New Delhi, June 14
Police used water cannons to disperse the Congress activists who were demonstrating at Nangloi to protest against the power crisis in the Capital.

The activists also demonstrated at Vikas Marg that led to traffic jams for hours.

DPCC president Arvinder Singh Lovely and Congress spokesperson Mukesh Sharma alleged that the police used dirty water to disperse the demonstrators. They made a complaint to the area DCP in this regard. It showed that there is scarcity of water also in the city. The police were resorting to such dirty tricks at the behest of the Union Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, they alleged.

As the police failed to control the demonstrators, it took Arvinder Singh, Sajjan Kumar, Mukesh Sharma and Surendra Kumar, along with around one thousand demonstrators into custody. They were taken to the Mundka police station on the Bahadurgarh border to avoid any untoward incident.

Addressing the demonstrators at Nangloi and Vikas Marg, the Congress leaders said the power and water crises worsened in Delhi despite the pleasant weather. The BJP-ruled Central government had given a blanket authority to the power companies to do what they liked, and because of that, the power situation had gone out of control. 

New Delhi, June 14
The Delhi University (DU) administration is left with little to defend the premise for its Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) after the University Grants Commission (UGC) is understood to have questioned its "legality" in line with the country's existing National Education Policy and DU Act, 1922.

The teachers and students today intensified their stir even as the fate of the first FYUP batch remains to be decided.

After the full commission, comprising 11 members, meeting yesterday, the UGC will now write to DU and the Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani stating that the FYUP is "illegal, irregular and in violation"of the 10+2+3 education policy followed in the country.

"The university has not completed the due formalities and such an overhaul (FYUP) also requires a change in the university statues. It did not obtain the concurrence of the competent authorities and is not in line with UGC approved procedure as the permission was not sought six months prior to its introduction. The university is now going to be asked to reconsider the implementation of the whole programme," sources from the commission said.

While an indication towards the final call is likely by Monday when various organisations and groups have planned demonstrations, including the Left-backed "Save DU Campaign", the BJP-affiliated National Democratic Teachers' Front has approached the seven Lok Sabha MPs in Delhi and is collecting the signatures to petition the HRD.

"Everything under FYUP has no consonance with the UGC. We are just one step away from the rollback of the FYUP," said retired Kirori Mal College faculty member Dr I M Kapahy.

Associated to the Congress-backed INTEC, former DUTA secretary SD Siddiqui said, "The VC is not the authority of the university and everything has been arm-twisted. Doing things in an extra-legal manner is making a mockery of the university autonomy. There is an overwhelming majority that both the semesterisation and FYUP should be scrapped."

New Delhi, June 14
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) is contributing 16 mega watt (MW) electricity to the city. This power is generated by using the municipal solid waste in an eco-friendly manner, said Jalaj Shrivastava, Chairman, NDMC.

He said that the NDMC established a 'Waste To Energy' (WTE) plant in Okhla to generate electricity by using the municipal solid waste as fuel. The plant processes 1300 metric ton municipal waste in which 200 to 400 metric ton solid waste is contributed by NDMC as fuel. The fuel generates 16 mega watt of electricity daily that is used for as many as 8,000 houses.

The NDMC has so far delivered an approximate quantity of about two lakh metric tons of solid waste and saved around Rs 6 crore which was being paid earlier as sanitary landfill charges, he said.

In order to solve the problem on drinking water, the Chairman said that the NDMC is planning to come up with "Pay and Use" drinking water ATMs in its area. However, children in the Council schools will have free drinking water. People can use either a token or a card to buy water from these facilities. A survey for installation of these ATMs is in progress.

New Delhi, June 14
Weather continued to be pleasant in the national Capital today as light rains kept the mercury below the 40 degree Celsius mark for second consecutive day.

The maximum temperature settled at 37.1 degree Celsius, two notches below normal.

Earlier, overnight showers caused the minimum temperature to dip to 25.5 degree, two points below normal. Delhiites woke up to light showers and partly cloudy skies this morning, with the city receiving more rains later in the day.

Day temperatures at almost all observatories in the city, including Palam, hovered around 37-38 degree Celsius.

According to the MeT department, the national Capital received 1.3-mm rainfall in the 24 hours till 8:30 in the morning, while the rain gauge measured 2.6-mm of rain between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm.

However, as rains lashed the city, humidity levels soared which was recorded between 55 and 83 per cent during the day causing some discomfort to Delhiites.

The intermittent rains since Thursday have come as a relief for the city residents, who were reeling from sweltering heatwave conditions with temperatures hovering around 45 degree Celsius for about a week.

"As rainfall continues, temperature is expected to be between 35 and 40 degree Celsius till June 20. We are expecting more rain in the next two to three days," said a MeT Department official.—PTI