New Delhi, December 13
The Delhi University Teachers' Association attributes the debacle of Congress government in Delhi to the fact that the Central and Delhi governments supported the move to introduce the Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) in the university earlier this year despite widespread resentment from teachers and students.

DUTA president Nandita Narain said, "The Congress governments at the Centre and Delhi have blindly endorsed the FYUP and supported the vice-chancellor when he forcibly implemented it despite criticism from several quarters.

“This has led to anger among students, parents and teachers who have overwhelmingly voted against the Congress for not heeding public opinion on FYUP and risking the students' careers."

To take stock of the FYUP as it completes its first semester, DUTA has called a meeting in which it will share the contents of detailed feedback from the students of three colleges, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Miranda House and St. Stephen's College, with the media.

DUTA will also share its alternative proposal to the FYUP and its plan to organise a joint movement of students and teachers.

According to DUTA, students and teachers have unambiguously rejected the FYUP, as has already been revealed earlier through the students' referendum conducted in September and the detailed staff association resolutions passed in 48 colleges of the university in November.

All the same, the MHRD and the UGC have not felt the need to intervene or demand a review of the programme while the university community has resented the government's indifference on such an important issue, noted DUTA secretary Harish Khanna.

The tall claims made by the university on enhancing students' skills for employability through the FYUP courses will be put under the scrutiny of facts, he added. 

New Delhi, December 13
Showing courage, a 25-year-old woman journalist, who works with a leading electronic channel, not just fought back two men who molested her but also managed to catch one of them and handed him over to the police.

According to the police, the incident took place near a renowned public school in Mayur Vihar area of east Delhi yesterday when the woman was returning home.

The accused, identified as Shafiq, was taken to Pandav Nagar police station where a case of molestation and outraging modesty of a woman was lodged against him.

"Shafiq is a resident of Begusarai in Bihar and lived in East Delhi area for the last two years. His associate, who managed to flee, has been identified as Fantoos," said a police official.

The two accused saw the woman alone in the area and started hurling lewd comments and making obscene gestures at her. The victim initially ignored them but when they continued to harass her she fought back.

Hearing the commotion, passersby also came to her aid. Seeing this, the duo tried to flee but the woman caught one of them, the official said.

He was then handed over to the police. Police have launched efforts to apprehend Fantoos who is absconding after the incident. — PTI

New Delhi, December 13
The Delhi Police have arrested a maulvi of a mosque in Mewat. He is allegedly a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorist and was planning a terror strike in Delhi with his Pakistan-based commanders.

The accused has been identified as Mohammad Shahid, who is presently working as a maulvi of Noorani Masjid (mosque) in Nuh district of Mewat, Haryana.

"He has disclosed that he had joined a LeT module of Mewat about six months ago. Since then he has been working under Mewat-based handlers," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav.

According to Yadav, Shahid claimed that his local handlers were in touch with Pakistan-based LeT commanders.

"They were at an advanced stage of planning a terrorist strike in Delhi. Shahid's handlers had given him the responsibility of arranging logistics and communication for the terrorist attack," said the officer.

The police are now trying to trace the alleged associates of Shahid, who have gone underground.

Before Shahid's arrest, the police last month were informed that an alleged LeT terrorist, Javed Baluchi of Pakistan, had been in touch with the LeT module of Mewat and a terrorist strike was being planned.

The police also learnt of a member of this module who was travelling in Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan.

They began their investigations into this case and arrested Shahid.

New Delhi, December 13
Chairman of the All India Confederation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Organization, Udit Raj suggested the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to form the government as this was the golden chance for the party to fulfil the promises made during the election campaign.

When the Congress has offered unconditional support to the AAP, why Arvind Kejriwal is hesitating in forming the government, said Raj.

In the election manifesto, the AAP said that if it was voted to power, the AAP would get the electricity tariff cut up to 50 per cent.

Each individual would be provided 700-ltr water. Now he should do whatever he said, according to Udit Raj.

He said that he would organize a rally on December 16 at Jantar Mantar, asking the Union Government to introduce reservation in private sector, promotion, fill backlog posts by special drive, equal education, land to the landless, enact Reservation Act, legislation of special component plan and tribal sub-plan, caste certificate issued by one state should be valid in all states and increase scholarship amount in proportion to price rise.

Udit Raj said that he had invited Kejriwal to share the dais with him in the rally. He also invited leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress and other parties.

New Delhi, December 13
Delhi BJP president Vijay Goel today said that the BJP is ready to sit in the opposition and provide constructive cooperation to an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government.

"The AAP had made many promises, including reducing power tariff by 50 per cent and providing free water up to 700 litres per day. If AAP is really serious about fulfilling these promises, it should go ahead and form a government and the BJP will provide whatever cooperation is required. After all it has already celebrated its 'victory' at Jantar Mantar," Goel said.

If they do not form the government, it makes clear that the AAP was never serious about fulfilling these promises which were made with a lot of fanfare, he added.

"I hope that instead of giving moral lessons to others, the AAP now really gets down to fulfilling its promises. The fact is that the AAP has made several promises in a hurry just to woo the voters. It still has not made it clear as to how it is going to implement them. In fact, with every passing day, the way AAP is trying to give different excuses which expose their intentions."

Goel said, "The BJP believes in providing constructive support to any initiative which serves the interest of Delhi. For us the interests of Delhi residents are above everything. We have been serving the people of Delhi and we would continue to do so."

"While the BJP has issued several detailed reports and has come out openly explaining the way it is going to implement its promises, the AAP has adopted a negative agenda. Instead of criticising all others, it should adopt a positive agenda as people of Delhi want a positive agenda," he said.

New Delhi, December 13
As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives and in view of the recent concerns regarding the safety of women, BSES Yamuna Power Limited (BYPL) has partnered with the Delhi Police Special Unit for Women to impart self-defence training to school students (girls) and young women, said a senior BSES official.

The initiative strives to equip the participants with the necessary skills, making them capable of taking care of their safety. Besides the physical training, the participants are also given tips to handle sticky situations. They are told to share the knowledge with their friends, neighbours and family members.

"In the first phase, over 500 young girls and women have already been trained as part of this initiative. The training programme has so far been organized at five locations, including three schools in East and Central Delhi. Looking at the overwhelming response, the training programme will be rolled out in more schools and colleges in East and Central Delhi," he said.

The training is being imparted by the Delhi Police Special Unit for Women and Children, Nanakpura. The programme spread over 10 days strives to educate women and young girls on the importance of speaking out, raising the alarm and getting out of tricky situations, he said.

Schools where this training programme has already been organized include Rajkiya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya (Yamuna Vihar), Happy School (Daryaganj) and Eknath Sarvodhya Kandya Vidyalaya (G T Road).

"The girls that participated in the training shared that they all felt more confident after attending the ten-day programme," added the official.

On successful completion of the module, the participants are also awarded certificates by the Delhi Police.

New Delhi, December 13
Hope shines for missing children as the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) has launched a nationwide portal dedicated to tracking missing and trafficked children in the country. This comes in the wake of the direction of the Supreme Court in response to the writ petition filed by Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), an NGO.

For long child rights activists have been pushing for a highly professional and scalable child tracking system that could integrate child protection units at central, state, district, city and block levels along with all special juvenile police units, police stations, juvenile justice boards and child welfare committees.

This portal www.trackthemissingchild.gov.in will go a long way in tracing over 1,00,000 children going missing every year and is also designed to interlink all children institutes and welfare committees.

The portal contains a central database of children that have gone missing or are in various shelter homes across the country. It is the largest of its kind in the world and comes on a long standing demand of the BBA to ensure investigation and recovery of children going missing across the country.

The NGO has been instrumental role in assisting the government for designing the software.

Commenting about the launch of the portal, founder of BBA Kailash Satyarthi said, "Every hour 11 children go missing in India and over 1,00,000 children have remained untraced in the last three years alone. Most of these children become victims of physical and sexual exploitation, prostitution and slavery. There is no greater vacuum, no bigger void than the haplessness felt by the parents of children who go missing and they do not get any help. This portal will go a long way in restoring the hope of all such parents".

Activists expressed hope that this centralised data would help in prosecution and conviction of traffickers of missing children. The BBA has also demanded that the details of convicts must be uploaded on the website.