. His servant Sheru and Sonu who work at his shop found his body hanging and informed his family members. Gupta was rushed to a hospital where he was declared brought dead,” said a police officer. The deceased is survived by his wife Sapna and sons Saurabh and Vijay. In the second incident, a 35-year-old woman hanged herself from the ceiling fan in her house in the Kanjhawla area of outer district last night. The police said that the victim, Santosh, was a government employee in a nearby primary health centre while her husband Anil is a driver. “She committed suicide around 7 pm yesterday and did not leave any suicide note. The reasons behind the suicide are not yet clear,” the police said. While Suresh (32) of Narela allegedly hanged herself at her house last night. The police believes that domestic violence could be the reason behind her taking the extreme step.
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CM promises help to crane accident victim’s family
New Delhi, March 5 She also told Puri’s mother that a scholarship for higher studies would be provided to her younger son. Puri, 30, was killed when a crane toppled over and fell over his and two other cars in west Delhi at 3 am when he was returning from work. He had returned to India two years ago from Australia.
— IANS |
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2 held for kidnapping
Faridabad, March 5 The victim has been rescued. The police has seized the car used in the crime. The incident took place on February 4 when the victim and his wife Amrit Singh Kaur were going to Sector-37. While he and Kaur were at a bus stand, three persons in a car forced them in and drove past. Kaur had identified one of the three culprits and informed the police. A case was registered. The culprit whom Kaur had identified was found to be a resident of Ghaziabad. |
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Realtor shot dead
Greater Noida, March 5 His body was found near Sadar Tehsil on Thursday. The deceased’s father has lodged a murder report against unknown assailants in Kasna Kotwali. The police believes enmity to be the cause of murder. Ajipal reportedly received a call on Wednesday , after which he had gone out in his car telling his family that he would be back soon. When he did not return till late in the night his family members called him on his cell phone, but it was coming switched off. His body was found near Sadar Tehsil on Thursday morning. His car was parked near by. He had been shot thrice in the head but his face had been disfigured with bricks. It was not possible to recognise Ajipal from his face. The family identified Ajipal from his clothes and his cell phone but it too had been smashed. Some eatables and glasses were found in the car, suggesting that the assailants and the victim had consumed liquor together before Ajipal was shot, the police said. |
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Car robbed in Gt Noida
Greater Noida, March 5 The bandits even made the driver write on a piece of paper that since he had defaulted in payment of car installments, the vehicle, an Indica car, was being taken away from him. One of the bandits signed as Ajit Rana. Meanwhile, the cab owner Rajesh Ahuja, a resident of Sector-50 Noida, said he had purchased the car with full cash payment. He had not taken any loan from anybody. It is a simple case of carjacking, Ahuja said. |
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MCD signs Tech Mahindra for e-governance
New Delhi, March 5 Tech Mahindra will undertake the development of new and integration of all existing software applications along with implementation of hardware in MCD for seamless information flow and providing citizen services online. It would also manage the Citizen Service Bureau across Delhi. “This transformational programme will achieve reduction of turnaround time for citizen-centric processes and will provide faster, better and more effective solution to their problems. This programme will be able to provide 24 hours online services to citizens of Delhi,” said a senior MCD official. |
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Undertrial dies in Gzb jail
Ghaziabad, March 5
He was given first-aid in the jail hospital, but later referred to the district MMG Hospital where he was pronounced dead. His uncle and his father are also lodged in the same jail, said officials. —IANS
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