New Delhi, January 6
While demanding an enquiry into the role of the Home Ministry and the Delhi Government, the Bharatiya Janata Party opposed “the act of the Delhi police for muzzling the voice of the media”.

To register their protest, hundreds of workers led by the BJP Delhi unit president Vijender Gupta gathered today at Jantar Mantar where scores of people have been coming daily, demanding justice for the 23-year-old gangrape victim.

Agitated party workers raised slogans against the Congress-led UPA Government and Delhi police, accusing them of suppressing the media and covering up their failure in handling the situation since the brutal incident on December 16, 2012.

Addressing the gathering, BJP Delhi Pradesh president Vijender Gupta lashed the Congress governments both at the Centre and in Delhi for running a dynastic rule and misusing the police and the government machinery.

“The role of the Home Ministry and the Chief Minister of Delhi is also suspect and enquiry should take cognisance of the role of both of them. The objective of the Congress is to continue in power somehow. Whoever raises his voice against it is implicated in legal tangles and their voice is suppressed. The government cannot impose restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression and the BJP will oppose it from the street to Parliament,” stated Gupta.

The protest comes two days after the friend of the gangrape victim narrated the whole incident breaking his silence for the first time since the barbaric incident.

Following this, the Delhi police went ahead and declared a case on Friday under Section 228 (A) of IPC (pertaining to disclosure of identity of victim of certain offences, including rape) against the Zee News channel for broadcasting the interview of the victim’s friend.

The Congress-led government is anti-people and wants to impose an undeclared emergency and the BJP along with people of Delhi will foil the attempt of the government, the activists said while charging the Congress government authorities with negligence of duties and insensitivity towards women.

Former Mayor Arti Mehra said that despite the fact that the Congress president and Chief Minister of Delhi are women, atrocities and crime against women are increasing. 

New Delhi, January 6
Addressing a packed hall, seasoned alumni of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) today returned to their alma mater at a special meet and fondly shared the memories of their association with the student union.

Several former JNUSU presidents, including the likes of CPI-M leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury, social scientist Anand Kumar, National Congress Party general secretary Devi Prasad Tripathi and several others today spoke on “life beyond JNUSU”.

Karat who joined the first batch at the university in October 1970 recalled how the JNUSU came into being and how the JNUSU constitution, by which elections take place even today, was conceived.

“I was quite satisfied to see the JNU students participating and speaking out on the recently reported heinous gangrape. The union taking a stand on issues dates back to its inception. We struggled to get a student union in place and worked on a democratic constitution which was duly passed by all the schools in their General Body meetings. The JNUSU stood firmly during the Emergency. Several of us were jailed, but we fought through. We didn’t let the union die,” he said.

“It was painful for me when the judiciary intervened and curbed elections at JNU in 2008. We approached the Chief Justice of India and told him that ‘grave miscarriage of justice has been done’. The JNUSU is an inseparable part of the varsity and thankfully after a hiatus of three years, the union has returned. It equipped us to face the harsh realities of life outside campus back then, and it would continue to inspire others in the future,” he added.

Professor Anand Kumar went on to credit his time with the JNUSU as what taught him ‘true leadership’. Rashmi Doraiswamy, renowned author and film critic who was the first female JNUSU president, added that the JNUSU experience made it possible for people with sharp differences in ideologies to still be cordial both inside and outside campus.

Later during the day, Sitaram Yechury spilled the beans as how he was elected the JNUSU president three times from April 1977 to February 1978.

“When as the JNUSU president, I signed a joined memorandum with ABVP-led Delhi University student union against the Emergency, it was heavily opposed. The university General Body meeting decided it was wrong and I resigned. For the first time ‘right to recall’ was implemented here then. The first time the Indian Parliament used it was in VP Singh’s government in 1989,” he proudly said. 

New Delhi, January 6
The election of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) to be held on January 27 has a number of historic developments.

With the decision of the government to amend the Delhi Gurdwara Management (DGM) Act 1971, it was obvious that the Delhi government was in favour of delaying the DSGMC election further though it had already been delayed for two years.

This decision of the city government had also made it clear that the Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi) president Paramjit Singh Sarna has Congress leanings.

The decision to amend the DGM Act 1971 for implementing the presidential system in the gurdwara committee had upset all the opposition parties, including the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) that was in power in the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) at Amritsar.

Having sensed the government idea behind amending the Act, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, appealing to him to get the DSGMC election conducted according to the DGM Act 1971.

The case was also filed in the Supreme Court by the Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi-UK) and the Dashmesh Sewa Society.

The court had directed the Delhi government to get the DSGMC election conducted by December 31, 2012. Following the court’s direction, the government issued a notification. The last date for filing nomination papers is January 7.

This election has another historic development as for the first time, an MLA, Tarvinder Singh Marwah, former Parliamentary Secretary of the Chief Minister of Delhi, has filed nomination papers to contest the election. In Delhi Legislative Assembly, he represents Jangpura constituency of the Congress.

The main issues in the election are corruption, decline in the education standard of the Guru Harkishan Public Schools run by the DSGMC, formation of trust for handling the issue of under-construction Guru Harkishan Hospital and the citizenship issue of the Sikhs migrated from Afghanistan.

The main parties contesting the election are the Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi), Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi-UK), Dashmesh Sewa Society and Kendruya Guru Singh Sabha. The SAD Delhi UK and Dashmesh Sewa Society has an alliance.

Two major parties—the Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)—will do their best to come to power as the DSGMC is the second richest body of the Sikh community in India after the SGPC. Money can also play a role in the election, say political pundits.

According to the Directorate of Gurdwara Election, Delhi government, the total number of voters are 4,11,218 and there are 46 seats and 553 polling stations.

The highest number of voters is in Sahibpura ward (37,747) followed by Punjabi Bagh and other wards. The main candidates are Paramjit Singh Sarna, Manjit Singh (GK) and Tarvinder Singh Marwah. Sarna will face Manjinder Singh Sarsa of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal).

New Delhi, January 6
Intense cold continued to trouble Delhiites as icy winds refused to subside and the minimum temperature reached the season’s lowest, settling at a chilling 1.9 degree Celsius. It is after five years that the minimum temperature dipped below 2 degrees in the city.

“Earlier, it was in January 2008 that the temperature touched 1.9 degrees. Fog enveloped the city in the morning with visibility dropping to 400 meters at 8.30 am. But it cleared in less than two hours,” said a senior official of the India Meteorological Department. “Today’s minimum was five degrees below normal and down from yesterday’s 2.9 degree Celsius. The maximum temperature today also registered a significant slump, recorded at 11.8 deg C—nine degrees below the average for this time of the season.

Earlier in the week on Wednesday, the Capital witnessed the coldest day in 44 years when the maximum plummeted to 9.8 degrees.

The Delhi government has already directed city schools to be closed till January 12, keeping the inclement weather in view.

“The morning hours are the worst. It is quite a task for children to get ready for school and report on time. The move will definitely provide some relief,” said, Pratibha, a schoolteacher.

Even as the rail traffic was hit today due to the cold wave across north India, operations at Indira Gandhi International Airport remained mostly uninterrupted.

“Four flights were cancelled and five rescheduled due to bad weather at the destination airports. We implemented low visibility procedures for nearly 3 hours during the wee hours today, however no flights were disrupted or delayed due to bad weather or foggy conditions in the Capital,” read an update from the airport authority.

“Thirteen trains were cancelled and nearly 60 trains got delayed by two to 12 hours, the northern railway said. Nearly 25 trains were rescheduled,” said the Northern Railway spokesperson. The weatherman predicts mist and shallow fog again, tomorrow morning with the maximum and minimum temperatures likely to hover around three to 12 degree Celsius respectively.