New Delhi, January 9
A day after the Supreme Court summons seven states and a union territory, including Punjab, Haryana and Delhi, for explaining the disturbing sex ratio, legal experts and activists today called for making crucial provisions in the form “F”. The provisions include submitting the form online to avoid tampering and making the Mother & Child Tracking System (MCTS) mandatory in the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of sex selection) Act, 1994.

In this direction, while the Delhi government will propose a new scheme “Balika Samridhhi Yojna” to be implemented under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in the southwest district, which has the city’s lowest female sex ratio 836 girls per 1,000 boys; the step to introduce the online system for the form “F” is stuck due to some software glitch.

Form “F” is a legal document that is to be signed by an ultra-sonologist and the patient declaring that no communication regarding the sex of the foetus has happened and no selection test has been performed and any violation is cognisable, non-bailable and non-compoundable.

But with not many convictions across the country, leave alone Delhi, the need for having a strict monitoring system was extensively discussed during a daylong conference on gender-based sex selection organised by the Centre for Social Research.

The fresh initiative is basically a recommendation made by the Deputy Commissioner of Southwest District, Vikas Anand, who has also put forth several other suggestions towards making the PNDT law foolproof.

“To encourage people to join in the save girl child campaign in the district which is worst affected, we have approached the city government for the scheme under which two girls of the family will get Rs 2 lakh each after the completion of 18 years. We are in talks with the LIC for the policy,” he said.

New Delhi, January 9
Delhi University today discussed fresh initiatives to make the campus safer for girl students. Political student groups also held protests on campus throughout the day on the same issue.

In a meeting chaired by the Vice-Chancellor Dinesh Singh and attended by senior university officials, police officials of north Delhi, provosts and principals of women colleges, the university decided to bring about new measures for a more secure environment in and around campus.

Apart from additional booths, increased video surveillance, police pickets and tackling vulnerable spots, some fresh initiatives were also discussed.

DU and senior police officials have agreed with the VC’s suggestion to create a “practical action plan” for making the district safe, based on a detailed study of the campus and its neighbourhood.

The study will be conducted by the NCC and NSS students as well as faculty members along with the Delhi police.

The Vice-Chancellor also suggested that volunteers from the NCC and NSS could be associated with the police and help in regulating vehicular traffic on campus.

The university has also offered to hold gender-sensitization workshops for the Delhi police.

Meanwhile, student wings of the Bharatiya Janata Party, ABVP, and the National Congress Party, NSUI, today organised simultaneous protests on North Campus. While the ABVP supporters called for a safer Delhi University, citing their “active” participation in the recent protests against the brutal gangrape of a 23-year-old paramedical student on a moving bus.

NSUI-led Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) leaders marched against the “misogynistic statements made by the leaders of BJP and Sangh Parivar”.

New Delhi, January 9
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) today directed its municipal commissioner to take action against property tax defaulters of the Central, State and semi-government institutes and departments and attach their bank accounts.

South Delhi Mayor Savita Gupta in a meeting with the commissioner discussed increasing the ambit of property tax in order to raise the sources of revenue. — TNS