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Poor parents fail to fulfil demands of public schools
Lovely warns schools against violating RTE
Public schools to be closed
till Jan 9
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Fog engulfs city
Walia lays stress on solution to
Laxmi Nagar water woes
Dog bite menace goes unabated in Delhi
Govt plans to increase beds in Delhi hospitals
Facebook is MCD’s sanitation tool
Delhi HC to the rescue of old man in property
dispute with son
Misbehaviour with senior citizen costs Rs 35k to postal dept
2 get jail for robbing
guard of Rs 20
Sadhvi Pragya Singh’s
‘guru bhai’ attempts suicide
Four held for withdrawing
Rs 33 lakh from boy’s account
Engineering students held for robberies
Realtor shot
Ragpicker run over by train
2 kids hurt in demolition
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Poor parents fail to fulfil demands of public schools
New Delhi, January 5 Despite the RTE Act, many parents of EWS background are confronted with a host of problems and many of them are worried as to whether their children will manage to get admission in an English-speaking school. Arati is a cook and maid working at an upmarket residence in Vasant Vihar. She has been trying to get admission for her three-year-old daughter in various schools in the neighbourhood. She is not alone. Her employer has been accompanying Arati in her effort to get admission for her daughter. Arati said, "It will be a miracle for me if my daughter gets admission in a good English school. This was something I could not even think of when I was growing up. My madam, Mrs Gill, has been very kind and with her help we have visited at least ten schools, but I have faced many problems so far. Out of the ten schools we have visited, I have managed to get forms from only two schools, others have told us that the forms have finished or told us to come back at a later date." Arati's employer said, "Since yesterday morning, I have been making the rounds of various neighbourhood schools for admission of my maid's daughter, but I am rather disappointed. It is clear that much needs to be done before the RTE Act is translated into reality. We have faced a number of problems." She added, "Out of the ten schools that we visited, only two schools gave us the forms that also after I argued and fought with the staff for the forms. Other schools simply informed us that forms are not available or they told us that the forms have finished. Then many of these schools want income and domicile proof. I offered my own domicile proof since she works for us, but this was not acceptable to the schools. To cap it, most schools demand a proof of income less than Rs 1 lakh for EWS category admission. The schools want a bank statement. This is ridiculous for a maid!" Arati and her employer are not the only ones facing a problem. Mukesh, a gardener in a South Delhi nursery, said, "I have visited five schools so far to get my son admitted. Ever since I heard of the RTE Act, I have been collecting information on private schools where I would like my son to study and we plan to apply to at at least ten schools. Out of the five schools we visited today, I did not manage to get any form. The schools have asked me to come after January 8 for the forms." Saheli, an NGO that works with street children, especially the girl child, has been busy trying to get admission for a number of students under its care. Abha Sharma, a worker at Saheli, said, "We have five children under our care and Saheli has promised to bear the cost of both the education and housing for these street children who are all orphans. We have made rounds of a number of south and east Delhi schools for forms, but in vain. Out of the 12 schools we have visited, we have managed to get forms from only three schools. The schools are asking for documentation for these children which simply does not exist as the children are literally from the streets. We are busy talking to these schools to sort out the problems."
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Lovely warns schools against violating RTE
New Delhi, January 5 Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely admitted today that his department received complaints against some schools which were giving some weight to the profile of parents and preferring the professionals among them. There are seven to eight schools against whom they had received complaints and the government would ensure that no discriminatory criteria were allowed, he said. He said the department would first verify the authenticity of the complaints and initiate action against schools if there was truth in these. He said if the government decided to cancel the admission procedures at some schools, it would ensure that parents were not inconvenienced. "If we scrap it, we will ask them to do it again with changed and acceptable criteria," he said.
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Public schools to be closed
till Jan 9
New Delhi, January 5 He said that all the MCD, NDMC and Delhi Cantonment Board schools would also remain closed till January 9. This decision was taken after receiving requests from a large number of parents and various schools. An office circular has already been issued by the Directorate of Education to this effect, he added. The minister said that strong action would be taken against the schools, which violated the provisions of Right to Education Act in the admission process. The government will ensure that all the schools maintain transparency in admissions. There are about 1,165 government, 1,500 senior secondary public schools and about 2,000 MCD schools in Delhi. The admission process for nursery classes in 380 Sarvodaya schools has also started. With regard to the students belonging to economically weaker section (EWS), the government will ensure that every child gets admission, he said. The minister directed all the deputy directors of education department to hear the admission related problems of parents on regular basis in the morning from 10 am to 1 pm in their office. |
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Fog engulfs city
New Delhi, January 5 "Tomorrow could be the same as today on the weather front. The winds are here to stay for a couple of more days at least. The minimum would be around 4°C while the maximum is not likely to go beyond 13°C with fog in the morning," said a senior Metrological official. As the mercury dropped, the minimum temperature today dropped to 4.2°C, which is three degrees below the normal for this time of the year. The weather became harsher as the winds from the northern mountains continued to sweep the city, the Metrological Department said. Just yesterday, Delhi witnessed its coldest day of the season with the minimum temperature dropping to 3.7°C and maximum settling at 12.7°C, both are season's lowest temperature. The maximum was eight degrees below the normal. Last year, January recorded the lowest minimum of 5.6°C in the first week of the year. The record for the highest maximum for January was 32.5°C recorded on January 28, 2004. The record minimum temperature is -0.6°C recorded on January 16, 1935.
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Walia lays stress on solution to
Laxmi Nagar water woes
New Delhi, January 5 Walia who took a round of Vikas Marg and M and L Block of Laxmi Nagar said that the engineers concerned had adopted piecemeal approach which was not going to satisfy the residents who often protested against the broken sewer lines and inadequate water supply. He said the residents of these areas faced problems due to overflowing sewer lines, mixing of sewer water with drinking water lines, large potholes on roads and inadequate supply of drinking water because of non-functional rainy well. He said that Delhi Jal Board (DJB) would take immediate rehabilitation of one km trunk sewer line on main Vikas Marg with an estimated cost of Rs 10 crore. Besides, the DJB would prepare a comprehensive rehabilitation plan of sewer lines in the entire Trans-Yamuna area for inclusion in its 12th Five Year Plan. Further to overcome the problem of overflowing sewer lines, it was decided that the two new 5 MGD sewage pumps would be commissioned at Preet Vihar pumping station. The DJB would make a rainy well functional to ease supply of drinking water in the Laxmi Nagar area. |
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Dog bite menace goes unabated in Delhi
New Delhi, January 5 The Delhi roads were promised to be stray dogs-free before the Commonwealth Games by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). But the number of cases of dog bites touching as high as anywhere between 250 and 300 everyday, it is clear that the menace continues unabated. MCD officials, though, claim that there are not more than 50 to 60 cases of dog bites on an average daily, which Safdarjung Hospital doctors say, is gross under-reporting. The hospital receives maximum number of dog-bite cases. The MCD claims that it is carrying out sterilisation programme for the dogs on a regular basis but admits that the stray dog population has been increasing constantly over the past few years. To counter this, the corporation has decided to come up with new sterilisation centres and a vetenary hub. The civic agency in its annual budget for the year 2011-12 has proposed to set up 10 long-pending dog sterilisation centres and a vetenary hub in the city. "Earlier, we did not have the sufficient number of centres to treat or vaccinate the dogs and not enough NGOs were working in the area. But now after the setting up of the vetenary hub and dog centres, the problem will be resolved," said RBS Tyagi, MCD veterinary services director. He said it would take around a year for the centre to be completely functional. In the recent budget, the MCD has announced to create a 27 acre veterinary hub at Mukundpur village which will have facilities ranging from animal shelters and sterilisation units to a veterinary dispensary and a canine cremation ground, where one can perform the last rites for the pets. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), maximum of the world's rabies deaths occur in India each year, and that too mostly when children come into contact with infected dogs. The civic body has been running the task of sterilisation of dogs with the help of various NGOs since 2003. Nine of them were roped in for the purpose. "We have been running dog sterilisation campaigns with the help of NGOs since 2003, but they have not yielded satisfactory results. Therefore, the corporation decided to open its own centres for sterilisation of dogs where anyone can bring in their dogs for the treatment. But the proposal was stagnant," said a senior official. The nine NGOs carrying out the sterilisation work in the city are paid Rs 445 for sterilising each dog. The civic agency had earlier said that it wanted to sterilise, at least, 70 per cent of dog population before the Games.
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Govt plans to increase beds in Delhi hospitals
New Delhi, January 5 At present, there are 7,510 beds in 38 government hospitals in Delhi. With commissioning of new planned hospitals, the number of beds will touch a figure of 10,000. This was discussed in a review meeting of the Health and Family Welfare Department that was chaired by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. It was attended by Health Minister Kiran Walia, Principal Secretary to CM PK Tripathi and Secretary (Health) Rajendra Kumar. It was stated in the meeting that the planned hospitals, including two under-constructions, would be able to provide around 2,500 more beds in the hospitals. Kokiwala Bagh Hospital with bed strength of 200 is under construction. The new planned hospitals are at Burari, Hastsal, Sarita Vihar, Chhatarpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Madipur, Jwalapuri and Bamnauli. These all will be 200-bedded hospitals. Siraspur, Keshavpuram and Jaunti will have 100-bedded hospitals, whereas 50-bedded hospitals are planned at Molar Bund and Baprola.
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Facebook is MCD’s sanitation tool
New Delhi, January 5 The MCD embarked upon an innovative strategy to make the city clean by monitoring the lifting of garbage through the interactive medium of Facebook and the Internet. The corporation today created its account on the social networking site for effective monitoring of sanitation throughout the city. The mayor, Prithvi Raj Sawhney, initiated the MCD account by signing as a member on the Facebook page. In his message, he appealed to the citizens of Delhi to cooperate with the MCD in order to monitor effective lifting of garbage. Municipal Commissioner K.S. Mehra assured the people that the MCD would take all the steps to ensure that complaints and suggestions received on Facebook pertaining to the dhalaos (designated garbage collection stations) are immediately redressed. At the 2,500 garbage sites across the city, the MCD will place boards with such details as zero garbage time, unique bin number, complaint number, etc. On the Facebook page, critical information such as the service standards and the area-wise details of the 12 MCD zones have already been posted under the tabs 'Services' and 'Know Your Area' (KYA). The person has to monitor the site and ensure that the standards are met. If garbage is not collected, or the garbage site is not cleaned, the citizen may register a complaint on the Facebook page, preferable along with a photograph and other details as the garbage collection site number. The MCD will take action on the complaint and will revert to the person concerned. "The MCD has taken the citizen-friendly step of using Facebook as a tool to increase transparency and accountability. It has sought citizens' help in this regard," said the mayor.
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Delhi HC to the rescue of old man in property
dispute with son
New Delhi, January 5 The court, however, said the couple can initiate proper legal remedy to claim back the property while directing the father and son duo to settle the dispute out of court. Justice V K Jain accepted the civil suit filed by Rajendra Nath Gupta,77, and restrained his son Ravinder Nath Gupta and his wife from interfering in the possession of his property in Chandni Chowk. "The defendants (son and his wife) are restrained from dispossessing the plaintiff (Rajendra Gupta) from any portion of the suit property during pendency of the suit, except by due process of law...," the court said. Considering the relationship between the persons, Justice Jain asked them to appear before the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre on 10th January, to make an effort for amicable settlement of their disputes. The court's order came on a civil litigation filed by the father alleging that his younger son and daughter-in-law were trying to interfere with his possession of the property and were trying to forcibly snatch the keys from him in order to occupy his house. The father also said the two-storeyed house was acquired by his parents and he became the sole owner of the property after their death. According to him, due to his old age, he had divided the property through partition in the name of his two sons while he retained some portion for himself. The court accepted the father's claim that he has sold his portion of the property to his grandson (elder son's son) with a condition that he will hold the possession of the house till his last breath. Being aggrieved by the decision taken by him, his younger son and daughter-in-law started troubling him and tried to forcibly dispossess him of the property, he claimed. —PTI |
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Misbehaviour with senior citizen costs Rs 35k to postal dept
New Delhi, January 5 C R Gautam, a Delhi resident, was also not allowed to withdraw his money after waiting for long hours at the counter specifically meant for senior citizens. "The Department of Post, including the Director-General, shall jointly and severally pay Rs 35,000 as compensation to Gautam for causing mental agony, harassment," a south district consumer forum comprising president M C Mehra and member Vinay Singh said in its order. It passed the order on a complaint filed by Gautam alleging deficiency of service on the part of the Department of Post. The senior citizen had gone to the GPO, New Delhi, on August 4, 2005 to withdraw Rs 9,000 which he had invested in a monthly income scheme. After filling in the withdrawal slip which was duly signed, he presented it to the counter marked for the senior citizens but the staff concerned was attending a lady of around 40 years and he was asked to wait. After waiting for a long time, he was asked to collect the money from the Deputy Post Master but to his utter dismay, the official concerned was not on his seat. He again approached the counter staff who misbehaved and refused to clear the payment. Aggrieved, Gautam approached the consumer forum alleging that the refusal on the part of the Department of Post has put him in financial hardship and mental agony. The counter staff opposed Gautam's plea contending that there was no deficiency of service on his part as he was attending the lady on the instance of the Post Master. However, the forum was not impressed by the contentions of the department and rejected the plea. "The rude and obstinate behaviour of the counter staff against Gautam without any cogent reason in harassing him, mental agony as well as physical harassment, and finally not paying his amount and throwing his papers clearly amounts deficiency in service on the part of the Department of Post," the forum held. When asked if this will cause more problems for the parents, he said the applicants will not be asked to fill the forms and provide other information again, only the process will be scrapped and done again. He also said that the government will issue a notification tomorrow on the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) policy under which unaided private schools have to reserve 25 per cent of total seats in their pre-primary classes for the economically weaker sections. PTI
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2 get jail for robbing
guard of Rs 20
New Delhi, January 5 Holding the convicts - Zakir (21) and Jitender (24) - guilty of robbing the victim, additional sessions judge VK Bansal said, "the money that the accused got from the robbery does not downplay the gravity of the offence... the duo took away whatever was in the watchman's possession, but for a matter of chance only Rs 20 was found in the wallet." The court sentenced Zakir, who took the victim's purse, to two years' prison and Jitender, who used the knife to threaten the victim, to seven years. It also imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on each of them. The court while pronouncing its judgment took strong view of the fact that the motive of the accused was robbery, so they should be punished sternly. The robbery took place in April 2010 in the Model Town area of North-West Delhi. Watchman Dheeraj Chand was on his way home at Azadpur when he was stopped by the duo near the Azadpur Metro station. They caught hold of him, with Jitender fishing out a knife and threatening him with dire consequences. Meanwhile, Zakir took out Dheeraj's purse from his pocket and fled the spot. The victim then raised the alarm after which a policeman gave them a chase and caught hold of the duo. The police recovered the victim's purse which had Rs 20, besides some visiting cards and his photograph. |
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Sadhvi Pragya Singh’s
‘guru bhai’ attempts suicide
New Delhi, January 5 According to information, in a suicide note recovered by the police, Singh has alleged torture by National Investigation Agency during interrogation. Ananth was found unconscious at his flat in Jangpura this afternoon. He was rushed to
AIIMS. A suicide note alleged that the investigating agencies "physically and mentally tortured him" in connection with Sadhvi Pragya's alleged terrorist acts. Sources said NIA had reportedly interrogated him after picking him up from his house yesterday. Sadhvi is one of the prime accused in the Malegaon blasts case that took place on September 29, 2008. The Anti-Terrorist Squad of Mumbai claimed that Sadhvi formed a group to take revenge for the Mumbai train bomb blasts. She was apprehended when ATS found that her motorcycle was used in blasts |
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Four held for withdrawing
Rs 33 lakh from boy’s account
New Delhi, January 5 The police has recovered gold biscuits worth Rs 8 lakh and Rs 5 lakh in cash from the accused. According to S.N. Yadav, DCP (North), the accused have been identified as Manoj Tyagi (38), Sapna (22), Raj Kumar (42) and Dinesh Chauhan (59). While the former two are residents of Ghaziabad, Raj Kumar and Dinesh hail from Delhi and Meerut, respectively. According to the police, the culprits were arrested gradually after investigation was taken up on the complaint of the schoolboy, Rahul, a resident of Jagatpur village, Burari. Rahul had told the police that he had deposited over Rs 84 lakh in his account with the Bank of Baroda, but about Rs 33 lakh was fraudulently withdrawn from it. The incident was reported on December 8, 2010 when the Burari branch of the bank told Rahul that a large amount of money was being withdrawn from his account. It said that Rs 22 lakh had already been transferred from his account to an account in Meerut while another cheque for Rs 12 lakh was being processed. The police learnt that the account to which the money was transferred was opened on forged documents and all addresses provided to the bank were fake. Then, with the help of technical surveillance of the mobile phones of the suspects, the police nabbed Manoj Tyagi, a resident of Muradnagar, Ghaziabad. "On interrogation, Tyagi broke down and confessed to his involvement," said Yadav, adding that the other accused were gradually apprehended. Tyagi revealed that he used to run a business of manufacturing polythene bags, but suffered a huge loss and had to close down the business. Then he and his friend hatched a plan to fraudulently transfer money from bank accounts. For this, the two took the help of Dinesh Chauhan, a clerk with the Burari branch of the Bank of Baroda. |
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Engineering students held for robberies
Ghaziabad, January 5 The seven accused were arrested on Tuesday night during vehicle checks by police on National Highway- 24. They confessed that they took to crimes for easy money. "They used to commit such crimes and went on pleasure trips," said the police . The accused include
B.Tech. students Mayank Tyagi, a resident of Loni, Mohit, a resident of
Muzaffarnagar, and Bhupendra Tripathi of Sultanpur. MCA student Pradeep Kumar, a resident of
Bulandshahr, and BCA student Manish Chaurasia, a resident of Ghaziabad, were also
arrested. Monu Chaudhary of Sahibabad pursuing his graduation, and Piyush Sharma, works in a private firmIANS |
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Realtor shot
Ghaziabad, January 5 Tthe incident occurred around 4 am in DLF Colony of the Soni area when Santosh Mishra, a resident of Ved Vihar, heard a knock on his door. As he opened the gate, four men attempted to barge into the house. He and his elder brother Pramod Mishra tried to stop the men. They succeeded and caught hold of one of them. At this, the others opened fire and shot Pramod. He was rushed to GTB Hospital in Delhi where he was declared dead. IANS |
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Ragpicker run over by train
New Delhi, January 5 According to the railway police, the incident was reported around 10.40 am from the Minto Bridge rail tracks. "The rag picker in his mid-fourties was run over by the train while he was picking up rags from the tracks. His identity could not be established," said the official. |
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2 kids hurt in demolition
New Delhi, January 5 According to the police, the injured have been identified as Prachi (10) and Bipin Mishra (17). The incident took place at Khirki. "While the MCD team was demolishing an illegally constructed fourth floor of a DDA flat, a large part of its ceiling fell on the adjacent house, injuring two children," said a police official, adding that the MCD officials fled the spot. |
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As the sun evaded the city skies once again today, the capital shivered as the minimum temperature remained below five degree Celsius and a layer of fog engulfed the city in the morning hours.
Delhi urban development minister A. K. Walia today stressed the need for a permanent solution to the drinking water supply in the Laxmi Nagar area of
Trans-Yamuna.
