New Delhi, February 18
An employee of a sweet shop at Gole Market in New Delhi was shot at on his head allegedly by a security guard of a cash van during an argument over jalebis this evening.

The police have arrested the guard, Neeraj Kumar, who worked for the CMS cash van company. A police officer, privy to the details of the case, said, "He was chased down by a beat officer of the Mandir Marg police station."

The victim, Satender Singh, is an employee of the Bangla Sweet Shop, where the incident took place. The police were informed about the firing at 7.45 pm.

According to the officer, Kumar had arrived with a cash van outside the sweet shop. He entered the shop to buy jalebis (sweet). "He had an argument with Singh, who was at the counter. The argument may have started because Kumar was not getting his sweets on time. He used his gun to fire at Singh, who has suffered a bullet injury in his head," said the officer.

Singh was admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. His condition is stated to be critical.

The police have registered a case of attempt to murder against Kumar.

New Delhi, February 18
A provision of Rs 141.44 crore has been kept for educational services by the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) with capital outlay of Rs 4.04 crore in budget estimate for 2014-15 announced by NDMC chairman Jalaj Shrivastava today.

Shrivastava said the NDMC plans to set up a state-of-the-art training institute for primary teachers for which building space is already available to cater to the training needs of at least 50 teachers at a time. The institute will be a residential, self-sufficient institution with 24-hour canteen facility, etc.

The institute will set a benchmark in teaching standards and will help in setting up a yardstick for measuring performance and ascertaining accountability of teachers, said the chairman.

Shirvastava was speaking on the occasion of the foundation day function of Navyug School at Convention Centre this morning. A large member of former staff members and students of Navyug School including foundation batch were felicitated on the occasion.

The school was founded in 1973 by the NDMC at Sarojini Nagar. After the success of this school, the NDMC opened 10 more branches in the New Delhi area. All branches are run by Navyug School Education Society funded by the NDMC.

New Delhi, February 18
Faced with criticism over its recent remarks related to a survey on corruption showing dramatic decline in corruption level in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today issued an apology clarifying that party's chief Arvind Kejriwal and another leader Shazia Ilmi statements were based on the version of a former employee of Transparency International India (TII).

"Shazia learnt about a survey that showed a dramatic fall in the levels of corruption in Delhi after the AAP government came to power. Since the information came from someone who was an employee of TII, she assumed that it was a TII survey," said the party in a statement issued here.

This information appeared in a newspaper report and in his address at the CII yesterday Kerjiwal had said that corruption cases have fallen drastically in Delhi after the party came to power.

"Since then we have come to know that the said survey had no connection with TII and source of Shazia's information had quit TII by then. We regret this error....AAP...offers apologies for any embarrassment that this controversy may have caused to the organisation," the statement added.

However, Shazia said an independent agency had conducted a survey according to which corruption has gone down in Delhi after her party formed the government. In her tweet she said, "There is indeed a study done by an independent agency asserting that Delhi was cleaner and less corrupt in AKs 49 days....It will be out soon."

On the other side, the private company has rejected her claim. In a press statement executive director of TII Ashutosh Kumar Mishra said, "The information shared by Shazia is factually incorrect. We have not undertaken any study on corruption in Delhi and so there is no question of any such published or unpublished report."

New Delhi, February 18
With students and teachers upping the ante against the Delhi University administration to demand the rollback of the Four Years Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) MPs, leaders of political parties, trade unions, women's groups and civil society bodies too joined them in their protest march from Zakir Hussain College to Parliament Street today.

Protesters raised slogans against the Central government, Kapil Sibal and DU Vice-Chancellor (VC) Dinesh Singh and also demanded a reversal of the education policies favouring commercialisation and PPP model and removal of the VC. They condemned the government's decision to award him with a Padma Shri.

Among the prominent names who participated were AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Ashutosh, Sitaram Yechury of CPI (M), OP Kohli of BJP, Tarun Kumar Mandal of SUCI (Communist), Udit Raj of SC/ST Federation, DP Tripathi of NCP, Kavita Krishnan of CPI-ML and AIPWA, Jagmati Sangwan of AIDWA and Iqbal Singh Sindhu of AIFUCTO, All India Forum for Right to Education of AIFRTE.

While talking on the issue of commercialisation of education and large-scale contractualisation in teaching jobs, Sisodia criticised the DU VC for his "callous disregard of all democratic norms and processes, as was recently evident in the controversy over the formation of governing bodies in the Delhi government colleges. There is a need to build popular resistance against the government's commercialisation agenda in education, he said.

DU Teachers' Association (DUTA) president Nandita Narain expressed the DUTA's resolve to intensify the struggle and warned the government that its indifference to the plight of the DU would cost it heavily in the general elections.

New Delhi, February 18
Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony presented the trophy for the Best Marching Contingent of the Republic Day Parade, 2014, to the Director General of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Dilip Trivedi, in Delhi yesterday.

The CRPF has been adjudged the best marching contingent of the Republic Day Parade.

Antony presented the Best Marching Contingent Trophy to Trivedi at the South Block. Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Defence and senior CRPF officers, including Inspector General (Administration) R.P. Pandey, Inspector General (Works) Shailendra Kumar, Deputy Inspector General (Training) Praveen Kumar and the parade contingent commander Assistant Commandant Jagan Nath Jena were also present on the occasion.

On this Republic Day, the CRPF was awarded one Kirti Chakra, two President's Police Medals for Gallantry and 13 Police Medals for Gallantry, the highest among any other Indian police force.

New Delhi, February 18
A teenager was allegedly molested by a 28-year-old man near a well-known hotel in West Delhi, said a police officer today. The man has been arrested and is identified as Sandeep Dabas, who is a resident of Nangloi. The accused is the son of an owner of a security agency. He was arrested after the victim, who also stays in Nangloi, complained to the police against him.

She works as a beautician at Paschim Vihar. According to the police, she said Dabas had been stalking her for the past few days.

Last evening, the victim was heading to her house when Dabas allegedly accosted and molested her near a hotel in Paschim Vihar.

"She told the police that she had made Dabas aware that she did not want to speak with him, but he would still persist," said the officer.

The police have registered a case of molestation against Dabas.