New Delhi, October 11
A 55-year-old US-based Non-Resident Indian (NRI) was found dead in a hotel room here, the Delhi police said on Thursday.

Verghese, a native of Kerala settled in New York, was found dead on Wednesday evening in a south Delhi hotel where he had been staying for the past few days. One of the hotel staff noticed his body lying on bed and informed the police.

“No injury mark was found on victim’s body. It will be too early to say anything if he was killed or died naturally. Victim’s postmortem report is awaited from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences,” said a police official.

Preliminary investigation, the official said, revealed that the incident came to light around 8.30 pm, when a hotel staffer went to clean the room and found Verghese’s body on bed. He immediately informed his senior staff. They then informed the police.

“The hotel staff said that the victim’s room was unlocked. We are investigating the case from all possible angles,” the official added. Verghese ran a business for which he came to the Capital every alternate month.

The police is also speculating the case to be of a suicide as it has reportedly found a suicide note from the spot.

New Delhi, October 11
The relay hunger strike of Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) continued on its second day today with 11 teachers from SGTB Khalsa College, Sri Aurobindo College (Morning), Kirori Mal College and Ram Lal Anand College (Evening) sitting alongside the elected members of the Academic Council (AC) and Executive Council (EC) of the university. DUTA joint secretary Prof. D. N. Dahiya also sat on the strike today.

Besides, the office-bearers of Delhi University and College Karamchari Union (DUCKU) reached the spot and addressed a gathering of teachers and students.

Teachers from IP College, Miranda House, Mata Sundri College and Hindu College also took part in the protest.

In his public address, longtime DUTA activist and former AC and EC member Inder Mohan Kapahy lambasted the vice-chancellor for taking hasty steps to bring about changes which are lacking in accountability.

Taking the enthusiastic response of the teachers into account, DUTA has decided to observe a candlelight vigil tomorrow between 5 pm and 7 pm. On Sunday evening, the cultural group Parcham is expected to regale the teachers with its repertoire of revolutionary songs.

Meanwhile, the hunger strike will continue on all these days with more colleges joining in. Teachers from Hindu College, Dyal Singh College (Morning), Swami Shraddhanand College and Sri

Ram College of Commerce are scheduled to take over tomorrow and continue the relay hunger strike.

New Delhi, October 11
Delhi Health and Labour Minister A.K. Walia today directed the department concerned that the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) scheme should be extended to domestic workers, street vendors, railway porters and hawkers.

At present, the scheme covers people of below poverty line (BPL), vulnerable families identified by mission convergence and the construction workers registered with the Delhi Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board. The scheme presently covers about one lakh families having about five lakh members. The revised scheme is expected to benefit eight lakh families in Delhi comprising about 40 lakh members.

This decision was taken at a meeting of senior officials. Representatives from the three municipal corporations, NDMC, northern railway, divisional commissioner, Delhi Medical Association, Oriental Insurance Company and the labour department, which is the nodal department to implement the scheme, also attended the meeting.

Walia directed all stakeholders to extend their full co-operation and efforts to ensure that the scheme covers the maximum number of eligible families so that the citizens of Delhi are not compelled to go to quacks or take loans for the medical treatment of their near and dear ones.

The domestic workers can approach their resident welfare associations or the office of Sub-divisional Magistrate, the vendors can approach the office of the civic agency. The railway porters should contact the local railway authorities for further details. Details can also be obtained through shramik helpline number 12789 (toll free).

The minister said that by making a token payment of Rs 30 the beneficiary family comprising five members becomes entitled to medical benefits of up to Rs 30,000 per year from empanelled hospitals.

New Delhi, October 11
The BJP has decided to start 40 days of public movement in Delhi from October 14 to protest against the hike in power, water and cooking gas tariffs.

Delhi BJP chief Vijender Gupta said that the city government is working against all the democratic norms. People are angry with the hike in power, water tariffs and inflated electricity bills. During the movement, the BJP activists will ask the people to pressurize the government into withdrawing the hiked tariffs.

The BJP will provide free legal aid to those poor people who have been left in the lurch by the India against Corruption. Their power supply has again been disconnected and criminal cases have been filed against them, said Gupta.

Power tariff should have been decreased by 23 per cent. Now the common man is being served power and water bills amounting to Rs 6,000 to Rs 7,000. The people do not know how to pay the bills, added the BJP chief.

New Delhi, October 11
Celebrating Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s birthday has become an annual affair at Kirori Mal College (KMC), Delhi University (DU), now. However, the merrymaking was on a different high altogether today, on Amitabh’s 70th birthday.

An alumnus, Amitabh completed his graduation in science from KMC. He was also the part of one of the most popular theatre societies of DU ‘Players’. Some of its other former members include actors like Kulbhushan Kharbanda and filmmaker Satish Kaushik.

New Delhi, October 11
As testimonies of people from across the country came to the fore during a public hearing held today, ahead of the national convention on the seventh anniversary of the Right to Implementation (RTI) Act, 2005, to be held here, access to information under the act is not that easy even in the country’s Capital.

There were many at the hearing, organised by the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information here, who shared problems in accessing to satisfactory information pertaining to several government departments dealing with public distribution system (PDS) and widow pension.

Ghanshyam Nawaria, whose mother Rukmini Devi of Lalgumat Camp in Panchsheel Park died awaiting pension, is still to receive any concrete reply from the Central Information Commission (CIC) even as five years have passed after he filed an RTI in 2008 when his mother’s widow pension was stopped.

“After my mother’s pension was stopped in 2008, I filed an RTI with the MCD on which I got no reply till date while my mother expired in March 2010. The government officials have always been inaccessible, and all my reminders fell on deaf ears,” he said.

In another instance of apathy of government officials and poor distribution of the PDS, it was seen that the ration was stopped to one Shanu Devi (40), a widow and speech and hearing impaired, who lives with her 12-year-old son at Jagdamba camp in South Delhi

She is an Antodaya card holder and it has been several months now that her ration has been stopped and apparently, it was found that on her registration card someone else was given the benefits, said Ashok Kumar of Sarthak Nagrik Sangathan who found out that Shano was not alone in this case. Twelve other people were also denied ration in the same area.

“I have appealed twice and it has been seven months now after the second RTI in March 2012, I’m still to get a satisfactory response to the application I filed to the MCD,” he said while drawing attention to the lack of cooperation of the officials and indifference of the information commissioners here.

Social activist Dunu Roy, director of Hazard Centre, said that the main aim of the act has been distorted. “People should be claiming power for themselves, but now it has emerged that power is being surrendered to the commission. It should be resting with people in a democracy.”