New Delhi, April 24
In a tragic incident, five persons of a family, including three children, were charred to death while a minor sustained severe burns when a major fire broke out under mysterious circumstances inside their house at the congested Zakir Nagar locality of Jamia Nagar in southeast Delhi late last night, a police officer said.

The deceased were identified as Firoz (45), his wife Yasmin (40), their children Afroz (12), Asif (7) and Afreen (11). All had sustained 80 per cent burns. The only survivor in the family, Amir (4), is battling for life in Safdarjung Hospital.

The Delhi Fire Service received a call at 1.40 am and rushed two fire tenders. The firemen doused the fire within 35 minutes and rushed the victims to Safdarjung Hospital. Yasmin and Afreen were declared brought dead to hospital while others succumbed to their injuries.

Feroz was head of the family and lived in a rented house. He had purchased a flat in the same area and planned to shift there on Sunday. He had an embroidery factory in the nearby area.

The officer said that the cause of the fire had not yet been confirmed. Despite the recovery of a kerosene bottle from the room where the family were burnt, the cause of the fire is unclear. Neighbours and police sources speculated that it could be a suicide as no apparent call for help was heard from the room bolted from inside.

The only sounds neighbours claimed to have heard at the time of the incident were those of the blaze and faint moans of Feroz.

Naim Hasan, a tenant on the same floor of the building said that he sensed heat emanating from Feroz's flat. He realized that the flat had caught fire and called out the residents who tried to break open the door.

"It took us about 40 minutes to break the door using an axe. Till then we collected water from tanks and poured it in after breaking open the window and through the cracks that had emerged on the door," said Athar Hasan, the owner of the building.

Among several angles being probed by the police is the possibility of the family being sedated by one of the parents. Murder is not being ruled out either even as the police await the postmortem report.

"The victims had suffered extensive burns and also inhaled lots of smoke," said Dr Karoon Agrawal, director of Burns and Plastic Surgery Department at Safdarjung Hospital. He added it was difficult to say if the five-year-old Asif would survive.

New Delhi, April 24
Gearing up to meet the power requirement during the summer season, senior officials of Delhi government today visited the 1500 MW Bawana power plant and reviewed its preparedness.

Principal Secretary (Power) Arun Goyal who made a visit to the plant was accompanied by Managing Director of Pragati Power Corporation Ltd (PPCL) and Additional Secretary (Power) Ankur Garg and District Magistrate (North-West) Udit Prakash Rai.

In recent months, full capacity of the plant has not been utilized due to non-availability of gas. At the present levels of gas availability, the plant can generate 350 MW for Delhi. With the gas production likely to pick up in the future, full potential of the plant will be realized.

With both the modules declared for commercial operation, the plant is in full technical readiness to service 1500 MW to Delhi.

The team of senior officials from PPCL made a detailed presentation on the progress of ongoing works and apprised the visiting dignitaries of various factors such as availability of gas to meet the power requirements during the ensuing months.

The functioning of both the modules of gas and steam turbines was inspected.

The plant has an installed capacity of 1500 MW and the entire capacity has been declared for commercial operation from March 27. The plant consists of six units, four gas units and two steam turbines.

The work for this project was awarded to M/s BHEL on turnkey basis. The foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister on March 24 2008.

Bawana is the largest capacity gas plant in Northern India and the second largest in the country.

The plant stands out amongst other similar plants as it exclusively uses sewerage-treated water for its operations and has no dependence on ground or fresh water source.

New Delhi, April 24
With the arrest of Ramesh Chand Aggarwal and his son Neeraj Kumar Aggarwal, the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police today claimed to have busted a racket of selling disputed land on the basis of forged documents.

They used to sell the land under the name of Maha Maya Builders Private Limited, said a police officer.

According to the police, they used to look for the disputed property. After having identified such property, it was very easy for them to make forged title documents of the property to sell to an innocent buyer. They got a private limited company registered to project their credibility in order to induce innocent persons.

They identified one property at Karbala Lane, Lodhi Colony, New Delhi, and prepared forged documents and entered into an agreement with one Ajay Chaudhry for selling it at Rs 12 crore.

In another instance, they identified property of about 100 bighas at Mehrauli and prepared forged documents and entered into an agreement to sell it to one Ravinder Singh at Rs 5.65 crore.

When both the victims came to know that they had been cheated, they got the complaints registered with the Economic Offences Wing. However, the accused had disappeared and the police declared them proclaimed offenders. Later, they were arrested, the police said.

New Delhi, April 24
Pointing at a mismatch between what is said and done, the assurances coming from the Centre and various state governments towards addressing the concerns surrounding child rights do not reflect in their party manifestos released ahead of the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Every second child in India is malnourished (NFHS -III, 2005-2006) yet the issue has failed to be on the priority list of the electoral agenda of most political parties, with only five of the 10 in the country making a mention of the matter in their election manifestos, says a recent report.

As per the analysis of manifestos of at least 10 major political parties by Child Rights and You (CRY), only five have mentioned malnutrition in their manifestos and among them only four parties - BJP, CPI, DMK and CPI (M) - have incorporated a separate section for children issues.

While the Congress, BJP, CPI, CPI (M) and the NCP have spoken about measures to reduce malnutrition, parties like the AAP, AIADMK, DMK, SP and the AITMC have said nothing about tackling an issue as grave as malnutrition, the report stated.

This election has witnessed issues like corruption, development, good governance, women empowerment and safety soaring high on electoral agendas for most parties, but children's issues seem to be on the back burner yet again.

However, the weight given to children is better than 2009 manifestos as child rights issues constitute on an average only 11 per cent of the content of the manifestos.

"Children constitute one third of the country's population, yet they remain one of the most neglected segments by our political parties, because they do not form a vote bank. It is disappointing to see that grave issues like malnutrition do not even gain an adequate mention in their manifestos," said Puja Marwaha, the chief executive officer of CRY.

New Delhi, April 24
On the directions of the Delhi High Court, the transport department today launched a month-long campaign to haul up motor vehicles which have not procured Pollution Under Control (PUC) Certificate, and are not compliant with the quarterly check-up of vehicular emission norms.

Around 30-40 per cent of the vehicles of all categories registered in Delhi avoid periodic vehicular pollution check-up.

The vehicle owners not complying with the emission norms shall be penalised Rs 1,000 for the first offence and Rs 2,000 for the subsequent offence under the Central Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.

"Unfortunately, in Delhi the implementation and enforcement of rules governing motor vehicles invariably take place only after the directions of judiciary, otherwise transport and enforcement agencies are found to be in compromising situation with the vehicle owners particularly truck and bus transporters," said SP Singh, senior fellow of the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training.