New Delhi, July 20
The Delhi High Court today asked the city police to explain why it has failed to solve the murder of 20-year-old IT student Shobhit Modi, found stabbed on a May night near his home in a posh south Delhi locality.

"Issue notice to the respondents (the Delhi police and the ministry of home affairs)," said Justice Mukta Gupta, and asked why should not the case be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The court asked the police to take note of complaints of Shobhit's father Suraj Modi, who claimed he was being threatened by various politicians and others for trying to get the killing unravelled.

"Your (Delhi police) investigation needs to be supervised," said the court, seeking their response by September 13.

Shobhit's family on Monday appealed to the Delhi High Court for a CBI probe into the case, lashing out at the Delhi police for what it called an inefficient and tardy investigation.

Shobhit, a second year information technology student at Manav Rachna University in Faridabad and an alumnus of Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram, was stabbed to death near his home in Vasant Kunj's C-block around 10 pm on May 5.

He had four stab wounds-one on the chest, one in the abdomen and two in the back. His father rushed him to hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead.

Despite hundreds of people being questioned, the police has not yet found any clues to the killing.

In its petition, Shobhit's family alleged that Delhi police were shielding those behind Shobhit's murder.

"Every time we contact the police, it comes up with 10 new theories. It says that it was a robbery case. But when nothing is missing, how can robbery be the motive? We want the murder case to be transferred to the CBI," said Shobhit's father.

"The police has questioned several people but the probe has been inconclusive," said Modi, a general manager at state-run Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation (MMTC) India Ltd.

"The culprits are going scotfree and the police seems to be protecting somebody," Modi told IANS.

The police has so far questioned over 300 people, including Shobhit's friends, classmates and neighbours, apart from local criminals and autorickshaw drivers.

Shobhit's father has also written to the city police commissioner to ask him to expedite the probe. — IANS

New Delhi, July 20
People with orthopaedic problems should stop worrying about employment, as nowadays, companies prefer them over other differently abled persons.

The trend became apparent at a 'job fest for the differently abled' organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry today. Here, the employers selected several candidates with orthopedic problems and hinted at treating the differently abled at par with other employees of their company.

Madhumita Tripathi, who works for the human resources department of the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, said the company had shortlisted three persons suffering from orthopaedic problems.

"The firm needs one counselor and two front-office executives," she said.

Furthermore, Exhibitions India Limited plans to hire 10-15 differently abled persons for managing their "telephonic sales" and "data entry", according to Shikha Passy, a senior HR executive of Exhibitions India Group.

"We want to hire orthopaedic patients who can read, write and hear," she said.

The PHD Chamber had invited 350 differently abled candidates after "screening" them. Out of the 263 registrations, 74 candidates have been finally shortlisted by the companies. Twenty-six companies attended the fest.

"The job requirements of the companies suggest that out of the selected candidates, 50 per cent are people with orthopaedic problems and 25 deaf and dumb persons," said Jatinder Singh, joint-secretary of the PHD Chamber.

The PHD Chamber has also recruited some differently abled persons, according to Payal Prashar, who works for its HR department.

Prashar said visually challenged persons will not be employment easily, as most of the companies do not have provisions for them.

"We have employed people who are deaf and dumb. However, we have mainly hired persons with orthopaedic problems. Twelve differently abled persons were given offer letters by some companies," said Payal.

However, Ved Mati, a female candidate, had a different story to tell. She had joined Aegis, but resigned because she was allegedly not given facilities required by physically challenged people.

"I had to work at night and would not get a cab to drop me home," she claimed.

New Delhi, July 20
Many fathers and mothers in Delhi, especially from the working class, are coping with a sudden vacuum in their lives: their children have disappeared. Seven kids have gone missing here everyday, on an average, over the past month and a half, according to official figures.

The data, as sourced from the Zonal Integrated Police Network (ZIPNet) and compiled by child rights NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), says that 331 children have gone missing from Delhi in the period between June 1, 2011, and July 18.

"Over the past one and a half months, seven children have been going missing every day in Delhi! What is even more shocking is the low rate of recovery by the police," Kailash Satyarthi of BBA told IANS.

According to the data, from the beginning of this year until July 18, a total of 921 children have gone missing in Delhi. Most of the children are in the age group of 12-15.

"Of the 921 children who have gone missing, only 315 have been traced. Meaning, over 600 children are still missing. This poses a big question on the role of the police in tracing the missing kids," Satyarthi said.

The maximum number of children went missing in the month of June - 183. According to the BBA, the reason is that around June-July, a number of children are trafficked for labour to other states.

"A chunk of the kids who have gone missing belong to the low socio-economic strata of society and are from areas like Narela, Bawana in outer Delhi and Khanpur in south Delhi which are connected to the industrial belt," a BBA activist said.

"Most of the missing children come from migrant families who are here for employment. The children of these families generally don't go to school and are by themselves for most part of the day when their parents go out for work," he added.

"As per our analysis, a number of children who go missing from these areas are trafficked for cheap labour. In outer Delhi, the number of boys missing is more than girls," the activist said.

Social activists also fear that most of the girls going missing are trafficked into the sex trade.

Citing one example, he said: "There was this case in Aman Vihar in outer Delhi when a domestic worker's son went missing last month. She had migrated from Bihar a few months back and while her son did attend school there, here he did not."

All of 10 years, the child went missing from his home one fine day when she had gone for work.

"She lodged a complaint, but till date there has been no progress," the BBA activist said.

Another distressed parent is Amar Choubey whose son, Akash, went missing on March 19 this year from another part of Delhi.

"Akash was playing in the street in front of our house with his friends when all of a sudden we realised that he was missing. Initially, we thought he may be hiding somewhere. But when he did not come after some time, we were alarmed," Choubey said.

"We looked everywhere...it was shocking because everyone living in the street knew Akash. We lodged an FIR the same day, but till date there is no information on him," the heartbroken father said.

In March this year, the Delhi High Court took a serious view of police failure to trace missing children and directed the Delhi police chief to constitute a task force to find out if gangs were involved in child trafficking.

A division bench consisting of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna pulled up the police while referring to a report filed by the Delhi Legal Services Authority stating that over 500 children missing over the past one year have not been rescued.

As per the month-wise breakup of children going missing this year, 89 children went missing in January, 104 in February, 132 in March, 127 in April, 130 in May, 183 in June and 157 in July (until July 18). -- IANS

New Delhi, July 20
Issues like the delay in shifting the municipal offices to its new headquarters at Minto Road and the division of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi marked the first meeting of the Standing Committee that was held at Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre.

Councillors of the opposition Congress criticised the delay in the construction of the civic centre and its inauguration before the completion of the work. "The BJP was in a hurry to inaugurate the building in order to gain political mileage even before its construction work was completed," said Jai Kishan Sharma, Leader of the Opposition.

Congress councillors also criticised the BJP leaders for taking too long to hold meetings at the new office. "The civic centre was inaugurated in April last year but it took one and a half years for the corporation to hold its first meeting at the new building. Then why was it opened in such a haste," said Sharma.

However, Subhash Arya, Leader of the House in the MCD, said the delay was caused on the behalf of the executive wing. "We always put in our best efforts to complete the project in time, but the officers took time in conceptualising the proposal, floating tenders, getting the requisite permissions, etc. There was no delay from our side at all," said Arya.

New Delhi/Gurgaon, July 20
Students armed with a prestigious international school board certificate, the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma, are finding it near impossible to secure seats in Delhi University (DU).

The students, parents and even some lecturers say that DU is turning away those with the diploma, which is awarded by a Geneva-based body and is respected worldwide.

The Association of Indian Universities here says that the IB diploma, as it is widely known, has been equated with the Class XII qualification of the Indian schools since 1983. Most IB students go abroad for higher studies.

Although the DU prospectus says that students with IB diploma can join its colleges, many in the university are ignorant, even indifferent to a qualification that carries a lot of weight abroad.

"DU does not understand the depth of the course," Sangeeta Krishnan Nag, senior principal of Pathways School in Gurgaon, said. The school offers an IB diploma.

"On paper, they are supposed to accept the IB diploma," she said. "But when students go for admission, they face all kinds of difficulties and are denied admission."

The IB website says 84 schools in India offer one or more of the three IB programmes.

Manisha Malhotra, the IB diploma coordinator at Shri Ram School, admitted that IB students are facing "problems...and this is an issue which needs to be sorted out. Some colleges support it, some don't. DU can have one common approach. In this age when people are mobile, IB courses are highly relevant. The Indian universities need to take cognisance of this."

Sambhav Srivastava, a senior officer at the Association of Indian Universities, puts the blame for the mess on the Geneva board which gives out the certificates - International Baccalaureate Organisation.

"This is the deficiency of the board. If you really want to help the students, the IB board will have to do something," Srivastava said.

DU, which accepts CBSE, ISC and the state board degrees, is set to begin a new academic year on Thursday.

According to Srivastava, the number of students pursuing the IB course in India is around 10,000. A key problem is the results come out in early July - by which time few seats are left in DU colleges.

To overcome the problem, DU colleges are expected to admit IB students on the basis of a certificate issued by their school, predicting how they would score on the strength of their previous academic showing. - IANS

New Delhi, July 20
Students of Delhi Technological University (DTU) showcased their talents at the Indo-US innovation exposition organised by FICCI and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum held today.

Students have been the brains behind a number of innovations, some of which have been recognised by the scientific community and even won awards.

Some of the students' innovations at the university include unmanned aircraft systems, which recently won the Dr Arthur Reyes Safety Award, hybrid car, super-mileage vehicle, robotic submarine, solar car and cycle-operated washing machine, Dhobi.

Vice-Chancellor of the university PB Sharma said, "The attempt at DTU has always been to encourage research and innovations among the students.

Sharma added, "We need to train our young minds as breakthrough leaders to override the obstacles usually confronted by innovators in India. We also need to integrate the culture of innovation in our higher education system. One of the major grey areas in India is the lack of formal structures for transforming knowledge into prosperity. For this, we need to set up technology incubation and commercialisation centres in our universities."

Vivek Tripathi, spokesperson, DTU, said, "Most of these innovations are the product of team work undertaken by students who thought out of the box to create something new.

New Delhi, July 20
The Delhi High Court today reserved its order on the Delhi government's plea for permission to shut down temporary night shelters for which there are few takers now.

Accepting the report submitted by a three-member committee set up by it, the division bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Sanjiv Khanna said: "We have to be concerned about the people on the street and at the same time we are concerned about the public exchequer."

The bench said it would decide on the matter after going through the report.

The Delhi government wants to shut down the shelters as it claims that these were meant to serve the homeless during the winter.

The committee, comprising lawyers Jyoti Singh, Shobhna Takkiar and Jayshree Satpute, visited more than 30 temporary and permanent night shelters before preparing the report about the conditions there.

"The temporary shelters were not maintained properly by NGOs due to which there was low occupancy," said the report.

The committee said the homeless were not aware of the permanent shelters.

The Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board needed to give wide publicity about the facilities available at the shelters so that the needy start using them, it said.

The court earlier asked the committee to ascertain the reasons for the low occupancy in these temporary shelters.

The judges were hearing a petition filed by the Delhi government seeking to close the temporary night shelters. -- IANS

New Delhi, July 20
The Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi-UK) in a meeting with the Congress general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, submitted a memorandum demanding eight seats in each proposed zone of the MCD in the municipal elections to be held next year.

SAD (Delhi-UK) president Jasjit Singh said Rahul heard his demands patiently.

He said around 15 lakh Sikhs resided in the national Capital. At present six councillors and six MLAs were there from the Sikh community. With the trifurcation of the MCD, the area of the councillors' segments would also be reduced. Considering all this, the Congress should increase the number of seats for Sikhs.

The other demands of the SAD (Delhi-UK) mentioned in the memorandum are a prominent Sikh in NDMC.

He said some roads should be named after noted banker of India Dr Inderjit Singh, first Chief Minister of Punjab Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir, noted leader of Delhi Jatehdar Santokh Singh and only Sikh Lok Sabha MP from Delhi Sardar Charanjit Singh as a tribute to them.

A hospital should be constructed in the name of Baba Harbans Singh whose services to the humanity were no parallel in Delhi. He demanded that Justice Sodhi should be appointed as chairman of the Press Council of India.

He also demanded that there should be a one window clearance system for the procedure of the minority students' fee, scholarship and loans.

New Delhi, July 20
At a high-level meeting, the Delhi Government today decided to manage Rs 200 crore for the construction of 60, 000 low cost houses for the poor people under the Rajiv Rattan Awas Yojna.

The meeting was chaired by the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, and attended by the Urban Development Minister Rajkumar Chauhan and Chief Secretary of Delhi P. K. Tripathi

The meeting was called after the Delhi Lokayukta Manmohan Sarin in his recommendatory order said that Chief Minister had misguided the people by announcing that 60,000 flats would be allotted to the poor people before the assembly elections in 2008.

Rajkumar Chauhan said that it was decided that the government would dispose of some sites to collect money to construct these flats. Among these sites are two big plots for hotels.

These flats would be allotted to the residents of 32 jhuggi clusters that were demolished before the Commonwealth Games.

New Delhi, July 20
With the arrest of two pimps and five sex workers in Rohini last night, the Delhi police has busted third prostitution racket in the national Capital in the past 10 days.

The pimps have been identified as Premlata (35) and Shanti Devi (50) who procured girls from UP and Uttarakhand.

"The pimps and the girls were arrested after a tip-off and following a deal by a decoy customer last night. The girls are in their early twenties. They were arrested from the KN Katju Marg police station area," said a senior police official.

New Delhi, July 20
A 20-year-old employee of a private company, who claimed to have been robbed of Rs 11 lakh two days ago by some unknown robbers while he was on his way to deliver the money in north-west Delhi, have been arrested for staging the robbery and the stolen money was recovered from his friend's house.

According to the police, Mohit Singhal was a suspect from the beginning as he made contradictory statements about the place of robbery and profile of the robbers.

During sustained interrogation, he confessed to the crime. The money was recovered from the house of Ravi Bappani, Singhal's friend who was given the money before he made call to the PCR.

The incident was reported from the Subhash Place police station on July 18 when Mohit was on his way to office at Netaji Subhash Place to deliver Rs 11 lakh on behalf of his employer.

However, as per his claims to the police then, near Beri Wala Bagh cremation ground, Shakur Pur, three youths on a black Pulsar motor cycle stopped him and forcibly loot the money after inflicting some injuries on him.

According to Meenu Chaudhary, DCP (northwest), during questioning of Mohit an important fact emerged that he had been carrying and delivering the cash between Peeragarhi and NDM-II for over a year.

However, he had taken different route on the day of incident.

"The examination of injury mark on the body of complainant revealed that these were typical of self-inflicted wounds/injuries. Further, he could not explain the manner in which these injuries were inflicted, the type of weapon used, direction of assault, etc," said Chaudhary.

Thereafter, Mohit was put under sustained interrogation by three separate teams of officers and ultimately he broke down and confessed that he, along with his friend Ravi, had conspired to keep the money and planned the fake robbery.

Ravi has also been arrested.