New Delhi, June 15
It wasn't a very pleasant morning for the Delhi University aspirants who woke up to the DU declaring its sky-high first cut-off list in the media and on its website. The off-the-charts cut-off list with an increase of up to 10 per cent in certain courses led to students rushing to colleges with numerous queries.

With certain colleges like the Sri Ram college of Commerce, Hindu and Keshav Mahavidyalaya declaring 100 and 99 per cent cutoff for non-commerce students in BCom (Hons), science and arts students were definitely shaken and looking for a better strategy.

"If the colleges had to deny us admission in the first place, why they kept us waiting till June 15? Why did not tell us on the first open day, why even let us dream bout studying at a premiere institution like SRCC or Hindu? We could have at least prepared ourselves for other options. Declaring a 100 per cent cutoff is like telling the science and arts students that we are not good enough for BCom at SRCC," said Parul Saxena hoping to make it to BCom (Hons) SRCC in the second cutoff now.

However, SRCC principal PC Jain said the decision was a reflection of the results this year.

He added that students would get chance for admission in SRCC as the second and the third cut-off list was yet to come out. He had already requested DU Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh to take note of the development.

Speaking to the media, Singh said today that the students need not to lose hope as the cut-offs would come down in the consecutive lists.

Sitting in different corners in the North Campus, anyone could identify students doing calculations on their fingers and the papers in their hands, frantically hoping that they made it to, at least, some college of their choice.

The Dean Student Welfare office had queries coming in all day long. From the different categories in a cut-off range, the exclusive requirements for a particular college to parents calling to check which colleges will bring out a second cutoff, numerous queries poured in.

Amongst the many anxious faculty members, Nandini Dutta from Economics Hons faculty, Miranda House, said, "A high cutoffs is seen by colleges as the only problem they face is the acute shortage of lecture rooms and lab space. At this juncture the problem of over-admission cannot be treated as a triviality. In the absence of data usually provided by the OMR forms, and guided by the news of inflated CBSE results, the colleges have declared high cutoffs," Dutta said.

New Delhi, June 15
The trifurcation of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is unconstitutional and contrary to the principles of decentralisation of power.

This was stated by Delhi BJP president Vijender Gupta here today. He said the MCD was an autonomous body that was accountable to the union government. The city government had decided to trifurcate the civic body with a conspiracy to grab the MCD in its control, he alleged.

The way in which the bill for trifurcation of the MCD has been prepared shows that the intentions of the Congress and the city government were only to paralyse the civic body and establish the rule of bureaucrats. The city government had nothing to do with the interests of the common man, he added.

According to the bill, now there will be many centres of power in the MCD due to which many disputes will arise and hinder the works.

Most of the powers of three corporations have been assigned to the commissioners due to which the councillors elected by the people will become powerless.

There is also a decision to create the Municipal Authority of Delhi (MAD) in the bill so that the entire corporation may come under the control of the Chief Minister who will also be the head of the authority. And the interference and arbitrariness of the Chief Minister will increase in the affairs of the MCD.

This is also against the 73rd and 74th Amendment to the Constitution in which it has been provided that the power should be decentralised up to the village and the city level so that the people may get proper amenities, Vijender said.

New Delhi, June 15
Reluctant for an open procedure, KL Sehgal, 75, of Rohtak is now a relieved man as he would no longer require the assistance of cathereter for passing the urine.

Doctors of RG Stone Urology and Laparoscopy Hospital, Delhi, successfully operated upon a 424-gm prostate tumour using holmium laser enucleation of prostate technique.

The case-study could make way to the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world's largest prostate tumour removed by the laser technology even as India already holds a record of prostectomy (removal of prostate) of 650 gm through an open surgery.

Sehgal was facing difficulty in urinating due to the enlarged prostate tissues for the past 10 years. He was suffering from 'benign prostatic hyperplasia' (BPH), noticed in elderly males generally above 50.

"Large prostates are usually removed by open method, but in this case the patient was unwilling for the open surgery. The patient had not been urinating since 2006 and he approached us after reading newspaper reports in April 2011," said Dr Anil Varshney, chief urologist of RG Hospital.

"I was facing this problem since 1990. I went to Rohtak Medical College and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and then got to know about RG," said Sehgal, a retired State Bank of India employee.

In over five hours, a telescope-guided surgery done in two phases, first done on June 7 in which the prostate tissues were enucleated and the second on June 10, in which the left out lobes were morcellated. "The best thing of the HOLEP surgery is we can stage it many number of times and in this case as the patient started shivering owing to the long duration, it was done in two phases. The technique is haemostatic, with minimal complication compared to open or transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) surgery," Dr Varshney added.

In an open surgery, while every second patient may have complications, such as bleeding, hernia formation, infection and urinary continence, in HOLEP one in thousand patients may develop it.

"Blood loss is a major problem in TURP, while HOLEP allows easy movement and scaling of vessels.

In open surgery, blood transfusions are required unlike HOLEP, which also holds good vis-à-vis TURP, given the recurrence BPH or repeat procedure in TURP is to the tune of 10 to 15 per cent in five years against HOLEP which has no signs even till 10 years.

In the data of 10 years, of 30,000 patients, only two patients reported recurrence of the overgrown glands," said Dr Varshney.

"Earlier, the patient had to stay back in the hospital for eight to 10 days against a stay of two to three days with this technique. Normal size of prostate gland is 18 gm and normal cases are between 50 gm and 80 gm and larger than 80 gm is removed with HOLEP," said senior consultant of Dr Manish Singhla.

"We have sent the case for the Guinness Book of World Records and as of date, the US is known to have operated 370 gm prostate by HOLEP, said Baldev Raj, country head of the hospital.

New Delhi, June 15
The Delhi police claimed to have busted a racket of inter-state lottery that was run in Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana. The police arrested Gurpreet Singh, alias Ginni, Guru Charan, alias Bittu, Gurpratap, alias Sunny, and Arvind Kumar in this connection.

Two computers, a mini-telephone exchange, 16 mobile phones, data cards, printed lottery material, notebooks, calculators, etc. were seized from their possession.

DCP (crime) Ashpk Chand said the police received information that an inter-state lottery racket was being run at West Guru Angad Nagar in east Delhi.

A raid was conducted and the four persons were arrested.

He said the investigations revealed that Gurpreet, along with his associates, wad running a lottery under the name of "Satyam Lottery". He had appointed agents in different states. To gain the confidence of the agents, he telecast advertisements of his lottery in a Punjabi Channel. Each agent deposited Rs 1lakh. The betting was on numbers from zero to 99.

The bettors then gave the number to the agents and the amount of money which they placed on the number. The agents then deposited the money with Gurpreet through e-banking and also informed him about the number. He then through software found out the number on which the least amount of money had been betted and declared that number the winner. Thus, the winning number was "fixed".

The draw of the lottery was held every 15 minutes from 9 am to 9 pm. An agent got 9 per cent of the total stake money that they collected for the day.

The earning of Gurpreet after meeting all expenses was around Rs 15 lakh to Rs 20 lakh per month, the DCP said

Ghaziabad, June 15
A 40-year-old man, whose wife claimed that his family members had murdered him for property, suddenly reappeared at his home here today,. The wife is now on the run.

Pinky Singh (38) last month claimed that her husband Prahlad Singh was murdered by his brothers and nephews for his property.

Prahlad said today that the entire tale was cooked up.

"I suspected my wife to be in the wrong company of some men, under whose influence she had done all this to grab my property. I did not transfer my property to my children as I doubted my wife and her intentions," he said.

"I was well and alive during this period, but did not tell anybody because I feared for my wife. I read in the newspapers that I have been murdered. I will now submit a complaint against her to the police," he said.

According to senior superintendent of police Raghubir Lal, Pinky approached a local court with an application that it direct the police to lodge a case of kidnapping and murder against her husband's brothers Baljot and Nain Singh, his nephews Harish and Jitendra and a servant named Ayub.

Pinky told the court that the five had murdered her husband to grab his property. The court of Additional Civil Judge Kuldeep Singh ordered the police to register a case under multiple sections of the IPC.

Pinky claimed that on May 15, Prahlad evicted her from their house after a tiff. When she returned on May 27 with her two daughters, her husband's brothers and nephews did not allow her to enter.

She managed to enter the house after police intervention, but learnt that her husband was away. She said that two days later, she found that her husband's land had been transferred to the five relatives, who then killed him.

Pinky is now on the run, the police said. -- IANS

New Delhi, June 15
The Delhi Metro will construct a record number of underground corridors in Phase 3, a Delhi Metro Rail corporation (DMRC) spokesperson said today.

The total length of these underground corridors will be almost equivalent to the length of the total underground sections built so far in phases 1 and 2, making it one of the most challenging phases to construct, said a statement by the DMRC.

While the Delhi Metro now has 31 underground stations, Phase 3 alone will have 28 underground stations. Presently, the total length of the underground corridors is 48.06 km, but Phase 3 alone will have 41.044 km long underground corridors.

Phase 1 of the Delhi Metro has 13.17 kms of underground lines, while Phase 2 has 34.89 km. In Phase 3, about 40 per cent (39.83 percent) of the total proposed network will be underground.

The decision to construct more underground corridors was taken to ensure that the construction work causes minimum inconvenience to the people. By constructing so many underground stretches, the DMRC will also avoid causing any damage to the existing infrastructure such as flyovers and roads.

The longest underground section of Phase 3, which will be 17.288 km long, will be from IGI Airport (Domestic) to Kalkaji on the Janakpuri West - Kalindi Kunj corridor. The Mukundpur -Yamuna Vihar corridor will have 14.386 km long underground lines and the Central Secretariat - Kashmere Gate corridor will have a total of 9.370 kms of underground lines.

Also, for the first time in the history of the Delhi Metro, three different tunneling stretches will pass below existing underground Metro stretches in the city. These are:

1. The underground stretch from Sarojini Nagar to INA on the Mukundpur - Yamuna Vihar corridor will pass below the underground section of the Jahangirpuri - HUDA City Centre line at INA.

2. The underground stretch From Indira Gandhi Domestic Airport (T2) to Kalkaji on the Janakpuri West - Botanical Garden corridor will pass below the underground section of the Airport Express Link near the Indira Gandhi Domestic Airport and Jahangirpuri - HUDA City Centre line near Hauz Khas. .

3. The underground stretch from Mandi House to ITO on the Central Secretariat - Kashmere Gate Corridor will pass below the underground section of the Noida- Dwarka corridor at Mandi House.

Presently, initial tests such as geo-technical and soil surveys and utility tests are being conducted by specialised agencies on all the above mentioned corridors. Tenders have been finalised for the construction of the Mandi House and Janpath stations on the Central Secretariat - Kashmere Gate corridor. 

Greater Noida, June 15
A gang of carjackers, including two class XII students, was arrested by Noida police after an encounter near Omkaran Sector today. They used to overpower the car driver and then loot the vehicle after making him captive.

A stolen Honda City car, jewellery, cell phones and other valuables have been recovered from them. The police had been tipped off about them.

On seeing the cops, they took to their heels but were chased by the police team. On finding themselves cornered, the gangsters opened fire on the police. But the police managed to nab them after returning the fire.

The arrested carjackers were identified as Sachin of Chitehra village, Pusshpinder of Kamrala and Irshad from Khandera

The SSP, Gautam Budh Nagar, Rakesh Kumar Jyoti, said Sachin and Pushpinder were class XII students. Irshad had his maternal grandfather's house in Chitehra.

The gang was active in the Dadri and Greater Noida area and involved in a number of loots. The Honda city car had been looted from a veterinary doctor on June 9.

After their interrogation the trio had guided the police to recover the Honda city car. Besides two revolvers, four gold rings, three cell phones, a Pulsar motorbike, jewellery etc were recovered by the police from the trio.

The police said that the gang had also looted money from an engineer, Shahdab, in Alfa sector of Greater Noida after forcing him to draw the cash from the ATM. The trio had also robbed him of his gold rings and a laptop.

On May 24, they had looted an Indigo car from a Meerut advocate, Sanjev Kumar near Ghodi Bachaera village in Greater Noida, the police said.

New Delhi, June 15
With the arrest of two persons, the Delhi police today claimed to have solved the murder case of a 28-year-old woman who was found dead in her house on May 27. The accused were identified as Anoop Singh and Prem Singh.

A senior officer of the south-east district police said Poonam's husband Anoop Singh had conspired to kill her. The body was discovered in the early morning by her brother while her husband and their nine-year-old son were away to their relatives' place during the night.

"Anoop was working as a security supervisor in an agency where he met Prem Singh, a security guard," said the officer.

"Anoop told Prem that he would help him get a good job if he helped him eliminate his wife. He told him that his wife was a loose character," he said.

The police said on the guidance of Anoop, Prem contacted Poonam telephonically. He gained her faith and entered the house at late night. After getting physical with her consent, he strangled her to death.

"When we were called upon for the examination of scene of crime, it was found that the entry in the house was friendly and bottles of liquor, cold drink and water and litchi fruit were found in the room," said the police.aFurther investigations revealed that Anoop had introduced his wife to Prem. "Anoop had persuaded his wife by saying that if she entertained one big marketing manager he would pay Rs 10,000 for spending a night with him. So, she let Prem enter her house on the night of the incident," added the officer.