The MCD was trifurcated in 2012 during Congress leader Sheila Dikshit's tenure as the chief minister.Delhi News Live Updates: The structure of the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) started taking shape on Monday with the appointment of five departmental heads and allotment of office spaces to officials of erstwhile north and east civic bodies at its headquarters at the Civic Centre here, officials said. The unified MCD formally came into existence on Sunday, with IAS officers Ashwani Kumar and Gyanesh Bharti assuming charge as the new civic body’s special officer and commissioner, respectively
Vinai Kumar Saxena, currently serving as the chairperson of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), has been appointed as the new Lieutenant Governor (L-G) of Delhi. According to officials, the President of India has accepted the resignation of former L-G Anil Baijal and appointed Saxena as his successor.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday welcomed the appointment of Saxena as Delhi’s L-G and assured him of full cooperation of his council of ministers.
The Qutub Minar in Delhi (Express File Photo)
Mobile phones and electronic devices of the three women who allegedly committed suicide at their Vasant Vihar home have been sent for forensic examination as the search history indicated that they may have planned this, police said. Read more
The Delhi High Court Monday asked the Delhi government to disclose the number of existing vacancies of teachers including that of principals and vice-principals in public schools and the steps being taken by it to fill the positions. Read more
Two men have been arrested by the Delhi Police for allegedly killing a Haryanvi folk singer who had been missing since May 11. Her body was found buried near a highway in Haryana's Rohtak district on Monday.
Thunderstorms with moderate intensity rain to heavy intensity rain likely over isolated places and gusty winds with a speed of 60-80 Km/h would occur over and adjoining areas of entire Delhi and NCR during next 2 hours, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday.
IMD added, "Hail precipitation likely be over Nuh (Haryana) during next 1 hour."
With a unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) formally coming into existence, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Monday demanded the BJP-led Central government "immediately" pay the pending salaries of the civic body's employees.
Addressing a press conference, senior AAP leader Durgesh Pathak said the teachers of the civic body-run schools have not got their salaries for the past six months, while sanitation workers have been waiting for their salaries for past 2-3 months.
The salaries of "hundreds of the MCD employees" including junior engineers and assistant engineers have not be paid for the past 5-6 months, he said.
“Why is the BJP making the MCD employees suffer to this extent even after bringing the MCD directly under the Centre?” he asked.
The AAP leader said the people of Delhi were "eagerly" waiting for the municipal elections, hoping the new civic body will solve their problems. Instead of holding elections, the BJP-led Central government brought a law for unification of the three civic bodies in the national capital to remain at helm, he charged. (PTI)
While repair work is still underway, all services are back to normal at Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital where a power disruption had brought all services, other than emergency, to a standstill over two days.
Out-patient services were cut short, surgeries could not be performed, and critical patients had to be transferred out after the power outage on Friday afternoon. Although the power was temporarily restored the same night, not all machines could be run because of the constraint on the load.
“Today, all services were running, including the operation theatres. The OTs had to be closed on Friday and Saturday as there was no power to run all equipment; even the instruments could not be autoclaved (a method of sterilising surgical equipment between patients),” said a hospital personnel, on condition of anonymity. (Read More)
Asking the Delhi government to respond to a petition seeking restoration of the service of providing sanitary napkins to students of government schools, the Delhi High Court Monday said that the mere absence of a running contract may not be a good reason to discontinue the social measure.
The observation from the division bench of acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Sachin Dutta came after the Delhi government submitted that it has floated a fresh tender for procurement of sanitary napkins and technical bids would be opened on June 21.
“Why should this stop? There should be some interim arrangement in the meantime,” observed the court, while hearing the petition moved by Social Jurist, a civil rights group. (Read More)
Several passengers were stranded at the Delhi airport for hours after flights were either delayed or rescheduled following the heavy downpour on Monday morning.
Services were affected from morning till 4.30-5 pm. The Delhi Airport Authority in a tweet had asked passengers to get in touch with the airlines concerned for updates on flight delay and cancellation. Flights to Jabalpur, Doha, Chennai were cancelled while flight to
Vishakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Mumbai, and Bengaluru were delayed by at least two hours.
According to an airport source, at least 20 flights were diverted to Jaipur, Lucknow, Indore, Amritsar and Mumbai between 6.45 am and 9 am. (Read More)
Vinai Kumar Saxena, chairperson of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission will be the new Lieutenant Governor of Delhi
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted another spell of rain and thundershowers accompanied with strong gusty winds speeding between 50 km per hour and 60 km per hour over Delhi-NCR region during Monday night. Same weather is also likely to prevail over Punjab, Haryana, north Rajasthan and west UP during next the eight to 10 hours.
With rainfall and a thunderstorm that broke a long, mostly dry spell, the temperature plummeted in Delhi-NCR on Monday. The maximum temperature recorded on Monday was 31.5 degrees Celsius, eight degrees below the normal for this time of the year.
The minimum temperature recorded early on Monday was 17.2 degrees Celsius, nine degrees below the normal, and the lowest for the month of May since 2004, when a minimum temperature of 16.7 degrees was recorded in May. The lowest minimum temperature recorded in May 2021 was 18 degrees Celsius, while it was 20 degrees in May 2020. The temperature began to dip on Monday morning, when it fell from 29 degrees to 18 degrees between 5.40 am and 7 am. Strong winds of around 80 kmph were recorded over Delhi-NCR on Monday morning.
According to IMD scientists, this was the first storm of ‘moderate intensity’ this season. The Safdarjung weather observatory, which provides representative figures for the city, recorded 12.3 mm of rainfall between 5.30 am and 8.30 am on Monday. This has helped lower the season’s deficit, said R K Jenamani, scientist, India Meteorological Department (IMD). From February 25 to May 20, the Safdarjung weather station has recorded only 1.7 mm of rainfall, which is the lowest for this period since 1945, Jenamani said. In 1945, the same period recorded no rainfall at all, he added. (Read More)
Activist Umar Khalid, who is in custody as an accused in Delhi Police’s case of larger conspiracy behind the Northeast Delhi riots, Monday contended that the court should not fall into the “trap” of interpreting everything as a terrorist activity, after the bench asked whether protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act instilled a sense of fear and insecurity among the public.
The submission was made before the Delhi High Court, in context of reference to a Supreme Court ruling wherein it has been stated that an activity which creates “a sense of fear and insecurity” among people can be called a terrorist act. The court is hearing arguments in Khalid’s plea for bail and will continue on Tuesday.
Senior advocate Trideep Pais, representing Khalid, contended that the trial court in its order denying him bail has “escalated” chakka jam “without any basis” to a “terrorist act”, and merely reproduced witness statements without any discussion whatsoever. (Read More)
The Governing Body (GB) chairman of Delhi University’s Kalindi College has proposed a judicial inquiry following allegations by an Academic Council member of financial irregularities in the college.
On April 20, DU Academic Council member Naveen Gaur had written to the college’s GB chairman Ravi Gupta and the university’s Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh, requesting a time-bound public enquiry under a judicial authority into the functioning of the college administration and the conduct of officiating principal Naina Hasija. In the letter, he has alleged “large scale misappropriation of public funds, illegalities, irregularities, violation of rules, etc”.
Following this representation, an emergent GB meeting was scheduled for May 6 but this was not held. Gaur raised a complaint regarding this as well with the V-C on May 8, stating that the officiating principal “unilaterally” adjourned the meeting via email within 15 minutes of its scheduled beginning
On May 17, the GB chairman sent a communication to the rest of the body proposing the constitution of a judicial enquiry to look into the matters raised in the representation by Gaur. When contacted, Hasija said the allegations are “frivolous and false,” and that she did not wish to comment on them. She also stated that the GB chairman does not have the power to propose an inquiry in this manner.
Among the allegations is that Hasija suppressed a report of an Internal Audit Officer (IAO) which stated that there was no approval or sanction by any competent authority for bills regarding expenditure incurred by her for prizes amounting to more than Rs 2 lakh for an event in 2013-2014.
Days after a 19-year-old Zepto delivery executive died in a hit-and-run accident in Delhi’s Dwarka, the police have arrested a man and seized an SUV in connection with the incident.
The victim, Karan Raju, a resident of Goyla Dairy, had joined Zepto two months ago to help the family financially and save money to buy a gift for his sister’s wedding. Last week on Monday, Karan was on his bike when a speeding car hit him and fled from the spot. Karan was near DnD restaurant in Dwarka Sector 10. He was rushed to the hospital where he succumbed to the injuries.
Shankar Choudhary, DCP Dwarka said, “It was a blind case. There were no eyewitnesses or CCTVs near the spot. The only clue was a broken part of the bumper of the offending vehicle. We visited each and every spare part dealer and workshop in southwest Delhi. The accused was traced and has been arrested.” (Read More)
A 55-year-old scientist working with the IT Ministry allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the Shastri Bhawan building in New Delhi Monday. DCP Amrutha Guguloth (New Delhi) said they received a call around 3 pm from the Shastri Bhawan control room informing them that a man named Rakesh Malik was found dead in front of Gate No. 2.
“We found that Malik was a scientist in the Information & Technology Ministry and jumped from the 7th-floor window of Shastri Bhawan,” said the DCP.
DTC offers free travel to all commuters in its 'pure e-bus' for three days from May 24 to 25. Delhi Government will launch 150 e-bus under DTC on Tuesday at IP depot.
The Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi, has signed a pact with the National Skill Development Corporation to introduce initiatives that will enable effective digital course delivery to the youth and expand the reach of quality learning and skilling along with immersive hands-on learning opportunities.
According to officials, the collaboration aims to introduce digital courses in emerging technologies such as data science, big data analytics among others.
"I am happy to share that IIT Mandi has embarked on a long-term journey, in collaboration with NSDC, to impart high-end skills to the underprivileged youth and working professionals, among others. (PTI)
Four fire tenders were rushed to the Hansraj tower in Nithari, Nodia after one of the six floors of the building caught fire. No injuries or casualties have been reported so far.
Terming the conditions in four schools under the municipal corporation of Delhi (MCD) as “pathetic, unsafe and deeply disturbing”, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has issued a notice to the Municipal Commissioner directing that action be taken immediately and that explanations be issued.
In its notice, the DCW stated that it instituted an inquiry into the safety of girls in primary schools in Delhi “upon receiving complaints” and inspected four schools — in Aruna Nagar, Kewal Park, Mustafabad and Bhati Mines.
The DCW flagged 15 issues it came across in these schools: lack of security guards, dilapidated and unsafe buildings, criminal activities occurring inside the campus, lack of CCTV cameras, lack of mid-day meals, missing teachers, lack of hygiene, unsanitary toilets, broken furniture, lack of proper drinking water, missing boundary wall, overcrowding of classes, lack of counsellors, lack of proper grounds and sports facilities, and poorly lit corridors. Read more