New Delhi, August 4
Under pressure because of CAG report pointing out financial irregularities in the CWG projects of the Delhi government, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today called two meetings- one at her residence and the other at her office - to discuss the issue.

The meetings were attended by public works minister Rajkumar Chauhan, transport minister Arvinder Singh Lovely and power minister Haroon Yusuf along with senior officers of the departments concerned, including chief secretary PK Tripathi.

Dikshit also held separate meetings with each department.

The chief secretary has called a separate meeting to condemn the stories that have appeared in the media about the CM's involvement in financial irregularities in the Games projects.

Sources said Dikshit asked the officials to prepare a reply to the allegations of financial irregularities by the CAG report that would be tabled in Parliament tomorrow.

The report will also be made public tomorrow.

The sources said the government had decided to go through the report before making any comment. It would read each paragraph of the report, they said.

The government would reply to the report as it replied to the report of the Shunglu Committee appointed by the Prime Minister, the sources added.

According to the sources, after the Chief Minister sees the report, a committee of senior officers will be constituted to prepare a reply.

The sources claim that the report says that Spageage Switchgears, one of the disqualified firms bidding for the streetlight project, was declared qualified "irregularly" after it made a plea to the Chief Minister.

The report also accuses the government and the civic agencies, the MCD, NDMC and PWD, of overspending to the tune of over Rs 100 crore on streetscaping and Rs 31.07 crore on streetlights.

New Delhi, August 4
After a couple of humid and muggy days, the Capital today saw heavy rains in the morning, bringing a pleasant change in the weather. However, the city again reported long traffic snarls and cases of waterlogging.

The day began on a warmer note, with the minimum temperature settling at 28.2 degree Celsius, two degrees above the average for this time of the season. The maximum humidity was recorded at 85 per cent. The maximum temperature today settled at 34 degree Celsius, one degree above the average for this time of the year.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi received 20 complaints of waterlogging from different areas, including Vasant Kunj, Dhaula Kuan, Rajinder Nagar, Tis Hazari, Mori Gate and Kashmiri Gate.

Commuters had a bad time as most of the roads in south Delhi were affected by traffic jams.

"Some cars broke down which further slowed the traffic near Dhaula Kuan Bridge. The traffic from Gurgaon had to be diverted to other routes as even some traffic lights were not working," said Mallika Singh, a city-based businesswoman.

For tomorrow, the weatherman has predicted partly cloudy sky for some part of the day.

"There is a possibility of rain within the next 24 hours. However; it will not affect the temperatures drastically. The weather conditions are likely to remain similar. The maximum and the minimum temperatures are expected to oscillate between 35 and 28 degree Celsius," said an IMD official.

Noida, August 4
Around 500 farmers from 17 villages in Noida today held a panchayat at Chaura village and formed the Kisan Bachao Sangarsh Samiti. On Saturday, the farmers will hold a panchayat at Agahpur village and decide the future course of their agitation.

These farmers had refused to accept the settlement between the Kisan Sangarsh Samiti and the Noida Authority, claiming that their interests were not taken care of.

The Kisan Bachao Sangarsh Samiti comprises five members from each village. There are 85 members in all and they will collectively decide the course of the agitation and negotiate with the Authority.

Some of the committee members are Pratap Chauhan from Salarpur, Dharamvir Singh from Baraula, Sunder Baba from Agahpur, Rohtash Baisoya from Morna, Begh Raj Gujjar from Atta and Chaudhary Bali Singh from Nithari.

The main demands of the committee are 5 per cent developed plots for the farmers, regularisation of abadi lands and a hike in the land compensation.

"A big committee has been formed to ensure that individual members will have no chance to take advantage and negotiate with the Authority on terms not acceptable to the farmers," said Joginder Awana, a farmer.

The Authority, however, claims that the demands are unjustified. According to it, the developed plot scheme was announced in 1997 and only the farmers whose lands have been acquired after that are entitled to developed plots.

Meanwhile, Noida chairman Balvinder Kumar today held a meeting with farmers at Nithari village. He assured them of a solution to the issue of abadi land, but did not give any assurance on the issue of developed plot.

The chairman told the farmers that the issue of developed plots was a policy matter and would be decided only after a discussion. He said any assurance at this stage was not possible.

He, however, told the farmers that a special residential plot scheme would be floated for them. Under the scheme, the farmers who have not got a plot till now, can apply and get the plot at the present allotment rates.

Villagers further demanded that they should be given shops at the Sector 32 City Centre area where a shopping complex is proposed to be developed by the company which has been allotted the plot recently.

At Greater Noida, an agreement between farmers and the Greater Noida Industrial Development Authority (GNIDA) is still to be reached.

The negotiations here have reached a deadlock as the farmers want that the issue of a hike in the compensation should be sorted first, but GNIDA CEO Rama Raman has expressed his inability to act on the demand. He has, however, agreed to look into their demands regarding abadi land, developed plots and village development.

Meanwhile, farmers's advocate, Pawan Bhardwaj, who has demanded a CBI inquiry into all land allotments in Noida and Greater Noida since 2007 was allegedly threatened by some men in a car in Allahabad. The men reportedly asked him to withdraw the case.

"This incident has scared us here. When our advocate is being threatened, how can we feel safe?" said some farmers.

New Delhi, August 4
Fifteen days into the new academic session and still some students are waiting for the news of their admission. Fate of many students hangs in balance as several colleges continue to postpone the list of admission in extra curricular activities and sports category.

A group of students at Delhi University today held a protest on the matter. Students affected by irregularity in sports quota admissions in several colleges marched to the vice-chancellor's office and handed over a memorandum against the irregularities in sports quota admissions, especially in Hindu College, Satyawati and Motilal Morning College.

The vice-chancellor met the students led by Deepika Deshwal on the matter. Delhi University proctor HP Singh and dean of student welfare JM Khurana were also present on the occasion.

After the students submitted an application with the dean of student welfare last week, the sports director was directed to look into the matter. But until now, several students await admission on sports quota, which were denied at the last moment.

After a centralised sports admission procedure last year, this time around colleges conducted their trials individually. While colleges like Motilal have conveniently changed the list of sports at the end moment. Other colleges like Satyawati and Hindu have delayed their lists due to complaints of "unfair trials".

Satyawati College will now conduct trials for 11 sports again. The college had received complaints about the trials, following which admissions in the sports quota were put on hold and an inquiry committee was set up. The committee has now recommended another round of trials.

The college initially conducted trials for 14 sports, of which trials for table tennis, wrestling and archery have been completed. A total of 43 candidates were selected across all the sports based on the trials. Soon after the trials, complaints poured in about the way the trials were conducted. There were allegations that eligible candidates were overlooked.

At Hindu College, the list was supposed to be declared on July 12. However, it has still not been declared. The college had delayed its list last year as well, due to certain irregularities. This time as well, because of pending of some "complaints" on trials, the list is still not out. The college will now conduct a third round of trials for sports, sources said.

But for students, the wait is a lot stressful. "It is almost 15 days into the new session. The college was supposed to declare it on July 12, but there is no result till date. I was one of the best performers in the cricket trial and I was sure I had made it. The time has also run out on taking any other college options, and now I am scared of what will happen," said an aspirant requesting anonymity.

"As many as 40 students are affected in Satyawati College and nearly 60 students are waiting for their fate at Hindu College. And seven students at Motital have been denied admission at the last moment. The university has assured us that the matter will be resolved by this weekend. We will await their response," said Deepika.

New Delhi, August 4
A 30-year-old conman who allegedly hatched a conspiracy along with his wife has been arrested by the Delhi police from Barielly (UP).

After marrying the handicapped daughter of a bank employee, he allegedly decamped with their cash and jewellery worth over Rs 1 crore from their Vasant Kunj residence.

According to the police, the incident was reported on July 23 and accused has been identified as Mahender Singh and his wife Vijeta, resident of Burari. "Mahender fled with over Rs 80 lakh from his in-laws' house and we managed to recover around Rs 78 lakh cash and jewellery worth Rs 40 lakh and one Hyundai I-10 car that was gifted to him by his wife," said Chhaya Sharma, DCP (South).

Harish Nagpal, head cashier at the Bank of Baroda, had reported that when he returned home around 10 pm on July 23, he found that there was no lock on the main door and Rs 80 lakh kept in the box of the bed and jewelry were stolen. His wife and son were out that day while his son-in-law Manish Sharma had dropped them to their respective work places in the morning.

However, the next day Nagpal found that Manish was missing with the car and unavailable on phone.

"When Nagpal was asked about particulars of his son-in-law, he failed to provide much information about his family or home town. He said that they had given an advertisement in the newspapers about the marriage of their daughter who was handicapped. They were approached by Manish following which the marriage was solemnised," said Sharma.

After seeing the advertisement, accused Mahender hatched conspiracy with his wife Vijeta and visited their house. He introduced his wife Vijeta as his sister Varsha and agreed to marry their daughter.

After their marriage, Sharma provided a house in Safdarjung Enclave for his daughter and son-in-law. The couple also used to live with them at their residence in Vasant Kunj.

"They said that their daughter used to tell them that the conduct of her husband was not appropriate and sometimes he did not return home on the pretext of his business. He posed as a dealer of leather purses in markets of various cities, including Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Gurgaon etc," said the official.

On July 3, Nagpal sold a property in Sarojini Nagar to buy a shop for his son-in-law in Sarojini Nagar Market so that he could be settled in the same area and their daughter could live happily with her husband. It was this Rs 80 lakh which the accused eyed and eventually managed to flee with.

During the course of investigation the known mobile numbers of accused persons were analyzed and it was found that he was using several mobile numbers of dubious identities. None of his numbers was found responding.

However, the police team succeeded in establishing the identity of the son-in-law as Mahender Singh and not Manish Sharma. It was also confirmed that he was married to Vijeta and has a two-month-old child.

After technical surveillance, the police traced Mahender in Barielly where he was planning to buy property with the stolen money.

New Delhi, August 4
Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital here was today issued a notice for leaving radioactive

waste unattended and putting people's lives at risk.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said it had

taken suo motu cognisance of a media report alleging that radiation machines, containers of radium and cobalt needles, which should be disposed of, are lying unattended in the government hospital.

"This is a great threat to the lives of the people of surrounding localities in case of any radioactive leak. The hospital has not made any move to clean up the mess," an NHRC statement said.

"It is apparent that the authorities have not learnt the lesson from the incident of radioactive leak at Mayapuri in Delhi and similar incidents which resulted in health hazards," the commission said.

"The commission issued notices to the secretary, ministry of health, Delhi chief secretary, LNJP hospital director and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) chairman, calling for their reports in the matter within two weeks," it added.

The NHRC also directed its director-general (investigation) to depute a team to conduct an on-the-spot investigation and submit its report within the time peroid. — IANS

New Delhi, August 4
A youth in his early twenties was sent today to jail for 10 years by a Delhi court for burning alive his newly-wed 18-year-old bride for dowry with the judge comparing the crime with terrorism.

"In­laws are turning out to be out­laws, perpetrating terrorism which destroys the matrimonial home. The terrorist is dowry and it is spreading tentacles in every possible direction," said District Judge Sunita Gupta, jailing Nafis Khan of Welcome Colony in north-east Delhi.

"She (bride) expects not only to be a daughter­in­law, but a daughter, in fact. But the alarming rise in the number of cases involving harassment of newly-wed girls for dowry shatters the dreams," said the court which also imposed a fine of Rs 7,000 on Nafis, rejecting his plea for leniency.

"The dowry system has become a menace to the society. Such offences are required to be dealt with sternly. The mere fact that the convict is a young man is not a mitigating circumstance. As such, he does not deserve any leniency," the court said.

Nafis was convicted on July 21 on the charge of burning his wife to death in October 2009, for not fulfiling his demand for dowry of Rs 20,000 and continuously harassing her for money before her death. — PTI

New Delhi, August 4
Delhi Mayor Rajni Abbi today once again urged union home minister P Chidambaram to discard the Delhi government's decision on trifurcation of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and prevent the civic agency from being split into three small corporations as proposed by the government.

The Mayor said the move was politically motivated aiming to weaken the power of the corporation.

"The government's decision to break-up the MCD into smaller units is a well thought-out strategy before the MCD polls, slated for early 2012," said Dr Abbi.

A three-way split of the MCD will mean that the 272 municipal wards will be divided in three corporations for north/central, south and east.

Senior BJP leaders see this move as one that will dilute the strength of the party if it wins in one municipal corporation and loses in another.

"We have requested the home minister to reject the proposal as it's a ploy to just weaken the corporation so that the work gets affected. The proposal does not have information on the increasing number of officers, infrastructure, etc.," said the Mayor.

"Is there any other city in the country to have three corporations? And the biggest question of all is that what is the need to have three corporations when we are already working efficiently under one agency," she added.

No one else in the city except Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit is in favour of the division of the MCD, she said.

Ghaziabad, August 4
Civil society activists burnt copies of the government's version of the anti-graft Lokpal Bill here after it was introduced in Parliament today.

"We are not focusing only on the Prime Minister's inclusion in the Lokpal Bill. The bill is against the poor," civil society representative on the drafting committee Arvind Kejriwal said.

"We are following the Gandhian way of non-violent protest," he added.

Another civil society representative and lawyer, Prashant Bhushan said: "We are appealing that this is a symbolic opposition. No violent action should be taken after this protest in any part of the country." — IANS

New Delhi, August 4
The anti-robbery cell of the Delhi police yesterday arrested four persons who were managing a fake telecom tower installation company and attracted their customers by intending to pay Rs 40 to 55 lakh as advance payment.

Their advertisement in the newspapers also read that Rs 70,000 to 90,000 per month would be paid as a rent for the land, given to install the tower.

On August 3, the police arrested Pramod Gupta (30), the mastermind of the crime, at his residence in Baljeet Nagar. His brother Pushpender Gupta (40) and associates - Babli Arora (26) and Lala Dhika (34) - were also arrested.

The police said the accused had managed to keep their activities a secret by constantly changing their staff, address, mobile numbers and name of the company.

The crime branch had received several complaints that some persons are cheating people by placing their advertisements in the newspapers, regarding the installation of telecom towers.

On August 3, the police got the information that the same persons were managing a similar company at Baljeet Nagar.

The police conducted a raided in Baljeet Nagar. They found 36 caller-stations and seized 90 mobile phones. Forged documents, six fake stamps and five ATM cards were also seized from their possession. The police also confiscated the computers used for data management.

During the interrogation, Pramod said he and his wife Poonam started the illegal activity two years back. Since January 2011, his partner Harish Arora and his wife Babli were also working hand in glove with them.

"They were enticing customers through advertisements which read that rent out your land for installing mobile tower. The advertisement also read that customers would get Rs 40 to 55 lakh as advance and Rs 70,000 to 90,000 per month as rent. To assure the customers that their company is genuine, they sent a fake telecom tax department certificate and approval letters with fake stamps to them. The customers would find the letter credible and further deposit Rs 25,000 as part of tax. The accused then demanded Rs 37,500 for other fees. After cheating the customer of their money, they would stop receiving their calls," said additional DCP (crime branch) Sanjay Bhatia.

New Delhi, August 4
The Delhi High Court today asked the Centre to furnish it a list of various private hospitals built on land allocated by the government on highly subsidised prices.

A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and GP Mittal sought the list on a plea to launch contempt of court proceedings against the private hospitals for defying an earlier court order to provide free beds to poor patients and extend them free indoor medical treatment in return for the subsidised land allocated to them.

Seeking the list within three weeks, the bench slated August 25 to hear the matter.

The plea to launch the contempt of court proceedings was filed by social jurists, a civil society, through its counsel Ashok Aggarwal who alleged three hospitals have failed to comply with the high court's March 2007 order.

The court had in its order stipulated that the hospitals, which had got the government land at subsidised prices, would provide treatment free of cost to the poor and reserve 10 per cent beds for outdoor patients and 25 per cent for indoor patients.

In the contempt petition, Aggarwal alleged some reputed hospitals have failed to comply with the court's earlier order.

Meanwhile, authorities of Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Hospital, St Stephens and Moolchand Hospital said the land on which the hospitals were built was not obtained from the government with the condition to provide treatment to the poor. — PTI

New Delhi, August 4
The south district police yesterday arrested Sachin Kumar (22) and his friend Mohit (25) for kidnapping a 12-year-old boy for a ransom of Rs 20 lakh.

The mastermind of the crime, Sachin, along with Mohit, kidnapped his neighbour Shrawan Kumar's son Ashish.

During the interrogation, Sachin said he had taken loans from several people to manage his factory that manufactured cooler-pumps. However, he ran into debt and was unable to repay the loans.

Dilshad, who was working with Sachin for four months, was also in need of money for constructing a house in his native place, Jharkhand. Sachin's brother-in-law Praveen and a friend Mohit also needed money.

Sachin had told his associates that his neighbour had recently constructed a house and had rented out 25 rooms. They conspired to kidnap his son for a ransom of Rs 25 lakh and the money would be equally distributed among them.

On August 2, Shrawan had lodged an FIR at the Malviya Nagar police station that he had sent his son Ashish to buy "prasad" from a nearby shop. But, his he didn't return.

When the police reached Shrawan's house, he received a call from an unknown person, who asked for Rs 20 lakh ransom.

The police discovered that two persons, who were riding a black scooty, had made the call from a PCO booth in Saidulajab. With the help of a shopkeeper, the police prepared a sketch of the caller.

The police learnt that one of Shrawan's neighbours, Sachin, owned a black scooty. However, Sachin had gone to Jhajhar, Haryana.

Some residents of Bajidpur village informed the police that two scooty-borne persons dumped a child in a deserted well here. The child was rescued by the villagers.

On August 3, Sachin was arrested from Chirag Delhi ahile Mohit was arrested from Dakshin Puri.

New Delhi, August 4
A 33-year-old man was allegedly beaten to death by three men following a dispute with one of them in Seemapuri.

According to the police, the incident was reported around 11 pm last night. The victim, Anil, who was rushed to GTB Hospital in a critical condition, succumbed to his injuries in the wee hours of today.

The accused-- Vijay, Inderjeet and Naresh-- have been arrested.

Anil, who lived in Seemapuri, last night got into an altercation with Vijay, who owns a rickshaw garage in the area.

"Vijay called his uncle Inderjeet and friend Naresh to the spot, and the three beat up Anil. They hit him on the head several times with a heavy stick. When Anil's friend Sanjeev came to his help, he too was beaten up. Later, the trio fled the spot, leaving a bleeding Anil on the road. Sanjeev called the police," said a police official from Seemapuri police station.

He added that Anil succumbed to his injuries in the hospital after a few hours.