New Delhi, February 17
The railway police has arrested six persons for being allegedly involved in thefts on trains and recovered two laptops, four mobile phones and one purse from their possession, said a senior police official today.

The accused-Raj Kumar (30), a resident of Madhya Pardesh, Vinod Kumar (43), Vindhyachal (23) and Akram (23) are residents of Ghaziabad, Amir (21) of Seelampur, Govind (20) from Hanuman Mandir Yamuna Bazar-were arrested in separate incidents, said the official.

"The two accused-Vinod and Raj-were arrested on Friday on the basis of a complaint filed at New Delhi railway station, reporting the theft of a laptop on the Ahmedabad Rajdhani. The police recovered two laptops from the accused who were involved in four more cases of thefts on trains," said RBS Tyagi, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch).

The accused Vindhyachal was arrested from Sarai Rohilla railway station for allegedly stealing two mobile phones and some other articles.

"Vindhyachal is the mastermind and has committed thefts at the railway stations earlier. He has been arrested for the first time," he said.

However, the other three accused-Govind, Amir and Akram-were arrested from the Walled City near Lal Qilla and platform No. 9, Old Delhi railway station.

During interrogation, Govind allegedly said that he had stolen the phone from Old Delhi railway station.

He said that he steals mobile phones and other articles for his livelihood, said the official.

Amir allegedly admitted to picking the purse of one passenger who was to travel by the Sadhbhawana Express while Akram allegedly told the police that he snatched a mobile phone of an advocate when she was travelling in the Ahmedabad Mail.

New Delhi, February 17
The newly appointed Delhi BJP president, Vijay Goel, today took charge of the state party amidst chanting of mantras, hawan, fireworks and distribution of sweets.

Outgoing president Vijender Gupta offered him a turban and sweets and led him to the chair of the president.

Addressing the workers, Goel raised slogans like "Yachna nahi run hoga, sangharsh maha bhishan hoga".

Goel said that Delhi is set to have a change in the coming 200 days. "Tum mujhe 200 din do, main tumhe Dilli ki sarkar dunga," he said.

Calling upon the workers to fight against the Congress 'misrule', Goel said that the Congress government has failed to fulfill the promises made during the assembly election. It has betrayed the people. "The Chief Minister misleads the people by making false promises and raising hollow slogans. But the people have understood the reality," he said.

Goel also called on former Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana.

New Delhi, February 17
Services of the domestic workers continue to be 'invisible' given their exclusion from the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, even as the states have the discretion to extend it to any other suitable employment. With women constituting 85 per cent of the lot, the dimension of vulnerability too goes up with most of them surviving on meagre incomes.

As the Delhi government doesn't recognise domestic workers as part of the labour force, most of these women are left to fend for themselves given the unkind behaviour and denial of minimum wages by the employers.

While nine states have proactively worked for the section and made amendments to the sixth schedule of the MWA, Delhi, home to nearly 10 lakh domestic helps, is still to show such commitment towards safeguarding their basic rights.

"With no protection mechanism, the domestic workers continue to be exploited. The Delhi government has declared that minimum wage of Rs 7771 be paid to the unskilled labourers, but domestic workers remain out of its ambit," said Kamal Chand Kispotta, project manager of Domestic Workers' Forum.

Even the latest proposed Delhi Private Placement Agencies (Regulation) Bill has drawn criticism from the section and NGOs as it fails to address the rights issues of the section concerned. The Bill came following the Delhi High Court's order in response to a PIL initiated by the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA).

Activists rue the fact that it has always been an uphill task to convince the government to do something for these workers as in the case of bringing them under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Bill, 2012.

Similarly, in the Social Security for the Unorganised Sector Workers Bill, 2008, the government chose to ignore the section earlier until activists led by Medha Pathkar went on wide protests here, following which a draft for a comprehensive Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Act, 2010 was submitted. The draft is still to receive attention of the government even as India is among the 140 countries supporting the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 189, pointed out Kamal Chand.

The ILO Convention 189 spells out that the service of the domestic workers is a recognised occupation and it is essential to safeguard their human rights through provisions of minimum wages as per their working hours along with other benefits like leave, pension security, etc.

Coordinator of Self-Employed Women's Association Lata Ben said, "With hardly any political will visible, they remain deprived of social benefits. Even the latest Aadhar card has failed to address their issues and so we try to push for them through our unions. They are underpaid even after working for more than 15 hours. There is no job security and on top of that, they have to face verbal and sexual abuse."

According to Kamal Chand, a patriarchal mindset is also responsible for the plight of the section with many employers claiming that they don't treat them as employees but as family members, which is just another way to exploit them further.

New Delhi, February 17
Delhi today reported no fatalities due to H1N1 virus as per the health officials even as 60 more people were confirmed as being infected by the flu.

This keeps the toll of deaths at nine and total positive cases as of date reported in the city as 360.

According to health officials, there has been no significant rise in cases of the virus and the rise is attributable to improvement in reporting after the Delhi Health Minister's proactive intervention and monitoring on the flu management in hospitals.

"There have been 60 fresh cases but cases are actually not increasing. There has been a systematic reporting even from small hospitals that is behind the cases going up," said H1N1 nodal official Dr Charan Singh.

New Delhi, February 17
A 200-bedded government hospital will soon come up at Burari as the Delhi government has entrusted Public Welfare Department with the work and also earmarked Rs 208 crore for its construction.

The hospital will be built on four acres given by the Panchayat Department. It will be a multi-speciality hospital. Once ready, it will provide services, including outdoor and indoor patient department, emergency and facilities in the clinical disciplines of medicine, surgery, rthopaedics, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, eye and ENT, besides supportive specialities like anaesthesiology, laboratory and radiology.

In addition, the hospital will provide referral services to the nearby health care facilities like dispensaries and family welfare centres. This hospital will provide its services and medicines to the public free of charge and will have 24x7 emergency.

Health Minister Dr AK Walia said that Burari is one of the important upcoming areas of north Delhi with a mixed rural and urban population, a large number of them from the poorer sections of society.

"Although there are five government dispensaries functioning in the Burari Assembly constituency, there has been a constant demand for a public hospital here," he said.