New Delhi, May 7
As parts of Uttar Pradesh and other neighboring areas had rain today, cool winds made for a pleasant day in the Capital. Though the city did not have rain, it got a breather from the scorching heat with the maximum temperature dropping to 35.6 degree Celsius, four degree below normal.

However, the minimum was recorded at 28.6 degree Celsius, four notches above the normal for this time of the year.

According to Indian Metrological Department, the Capital may experience thunderstorms tomorrow as well.

“The circulation in the air cycles is resulting in rain in several areas of the north. The effect is seen in the Capital with cool winds,” said a metrological department official.

While the maximum temperature is expected to settle at 37 degree Celsius tomorrow, the minimum is expected to hover around 28 degree Celsius.

Just yesterday, Delhi saw a drop of five degrees and settled at 35.5 degree Celsius after the city saw a dust storm.

New Delhi, May 7
A visit to a public toilet in Delhi is nothing less than a punishment. However, if all goes well, the city may soon have high-end and fancy loos approved by IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) teachers and other experts.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has formed an expert committee to scrutinise and select tenders for building first-of-its-kind toilet complexes at various important locations in the national Capital.

The last date for submitting the tenders is April 30.

The committee consists of members from diverse fields like professors from Indian Institute of Delhi (IIT) and School of Planning and Architecture, said a senior MCD official.

“These toilet complexes will be very high-end. A lot of experimentation will go into making them look pleasant and hygienic,” said Deep Mathur, official spokesperson of the MCD.

A total of 216 toilet blocks would be built at various market locations.

“The blocks will be built on ‘built and transfer’ basis, which means that the corporation only has to provide space to the builder company. The locations have been identified and include strategic places like south and central Delhi,” he said.

However, he said that the project was not a part of the Commonwealth Games. “The project would take time and might be completed after the Games,” said Mathur.

The ultra-modern toilet complexes will have special facilities for women, senior citizens and physically challenged. They will have high-end fixtures and facilities like mirrors, changing rooms and bathrooms.

The toilet blocks will also have space for advertisements.

“Thirty per cent of the ground space and 100 per cent roof space have been allocated for advertisements,” said the senior officer.

“The firms who will be awarded the tender for the project will have to maintain these toilet complexes for a period of 30 years and will have to engage an agency to ensure proper cleanliness,” said the official.

The New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) has also planned to build similar world-class public conveniences in the New Delhi area. The civic body has selected areas like Shanker Market, Ashoka Road, Gole Market, Janpath Lane, near RML Hospital, Parliament Street and KG Marg, among other places.

Though, the NDMC will build only 25 toilets blocks, renovation of 42 other on the north of Rajpath has already started.

“New glasses, toilet pots and washbasins will be added to these toilets and the NDMC’s health department will keep a regular check on their cleanliness. The companies advertising on these toilet blocks and eight of our garbage stations will have to pay Rs 22 lakh per month,” said a senior NDMC official.

New Delhi, May 7
After launching the Express and Park and Ride Bus Service, the Chief Minister today flagged off 100 radio taxis and said that it would be a smooth ride for tourists and citizens during the Commonwealth Games here. Around 15,000 radio taxis would be on roads by October.

She said that there was no problem in obtaining the licence to operate radio taxis. In fact, the government is encouraging people to travel in DTC buses and radio cabs.

Earlier, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit flagged off a new radio taxi service ‘YO Cabs’.

Prabjit Singh, promoter of JAS Cabs Private Limited said that he was launching operations with a fleet of 100 cars.

“But we aim to raise the number to 1,000 before the Games. Right now we have received licences to operate 500 cabs,” he said. The cars are equipped with facilities like GPS and printers so that the vehicles can be monitored continuously and the customers can get automatic billing.

The taxi service will be available round the clock in the NCR region and Delhi. The charge is Rs 15 per km. The drivers are trained, especially on how to behave with customers and have the knowledge of basic English. To ensure safety, their backgrounds have been thoroughly verified, he said.

New Delhi, May 7
Even as friends and sympathisers of Delhi journalist Nirupama Pathak meet to demand justice, her boyfriend’s intensive questioning by Jharkhand police in Delhi has angered many of his friends .

Sources said a police team from Kodarma, where Pathak was allegedly killed by her family on April 29 as they were not happy with her affair with Priyabhanshu Ranjan, continued with Ranjan’s questioning today and it went on for close to six hours.

A friend, who did not wish to be named, said the Jharkhand police is deliberately trying to deflect public attention from Pathak’s family as they have failed in solving the case.

“It is clear that she was killed in Kodarma and he was in Delhi that time. It’s a case of murder then what is the need of questioning him so hard and long,” he wondered.

Ranjan and Pathak were passouts from Indian Institute of Mass Communication and fell in love there. Both were working in different media agencies in Delhi and she was pregnant when she died, as per her postmortem report.

Police had questioned Ranjan yesterday too for over five hours and seized his mobile and some clothes.

Greater Noida, May 7
Two farmers died after a tractor trolley had collapsed on them in Dharbra village. The two were reportedly sleeping beneath the trolley which collapsed over them as the jack supporting the trolley had slipped. Police has sent the bodies for autopsy.

Pandaji, 55, resident of Ganaur in Badayun and Devinder, 25, were on their way to Delhi with their two companions to dispose of the wheat. Near Dharbra village, one of the tyres of trolley got punctured.

The farmers had put the trolley on a jack to remove the punctured wheel. One of them took the wheel to a repairing shop.

Meanwhile, Pandaji and Devinder spread a sheet on the road under the trolley and went to sleep. Suddenly, the jack slipped from its place and the trolley fell on them.

Pandaji and Devinder were crushed to death. Some people from the nearby place informed the Kasna police.

Cops pulled out the bodies with the help of a crane.

Greater Noida, May 7
A case of fraud has been registered at the Rabupura police station here against 11 persons, including a naib tehsildar (junior revenue officer) and a former revenue official for allegedly preparing fake documents for illegal transfer of a land.

The case has been registered by two brothers, Shauqat and Kallu Karim Ullaha. On SDM’s order, a probe was conducted and the complaint was found to be true.

According to the police, after the death of Kallu’s unmarried uncle (father’s elder brother), his land (six bighas) was passed on to him and his two brothers.

But the then revenue officer Sheel Kumar, a land mafia of the area Anwar and naib tehisldar Akhlesh Gupta fraudulently sold off the land to one Ramesh, Farrookh and Mustafa on October 20 2009.

They had impersonated the real descendents of the land.

New Delhi, May 7
The Delhi High Court on Friday commuted the death penalty of a man, convicted of raping and killing a minor girl, to life imprisonment.

The decision was taken by a division bench of Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Justice Suresh Kait, who ordered that the convict Ranjeet would not be eligible for any parole nor be entitled to be considered for remission of sentence before a period of 20 years in jail.

Ranjeet, a native of Bihar, abducted the girl from his neighbourhood in Gopalpur near Timarpur in north Delhi on July 3, 2007, raped her and then killed her. He was convicted and sentenced to death in the case.

“No doubt, every rape is detestable and as against many other penal offences, manifests depravity. No doubt rape of a minor girl invites greater repulsion; no doubt, rape followed by murder aggravates the meanness and the depravity of the act. But the moot question would be whether it should invite the extreme penalty required to be inflicted in the rarest of the rare case,” the court said.

“The power of the state to put to death its citizen who has committed a penal offence has to be tempered with the mercy power of the state to give an opportunity to a deviant citizen to reform himself,” it said, adding the death penalty should be kept for crimes “so abhorrent that the collective conscious of the society seeks retribution”.

“Personal predilections of a judge have no place in a sentencing policy,” the bench added while asking the judges to be vigilant while awarding death penalty. — IANS

Noida, May 7
Some 1,860 regular employees and officials of Noida have got a rise of 30 per cent in their salaries as a result of the implementation of the 6th Pay Commission recommendations.

While thanking the Chief Minister, Ms Mayawati, for the government’s decision, Noida Authority chairman Mohinder Singh said at present Rs 207.94 lakh were spent on the salaries of the employees and officers which would go up to Rs 266.95 lakh per month.

Noida Authority, he said, would be able to meet this increase of Rs 59.1 lakh in expenditure from its own sources.

Similarly, Greater Noida Authority has 228 employees and officials whose current salary bill came to Rs 32.15 lakh which will go up to Rs 42.15 lakh.

New Delhi, May 7
The Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs today boycotted the meeting called by the Chief Minister to get their suggestions on Mission Convergence Scheme of the Delhi government. The pension issue for senior citizens was to be discussed in the meeting.

The MLAs alleged that the “autocratic” attitude of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit forced them to boycott the meeting.

She was not willing to reply to any question asked by the opposition members in the meeting. The CM only wanted to show the presentation of the scheme prepared by an NGO, Samajik Suvidha Sangam, which had been given contract to distribute pension among the needy senior citizens, said S. C. L. Gupta, a BJP MLA.

He said when a senior MLA, Harcharan Singh Balli asked to know about the number of persons given pension last year, the deputy commissioner concerned tried to divert the question by giving the details of each district. Not a single person has been given pension for the last 18 months, Gupta said.

He said that when the opposition raised objection in the last session of the Assembly over the distribution of pension by the NGO, the Chief Minister assured that problem would be worked out after discussion with all the MLAs. But in this meeting nothing had happened.

New Delhi, May 7
A 60-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man were killed in two separate road accidents in the capital since last night.

In an incident today morning, a youth was killed on the spot after he was run over by a DTC bus while he was trying to board it. According to the police, the victim has been identified as Vishal and accident took place in the Khajuri Khas area of north-east Delhi.

“According to eyewitnesses, Vishal slipped while trying to board the bus and he came under its rear wheels. He died on the spot around 9 in the morning,” said the police.

Vishal was a resident of Tukumpur in east Delhi and was on his way to office in a private company.

In another incident, a 60-year-old woman died when hit by a car in the Chanakyapuri area of New Delhi district. Geeta was crossing the road close to a petrol station on Auragzeb road when hit by an Indica car. T

he occupants of the car were returning from the hospital along with their patient when accident took place.