New Delhi, May 30
Life went out of gear in the national Capital today after a sudden change in the weather that saw high velocity storm in the evening followed by heavy rains causing severe traffic jams on the city roads, disruption in Metro services and diversion of flights. At least nine persons were killed and 13 injured in the rainstorm.

Thousands of people were stranded outside Metro stations and on roads as traffic almost came to a halt due the storm and high-speed dusty winds blowing at a speed of over 90 kmph. However, the maximum temperature recorded today was 42.8° C while the minimum was 29.1° C.

The dust storm which struck at 4.58 pm caused uprooting of many trees across the city, some of which even fell on moving vehicles. Two such incidents were reported from Copernicus Marg near Mandi House and Tilak Bridge, ITO, each.

The Meteorological office said similar weather conditions are likely to persist for over the next two days. The Met department termed the storm "cumulonimbus" and attributed it to western disturbance over Pakistan. The NCR areas of east Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad were most affected by the storm.

At least 21 flights were diverted due to the storm, an IGI airport official said. Three planes were damaged due to the sudden rain and storm in the evening, officials said

The city saw massive traffic jams as the storm uprooted trees snapping power lines in many areas and affecting traffic lights leading to chaos on the streets.

"The cumulonimbus brings tall thunderstorms and dusty winds with a speed of over 92 kmph and is caused because of western disturbance, which is currently over Pakistan. The meeting of cold air and hot air on the Indo-Gangetic plains causes low pressure area and also lot of instability. This result in severe thunderstorm," said IMD Director General LS Rathore.

The Delhi Metro services were also disrupted due to the thunder storm. Thousands of people were stranded inside Metro trains after they came to halt due to high velocity winds.

The services were disrupted for about an hour between 5 pm and 6 pm, which is also when Metro trains experience peak rush during the day.

The two main lines badly hit due to sudden change in weather were Noida/Vaishali-Dwarka and Jehangirpuri-Huda City Centre. The Airport Express line was also disrupted leading to inconvenience to flight passengers. Technical snag in the over-head power network affected the services in other lines too.

"At some locations near Janakpuri, Inderlok, etc. some foreign material (like tin sheet, pipe, etc.) flew with the wind and got entangled into the over-head equipment (OHE) wires due to hailstorm, thus, making train movement impossible," said DMRC official spokesperson.

The Metro services were made normal across the network from 6 pm onwards after resumption of normal power supply from Delhi Transco Limited (DTL) and clearance of all foreign material from the OHE wire by DMRC engineers.

Metro officials said that there was erratic power supply from DTL to Delhi Metro's receiving sub-stations across the network, which disrupted the feed power to the Metro system for running the trains and stations.

The capital reeled under massive outages as all major power lines and electricity generating stations were damaged by a thunder.

All major power transmission lines of the Northern Grid through which Delhi receives power from other states tripped in the storm.

Power department officials said the lines which tripped included a number of 400 kilo vault lines including Dadari-Mandola line, Ballabhgarh-Bamnauli line and Jhatikara-Mundaka network.

Meanwhile, the Metrological Department predicted bad air quality in the national Capital for the next three days. The System of Air Quality Forecasting and Research, a constituent of Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, recorded PM10 level as 164 microgram per meter cubic while PM2.5 (particulate matters less than 2.5 microns in size) level was 98.

PM2.5 level should be around 40 and PM10 level should be around 60 microgram per meter cubic.

These levels are likely to increase as the department has forecast dust storm for the next two days with temperature to be 42° C.

New Delhi, May 30
The Delhi government today issued guidelines for the display of advertisement on public service vehicles. The Lieutenant Governor (LG), Najeeb Jung, has approved the guidelines and notification has been issued by the Department of Transport.

The guidelines suggested that the vehicle owner or the permit holder will have to obtain approval from municipal body for publishing advertisement on his public service vehicle. Only those public service vehicles having GPS/GPRS system installed in the vehicles shall be allowed for displaying of advertisements.

"All advertisements must comply with the code of advertising practice issued by the Advertising Standards Council of India. These advertisements must be legal, decent, honest and truthful," said a senior government official.

He said that the vehicle owner/permit holder shall remain responsible for the content of any advertisement displayed on or within his/her vehicles.

"It will be his or her responsibility to comply with the current law of advertising practice irrespective of any consent to display the advertisement which may have been given by the Municipal Corporation," he said.

Ten per cent space on big buses, DTC, cluster, contract buses shall be reserved for advertisements by the government departments.

However, advertisements related to the sale of alcohol or tobacco or cigarette or related products will not be approved. "If they contain political, ethnic, religious or sectarian text, sexual or controversial text, display nude or semi-nude figures, or are likely to offend public taste, depict men, women or children as sexual objects, will not be permitted, said the official.

For cluster and contract buses the advertisements would be given at pre-fixed base price. The DTC shall give out such advertisements at the base price fixed by the corporation.

Fifteen days notice would be given by the departments to the bus owners, prior to the installation of such advertisements, said the official.

New Delhi, May 30
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that he wanted to start a comprehensive and convenient health scheme for Delhi in which any person could get health insurance for himself and his family by paying small amount.

Under the proposed insurance scheme, the government will bear the entire expenditure for the whole life of the insured, if he faces health related problems. This scheme will be online, transparent and accountable. A regulatory commission will be appointed to supervise this scheme.

He said this in the Delhi BJP office today.

When asked about corruption that was one of the issues of the BJP during elections, Dr Vardhan said that corruption could be curbed to a great extent by adopting modern and scientific techniques. India is the country full of diversities and its beauty lies in unity in diversity. Here 70 per cent of the people live in rural areas. Medical facilities are not sufficient in these areas. In India smoking, chewing tobacco, gutkha, etc., has become habit among many people. It is one of the challenges for him to help the people to get rid of these habits.

He said that it would be the priority of the BJP-led NDA government to provide medical services to every family. People from rural areas are migrating to the urban area in search of livelihood. It is estimated that by 2030, 60 crore people would be living in the urban areas. Expansion of slum areas is also a great problem of the city. People living in these areas do not have basic amenities and due to this, many problems of rural areas are being faced in urban areas also. The BJP will implement a time-bound scheme to solve these problems.

.New Delhi, May 30
Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani today assured students and teachers of Delhi University (DU) of an "early intervention" into their demands of reversing the DU's Four-Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP), scrapping the semester system and looking into the concerns pertaining to proposed closure of three-year honours and programme courses of the School of Open Learning (SOL).

It is understood that the HRD Minister is considering a review of the FYUP and has asked Secretary of the Department of Higher Education Ashok Thakur to carry an assessment of the same within a week's time.

Reiterating the BJP-led Central government's commitment towards tackling issues of quality in and access to public funded institutions mentioned in her party's manifesto, Smriti is learnt to have questioned the absence of dialogue process and the step of adopting Code of Ethics as "code of conduct" for teachers within the university. In this sources said was critical of Vice-Chancellor Prof Dinesh Singh's role, saying, "Is he running a fiefdom."

In this regard, after about an hour-long protest under the banner of "Save DU", SOL fraternity, along with student bodies like All India Students Association, All India Democratic Students' Organisation, JNU Students' Union and participants from Jamia Millia Islamia, outside HRD Ministry's office at Shastri Bhawan, a delegation met the HRD Minister and sought her urgent intervention into the matter.

New Delhi, May 30
The Tae kwon-do foundation organised a three-day international instructor course, under which about 130 practitioners of tae kwon do from India and other countries were taught basic and advanced exercises and techniques at Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, here today.

The course was conducted by Director, ITF, Grand Master William Jacob Bos from Italy, who holds a Black Belt (9th degree).

The three-day course beginning from today seeks to train 60 Black Belt holders from USA, New Zealand, India, Italy and Nepal. Seventy other trainees holding Green, Blue, Red and Black belts benefited immensely from the course. These participants hail from Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Grand Master Bos, who lit the traditional lamp, said that he had come to India to popularize tae kwon do in the country. He noted that seeing the skills of the participants, it was surprising that the technique of the younger participants was better than their seniors and even some instructors.

A brief cultural programme was also presented on the occasion.

Earlier, Rakesh Verma, president, Indian ITF, welcomed Grand Master Bos and the other masters.