Tag: Delhi

Delhi-bound IndiGo flight suffers bird hit in Ranchi, passengers safe

Source: hindustantimes.com

More than 140 passengers had a close shave after a Delhi-bound IndiGo flight suffered a bird hit at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Airport on Wednesday which forced it to abort take off, officials said.

The pilot aborted the take-off soon after the damage was detected. Airport sources said engineers were called to ascertain if there had been any damage due to the bird strike.

The airline made arrangements for the passengers to leave for their destination by another flight.

Birsa Munda Airport director Vinod Kumar Sharma said, “Indigo flight 6E-398 was scheduled to take off from the airport at 9.30 am. There were 144 passengers in the flight. As it started taxiing on the runaway, a bird hit its turbine.”

He said all passengers were safe.

Sharma claimed that bird hits have come down this year at Ranchi airport.

“This is the second incident of bird hit from January to August this year, while the number was five in the previous year,” he said.

Sharma also said they have engaged hired Birsa Agriculture University (BAU), Ranchi to study bird hits and suggest measures to eliminate the threat. “The university will study the reason of bird gathering near the airport and suggest ways on how to make it a bird free zone,” he said.

Environmentalists, however, say mushrooming buildings around the airport has jeopardized aircraft safety as kitchen wastes disposed by the residents attract birds.

Roadside eateries, shops selling meat and fish and irregular picking of garbage from nearby Birsa Chowk, Tupudana road and Hinoo area are aggravating the threat. The tall trees surrounding the airport provide a safe nesting place for the birds, they said.

25-year-old man arrested for killing a person in Delhi six years ago

Source: mid-day.com

On Tuesday, a 25-year-old man was arrested from Bihar for allegedly killing a person in the national capital nearly six years ago. The accused, identified as Rahees Manjhi is a resident of Gaya in Bihar. The police had announced a reward of Rs 25,000 on information leading to his arrest.

According to a senior police officer, Rajesh was killed in the Mundka area on October 14, 2013. During the investigation, accused Upender and his relative Sajan Manjhi were arrested. Upender said that he, along with his nephew Rahees Manjhi and relative Sajan Manjhi, had killed Rajesh with a sharp-edged weapon after an altercation over liquor.

Police got a tip-off that Rahees had been hiding in Bihar. “Thereafter, a police team was sent to Gaya where they arrested Rahees from a jungle of Piyar village after a brief chase,” said Ram Gopal Naik, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime).

In another incident, three teenagers were arrested by Delhi Police for allegedly killing a 15-year-old boy for a smartphone. A missing report of a 15-year-old boy was registered on July 13, at Moti Nagar police station. The investigation to find the missing teenager was initiated.

In the meantime, the police received information about a boy’s body in an abandoned house in Delhi’s Basai Darapur area. After the police reached the spot along with the victim’s cousin, it was found to be the missing boy’s body.

Delhi Commissioner of Police (DCP) West, Monika Bhardawaj said in a statement, “The police team gathered the vital clues with the help of technical surveillance and CCTV footages installed in the locality. On the basis of discreet enquiries, three Children in Conflict with Law (CCLs) were apprehended.” She also added that during the interrogation all three of them confessed the crime.

Sheila Dikshit, an efficient leader who steered Delhi into the future

Source: thehindu.com

The political legacy of veteran Congress leader Sheila Dikshit, who was India’s longest serving woman Chief Minister, was best summed up by her one-time rival and now Union Minister for Science and Technology, Harsh Vardhan. “We had our differences on policies, but we always admired her behaviour and efficiency,” he said as Delhi plunged into mourning following her death on Saturday evening.

“For 15 years, I had the opportunity to work with her in the Assembly as an MLA. But we always admired her behaviour and efficiency at work,” he said.

It was this efficiency that made Ms. Dikshit the face of a fast-changing Delhi, someone who knew how to change political adversity into opportunity.

The city’s change to cleaner public transport bears testimony to Ms. Dikshit’s efforts. In April 2001, public transport in the national capital collapsed as nearly 10,000 old and polluting diesel buses were ordered off the roads by the Supreme Court. The Congress government led by her was not ready with a plan to deploy cleaner CNG buses.

“For nearly two decades, Sheilaji personified Delhi and the aspirations of its citizens. She served them with her heart and mind and they gave her their abundant love. Every resident of Delhi will feel that he or she has today lost a member of his or her family,” former Union Minister P. Chidambaram said. 

Her largely successful legacy in Delhi was, however, marred by allegations of corruption during the 2010 Common Wealth Games. 

She also briefly served as the Governor of Kerala from March to August in 2014.

Ms. Dikshit was born in Kapurthala in Punjab to a non-political family in 1938, and graduated from Miranda House, University of Delhi. In July 1962, she married bureaucrat Vinod Dikshit, who she had met during her college days.

And her first foray into politics came when she assisted her father-in-law Uma Shankar Dikshit, a loyalist of Jawaharlal Nehru who had served as a Minister in the Indira Gandhi Cabinet in 1971 and become the Governor of Karnataka and West Bengal.

Ms. Dikshit took the formal plunge in 1984 when she became a Lok Sabha member from Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh. Known to be a loyalist of the the Gandhi family, she was hand-picked by Rajiv Gandhi in his Council of Ministers after he became the Prime Minister in 1984.

“We worked closely together during the years she was Chief Minister of Delhi, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief and secretary of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust,” Congress leader Sonia Gandhi said in a letter to Ms. Dikshit’s son, Sandeep Dikshit.

Ahead of the 2017 Assembly election, the Congress projected her as the chief ministerial candidate, but she was dropped after it tied up with the Samajwadi Party. She was made the Delhi Congress chief ahead of the Lok Sabha election and was defeated in the North East Delhi constituency.

DCW rescues Jharkhand woman held captive from Delhi’s Pitampura

Source: business-standard.com

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has rescued a 20-year-old survivor of bonded labour from northwest Delhi’s Pitampura, it said on Saturday.

A FIR was lodged in connection with the matter at the Maurya Enclave police station, police said.

The DCW said it received information about the woman, who hailed from Jharkhand’s Ranchi, from an NGO.

It formed a team, which approached the police and the labour department of the Delhi government and along with them, visited the house where the woman was held captive, the panel said.

The team rescued the woman, who was in an “extremely traumatised condition” and was “forcibly kept in the house for the last three months”, the DCW added.

She told DCW officials that for the last one year, she was forced to work from 6 am to 11 pm.

“She had to do all the household chores and also single-handedly cook food for 15 residents of the paying guest facility being operated by the house owners. She had not received any payment and was often beaten up by the house owners,” a DCW official said, adding that she was never allowed to go out of the house.

The woman also told the officials that one Marcus had allegedly brought her to Delhi from Jharkhand a year ago and left her at another man’s house in Shakurpur, who then took her to Pitampura, where she was being held captive, the DCW said.

The house owners even took away the Rs 3,000 and the mobile phone she had brought along with her, the woman alleged, adding that she was never allowed to speak to her family members.

The woman was the youngest of three siblings and belonged to a very economically backward family, the DCW said.

She was shifted to a shelter and the DCW was initiating the proceedings to recover her salary, the panel said, adding that no arrest was made in the matter till now.

“The Delhi government should immediately pass a law to regulate placement agencies. Delhi Police should ensure arrests and convictions. This will play a major role in deterring trafficking,” DCW chief Swati Maliwal said.

Nalanda University’s crucial board meeting in Delhi on Thursday

Source: hindustantimes.com

Nalanda University (NU) is set to hold its first governing board (GB) meeting since February 2018 at its Delhi office on Thursday.

The 17th GB meeting is crucial as it will pave the way for shifting of academic activities to its upcoming sprawling 455-acre campus to the north of Rajgir hills, besides approving new proposals and reviewing ongoing admissions.

The varsity’s board was re-constituted in November 2016 with all new members. The lone member of the Nalanda Mentor Group (NMG) retaining his position and the Indian government’s representative in the new GB was former Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament N K Singh, presently chairman of the 15th finance commission.

In January 2017, the university also got a new Chancellor in Dr Vijay Bhatkar, following the resignation of George Yeo on November 25 in the wake of dissolution of NMG. In May, Prof Sunaina Singh also took over as the new vice-chancellor.

Set up in 2014 to recreate the glory and academic excellence of ancient Nalanda and serve as an intellectual bridge between India and East Asia, the NU witnessed a flurry of activities in 2016-17, which led to a complete change of guard.

There were also reports of faculty attrition in NU, but the V-C played it down, saying it was nothing abnormal.

“Some people have left as their term ended, others left as they got better avenues in locations of their choice, while there were also those who found it tough to continue in the disciplined atmosphere that we are striving to enforce on the campus. We have enough faculty members of quality for our schools and new ones are also coming in,” said V-C Sunaina Singh, who took over in the wake of sexual harassment slur on the NU.

However, the biggest plus for NU is that it is now set to move to its campus. Former President Pranab Mukhejee had laid the foundation stone of the campus on August 27, 2016.

“The work is on schedule and the first phase comprising five main buildings has been completed. The campus, likely to be fully ready by 2020, will go beyond the highest green building features as per government guidelines, i.e. a rating of 5 under GRIHA. We plan to start teaching this year itself from the new campus, as adequate facilities are ready now,” said the VC.

At present, NU has four schools, but a few new centres are in the pipeline, including one on the Bay of Bengal Studies, which was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the member states of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) at Katmandu on August 31, 2018.

The Government of India would also cover 30 scholarships to member states (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand) to conduct research on Bay of Bengal region at the NU. Another centre in the offing is on sustainable development.

At present, admissions in NU is on and the first cycle has been completed, while the second cycle is set to begin.

NU also plans to start Ph.D programmes from this year, which was earlier approved by the academic council.