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BJP slams Cong for defending Dikshit
Protest leads to traffic snarls
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Noida farmers at loggerheads; give a week to Authority
Now, swollen classrooms worry DU teachers
Deranged woman kills daughter, hangs self in Delhi
Three men shoot at teen outside his house
Vegetable vendor beats boy to death
5-yr-boy crushed under school bus
Hoax bomb caller held
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BJP slams Cong for defending Dikshit
New Delhi, August 9 This was stated by BJP national president Nitin Gadkari while addressing a rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in the Ramlila Maidan, here, today. Thousands of youths from various states participated in the rally. He said the CAG had pointed out a scam of Rs 30,000 crore in the CWG, but the government said the report had not indicted the Chief Minister and her ministers. Gadkari said the UPA was not asking Dikshit to step down because then the Prime Minister would be next in line. If action is taken against the Prime Minsiter, the Sonia Gandhi family would be next in line, he said. He said all leaders of the Congress were involved in the corruption and the party should be re-named "Lakshimi Darshan Party". He said former union minister of sports Sunil Dutt and ManiShankar Aiyar resisted the PMOs decision to appoint Suresh Kalmadi as chairman of the organising committee of the CWG. But the Prime Minister appointed him to the coveted post, making it obvious that his appointment was made on the direction given by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. The Prime Minister does not speak on the financial irregularities in the Games pointed out by the CAG and the Shunglu Committee which indicates the PM is on silent mode. The Himachal Pradesh government constructed a stadium in Dharmashala, Himachal Pradesh, with a cost of Rs 44 crore, but here in Delhi the government had spent Rs 980 crore to renovate Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Appealing to the youth to come to the streets to overthrow the corrupt UPA government at the Centre, Gadkari said the UPA government was asking as to why the BJP was not taking action against the Karnataka Chief Minister. Now the Karnataka Chief Minister had resigned. What action was the UPA government taking to remove Sheila Dikshit, he asked. LK Advani, a senior BJP leader, said the UPA government was the government of scams. Since 1947, 1,000 scams had come to light. Of them, the CWG and cash-for-votes were the biggest. The UPA government had proved that MPs could be purchased by giving hefty sums of money. He appealed to the youth activists of the BJYM to be active and raise their voice to oust the corrupt government of Manmohan Singh who himself could not take any decision. It is the youth who can bring about a revolution, he said. |
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Protest leads to traffic snarls
New Delhi, August 9 As a result of diversions and road blocks made by the traffic police to facilitate the march, traffic jams became the order of the day, with thousands of commuters being stranded midway. According to the traffic police, the most affected roads included Connaught Place, JLN Marg, Tilak Marg, Mathura Road, Barakhamba Road, Parliament Street, Sikandra Road and Ashoka Road. "There was some traffic problem in certain roads in the Connaught Place area, but that cannot be called a major jam as Delhi is used to it to during the rains. The traffic was flowing smoothly soon after the protesters left the area," said a traffic official from New Delhi district. However, contrary to these claims, several people complained of being trapped in jams for over 25-50 minutes in the outer circle of Connaught Place and Ashoka Road. "The traffic was hardly moving and it took us almost an hour to cross Connaught Place. The situation was the same at various other roads in the area," said Amit Kumar, a resident of Mayur Vihar. To reduce the traffic burden, the traffic police did not allow buses, including chartered buses, on Ranjit Singh Marg towards Guru Nanak Chowk from the Barakhamba side. Traffic snarls were also reported from the central district roads like Netaji Subhash Marg, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, especially in Daryaganj and Ranjeet Singh flyovers, on account of the BJP rally at the Ramlila Maidan. The members of the BJYM later marched from here to Parliament Street because of which the police had blocked traffic on certain roads. "All the roads are anyway chock-a-block in Delhi even on normal days. Now when there are rallies and protest march, chaos is expected. Nothing can be done about it," said Jagdish Verma, a resident of Daryaganj. A march carried out by people from Jaitapur from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar also slowed down the traffic. They were protesting against a nuclear power plant at Jaitapur. The protest by students' wing of the CPI(ML) also led to snarls. |
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Youth charged up against corruption
New Delhi, August 9 Vinod Kumar, who came from Sonepat to attend the rally, said the government was involved in a scandal of thousands crores of rupees. Had this money been used for opening industries and other development works, lakhs of youths would have got jobs. "I have come to attend the rally to get registered my protest against the corruption," he said. He added that instead of going back to history, "we should go through the current scandals like the Commonwealth Games, 2G Spectrum and cash-for-votes". "I have heard the 2G Spectrum is a scam of Rs 1.76 lakh crore. A Raja is in judicial custody on charges of the scam. What will he do with this amount? He will just deposit this in foreign banks. It can neither benefit people nor the government. If our leaders are honest, we can become one of the powerful countries in the world," he said. Jasbir Singh, a resident of Meerut, said, "When the government does not take action on the basis of the CAG or the Shunglu Committee report that has pointed out financial irregularities in the CWG, why crores of rupees has been spent for the investigation of the case. The CAG is a department in which thousands of people work. But it is useless if the report has no value," he added. Anil Kumar, who came from Bihar to join in the rally, said some of the states like West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, East UP were very backward. Amajority of the people in these states were below the poverty line. The government should recover the money from the corrupt politicians who had looted the government exchequer and invest in the backward states. More and more people should attend such rallies to pressurise the government to punish the guilty and recover the money looted by the politicians, he said. |
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Noida farmers at loggerheads; give a week to Authority
Noida, August 9 At the dharna, the members, mostly from the Congress, were seen clashing with each other. Three prospective candidates were seen trying to take credit for the dharna. The pradhan of Nithari village, a woman, was the most vocal at the dharna. She said it was due to her protest that the farmers of these villages joined hands and rejected the settlement as it had ignored the interests of the villages acquired prior to 1997. Ashok Chauhan of the Lok Manch brought three buses full of farmers at the site. Joginder Awana, Ramesh Sharma, Trilok Sharma, Raghuraj Singh and Kripa Ram Sharma were also vocal at the site. Majority of them were also members of the earlier samiti which had executed the settlement agreement with the authority. The Noida police and the PAC men were present at the dharna. The farmers were not allowed to take out a rally. SP (city) Anant Dev and city magistrate Sanjay Chauhan told them that only a few members could give the memorandum to the chairman. Around 50 members went to the office of the Noida Development Authority and met the chairman and gave the memorandum. The chairman rejected their demand of hike in the land compensation. Regarding their other demands of abadi land and 5 per cent developed land, he sought one week's time to discuss with the state officials. "I told the chairman that any decision taken by him should be approved by the board. If in one week we do not get a positive response, we will move the court," said Chauhan. |
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Now, swollen classrooms worry DU teachers
New Delhi, August 9 Second, the guidelines from the human resource and development ministry prompted the university to fill all OBC seats, as compared to the last two years when a lot of OBC seats were converted into general category seats. The burden has now fallen on the colleges and teachers to accommodate the increased number of students while imparting the best knowledge as per the much new semester system, which allows for a limited number of lectures and tutorials. While some colleges have increased the number of sections as well as the number of students in a section, teachers say that for the semester system to be successful, a shorter batch is ideal. "For the successful implementation of the semester system, the focus should be on individual students in a smaller class. Moreover, with a higher strength, administering tutorials is difficult. We used tutorials to clear doubts, discuss hard topics or experiment something new. Now, dividing the class into smaller tutorial groups means lesser sessions with every group. Even the space in classrooms is a problem," said Anita Chawla, an English teacher at Aditi Mahavidyalaya College. "For the science students, the problem is a lack of infrastructure in laboratories. We earlier had 50 to 60 students in a class, but this year, we have almost 100 students. This means that we will have to conduct extra practical classes. This leaves us with no time for practice, errors or leave. Teaching science students in a clustered environment is not a right approach. Science subjects need a lot of personal attention, which is not possible now. There will be a definite change in the classroom environment this year. We are struggling to cope up with the changes. A little help from the university wouldn't have been bad," said a physics teacher from Miranda House, requesting anonymity. "At the last academic and executive councils meeting, elected members had proposed a couple of remedies for dealing with the large number of students, but none was considered. There was a hurry to pass the semester system for all undergraduate courses. Now, the university is fulfilling its responsibility to fill all OBC seats, which is commendable. But what will happen when these students will join the already overfull classrooms? The quality of education will deteriorate. So many changes at once will hamper the curriculum. Teachers are trying to work on problems among themselves. Everyone is working round the clock. But staff crunch and limited and outdated classroom infrastructure are certainly not helping," said a senior academic council member, requesting anonymity. |
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Deranged woman kills daughter, hangs self in Delhi
New Delhi, August 9 According to the police, Sangeeta and her daughter Ruchi were discovered dead by Sangeeta's father-in-law. Their bodies have been sent to GTB Hospital for postmortem. "Sangeeta's father-in-law, who was sleeping with her son in another room, woke up in the morning and knocked at the door of Sangeeta's room several times, but there was no response. He waited for almost an hour. But when Sangeeta did not get up even beyond her usual wake-up time, her father-in-law peeked into the room from a window and saw Sangeeta hanging from the ceiling fan and Ruchi lying on the bed," said a police official. He said the police initially received a call about Sangeeta's suicide, as Ruchi was believed to be sleeping. But when the police broke open the door, even Ruchi was found dead with injury marks on her neck. She was killed sometime in the night. Investigation has revealed that Sangeeta was mentally disturbed for the past few years and was undergoing treatment at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS). Hemant is a junior engineer with a private firm in Rajasthan. He was not present in the house last night. Sangeeta had married Hemant about 10 years ago. "As of now, nothing points towards any foul play. We are consulting doctors at IBHAS to know about Sangeeta's mental condition and that whether she could have killed her daughter and herself," said a police
official. |
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Three men shoot at teen outside his house
New Delhi, August 9 "The incident was reported around 8 pm. Babloo along with his two friends reached Abhisekh's house and asked him to come out. As soon as Abhisekh came out, the accused fired at him several times. He received a bullet injury in a hand. The accused and the victim had an animosity. In fact, the accused had beaten up Abhisekh earlier in the day while he was on his way home from school," said a police official. According to him, Abhisekh's neighbours and locals came out after hearing the gunshots and rushed towards the hooligans. While two of them managed to run away, Babloo was caught with a countrymade pistol and some cartridges. He is a 'bad character' of the area. The police has registered a case in this regard and a hunt is on for the other accused who have been identified. In his statement to the police, Abhisekh has said that Babloo and his friends has been harassing him for the past few months and had even beaten him in the afternoon. Abhisekh is a student of class X at a government school in
Jahangirpuri. |
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Flouting rules, zoo visitors tease animals
New Delhi, August 9 Section 38 (J) (Prohibition of teasing, etc., in a zoo) of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, reads: "No person shall tease, molest, injure or feed any animal or cause disturbance to the animals by noise or otherwise or litter the grounds in a zoo." However, on August 8, when this reporter visited the zoo, he saw people climbing the railing surrounding the enclosure of the giraffes, to click photographs. They caught the giraffe's attention by feeding it leaves from a tree near the railing. Another similar incident was described by a visitor, Vonod, at the zoo. "Two women near the cage of the Great Indian Hornbill disturbed a bird sitting in a corner by throwing water at it, so that they could click its picture," he said. A board is attached to every cage and enclosure at the zoo, which reads: "Please don't tease or feed the animals. Penalty: Fine of Rs 2,000 or imprisonment of six months or both." Curator of the zoo RA Khan said the rules were not followed. "The boards are just a warning to people to not cross the railings. People have been caught throwing stones at the animals. We warn them to not do it again and only fine them Rs 50-100. This happens almost everyday. For example, people throw stones at the crocodile, which they think is either fake or dead. If a visitor has hurt an animal, we hand him over to the police. There has not been even a single case till now, where a person has been jailed," he said. Furthermore, a security guard at the zoo said people disturbed the animals because they wanted to see their behaviour. "Even well-educated people disturb the animals. Sometimes, we instruct the people to not do it and then we don't fine them," he said. However, the guard did not budge when he saw people teasing a white tiger. |
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Vegetable vendor beats boy to death
New Delhi, August 9 Suraj's elder brother Raju said yesterday, Suraj left the house to attend tuition classes. His neighbour informed him that a vegetable vendor was beating Suraj. He rushed to the spot where he saw his brother being beaten by Surender. The accused while raining blows on Suraj was shouting that he would kill him. When Surender pushed Suraj, his head struck the road and he became unconscious. The police took Suraj to the DDU Hospital, where he was declared brought dead. A case of murder was subsequently registered at the Dwarka (south) police station. "During the interrogation, the accused said he was going to the market to sell vegetables, but on the way a bicycle-borne boy collided with his cart. He became furious and started beating the boy. He pushed the boy against the road, which made him unconscious," said Anil Kumar Ojha, DCP (south-west district). |
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5-yr-boy crushed under school bus
New Delhi, August 9 "Japneet used to come home in a school bus. Today, when he got down from the bus, he lost his balance and came under its rear wheels. He died on the spot," said the police. |
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Policemen use water cannons to stop the BJP Yuva Morcha activists trying to break the police barriers during the ‘Sansad ghirav’ against black money and corruption in New Delhi on Tuesday. Tribune photos: Mukesh Aggarwal
