New Delhi, March 31
As Arvind Kejriwal's fast enters the ninth day today, around 1.27 lakh more people pledged their support to the non-cooperation campaign of the Aam Aadmi Party.

With this, the total count of people who have extended their support to the campaign in Delhi has increased to 6,38,707 till last night, said AAP volunteers.

They said the protest letters signed by the people would be delivered to Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit's residence tomorrow morning.

Gaining strength from people's support, Kejriwal reiterated his allegations that the prices of electricity and water have increased manifold in the Capital due to a nexus between the Sheila Dikshit-led government and private discoms.

"As the number of Delhiites who have decided not to pay their bills swells by the day, the ball is in the court of Sheila Dikshit now. Would she listen to the voice of people who have elected her to power or continue to support private companies?" questioned Kejriwal.

Meanwhile, Kejriwal has grown weak even as his health parameters were within normal range.

"His blood pressure in the morning was 101/63, pulse 65 and sugar 121. He has lost 7 kgs of weight since his fast. His current weight is 58 kg. His ketone report is awaited," AAP said in a statement.

New Delhi, March 31
A former manager of a finance company was arrested for cheating it of Rs 1.5 crore by paying loans to fictitious people on forged documents.

The accused, Vishwanath Tantri (48), is allegedly involved in 35 cases of cheating and forgery, according to the police. A reward of Rs 50,000 was declared for information leading to his arrest. He was the former manager of the Bangaluru branch of the complainant company - Maharishi Housing Development Finance Corporation (MHDFC). It had branches all over India and was engaged in the business of housing finance.

Joint Commissioner of Police, Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police, Sandeep Goel said, "The company had alleged that between 1997 and 2005, Tantri in connivance with his other associates had given housing loans to many people. The loans were given for the purpose of purchasing a house or land in Bangaluru and the surrounding districts of Karnataka."

The housing loans varied from Rs 3 lakh to 5 lakh and were disbursed by the company's head office in Delhi.

The company later learnt that the properties against which the loans were availed were non-existent and the guarantors were not traceable. The MHDFC registered 36 cases at the Sarita Vihar police station in Delhi in 2006. The cases were transferred to the Economic Offences Wing in May 2009.

"We examined the documents that the burrowers had submitted to avail the loans. Most of the documents, including salary slips of Bharat Earth Movers Limited (BEML), verification certificates, property papers and verification certificates from tehsildars were fabricated and forged. Many loans were disbursed to non-existing persons, fake employees of BEML and in the names of some existing persons, who were not even aware that loans had been disbursed in their names," said Goel.

The documents enclosed by the borrower, co-borrower and that of the guarantors with the loan application forms were allegedly verified by Tantri, said the police official.

While explaining the modus operandi involved in the scam, Goel said the borrowers were first made members of Khumbha Credit Co-operative Society Limited in Bangaluru. The loan cheques issued in borrower's name by the MHDFC were deposited in the account of Khumbha Credit Society in Dhanlaxmi Bank. The cheques were encashed by Tantri and his associates.

New Delhi, March 31
The president of the Delhi BJP unit, Vijay Goel, today said that strength of the party has always been its cadre which will be further strengthened.

Coordinated efforts in this regard have already begun all across the city, added Goel while addressing party workers at the BJP district karyakarta sammelans at Naveen Shahdara and North East Districts where district presidents Anil Gupta and Ajay Mahawar were also present.

Goel said that efforts have been initiated in a planned manner to connect the youth, who have a feeling of being used as mere vote banks rather than strength of the nation.

Former MP from the East Delhi constituency Lal Bihari Tiwari, MLAs from the Delhi Vidhan Sabha Mohan Singh Bisht, Sahib Singh Chauhan, Krishan Tyagi were also present in these meetings.

New Delhi, March 31
There appears to be an incongruity between the medication theories practised by infertility/IVF doctors and TB specialists in the national Capital.

Women who go for infertility treatment and are subjected to anti-tuberculosis treatment (ATT) by IVF clinicians for the latent form of TB could be predisposed towards developing multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB later.

However, barring a few cases, infertility specialists both in the government as well as the private set-ups consider treating inactive TB or TB infection integral to rule out its role behind sterility or failed IVF in women.

TB experts only advise treatment for the disease and not the infection when TB bacteria may be dormant with even the national TB treatment protocol. The experts clarify that mere exposure to TB bacterium resulting in the latent form of the disease doesn't necessitate ATT therapy.

Head of the IVF Centre at Maulana Azad Medical College, Dr Sudha Prasad said, "TB is a major cause of infertility in women and among the samples sent for histopathology tests to the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), 12-15 per cent test positive.

If the patient has presented history of TB, with a primary lesion in the chest, the chances of genital clogs and effect on the uterus as a whole could follow.

“Anytime the dormant layer of bacillus may erupt and affect the endometrium of the uterus. So if there is infection, ATT is given for six to nine months depending on the patient's status."

On the other hand, TB experts and a section of gynaecologists and IVF doctors who are averse to treating latent TB, a condition when a person may be harbouring TB bacteria, but may not be diseased, raise concerns that such women could be at risk of acquiring MDR TB during treatment.

Going by the statistics from the NCDC, nearly 12-15 per cent of the infertility group of such women who have gone for infertility management are found to be positive and four-five per cent of these are those who require the second-line TB drug therapy or MDR cases.

"The chances of MDR increase in repeat therapy cases when the level of drug resistance is 12-15 per cent vis-à-vis two-three per cent in the first-time ATT. With high-prevalence of TB in India, as much as 40 per cent of the population is infected by the bacteria still only five-ten per cent is actually suffering from TB," said Dr SK Arora, the additional director of health and head of the TB department with the Delhi government.

Going by the WHO estimates, with 99,000 cases every year, India has the second highest burden of multi-drug resistant TB in the world along with being home to the highest number of TB cases each year--two million.

The government is already battling to tackle the increasing threat of MDR strain of TB owing to multiple reasons, including delay in diagnosis, break in DOTS (Directly Observed Treatment Short Course).

Adding that only active TB is treatable as the scientific principle goes that antibiotics only act on active mycobacterium, Dr Arora stressed, "Doctors should treat the disease and not the infection or the latent bacteria. Concerns over MDR have risen due to the irregularity in ATT and recurrent cases."

Director of the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital's centre of IVF and human reproduction, Dr Abha Majumdar said 30 to 40 per cent of new patients with infertility are being treated or have already received one or multiple courses of ATT for as short as six months to as long as 18 months for the latent tuberculosis.

"It has become a practice these days to treat latent TB as active TB due to which the bacteria are slowly becoming resistant to drugs. The trend is growing in northern India, including Delhi, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh," she added while pointing out that even women with active pulmonary tuberculosis are able to conceive comfortably which further indicates that actively multiplying TB bacteria don't necessarily cause infertility.

"As TB remains a major cause of infertility in women in India, women whose DNA comes positive after the TB-PCR are put on ATT for six months irrespective of whether it is latent or active TB.

“This has resulted in 35 per cent success per cycle," said consultant gynaecologist and infertility specialist Dr Shivani Sachdev Gour at Isis Hospital, Kailash Colony.

New Delhi, March 31
Three people allegedly involved in the supply of drugs were arrested with heroin worth Rs 10 crore in the international market.

They are named Validad Khan, alias Balidas (40), Mukesh, alias Ajay (26), and Mohammed Yasin, alias Pawa (57). The police claimed to have recovered 3.665 kgs of heroin from them.

The police was keeping a tab on the activities of the alleged gang.

Investigators learnt that Mukesh went to Faridpur in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, and returned with heroin.

He was apprehended at Old Delhi railway station on March 17.

"One kg of heroin was recovered from his bag. He disclosed that he had received heroin from Balidas.

A raid was conducted in his house in Bareilly from where another one kg of heroin was seized," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav.

On March 19, Balidas was arrested and the police seized 625 grams of heroin from him, while he was trying to flush it down the toilet. Another 490 grams of heroin was seized from his Scorpio car parked in his house.

On March 20, the police apprehended Yasin from near Jama Masjid and 550 grams of heroin was seized from him.

"Yasin was involved in 17 criminal cases," said Yadav.

New Delhi, March 31
Delhi Technological University (DTU), formerly Delhi College of Engineering, is set to kick off the online admission process for the coming 2013-14 academic session for BTech, MTech and PhD programmes.

In a major development, the board of management of the university has decided to double the number of PhD fellowships from 50 to 100 keeping in view the requirement of PhDs at the national level.

Similar to the previous year, the university will carry out online admissions for its 15 undergraduate programmes on the basis of merit ranks of Joint Entrance Examination, JEE (Main), 2013. These include conventional disciplines of mechanical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering and also the applied engineering disciplines such as electronics and communication engineering, computer engineering, environmental engineering, software engineering, electronics and electrical engineering, automobile engineering, polymer science and chemical technology and mathematics and computing.

The postgraduate programmes cover VLSI design and embedded systems, software engineering, computer engineering, microwave and optical communication, polymer technology, power systems, signal processing and digital design, geo-technical engineering, structural engineering, nano science and technology and bio-informatics.

This year the board has also decided to create one seat over and above the sanctioned intake for admission to the central/state board toppers and also to a single girl child in all its undergraduate engineering programmes.

The online system shall facilitate the candidates to first register for admission and then submit their choices of the preferred branches online. The system will be fully secured and the candidates would be able to obtain their admission status from anywhere using the internet facility. The candidates who have been declared eligible for central counselling by the CBSE and have secured 60 per cent or more marks in the aggregate of physics, chemistry and mathematics will be eligible for admission.

For BTech MTech and PhD admissions, DTU admission website www.dtuadmissions.nic.in will be operational from April 8. The admission process will begin soon after the declaration of JEE (Main) 2013 results. All admissions will be completed by July 31. The academic session will begin on August 1 as per the existing practice.

This online admission system was adopted two years ago and with a positive feedback, has made a comeback this year.

For the 17 MTech (postgraduate) programmes the admissions will be on the basis of a combined consideration of valid GATE score (80 per cent) and performance in the interview (20 per cent) before the postgraduate selection board of the department concerned.