Dera Bassi, August 24
Journey of three residents of Delhi ended in a disaster when their car crashed into a stationary truck on the Banur-Tepla-Ambala highway in Khaspur village, near here, early this morning.

The fourth occupant in the car was critically injured and rushed to Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32, Chandigarh.

The car occupants--Jatinder Pal Singh, Vikas Kochhar, Puran and Raman--were on their way to Una in Himachal Pradesh for paying obeisance at a religious place when they met with the accident at about 7 am.

The tragedy struck when their Alto car (DL-9CQ-0625) crashed into the stationary truck (HR-69-1708) from behind killing three occupants--Jatinder Pal Singh, a resident of West Patel Nagar; Vikas Kochhar and Puran, residents of Baljit Nagar.

Raman, also a resident of Baljit Nagar, sustained critical injuries in the crash.

Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Gurdeep Singh, who is investigating the case, said drivers of some trucks parked nearby rushed to the spot after hearing a loud thud, and the police were also informed subsequently.

The passersby helped the police in extricating the bodies from the badly damaged car. They were taken to the Civil Hospital, Dera Bassi, he said.

The injured was rushed to the GMCH, Sector 32, Chandigarh, in an ambulance owned by the National Highway Authority of India. His condition is said to be serious, the ASI said.

The truck driver, Amandeep, a resident of Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, has reportedly been arrested and a case registered against him at Banur police station.

The bodies were handed over to the families after postmortems at Dera Bassi hospital this evening.

New Delhi, August 24
Student politics at Delhi University seems to be showing a gradual trend towards the issues. Almost every outfit is planning its campaign keeping students' concerns at the centre.

Riding high on the rollback of the Four Year Undergraduate Programme, BJP-leaning Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is showing it as its major achievement and hopes to pitch it as a barometer of its 'reliability' among students.

To strike a chord with students, it has included having more hostels for outstation students, general mess facility on North and South campuses, re-evaluation and special chance, increasing special U-buses for students commuting from far-flung areas and NCR, among others, on its poll agenda.

"Last year students have given us a mandate to fight against the FYUP and we delivered what we promised. This is our biggest achievement apart from the government canteen with simple food now in place in front of Arts Faculty. We have worked the entire year and have been demanding basic things like general mess where students can have food at affordable prices. Less than two per cent of students get admissions to hostels and thousands do not get affordable accommodation," said Saket Bahuguna, ABVP's Delhi unit secretary.

All India Students' Association (AISA) Delhi unit's secretary Sunny Kumar is of the view that the scrapping of FYUP is something that many groups such as ABVP are banking upon even as the credit should go to Delhi University Teachers' Association and AISA which had been agitating for its rollbank since it commenced.

"Today we get to see outsiders roaming freely on campuses. Issues have to be addressed and after the FYUP scrapping, we have revived the campaign and in feedback from more than 19,000 students of 45 colleges, we have come to know that students want elections to be held on issues. They are facing troubles of accommodation and transportation but what the ABVP had done except claiming credit for FYUP. Fees have been hiked to at least Rs 3,000 for the third year students. Students are demanding concessional passes in Metro, adequate hostels, regulation of rent control laws, safe campus, etc," said Sunny.

On the other side, the Congress' student wing National Students' Union of India (NSUI) is going to have anti-Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) struggle, right to accommodation for Delhi University students, demand for the previous system of re-evaluation and special chance to students and an anti-racial discrimination law across the country at the centre of its campaign.

"We are demanding girls' safety, registration of private PG accommodation in police stations, increase in canteen facility, decentralisation of admission process and upgrading basic infrastructure in university, among others," added Amrish Ranjan Pandey, national spokesperson of NSUI. 

New Delhi, August 24
More than 800 people were prosecuted by the Delhi Traffic Police in a special drive last night for violating traffic rules, which included 247 drunk drivers.

During the inspection, which was held between 7 pm to midnight last, 247 drivers were prosecuted and 180 vehicles were impounded for drunken driving. Forty-four vehicle owners were also prosecuted for allowing their vehicles to be driven by drunk drivers.

The police said that out of 180 vehicles which were impounded for drunken driving, 11 were LGVs, 126 were cars, 103 were two wheelers, four were TSRs, six were delivery vans and seven were other vehicles.

It was ensured that all violators are being provided with fresh blow pipe while conducting breath test, the police said.

"Violators involved in drunken driving and permit violations are directed to report for counseling session at Traffic Police Headquarters located at Dev Prakash Shastri Marg, Pusa, New Delhi, where they attend educational lectures and are shown short films on harmful effects of drunken driving," Anil Shukla, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) said.

The drive was held at vulnerable points with sufficient numbers of alcometers for taking intensive prosecution action against drunk drivers and other major traffic violations such as dangerous driving, red light jumping, permit violations, 'No Entry' violations, etc.

The police said 259 violators were prosecuted for dangerous driving, 73 for red light jumping, 47 for permit violations, 50 for 'No entry' violations and 28 for commercial vehicles not fitted with rear or lateral under run protection devices.

Apart from this, errant drivers were also asked to sign a pledge that they would not indulge in drunken driving in the future. Educational literatures for safe driving were also distributed during the session.

Vehicles were released to the violators/rightful owners of the vehicle who attended the session and signed the pledge.

Till August 15, a total of 20,400 violators have been prosecuted for drunken driving out of which 6,776 violators were arrested and 10,929 vehicles were impounded. — PTI

New Delhi, August 24
After an encouraging response to its maiden online admission process this year, Delhi University's School of Open Learning (SOL) is working towards upgrading its teaching methodologies. It plans to make use of 'flipped classroom technology' to strengthen its personal contact programme.

Through this teaching model, SOL wants to reduce the practice of traditional blackboard learning in line with the direction from the Union Grants Commission. Adopting the new method, which stresses the need for interactive modes of teaching, would also enable students to attend lectures according to their convenience.

The flipped classroom technology encompasses use of Internet technology to leverage the learning in classroom so that the students have access to more interactive sessions rather than dull lectures.

There are videos created by teachers that enable the students to do their class work at homes and the reverse that which comprised home work is now done in classes. SOL plans to roll out audio-video module by the end of this year for all its courses.

Instructions for students admitted to SOL are mainly through printed course material which is distributed among students and this is supplemented through personal contact programme at various SOL study centres.

While noting that 50 per cent of the over one lakh applicants opted to register online this time, SOL director C S Dubey explained that usually students enrolled with SOL, mostly working or with some other constraints, are not able to devote as much time as a regular university student would and this technology would come handy ensuring that students don't miss out even if they are not able to visit their study centres.

However, the move to switch to electronic format has drawn flak from the School of Open Learning Teachers' Association (SOLTA) and Delhi University Teachers' Association (DUTA) and the issue was raised at the Governing Body meeting of SOL yesterday where the teachers claimed that the idea of giving study material in DVDs rather than printed text books is not practically in favour of SOL students.