New Delhi, May 13
An altercation over a petty issue related to dogs led to the murder of a 26-year-old man while his brother was stabbed in the knee. The incident happened in the Mundka area of southwest Delhi last night.

According to the police, the victim has been identified as Sewa Lal. His brother, Mewa Lal (28), was stabbed in the thigh and has been admitted to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital.

The accused, Raj Kumar (25), has been arrested.

According to V. Renganathan, additional CP, (southwest), the incident took place when Mewa Lal was crossing Kumar's house, B-563, J.J. Colony, Bakkarwala. Kumar's grandfather Bal Mukundh picked up a fight with Lal alleging that he incited a street dog to fight with their pet dog.

"Then Sewa Lal also reached the spot and during the altercation, Mukundh fell down. On seeing this, Kumar brought a knife from his house and stabbed Sewa Lal in the chest. When Mewa Lal intervened, Kumar stabbed him in the knee. When people rushed to the spot, Kumar ran away," said Renganathan. Kumar was arrested soon after and the weapon used in crime has been seized.

As per an official, during interrogation, Kumar disclosed that Lal brothers often passed comments on them and he wanted to teach them a lesson. Kumar runs a mobile repair shop.

New Delhi, May 13
More than 60 shops located under Defence Colony flyover in south Delhi were gutted and goods worth lakhs of rupees were destroyed early morning today. No one was injured in the incident reported.

While the Lajpat Nagar police is investigating the cause of the fire, the preliminary investigations indicate towards short-circuit as the shops were closed at the time.

Fire officials received a call around 4.30 am and took about four hours to douse the fire using 28 fire trucks.

"All the shops under the flyover were gutted even as our men fought close to four hours to douse the fire. These shops stored inflammable goods like clothes and wooden and plastic goods, " said a fire official.

New Delhi, May 13
A bridegroom landed behind bars after his father allegedly demanded dowry just before the marriage ceremony was to begin, the police said.

Avinetra, 25, a resident of Nangloi in west Delhi, was formally engaged to a girl on April 16 and their marriage was scheduled for Wednesday.

"The bridegroom with 'baratis' arrived at the bride's place at Geeta Colony in East Delhi and exchanged the garland," said a police officer.

Just before the marriage was about to take place, Avinetra's father Laxmi Narayan demanded Rs 20 lakh cash for a car and a television, alleged the bride's mother Sunita Devi.

"When the bride's family failed to convince Laxmi Narayan, they thrashed Avinetra for being a mute spectator and grabbed both father and son and took them to the Geeta Colony police station at around 4 am," said the officer.

The bride's family alleged that they had met all the demands from the bridegroom's side before the engagement took place but the latter suddenly asked for dowry.

"After taking all the statements of both the families, we registered a case of dowry and arrested the bridegroom," said the officer. — IANS

New Delhi, May 13
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) will now focus on its role in the implementation of Right to Education Act, 2005, which is to impart education up to 14 years of age. It will, thus, extend its schools up to middle level, said Dr Mahender Nagpal, the new education committee chairman.

The MCD will also introduce bio-metric system of attendance in its schools from July this year, which will be used by the students as well as the teachers to mark their presence, said the Leader of the House, Subhash Arya. "This will enable the administration to have first hand information at any place through internet," said Arya.

Dr Nagpal and Bhupendra Gupta were today unanimously elected to the posts of chairman and deputy chairman of the MCD's education committee.

Narain Singh and Kuldip Singh Dagar were also elected unanimously for the posts of chairman and deputy chairman of the rural areas committee. All of them have been elected to their respective posts for the second successive term.

Newly elected chairman of the education committee Mahinder Nagpal, giving the details of his work done in the last term and priorities fixed for the next term, said the MCD was seriously considering to implement a clause of Right to Education Act, 2005, in which local bodies had been entrusted the responsibility of imparting education up to 14 years of age. "We will now extend our schools to middle level," said Nagpal.

He also informed that the MCD was seriously considering the proposal to provide smart cards to its students, which will contain each and every detail of the student. Nagpal informed that plans were also to put a group photograph of students of the section along with the teachers in the classrooms that would help to keep the memories as well to ascertain the presence of the student in the class.

Newly elected chairman of the rural areas committee, Narain Singh said Delhi could not become a clean and beautiful city without the upkeep of the rural areas. He said a huge amount was spent to develop the city during the Commonwealth Games, but not even a single penny was kept for the rural areas.

"The residents in rural areas are living in a pitiable condition. They are totally cut off from the city due to poor and dilapidated conditions of the roads, and streets," said Singh.

New Delhi, May 13
The MCD has sought Center government's help to clear the air about the administration in the civic agency in view of recent allegations leveled by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

Mayor Prof Rajni Abbi today shot a letter to union home minister P Chidambaram requesting him for an appointment to apprise him of various steps taken by the MCD to tone up administration and improve the level and standard of the civic services.

"We have been released Rs 143 crore by the Delhi government for introducing administrative reforms in the civic body. The Chief Minister, therefore, has no right to make baseless allegations. The MCD senior functionaries would like to meet the minister to enable him to make up his mind in a fair and balanced way, particularly with regard to allegation about ghost employees," said Abbi.

She said the matter was lying with the Delhi High Court and it was still listening to the matter. "It is legally untenable to reach to the conclusion even when the matter is still being heard in the court. The allegation leveled by Dikshit about the presence of the ghost employees is totally baseless and the MCD is presenting matter of fact before the court," she said.

Abbi accused the Delhi government of maligning the MCD out of political considerations. She wants to make so called 'catastrophic maladministration' as an excuse in support of her theory of division of the MCD into smaller corporations.

She said it was only 2,326 substitute employees whose address could not be physically verified. The MCD had around 1,43,216 employees, out of which 90,000 employees are regular. The substitute employees whose address could not be verified were not getting any salary from the MCD, she added.

"We have already taken adequate steps to link our pay system with the bio-metric attendance system. We ourselves took the bold initiative to weed out the problems of absenteeism and irregularities in the civic body by introducing bio-metric system of attendance and linking it to the pay in all the departments. It has led to better administration in place of the alleged maladministration. The officials are more compliant, punctual and regular leading to improved level of the civic services," said Abbi.

New Delhi, May 13
A one-year-old boy was killed while his mother injured when the two were hit by a speeding car in the Dabri area of southwest Delhi today morning. The deceased has been identified as Manish and his mother as Sushma. The incident was reported from the Dabri market area around 9 am. Sushma’s husband is a guard.

The duo was rushed to DDU Hospital, where Manish was declared brought dead, said a police official

The driver has been arrested.

New Delhi, May 13
The Dwarka police has arrested a 25-year-old taxi driver for allegedly murdering a 22-year-old girl who did not respond to his love proposal.

The accused, Lal Bahadur, was arrested yesterday.

According to the police, the murder came to light on the morning of May 7 when the body of a woman was discovered on a service road near Sector 17, Dwarka, in front of Baudhik Sampada Bhawan.

"The woman was strangulated with her dupatta. The accused had attempted to deface her with a heavy stone. The victim was identified as Sonia (name changed) from Matiala," said a police official.

The police learnt that Sonia had gone with the driver of a green-coloured taxi.

"All companies using green-coloured taxis were searched. Finally, the police zeroed down on Meru Taxi Services. On checking the records, it identified a taxi driver named Lal Bahadur. The GPS data of Bahadur's taxi confirmed that on the day of the murder, the cab was present in the area where Sonia's body was found," said the official.

Bahadur disclosed that he was in love with Sonia, but she did not reciprocate the feelings. He suspected that she loved someone else, and so decided to kill her. He took her in his taxi to Mohan Garden for dinner. Both consumed liquor in the taxi. When he expressed his love for her, she again gave a lukewarm response. Enraged, Bahadur strangulated her with her dupatta. He dumped the body in Dwarka.

New Delhi, May 13
A racket of selling forged Delhi Transport Corporation bus passes was busted with the arrest of three people including two DTC conductors, the police said on Thursday.

"Kannesh Kumar, 25, Jitendra Kumar, 24, and Sanjeev Kumar Dass, 23, were arrested from IP Estate area in central Delhi," said deputy commissioner of police Vivek Kishore.

The three were held following a complainant from bus conductors Braham Prakash and Pushpender Singh that some conductors were selling forged daily DTC bus passes to the passengers and causing losses to the corporation, said Kishore.The police then formed a checking team in association with DTC. "While checking at Delhi Secretariat, we found that Kannesh Kumar was selling forged passes," said Kishore.

During interrogation, Kannesh told police that he had obtained these passes from his cousin Jitender Kumar, who was also arrested.

"They also told us that Sanjeev Kumar Dass was also part of the gang and he arranged the fake passes. Dass was then arrested," said Kishore.

It was found Dass used to print the passes in Noida and then distribute them to Kannesh and Jitender. — IANS

New Delhi, May 13
The Delhi High Court today awarded compensation of Rs10 lakh to Nina Pillai, wife of 'biscuit king' Rajan Pillai, on her petition seeking compensation from the central government for his custodial death in Tihar Jail in 1995.

Delivering the judgment, Justice S. Muralidhar said: "In these circumstances, it is clear that the lack of medical personnel and the faulty system of Tihar Jail were responsible for the prisoner not being given medical treatment as soon as possible."

He asked the Delhi government to pay Nina Pillai a compensation of Rs.10 lakh within four weeks, along with Rs.20,000 as litigation cost.

"The petitioner will deploy the compensation amount in any charitable cause of her choice, as stated by the petitioner," the court said.

"The government will, within a period of three months from today, ensure that the suggestions made by the Leila Seth Commission of Inquiry in its report for improvement of the system at Tihar be adopted," Justice Muralidhar added.

Controversial businessman Rajan Pillai, whose takeover of Britannia Industries earned him the title of 'Biscuit King', was arrested in New Delhi July 3, 1995, in an extradition-related case for an alleged corporate offence in Singapore.

While in judicial custody at Tihar Jail, he was shifted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hospital due to health problems, where he died.

Earlier, the government argued that Pillai died due to excessive drinking and improper medical treatment, but not due to custodial torture as alleged.

In her petition, Nina Pillai claimed that her husband was a "sad victim of potent admixture of brutality, torture, atrocity, insensitivity, recklessness and negligence" of the state. — IANS

New Delhi, May 13
A large number of Congress workers staged a dharna at Loni Border in protest against the arrest of AICC general-secretary Rahul Gandhi by the UP police in Noida and high-handedness of the Mayawati government to suppress the farmers' movement. The dharna was held in the leadership of DPCC president Jai Prakash Agarwal.

The workers shouted slogans "Sonia Gandhi zindabad", "Rahul Gandhi zindabad" and "Mayawati hai, hai". Later, they burnt a 15-feet effigy of Mayawati. Agarwal and others, who sat on dharna, were arrested and later released.

The party workers said the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati, was so arrogant that she did not like peaceful movement of the opposition parties in the state. Rahul was sitting peacefully in support of farmers but Mayawati could not tolerate this and got him arrested.

Addressing the workers, Agarwal said the Uttar Pradesh government was indulging in corruption and dictatorship as it was buying the land of the poor farmers of Bhatta Parsaul village at cheap rate and the same land was then being resold to builders for a higher rate. When the farmers protest, they were beaten up and shot at. Many people had been shot by the UP police and the men folks of many households were in hiding in jungle fearing reprisal by the UP police.

He said in the history of India, such high-handed action on farmers had never happened before.

Besides Agarwal, prominent others who sat on dharna were AICC senior leader and MP Oscar Fernandes, MPs Mahabal Mishra and Ramesh Kumar and AICC secretary Major Ved Prakash, MLAs Surender Pal Bitto, Hasan Ahmad, Mateen Ahmed, Veer Singh Dhingan, Narendra Nath, Hari Shankar Gupta, Om Prakash Bidhuri, Jitender Kumar Kochar, Naresh Kumar, Rajender Malik, Dhirender Tyagi, Suresh Malik, Madan Khorwal, Deepak Gothi, Chaudhary Tarif Singh and Jagpravesh Kumar.

New Delhi, May 13
Computer education will be given in the government schools in Delhi so that children of the poor families enrolled with these schools could also be well-versed in the latest technology.

For developing countries, investing in computer education can be instrumental in building indigenous technological capability and autonomy, said Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit speaking after launching a project "E-Hope for Computer Education" - an effort to bridge the digital divide.

The Chief Minister said there were two big challenges before India - one, teaching the adult illiterates how to read and write and second, empowering the schoolchildren, who were the future of the country, with the latest technology so as to enable them to cope with the need of the changing world.

She appreciated the efforts of Huawei India, which has launched this initiative to provide brand new and the state-of-the-art desktop tops to 1,000 secondary high schools across India free of all costs as part of its CSR endeavour. The initiative is planned to make secondary school students acquainted with computers and making digital literacy a reality.

Centre for Market Research and Social Development is implementing the project in NCT of Delhi. E-Hope aims to equip schoolchildren with basic technical know-how and access to the latest information, technology and computer systems. By promoting equal access to connectivity, the programme will contribute significantly to bridging the digital divide, she added.

The Chief Minister also distributed 100 computers to 10 Delhi government schools under "Huawei's E-Hope programme for Computer Education". The schools, thus, will also be provided unlimited internet broadband connectivity. The schools were Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya, Chander Nagar; Sarvodaya Vidyalaya, FU-Block, Pitampura; Government Boys Senior Secondary School Number 3, Najafgarh; SKV, Moti Bagh; Vir Savarkar Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya Number 1, Kalkaji; SKV Number 2, Madipur; Government Girls Secondary School, Vijay Park; Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, A Block, Vikaspuri; SKV, Adarsh Nagar and Rajendra Prasad Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, President Estate.

New Delhi, May 13
The process of forming the resident welfare committees (RWCs) has taken a step further today after over 1,500 applications were filed by the Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) for the formation of the committees in their wards from across the city.

Describing the RWC scheme as a historic move to improve civic governance, enhance citizen-civic cooperation, transparent and accountability, Mayor Prof Rajni Abbi has initiated an orientation period for the coordinators who have been appointed to facilitate the formation of the committees in each of the 272 wards of Delhi.

The coordinators have been assigned one assembly segment each and will be responsible for facilitating the formation of the RWCs in four wards that fall under the assembly segment.

The RWC coordinators, who have been appointed on the basis of their own initiative, were informed by the Mayor of the commitment and responsibility that went with the role. "The coordinator's essential function is to enable cooperation between the councillors and the ward committee members so that the RWCs can become operational within a short time," said Abbi at the orientation meeting held at Town Hall.

The coordinators will be provided with the lists of all RWAs who have filed applications for the formation of the RWC. The RWAs have been segmented ward wise by the RWC management cell so that they can initiate the RWC formation in each ward, said the Mayor.