New Delhi, February 20
A Swift Dzire car belonging to a Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official was allegedly being driven by his cleaner who rammed it into two men who were taking a walk at August Kranti Marg this morning. They later died upon their arrival to the AIIMS Trauma Centre.

The cleaner, Manish (19) was driving the car and his three friends were the passengers. The victims are identified as Sultan Singh (46), a resident of Gautam Nagar and Raja Ram (53) who belongs to Bangalore. Sultan is an assistant vice-president of the Pushp Vihar branch of CitiFinancial.

According to sources, they were going for a walk at August Kranti Marg about 6.15 am today. Manish had taken the car for a joyride and drove it into them. The left tyre of the vehicle burst and the axle broke due to the impact of the accident. Manish and his three friends immediately left the car behind and fled, boarding a bus.

The car is registered in the name of one, Isha Srivastava, who is a resident of Asiad Village. She is the wife of Kartik Pandey, an under-secretary at the MEA. He is posted at the General Administration of the MEA office in South Block. Kartik is an Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer of the 2004 batch.

Kartik told the police that Manish usually arrives at his residence about 6.30 am and takes the car keys. After cleaning the vehicle, he returns the keys about 7.30 am. Manish followed the same routine today. But, when he was about to go outside his residence about 9 am, he found his vehicle missing.

Thereafter, Kartik lodged a complaint at the Hauz Khas police station.

The police has arrested Manish who is allegedly responsible for the accident. He also confessed to the police that he was driving the car and was with his three friends at the time of the accident.

A case under Indian Penal Code section 279 (rash driving) and section 304A (causing death due to negligence) has been registered against him at the Hauz Khas police station. There will no action taken against his friends, according to the police.

The deceased's relatives claim that the two men were taken to the hospital after a considerable lapse of time. Sources said that doctors claimed that Raja and Sultan could have been saved if they had been brought to hospital earlier.

Sultan's relative, Gulshan claimed that the police is trying to save the MEA official by pinning the blame on Manish.

Raja had arrived to Delhi to assist his friend, Sultan in making arrangements for his daughter's engagement and wedding ceremonies. She works as a marketing executive with a media company and was to be engaged to one, Kush Kapoor today.

Their wedding was fixed on February 24. 

New Delhi, February 20
As the municipal election is nearing, the political parties are engaged in making promises. In order to gear up for the election, the BJP and the Congress are leaving no stone unturned in announcing public welfare schemes so as to book their mandate. While on the one hand, the ruling BJP in the MCD is set to raise issues like corruption and price rise in the elections, on the other, the Congress is banking on the welfare schemes announced by the state government, which is ruled by the party.

State BJP leaders believe the corruption related cases against the Congress at the state and national level are going to play a major role in deciding the outcome of the municipal elections.

"It is the season of scams and it will be raised accordingly in the MCD elections," said president of the Delhi unit of the BJP Vijender Gupta. He said the BJP would make the people aware of how the Delhi government was fooling them in the name of development. "The CAG and the CVC have raised questions over the role played by the state in the CWG projects but the Central government has done nothing to punish the accused," he added.

Other issues to be raised include the scam related to unauthorised colonies and hike in power tariff. Gupta said a lot of people living in unauthorised colonies were being deprived of proper living conditions because of the government's attitude.

Though it has been announced that the elections are scheduled to take place in April, the date of polling is yet to announce by the Election Commission office.

On the other hand the Delhi government is on a spree of announcing public welfare schemes ranging from houses for economically weaker section (EWS), to money for pregnant women. Whereas, targeting its attack on the party, the BJP said that the government was trying to misguide people as the schemes could not be implemented before the elections.

However, the BJP has also demanded the government to rollback the increase in electricity and water charges. Besides, the party is also counting on the issue of unauthorised colonies. "The government has neither been able to regularised nor provide any development in the area. This will play against the government in the coming elections," said Subhash Arya, Leader of the House and senior BJP leader.

New Delhi, February 20
After months of deliberations and review of norms and the glitches unearthed in the admission process last session, Delhi University's "high powered committee" working on the issue, will submit a final report to the administration in first week of March.

The committee comprising principals of 16 colleges was instituted by the university in November last year to review the changes introduced in the under-graduate admission procedures in 2011. The committee met for the eighth time last week after they came to a consensus on key points and read over a final draft report that was tabled before the members. A final report is now being prepared that will be submitted to the university by March first week.

The changes in the admission process that the members agreed upon include online registration for all applicants, more flexibility in course selection for those seeking admission to seats reserved for the SC/ST students and revision in sports quota admission guidelines.

However, unlike last year, the committee has also reached a consensus on the need to bring back registration of students prior to admission so that colleges have a fair idea about the rush before cutoffs are prepared.

"After reviewing last year's admission process, the recommendation is to have a central online pre-registration of candidates. We might have to take help of an external agency for this purpose. The experiment last year of dropping the registration didn't go down very well. Colleges ended up over admitting students beyond capacity and infrastructure," said one of the committee members.

The committee has also agreed that a review of sports quota admission guidelines should be conducted along with chalking down guidelines for extra curricular activities (ECA) category admissions. Last year, the university's sports quota admission guidelines had drawn criticism form the department of physical education of colleges which had complained that they were unscientific and gave undue weight to certificates over performance during trials.

"Sports quota admissions should remain with colleges but we're going to recommend that the sports council revisits some of the guidelines and issues clear guidelines on the kind of certificates to be considered and weight to be given to certificates and candidates' performance in trials. The ECA admissions currently have no guidelines, we are recommending that there be guidelines," he said.

Another recommendation of the committee is aimed at bringing in more flexibility for the SC/ST students allotted seats through a centralised registration process. "We are going to suggest that even after students are allotted a course and college by the university, they be given flexibility to choose another course at the college-level, if they so wish to, based on the availability of seats in the college," said the chairman of the committee, Dr Deepak Malhotra.

New Delhi, February 20
The two-year-old baby battling for life for over one month at the AIIMS Trauma Centre has been a “rare case of survival” as of now as at her age, with such high infection levels and two cardiac arrests, patients seldom pull through.

All this while doctors treating the baby had waited for the infection in the brain to subside and finally it has. Following which the doctors have performed another life-saving brain surgery that brings down the infection rate to five per cent vis-à-vis the external ventricular drainage due to exposure to external environment.

“She has undergone a lot and is indeed a rare case. In such cases, the patient gives in to the infection, but she has managed for more than a month. She has battled through serious infections, undergone five surgeries. However, she continues to be critical yet stable” said neurosurgeon Dr Deepak Agrawal at the hospital.

Since her admission with bruised skull, fractured arms and body carrying bite marks on January 18 by a sexually abused teenager, doctors said she has managed to sail through life-threatening concerns and now her chance of survival has bettered coming to 50-50.

“She has been a fighter and for the last two days, the culture reports of her cerebral fluid have indicated a dip in the brain infection and so we carried out major brain surgery,” underlined Dr Agrawal.

After the latest brain surgery, doctors now seem to be hopeful of the baby’s progress towards life even as she remains on ventilator support and comatose.

“We are monitoring her condition and our next step is to wean her off the ventilator in the next couple of days as prolonged support of ventilator pushes the infection threat further due to respiratory-pneumonia,” observed Dr Agrawal. 

New Delhi, February 20
A court here has asked the Delhi Police Commissioner to explain why no action was taken against two policemen for alleged shoddy probe in a theft case even as a vigilance enquiry found them to be "unprofessional".

"Report be called from the Commissioner of Police in respect of the fact as to on what ground no action was taken against SI Dharmendra and IO inspector Khanduri inspite of the fact that preliminary vigilance inquiry has found both of them to be unprofessional," Metropolitan Magistrate Ekta Gauba said.The report was called on a plea by RTI activist Vivek Garg, who had moved the court complaining police inaction in a case of theft lodged by him in June 2010 with police station Darya Ganj in central Delhi.

Garg had reported a case of theft of crucial information, cash and books by three of his employees at his publishing house.

The court also asked the commissioner to explain as to "why police is not taking action against accused persons inspite of the admission made by the investigating officer Rakesh Kumar (Inspector) that offence is made out against the accused persons and how come inspector is forcing the complainant to withdraw the complaint." — PTI

New Delhi, February 20
The Delhi government will launch a statewide de-worming programme tomorrow for pre-school and school-age children. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit today gave de-worming tablets to 50 children gathered at her residence.

Dikshit described this campaign as a monumental programme and its success requires assistance of a number of stakeholders, including various governmental departments, partners, public at large and media.

She appealed to everybody to participate in this programme and make de-worming day a grand success for the sake of children.

The Chief Minister said, "The tablets would be given twice a year. I would suggest that the dates and months should be institutionalised."

Soil-transmitted worms are the commonest infestations in pre-school and school-age children from poor communities.

These infestations lead to anemia, malnutrition, retarded physical and mental development, reduced educational achievement as adults. Regular de-worming is the most effective way of reducing worm burden and relieving children of the disease.

Dikshit said that this initiative will help mitigate problems like anemia, malnutrition, retarded physical and mental development among children. Additionally, it will contribute to improving the educational achievement.

To assess the situation in Delhi, the government conducted a study and found that the average prevalence of soil-transmitted worms was around 16 per cent.

To overcome this problem, all the children of Delhi government schools, MCD and NDMC schools, Delhi Cantonment Board schools and pre-school children of the Anganwadi centres will be given one dose of the medication tomorrow, de-worming day.

A mop-up will be conducted on February 27 for those children who miss the de-worming tablet.

New Delhi, February 20
Munni Khatoon in her twenties recently caught everyone's attention as the mother of the two-year-old baby who is battling for her life at the AIIMS Trauma Centre. Munni is merely one among many women who are trafficked to big cities in the country after being sold dreams of a better life. However, their dreams are shattered as they are forced into prostitution or sold as brides at the regions adversely affected by a skewed sex ratio.

The statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveals that in 2010, there were 3,422 cases of human trafficking. The figures are of the cases registered under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act (ITPA), 1956 and Indian Penal Code section 366-A (procuring minor girls), section 366-B (importation of girls), section 372 (selling of girls for prostitution) and section 373 (buying of girls for prostitution).

Across India, the states that consisted of the highest number of cases under the ITPA in 2010 were Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. The former consisted of 567 cases while there were 548 cases reported in Andhra Pradesh.

According to a study by Shakti Vahini, an organization working against trafficking, this crime in India occurs in different states and also across the international borders. Bihar serves as a transit and destination state for trafficking in women and children from Nepal. Trafficking from this state to Nepal also happens quite often. Besides Delhi, Mumbai is the major destination of trafficking in women from Nepal for "commercial sexual exploitation". Earlier, young married women were trafficked from Bangladesh to Mumbai, but presently the demand for unmarried and minor girls has increased.

The report further states that there are well-organised human trafficking rackets operating in Kerala. Women from the state are sent to Gulf countries and on their return, they are found to be infected with HIV.

Women from Egypt, Mexico, Brazil, Azerbaijan and Russia are sent to Delhi and Maharashtra. Bangladeshi women are also sent to the bordering districts of West Bengal and then taken in Odisha. What's more, women from Nepal and Bhutan are sold to brothels in North Bengal.

Rishi Kant, media coordinator of Shakti Vahini, said that the girls aged about 15 years are bought from West Bengal and supplied to agents in Delhi.

"Girls from West Bengal are brought to Badarpur in Delhi and then supplied to racketeers in Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab. First, they are sold as brides in the regions which are adversely affected by a skewed sex ratio. One girl is usually sold for a price between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh. Second, they are forced to work for the men in Haryana. These men would take them on tourist locations in the country for a specific period and then return them to the agents. Women from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu who were devadasis are brought to Delhi for prostitution. In Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, even married women are sold by their husbands due to poverty," said Kant.

According to him, trafficking in women continues as the poverty alleviation schemes such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are not reaching to the poor in the rural areas. There is no coordination between the state and Central governments, he said.

(To be continued)

Noida, February 20
The district administration would deploy over 7,000 policemen and fix over 120 cameras in Gautam Budh Nagar to ensure a peaceful voting on February 29 when the twin cities of Noida and Greater Noida go to the polls. With high-profile security arrangements, the district would virtually be converted into a fortress.

According to senior officers, the security will surpass the arrangements made for F-1 races last year.

The authorities propose to deploy more than 7,000 police personnel comprising 23 companies of paramilitary forces, nine companies of the provincial armed constabulary and 1,500 home guards to ensure peaceful polling on February 28.

Over 120 cameras will be strategically installed, bringing all the important areas of the district under electronic surveillance.

According to Avdhesh Kumar Vijeta, superintendent of police (traffic), "This is the first time that we are using this technology on such a large scale. It will enable us to ensure smooth flow of traffic on the polling day."

"There will be 436 polling centres which will have 1,113 polling booths," said Vijeta. All the entry and exist points will be cordoned off to keep miscreants away from city.

"We have conducted a joint meeting with senior officials of the adjoining states like Delhi and Haryana. There are 12 connecting points with Delhi and eight with Haryana. We will even exchange our communication sets to be in touch with the police of the neighbouring areas," he said.

Paramilitary forces and commandos equipped with light and heavy machine guns will be deployed on rooftops near sensitive booths. Bunkers will also be set up at polling centres in the rural areas. Besides, videography of all the polling booths will be done, Vijeta said.

"For every four polling centres, we are making a central communication centre, 'cluster point', which will have armed police personnel and cars to reach polling booths in case of any emergency," he added.

Gurgaon, February 20
A Japanese national, Tsutomu Omori, who was the managing director of multinational Olympus Medical Systems India Private Limited, was found dead at a park in Icon Apartments in the Sushant Lok area here today.

The body of Omori, 49, was found hanging from a boundary wall of the park by a gardener. The police was subsequentlyinformed.

Police officials, investigating the case, said it seemed to be a case of suicide. The Japanese embassy has been informed of the matter.

The police has found two notes. One of these is enclosed in a sealed envelope, addressed to Omori's family and marked as "confidential". The other note is in Japanese and a language expert has been called to get it translated.

One of the notes, however, bears a sentence in English: "I am sorry for bothering you".

The top MNC executive lived alone and as per a statement given by one of his neighbours to the police, he seemed to be disturbed for the past few days.

New Delhi, February 20
Engifest-2012, cultural extravaganza of Delhi Technological University, concluded today with reaching an epic peak in the evening event- "star night".

Audience of more than 5,000 students attended an amazing performance by renowned singer Shibani Kashyap and the very happening Jaggi-D who left the hearts of the crowd racing to amazing spirits of passion and finally enjoyed the flavour of hip-hop and pop music.

Today the fest kicked off with fast bikes and speedy cars racing through DTU campus performing thrilling stunts at the "bike and car show". Solo dance and "cinefille", which had numerous classic foreign movies on show like the famous Pans Labyrinth, were the other highlights of the concluding day of the students' festival.

The fest began on February 17 with a witty "kavi sammelan", "arpeggio - battle of bands" and "rock nite". Based on the theme of "colours of India", which focused on the new and improved India, the four-day fest had an interesting array of literary, cultural and entertaining events like "paridhan" (fashion show), "praayas" (street play), "spandan" (choreography competition), literary events like debate and group discussion, photography exhibition and go-karting and so on.

Chaman Singh Charnawat, president of the DTU students' association said, "The magnificent colours of India were highlighted and reflected in the fest. It was a true reflection of new dynamism, latest technologies and new dreams of the young and modern India".

Gurgaon, February 20
'Parindey'-2012, the third state-level philatelic exhibition, will begin at the exhibition hall of Apparel House in Sector 44 here tomorrow. It will be inaugurated by the Central Chief Election Commissioner, S.Y. Quereshi, while Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner P.C.Meena will be the guest of honour at the function.

Stating this here today, spokesperson for the district administration said more than 400 children from 15 schools would also participate in the exhibition. Rare stamps issued in India as well as other countries will be on display. Many reputed philatelists will participate with their prize-winning exhibits.

School students and others from Haryana will show case their rare collections of stamps in various competitions . Tradition, culture, leisure, nature and art are the heritage of philately and as such will be reflected on the approximately 200 displays and thousands of stamps.

A unique feature of the event will be “my stamp”, where the participants can get their own pictures printed as stamp. This “my stamp” counter will be for the first time in Gurgaon. Elaborating on the concept, the spokesperson said: "My stamp is an innovative facility, which is being made available for the first time in Gurgaon. Through in this one can get their own photograph printed with a picture chosen from various templates and use it as an official stamp."

“My stamp” can be used for postal charges on mail items which will cost Rs 300 for set of 12 stamps.

There will be a philately souvenir counter where Philately-commemorative items and other useful items like mugs, bed-sheets, purses, etc., printed with the Indian stamps will be available for sale to the public. Similarly, an MPCM counter will be functioning during the exhibition to demonstrate the functioning of postal counter. Various postal services like PLI policies, speed post, registration, eMO, etc., will be available on this counter for people. The exhibition will also have workshop on philately which will guide the students on the art of stamp collecting.