New Delhi, May 19
Restraining the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) from sealing illegal mobile towers till next Monday, the Delhi High Court today questioned the agency on the rationale behind hiking the licence fee for towers.

Justice Kailash Gambhir asked the civic agency to explain on what grounds the licence fee was hiked and whether any proposal was passed in the MCD house on the issue.

Under the revised MCD guidelines unveiled on February 9, the amount to be paid by a telecom operator to the civic agency for installing a tower has been increased from the present Rs1 lakh to Rs5 lakh.

Arguing on behalf of the cellular operators association, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi said: "Hike by the MCD is totally arbitrary."

Singhvi contended that since the licence of the cellular operators is valid for 20 years, the licence fee for the towers should also be valid for the same period.

"The towers' licence fee earlier was Rs.1 lakh for 20 years which has now been increased to Rs 5 lakh for a period of 5 years. When the MCD increased the fees, did it make any arrangement to increase the facilities attached to the towers," Singhvi said.

Senior advocate Parag Tripathi, appearing for MCD, said: "All over the world same norms are being followed with respect to the mobile phone towers. Our sole criterion for sealing these towers is health hazard."

Singhvi objected to MCD's new guideline that a no objection certificate is required from every owner of the building before installation of a tower and said: "When they are hiking the fees, then such type of clauses should not be included."

On May 13, the high court stayed the sealing of illegal towers and asked the MCD and the cellular operators association to resolve the issue amicably. — IANS

New Delhi, May 19
After its second visit to the Mayapuri scrap yard in west Delhi today, environment NGO— Greenpeace said that radiation levels had come down in the six hotspots it had identified last week. However, it added that the levels were still not normal.

The visit today intended to check the levels of radiation after a decontamination exercise was carried out by experts from Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, National Disaster Management Relief Force and Narora Atomic Power Station on Sunday.

“We can conclude that the hotspots have been removed,” said Jan Vande Putte, radiation expert of Greenpeace.

The authorities took immediate decontamination action after the Greenpeace had identified six spots with dangerous radiation levels. Two places that the NGO had identified had levels higher than 5,000 times the normal background measured on May 14.  

“The hottest spot which had a reading of 500 micro-Sv/hr at 10 cm last week, has dropped to 1micro-Sv/hr or 500 times less. The remaining contamination does not pose an immediate risk to workers, but could still be harmful if left untouched for a longer period. The authorities are duty-bound to draft a comprehensive plan to further reduce radiation exposure,” added Putte. 

“So far, the authorities have not followed the international standards to ensure the highest levels of safety. The AERB must publish its comprehensive assessment of the situation and its plan for further decontamination, as is the normal international practice,” said Karuna Raina, nuclear campaigner Greenpeace India.

“The manner in which the authorities have dealt with this situation is shocking. Blood tests were conducted around a month ago but the results have not yet been provided to the people,” she added.

New Delhi, May 19
Frustrating the attempt of Delhi University administration to implement semester system in some science courses, the English department has refused to teach the new syllabus.

The teachers of the English department have been alleging that the syllabus of English component of science courses has not been framed by them.

"The university approached the professors of other departments and Institute of Lifelong Learning (ILLL) to frame the English syllabus for these courses. The university never approached the department for this purpose," said a note that is being circulated by the English department.

The note comes as a reply to DU administration's allegations that the department did not co-operate with the university in formulating the new syllabus.

The English department has maintained that until their concerns with regard to "pedagogy and evaluation" were addressed, it would not be possible for the department to move forward. "We note with regret that the syllabi for the papers in English as part of science courses that were presented at the last meeting of AC have not originated from the English department," the note said.

Further, the teachers went on to say that they do not recognize the new papers and could not take responsibility for their being taught by their colleagues in the English department in various colleges.

The teachers alleged that the procedure adopted for passing the revised syllabus has bypassed all the statutory provisions.

"This has seriously undermined the role and function of the Department of English which seem to have been appropriated by institutions like ILLL and certain chosen colleagues from other departments, who have no official competence and training in the discipline of English," said the department faculty.

Meanwhile, there are also reports that the syllabus of English presented in the AC meeting was not even prepared by Prof Rama Mathew from ILLL who, according to the university administration, was behind its formulation.

The reviewed English syllabus made by Prof. Mathew had reached the vice-chancellor only in the morning of the AC meeting.

Sources said the syllabus presented in the meeting was completely different.

New Delhi, May 19
A city court today deferred the framing of charges against Congress leader Sajjan Kumar for killing of five persons during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots till Monday. Additional sessions judge Sunita Gupta will frame charges on May 24.

The court adjourned the case yesterday after the investigating agency moved an application pointing out a typing error in a court’s order. The error was corrected by the court today.

The investigating agency counsel said that Section 339 (wrongful restraint) of the IPC was mentioned in the court order in stead of Section 449 (house trespass), which was one of the actual charges against Sajjan Kumar, due to a typing error.

Earlier, the court had ordered framing of charges against the Congress leader under the provisions of murder, dacoity, mischief, house trespass and promoting enmity between different communities.

According to the CBI, the Congress leader on November 1, 1984, instigated a mob to kill Sikhs following the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

New Delhi, May 19
Minority Morcha activists of the BJP staged a demonstration at Jantar Mantar to protest against Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s alleged attempt to delay the procedure of death sentence to the Parliament attack case convict, Afzal Guru.

The activists gathered at Jantar Mantar and tried to jump the barricade erected by the police. When they were not controlled, the police used water cannons in which a few of the demonstrators sustained injuries and rushed to RML Hospital from where they were discharged.

Addressing the workers, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, vice-president of the BJP, said that a terrorist had no religion. He is neither a Hindu nor a Muslim. Terrorist is the enemy of humanity, community, and the country.

The demonstrators supported the demand of the BJP by raising their hands for death sentence to Afzal Guru in response to a call given by Naqvi at Jantar Mantar.

Leader of the Opposition in Delhi Assembly, Prof Vijay Kumar Malhotra said that he had been condemning the efforts of the government’s to delay the hanging of Afzal Guru.

He asked the Sheila government to refrain from indulging in politics in this case otherwise it should be ready to face grave consequences.

BJP’s Delhi president Vijendra Gupta said that the Congress should stop vote bank and appeasement politics. Today’s demonstration was only an indication of the storm to come. The BJP will not remain idle until the martyr families get justice.

The Minority Morcha president Atif Rasheed appreciated the participation of hundreds of Muslims in the demonstration and condemned Sheila Dikshit for insulting Muslims. Muslims are not happy with the delay in hanging Afzal Guru.

New Delhi, May 19
With the arrest of three men, the central district police has solved three cases of cheating/ theft. 

The accused have been identified as Mukesh Singh (28), Jitender Mishra (32) and Dharmender Shah (30) of Motihari district in Bihar.

They were arrested near Shadipur Depot yesterday.

The arrest came following the investigation into a complaint filed by Amrit Kaur, a resident of Ranjit Nagar.

In her complaint, Kaur stated that on May 5, she had gone to Punjab National Bank, West Patel Nagar, to deposit Rs 49,000.

One person approached her there and said that she had not kept the bundles of currency notes properly. 

When she gave him the bundles to arrange, the man fled with the money.

DCP (central) Jaspal Singh said that the gang had committed large number of cheating in the areas of Delhi, NCR, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Surat, Ludhiana, Mumbai and Jaipur.

The gang would visit different cities and hire AC cars to commit the crime. 

They would go inside the identified bank and target persons who were in queue either for depositing or withdrawing cash. 

Then they would divert their attention on some pretext like offering to fill the deposit slip, counting the cash withdrawn/ to be deposited by the person. 

In the process, they stole the cash and escaped.

At their instance, the police has seized Rs 29,500, 10 mobile phones and one WagonR car used for committing crime.

New Delhi, May 19
The Delhi Draft Police Amendment Bill, which would change the policing in the national Capital, is a much diluted version of the police reform which the Supreme Court had ordered in its landmark judgment in Prakash Singh case.

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) said the SC had called for setting up of a Security Commission, Police Establishment Board, Police Complaints Authority which if properly constituted would create a non-partisan police and ensure fairness and transparency in its working.

“In its present form the proposed amendment cannot bring the changes vital to bring in qualitative improvement into the Delhi policing system. The Amendment Bill needs to be thoroughly overhauled and changed into a single comprehensive new law. Without that policing will remain business as usual,” Maja Daruwala, director, CHRI, an organisation working on police reforms for more than a decade, said.

A CHRI spokesperson said the new law should make it mandatory for police to produce somebody arrested without a warrant before a magistrate in 24 hours, which is not the case in its present form. In order that legislation adequately reflects the needs and aspirations of the people in relation to the police service they want, government needs to go beyond consultations with small elite groups and senior bureaucrats and policemen, the CHRI said. Delhi accounts for nearly 17 per cent of all the crime in India and 31per cent for all the rapes and cops needed to be made more sensitive and accountable, it said. Instead, one in every 10 policepersons has a complaint against him or her and the police appear to be part of the problem than solution.

New Delhi, May 19
A candlelight gathering condoning the deaths of innocent people in Dantewada was held at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) last night.

ABVP students condemned the Maoist violence around the country and said they would support the home minister in his steps against Naxalites.

"The home minister should take strong action against the Maoists operating as a parallel government in several parts of the country," said Vineet Chaturvedi, secretary, ABVP.

He said there were many Maoist sympathisers amongst teachers and students of JNU, who should be isolated.

"There is an operational CPI (Maoist)'s students' wing in our university and many students have close ties with these anti-national forces. We want to formulate a common perception against Naxalites," said Chaturvedi.

New Delhi, May 19
In an effort to address the problem of juvenile diabetes, mass screening of blood sugar and lipid profile would be carried out among children in Delhi and this is supposed to be part of a comprehensive module that the Delhi government is planning to introduce for creating awareness on diabetes.

Under the new module, a non-invasive technology, which means no pricks by glucometer that a US company is in process of patenting, would be used.

The initiative, currently in designing stage, would be implemented with interventions at all levels starting from educational institutions to hospitals, with four to-five city hospitals, like Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, Lok Nayak Jaya Prakash, having it in infancy.

“The programme has just passed on from the conceptual stage. It is in bits and pieces and the purpose is to generate awareness on diabetes and its causes. There would be a complete module for compiling data available from various hospitals in the city,” said Dr S Bhatacharjee, director, health services of Delhi.

Coming in line with the Union ministry of health and family welfare’s emphasis on having a national programme on combating the ever-increasing fold of lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension, the new programme would be based on both the behavioural and pharmacological modality.

The other objective of the campaign would be to get some baseline data on the prevalence of the disease in Delhi so that the government could strategise the combat mechanism.

With young children getting hooked to the mouth-watering choices available at the various fast-food outlets, cases of childhood diabetes have registered a three-fold increase during the last 30 years in India.

“Earlier, diabetes was prevalent among adults, but with changing lifestyles and food habits, more children are developing it at an early age. Studies suggest, 18 per cent of the children who are obese and overweight prone to type II diabetes. Hence, it is important to catch them young,” underlined Dr Ashok Jhingan, chairperson of Diabetes Research Centre (DDRC) for children in Delhi.

While the focus of the campaign would be on type-II diabetes, it would also target adults, who are prone to develop it due to sedentary lifestyles and changed food habits.

New Delhi, May 19
Two motorcycle-borne men today snatched Rs 4 lakh from a senior official of a pharmaceutical firm outside a bank in the Connaught Place area of New Delhi district this afternoon.

The police said the incident took place outside HDFC Bank at Kasturba Gandhi Marg in Connaught Place around 1:45 pm when Amit Aggarwal, general manager of a pharmaceutical company, and his colleague Kapil Dev Mishra were waiting for their car with the cash withdrawn from the bank. 

“They had withdrawn Rs 4 lakh from the bank and were waiting for their car outside the bank when two motorcycle-borne men came and snatched the bag containing the cash from Aggarwal. They fled towards the India Gate,” said a senior police official.

Aggarwal approached a traffic police personnel for help but by the time the duo had fled. 

A case has been registered and investigations are on. The snatchers had tied a bag on the backside of the motorcycle to hide its registration number, the official said.  

According to sources, this is the fourth such incident outside the same bank in the past few days in the area. Yesterday, some unidentified men had snatched Rs 2 lakh outside the same bank.

A police official said that the police was looking at the CCTV camera footages of the nearby buildings to identify the snatchers.