New Delhi, July 5
The public anger in the Capital over the price rise was aptly reflected in the response to the call of Bharat Bandh, given by opposition NDA and Left parties, as main markets were largely closed, traffic was much less and a majority of private schools preferred to remain shut.

However, the BJP workers went overboard in many places as they gheraoed shops and Metro offices while trying to enforce their diktat and deflated the tyres besides damaging as many as 30 buses, much to the inconvenience of the common man whose cause it claimed to have represented in today’s bandh.

Shops of essential goods were open, while Delhi University colleges where admission process is still going on were unaffected by the bandh. Government schools were open though attendance was thin.

BJP supporters burn tyres and stop traffic at east Delhi. Tribune photos: Mukesh Aggarwal/ Manas Ranjan Bhui	A usually busy ITO wears a deserted look. Tribune photos: Mukesh Aggarwal/ Manas Ranjan Bhui
Police personnel at ITO Crossing. Tribune photos: Mukesh Aggarwal/ Manas Ranjan Bhui	A view of the closed shops in Connaught Place. Tribune photos: Mukesh Aggarwal/ Manas Ranjan Bhui

Most of the Blueline buses were off the roads, but there was no effect on air traffic even as BJP workers stopped the trains in some places. Agitating BJP activists entered into scuffle with the police in several places as they tried to force closure of shops and public conveyance by blocking main roads.

Office goers, especially from trans-Yamuna localities, suffered a lot as the traffic near ITO was blocked. Many commuters returned home leading to thin attendance in offices.

The agitators got the buses parked in a zigzag way before deflating their tyres that caused traffic jams. They burnt effigies of Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and the Union government.

“I support the issue of price rise. But this is no way to enforce the bandh. I am disgusted,” Satish Mishra, a government servant, said.

Services at the Inter-State Bus Terminals at Anand Vihar and Kashmere Gate were also affected during the morning hours with BJP workers blocking its entrances and deflating bus tyres. They deflated tyres in Janakpuri, Vikas Marg, Dabri More, Hari Nagar, Uttam Nagar, Dwarka and Anand Vihar.

Vehicular movement was also affected at Nizamuddin-Ring Road T point, Tigri Khanpur, Apsara Border, Sindhu Border, Burari Chowk, Khajuri Chowk, Prashant Vihar, Paschim Vihar, Lado Sarai, Mahaveer Murty towards Gurgoan, Devli Mode, M B Road, Sai Baba Chowk, Rohini and Janakpuri.

Agitating BJP workers stopped Metro trains near stations like Rajiv Chowk, Karol Bagh, Nangloi, Tilak Nagar, Janakpuri West, East Tilak Nagar.

However, spokesman of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation downplayed such incidents and said there were no problems in the Metro movement.

Northern railway traffic was also disrupted in Nangloi, Badli, Shahdra and Mandaoli where Delhi police tried to convince the agitators to leave the track as it would cause convenience to the commuters and it’s a national loss. Railway police was seen nowhere at any track. Spokesman of Northern Railway Anant Swaroop also admitted that rail traffic was disrupted for an hour but that it had not caused much disruption in train movement.

The BJP enforced closure in major markets– Khari Baoli, Chandni Chowk, Sadar Bazar, Connaught Place, Karol Bagh, South Extension, Lajpat Nagar, Paharganj, Vikas Marg, Badarpur, MB Road, Okhla Industrial Area, Narela Industrial Area.

New Delhi, July 5
About 4,380 people, mostly workers of BJP and Left parties, were detained today with the police maintaining that the bandh was free of violence and no untoward incident was reported from any part .

The detained included prominent leaders like BJP president Nitin Gadkari and JD (U) president Sharad Yadav.

“We had detained 4,380 people, including the political leaders from various parties, who were later released. The bandh had been by and large peaceful and there was not a single incident of violence in any part of the city,” said Rajan Bhagat, PRO, Delhi police adding that police handled any confrontation with protestors tactfully. According to him, more than 100 companies of security officials were deployed in the city today to meet the challenges of road, train and air blockades.

According to information, North District topped the list of detention with 3,435 followed by 400 in central Delhi. While no one was detained in connection with the protests in south-west Delhi, 140 people were detained in New Delhi district, 119 in West district, 80 in East district, 70 in South district, 57 in North-East and 44 in North-West district.  

A case of rioting was registered against unknown persons in Mandir Marg police station after protest turned violent in Gole Market.  

According to traffic police, apart from a few incidents of tyre deflation, things remained under control. “There were some incidents of bus tyres being deflated in . Also a few stretches of roads were blocked but they were cleared quickly,” said Satyender Garg, joint commissioner, Traffic. 

New Delhi, July 5
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders went out of the way to make the bandh a success in the Capital with its national president Nitin Gadkari and former national president Rajnath Singh accompanied by a host of other leaders going around the town to enforce the bandh.

BJP sources said the party wanted to reverse its political slide in the Capital whose middle class voters used to be its major support base.

The party’s national leadership also wanted to strengthen the position of newly appointed Delhi BJP president Vijender Gupta.

To achieve both the purposes, the senior leaders had a meeting a few days back in Delhi and directed all the workers to come on road on the bandh day to make it a success.

Gupta came out on road in the early morning with hundreds of his supporters in Rohini from where he plans to contest the assembly election next time.

He said that today’s bandh was a beginning. If fuel prices are not taken back, the saffron party will continue the stir.

However, the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Jai Prakash Aggarwal termed it as double standard of the saffron party. When the BJP-led NDA was in power, fuel prices were increased up to 50 per cent. Now it is agitating in protest against the hiked fuel price. As far as inflation is concerned, it is an international phenomenon.

He said agitation is a democratic way to convey people’s opinion to the government. But violence is not the way. Deflating bus tryres is a national loss. The nation has lost thousands of crores of rupees.

New Delhi, July 5
After the pre-monsoon showers yesterday, the much-awaited monsoon arrived in the city today. “The monsoon has hit the Capital today and within the next two-three days, it would be extended to entire country.

The showers could be attributed to the interaction of southwest monsoon and the western disturbance,” said B P Yadav, the director of IMD.

With the city missing its date with the monsoon on June 29, pre-monsoon activity had been witnessed in the Capital for two days. The IMD had said that the seasonal rain would cover the Capital within 48 hours, but the monsoon has revived faster.

As per the Met department, till 8:30 am the city received a rainfall of 57.8 mm in the last 24 hours. Thereafter though the activity turned to be sporadic, with 0.5 mm of rainfall recorded till 5:15 pm today, the weather remained breezy and many Delhiites, taking a day out due to the bandh, were seen enjoying themselves in colony parks.

Despite the high humidity levels—high of 97 per cent and low of 74 per cent—overall the day seemed to progress on a relaxing note.

The advent of the monsoon was quite evident from the overnight showers that enabled the city to breathe easy, with the mercury levels plummeting below normal for the season.

“The maximum temperature for the day settled around 32 degree Celsius, a departure of four degrees below the average. Similarly, the minimum temperature for the day was recorded at 25.5 degree Celsius, three degrees less than the normal for this time,” said a weather official.

Further, Tuesday would see an increase in the high temperature to 35 degrees, while the minimum would hover around 25 degree Celsius.

According to the forecast, brief spells of rain accompanied by thunderstorm could be witnessed in some parts of the city.

MCD’s desilting claim goes down the drain

Even as the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) claims to have undertaken the job of desilting of drains throughout the year, the civic body’s control rooms kept buzzing with complaints of waterlogging at various places in the Capital, including outer and inner Ring Roads.

In just two days of rain, the MCD control room has received 95 complaints of waterlogging, 11 of falling of trees and three of collapse of parts of building.

The maximum number of waterlogging complaints was reported from the south zone followed by central zone, Rohini and Najafgarh. Najafgarh and west zones recorded many waterlogging complaints because MCD has not been carrying out desilting in Narela, Najafgarh and Rohini.

The civic body had said that it would desilt the drains throughout the year. It also claimed that the corporation had already achieved the target.

However, even after receiving 95 complaints in just two days, the civic body maintains that it is prepared with all equipment, manpower and vehicles to tackle the monsoon season.

“The MCD has set up a 24-hour control room in each of its 12 zones. A central control room has also been set up at its headquarters in Town Hall,” said chairman of the MCD works committee, Jagdish Mamgain.

He said that the MCD had identified 139 points prone to waterlogging and installed permanent pumping stations at the spots. Portable diesel pump sets are also being deployed, he said.

“MCD has learnt lessons from the last monsoon and will try to overcome the shortcomings this time,” he said.

New Delhi, July 5
Hardly would anybody deny the alarming number of cases of medication errors and hospital-acquired infections, predominantly in the government hospitals though there is no specific data attesting to it.

In this context, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), under the National Initiative for Patient Safety (NIPS), would be going ahead for a follow-up on the basis of which a national-level registry of inadvertent lapses caused during healthcare delivery would be created.

“The idea is to make patients safe in hospital environment. Our department has been conducting workshops with focus on four aspects— hand hygiene and infection control, surgical safety, doctor-patient communication and medicine management,” said Dr Shakti Gupta, the head of the Department of Hospital Administration (DHA).

AIIMS would establish a World Health Organisation collaborative centre for monitoring and supervising patient safety programme, under which systematic errors would be identified and remedied.

“A culture of chain is required to reduce the incidence of errors during treatment. We want to create a patient-safety registry. Any patient who visits a hospital has the full right to ask about the safety aspects of the treatment procedure,” stressed Dr Gupta.

Launched in September 2009 by the union health and family welfare, the premier tertiary healthcare institute has already covered 23 medical colleges and hospitals across the country, and the target is to reach out to at least 60-80 medical institutes within two years. With two workshops held in September, last year and May 2010, AIIMS is currently chalking out a plan to obtain data on the nature of lapses in the system and frequency of faults committed by health professionals during treatment.

“We would be able to carry out a systematic analysis of errors like needle stick injury or improper medication during treatment. It would bring out an overhauling of the system,” pointed out Dr Shalini Bhalla, senior resident at DHA.

NIPS has set up a trend though not at an institutional level and the paediatrics department of AIIMS has adopted the practice even though the change is yet to show result.

“The medical colleges would act as regional centres and they would be furthering their implementation experience to the primary and urban health centres. We want the culture to percolate down,” underlined Dr Pankaj Arora, senior resident at DHA.

According to Dr Gupta, for the success of the patient safety movement, all the doctors serving at district hospitals and primary healthcare centres should be sent to medical colleges and tertiary healthcare set-ups for orientation programme once in five years. 

New Delhi, July 5
The Delhi cabinet today approved of certain modifications in the existing Delhi Government Employees Health Scheme (DGEHS) which was launched in April 1997.

While briefing the media after the cabinet meeting, Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit stated that a number of modifications in DGEHS have been approved to make this scheme as beneficial as CGHS. The modifications have also been approved in order to overcome problems being faced by the beneficiaries during treatment under the existing provisions.

The scheme, introduced in April 1997, was modified in 2003, 2005 and 2007.  It was felt that there are still certain provisions which need to be amended to ensure better healthcare to the beneficiaries, she said. — TNS

New Delhi, July 5
A couple, reportedly depressed over poor financial condition and frequent fights, last night attempted suicide in the Aman Vihar area of Outer Delhi.

According to the police, the incident was reported from the Jagdamba Market area around 12.20 am. The couple is in hospital and the police is yet to record their statements.

“The couple — Vinod (32) and Neetu (28) — and their one-year-old daughter Meenu lived in a rented second floor accommodation in the Jagdamba Market area here. Last night, Neetu jumped off the balcony of the house while Vinod ate some poisonous substance. They have been admitted to a nearby hospital in a critical condition and are not in a position to give any statement,” said an official from the Aman Vihar police station.

According to information, Vinod is a temporary employee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and is undergoing financial crunch.

“The landlord of the house, Santosh, has told us that Vinod worked on MCD trucks used for picking garbage and that the couple had frequent arguments over financial issues. Last night too, they had some arguments, after which Neetu jumped off the balcony,” said the police.

After hearing the thud sound caused by Neetu’s fall, Santosh went up to the house and saw that Vinod had eaten poison and foam was coming out of his mouth. He informed the police about the incident. 

Greater Noida, July 5
Three women were killed and five injured when a speeding tanker hit them while they were returning home late on Saturday night after attending a marriage function in Tappal village here.

“The deceased have been identified as Lalita Saini (30), Ramvati Singh (28) and Omvati Saini (40). They died on the spot. The injured have been identified as Rekha (24), Premvati (36), Rani(30), Mamta (42) and Chanchal (20). They were in hospital till late evening today. Two children—Himanshu (12) and Rahul(16)—have also suffered minor injuries,” said Harpal Singh, SHO, Jewar police station.

“The victims were returning from the house of one Prem Singh whose son is getting married two days later. They had gone there for the ‘ladies sangeet’ function,” said Singh.

“A case of negligent driving has been registered against the driver of the tanker, who has been arrested,” Singh added.