New Delhi, March 7
The 'women reservation' in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) seems to be turning out to be 'spouse reservation' as more and more municipal councillors are pushing forward their wives to take advantage of the reserved seats.

There is a rush among sitting councillors and other party workers to field their spouses on the women seats, barring genuine independent women activists from getting tickets.

The situation has aroused unhappiness among women workers who have been waiting for years to get an opportunity at the municipal level.

Vijay Laxmi Chaddha, a 58-year-old Mahila Congress president from the North-East district, has been awarded by the Rotary Club. She was one of the main activists during several protests in the past five years to bring the 50 per cent women reservation in the MCD. But now, she is not hopeful of getting a ticket as there are already enough spouses of councillors to give her a tough fight.

"I have been working in my area for the past 15 years. It is women like me who have fought hard for bringing this reservation and not the veiled wives of councillors who cannot even sign. It is very disappointing that party leaders are ignoring us," said Vijay Laxmi, who is a resident of Ward Number 10, which is a woman seat.

"I have held several eye and blood donation camps in Wazirabad and helped widow ashrams with whatever I can. Despite threat to my life, I brought the pulse polio campaign to my area which is dominated by 80 per cent Muslims," she said.

Manju Dikshit, another activist from the Kundli district, who is the block president of the Mahila Congress, has complained that though she is being shown hopes of a ticket from Ward Number 215, the insiders have confirmed that the seat will be given to the wife of Ajay Verma, a Congress worker.

"When we go to leaders they say that we will get the ticket. But now we see posters of some unknown lady who cannot even sign, but will probably get the ticket just because she is the wife of some Congress worker," said Dikshit.

"It's been more than 12 years that I have been working here. I have helped arrange marriages of several poor girls, worked in hospitals to make them poor-friendly and helped people to get their children admitted to schools. This is very unfortunate that we our being denied our rights," Manju said.

According to senior municipal leaders, 'spouses' are being preferred as political groups want to indirectly keep the control of the functioning of the corporations in their hands.

"We have examples from the past where husbands have sat beside their wives to sign papers and take decisions on crucial matters while the ladies just acted as audiences," said Jagdish Mamgain, chairman works committee. 

New Delhi, March 7
The tiff between the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) administration and the united students and residents’ fraternity continued till late night over the demands put forth by them after the alleged suicide of an undergraduate student on Sunday on the AIIMS campus.

As the late night’s parleys to reach a consensus came to nought, the protesting lot now wants an independent enquiry into the circumstances that led to Anil Kumar Meena’s death.

All the assurances from the administration have failed in mollifying the soaring emotions as a group of 10 representatives from the three sections— students, institute’s Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) and the Society of Young Scientists (SYS)— remained on a relay hunger protest on campus.

“We are standing united with our demands for setting up an independent probe committee, with representation from the eminent people heading top institutes, people from the judiciary for investigating the death and fixing up accountability. We have lost faith in the administration as it has failed to probe the death of another student even as two years have passed,” said Dr Shivani Pahwa, general secretary of Resident Doctors’ Association.

Among other major demands are: permanent health services for Anil’s family and employment to one of his family members apart from introducing stringent structural reforms to implement the Thorat Committee’s recommendations pertaining to the welfare and academic enhancement of undergraduate students, particularly those from SC/ST/OBC categories, in a timebound manner.

“We have also proposed a student, resident and faculty (SRF) group whose role would be to address the matters related to students. We also want that a psychiatry panel should interview every student for identifying weak students during admission,” said Zeeshan, the general secretary of the AIIMS undergraduate students union.

Last night, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) constituted a senior faculty committee to enquire the deceased’s result and academic assessment.

New Delhi, March 7
The Delhi police will deploy its personnel all over the city to rein in Holi rowdiness.

Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), Dharmendra Kumar said, "We have deployed 42 companies of the police force, which will be assisted by the local police.

They will be placed under the command of an inspector from the police station. We have barricades manned by policemen who will check drunken driving.

The traffic and the local police will conduct joint operations to nab motorcyclists who drive under the influence or are not wearing helmets. We will also target motorcycles that carry three passengers. The drive will continue until Friday."

There will be 200 special teams of the traffic police to check drunken driving.

There will be police presence on the north campus of Delhi University (DU) which is a sensitive area during Holi. The DU administration has presently created strict rules to ensure that girl students are safe.

Usha Rao, DU proctor, said, "We have identified sensitive areas where there could be trouble at Holi. Each college has a team of five administrative members who will be in touch with the police."

Nirmal Thakur, spokesperson of the AIIMS Trauma Centre, said that during Holi, the hospital mostly receives patients who have sustained stab injuries.

New Delhi, March 7
Following a forgery case registered against him by the police, senior Congress MLA from Jangpura Tarvinder Singh Marwah yesterday resigned from the post of parliamentary secretary to Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. However, whether the resignation has been accepted or not is not confirmed.

Marwah allegedly got admitted his daughter to Mata Sundary College on the basis of fake documents.

According to sources, the Chief Minister had herself asked for Marwah's resignation after the case came to light.

Just after submitting the resignation, Marwah switched of his mobile phone. Persons closed to him disclosed about the development.

The BJP yesterday demanded Marwah's resignation. Delhi BJP president Vijender Gupta has alleged that Marwah got his daughter admitted to Mata Sundari College in July last year for a BA course by submitting forged marksheet of higher secondary examination of Madhya Pradesh State Open School.

Demanding Marwah's arrest, Gupta said the BJP would meet home minister P Chidambaram to demand a CBI probe into the alleged fraud.

Principal of the college Kanwarjeet Kaur on Saturday lodged a complaint at the in IP Estate police station against Marwah, his daughter and others.

According to Vijender, to get her daughter Jasmin Kaur admitted, the MLA on July 5, 2011 wrote a letter on his official letter pad to the chairman of Mata Sundari College. The letter was sent to the principal of the college with the recommendation of the chairman.

The senior secondary exam certificate attached with the letter was allegedly forged, Gupta said.