Delhi news live: Security arrangements have been amped up at Delhi's Red Fort ahead of Independence Day. (Express photo by Praveen Khanna)Delhi News, Delhi-NCR News Live Updates (today, August 14): In view of the 75th Independence Day celebrations, a multi-layered security cover along with Facial Recognition System cameras have been installed at each entry/exit point at Red Fort where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation on August 15, police said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Saturday marked the first day of the final round of preparations for razing Supertech’s twin towers, with the demolition due in just over a fortnight. With the Supreme Court agreeing to the Noida Authority’s request to postpone the demolition to August 28, the process of charging the towers began Saturday morning, officials at Edifice Engineering, the firm carrying out the demolition, said.
In other news, as soon as the Red Fort reopens after Independence Day on August 16, it will have a new addition — a restaurant. With Cafe Delhi Heights’ new outlet inside the complex throwing its doors open to patrons from August 16, the Red Fort becomes the country’s first national monument to host a full-fledged restaurant.
A cage being readied for the monkeys. One was later caught
Three BTech graduates were arrested by the Crime Branch from various locations in Delhi for their alleged involvement in a fake government job recruitment scheme, officers said Sunday.
The police identified the accused as Pappu Yadav, 29, his childhood friend Gautam Mittal, 28, who is a site engineer, and Ajay Kumar, 28, who worked in a flight catering company. Five fake joining letters for different departments, a fake income tax department employee card, a laptop used to prepare the fake joining letters, four bank passbooks and cheque books of different banks belonging to Kumar were also recovered, they said.
Officers said Yadav met Kumar on social media, and the latter discussed a plan with him regarding fake joining letters. Mittal allegedly joined the scheme through Yadav as he needed money. Read more here
In view of the 75th Independence Day celebrations, a multi-layered security cover along with Facial Recognition System cameras have been installed at each entry/exit point at Red Fort where Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation on August 15, police said Sunday.
According to the police, over 10,000 police personnel will be deployed around the monument on I-Day and 7,000 guests will be allowed for the celebrations.
With security inputs from agencies, Delhi Police said there could be terror attacks using drones, kites, or lone wolf attacks. Police deployed over 400 kite-catchers and fliers on rooftops and other sensitive locations in North Delhi to counter any such attack. Areas near the Red Fort have been marked as no-kite flying zones. Anti-drone systems are also being installed. Read more here
The minimum temperature in the national capital settled at 27.1 degrees Celsius, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Sunday.
The relative humidity at 8.30 am was recorded at 76 per cent, it said.
The weatherman has predicted a generally cloudy sky with light to moderate rain and thundershowers.
The maximum temperature in the city is likely to hover around 34 degrees Celsius.
On Saturday, the maximum temperature in the national capital stood at 35.4 degrees Celsius, a notch below the season's average, and the minimum temperature at 27.4 degrees Celsius. (PTI)
A woman was arrested by the Noida police Saturday for assaulting an e-rickshaw driver, whose rickshaw allegedly brushed past her car, denting it, said officials Sunday.
A video of the woman slapping a man repeatedly and screaming at him was shared by several people on social media on Saturday, with many tagging the police and asking them to take action against her. According to the police, the incident took place on Friday.
In the video, the woman is seen dragging the driver towards her car by his collar and slapping him. In the 1.5-minute video, the woman can be seen slapping the man 17 times and can also be seen taking money from his pocket.
Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal also tagged the Noida police in her tweet, asking that action be taken against the woman.
Two days after a 12-year-old girl, who had gone to relieve herself near the railway lines in Faridabad, was allegedly raped and murdered, police were yet to make an arrest.
The girl’s mother, who works as a labourer in a private company, told the media, “We want justice. The only semblance of closure would come if the accused is arrested, hanged. An example needs to be set… No girl should suffer this terrible fate… We do not have enmity with anyone.”
Recounting the sequence of events of Thursday night, she said she had gone to her brother’s house for Raksha Bandhan and left her children at her sister’s house. “At 9 pm, my daughter went to the fields on the railway tracks near our slum. There are no toilets here in the slum so people go to the tracks to relieve themselves. Her sister and a friend had accompanied her. She crossed the tracks and they waited. Two trains passed, but she did not return for half an hour. They thought she must have gone to our house, but she was not there. She had Rs 20-25 with her, so everyone checked if she went to a shop in the vicinity for chowmein, but she was not there either.” Read more here
As soon as the Red Fort reopens after Independence Day on August 16, it will have a new addition — a restaurant. With Cafe Delhi Heights’ new outlet inside the complex throwing its doors open to patrons from August 16, the Red Fort becomes the country’s first national monument to host a full-fledged restaurant.
The timings of the new outlet will be in consonance with that of the monument, fixed by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), as per its rules for protected monuments. “On offer will be favourites from the Cafe’s menu, such as biryani, pasta and burger, and a generous dash of street food favourites from across the country,” Vikrant Batra, founder of Cafe Delhi Heights, told The Indian Express.
Besides adding street food favourites to the menu, the pricing has been kept 30-40 per cent lower than other outlets since the Red Fort gets visitors from all strata, he added. Batra says the food menu starts as low as Rs 30 for a samosa, and goes up to Rs 500 for an elaborate dish. Also, as per the agreement, the restaurant will be 100 per cent vegetarian, he added. Read the full report here
Did you know that the sweets of Purani Dilli were once used like morse codes, their boxes used to convey messages to our freedom fighters, each sweet an indicator of either a bomb attack, an agitation or simply a command to sleeper revolutionaries to prepare for action against the British Raj? Not just that, some sweetmeat shops became hideouts for young revolutionaries, who could easily disguise themselves as kitchen hands, hold secret meetings and get a constant supply of food unnoticed. A box of laddoos meant bombs were landing, a box of Bengal rosogollas meant a big consignment of explosives, while barfis meant cartridges and ammunition were on the way.
“Unfortunately, these stories have passed into our oral histories and nobody has compiled them together. But our freedom fighters were only following tactics followed by French revolutionaries, who hid in bakeries and loaded up on bread that would sustain them while they were on the run. Bengal, Punjab and Maharashtra were the focal points of our freedom movement and coincidentally these were all sweetmeat hubs. So naturally exchanging sweets became a subterranean mode of communication,” food anthropologist and chef Sabyasachi Gorai said.
“There were two reasons. First, the British fell in love with Indian sweets and given their popularity and open distribution during pujas and festivals, would least suspect that they could be used as a mode of communication. They would hardly open a box to see the scribbled messages. Second, the mithai shops were hardly raided, becoming safe houses for freedom fighters to meet and pass on the message to the next hideout like a relay race. Since the British had banned public gatherings, the buzz around sweet shops helped freedom fighters blend in easily. Several accounts mention how Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh would move around Matia Mahal at night for kulhad chai and head to Ghantewala for puri-aloo and halwa. Of course, that shop has shut now. The fact that the imperial soldiers conducted major demolitions and cleared trees and undergrowth at the time showed that they were trying to smoke the revolutionaries out,” he said. Read the full story here
The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has regularised 187 Swachhta Sainiks working as daily wagers with the civic body. Lieutenant Governor (L-G) of Delhi Vinai Kumar Saxena Saturday handed over the regularisation letters to the 187 sanitation workers engaged from 1998 to 2000 during an event organised at the Aruna Asaf Ali Auditorium.
Apart from this, Saxena also flagged off the Tiranga Rally to celebrate Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav commemorating 75 years of India’s Independence. Chief Secretary Naresh Kumar, Special Officer of MCD Ashwani Kumar and Commissioner of MCD Gyanesh Bharti were present on the occasion.
Addressing the event, Saxena said it is a historic day as India is just days away from completing 75 years of Independence. He said he still remembers he had assured the sanitation workers on June 14, when a cleanliness drive was launched by the MCD all over Delhi, that their problems would be resolved. Read more here
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Saturday marked the first day of the final round of preparations for razing Supertech’s twin towers, with the demolition due in just over a fortnight. With the Supreme Court agreeing to the Noida Authority’s request to postpone the demolition to August 28, the process of charging the towers began Saturday morning, officials at Edifice Engineering, the firm carrying out the demolition, said.
Speaking to The Sunday Express, Utkarsh Mehta, Partner at the Mumbai-based company, said the delivery of the explosives had been delayed by some time. “They came in two vans escorted by the Noida police, from an authorised magazine located in the interiors near Palwal district in Haryana… The charging process began around 10 am, after the vans arrived at 8.30 am. We first organised a puja.”
Mehta explained that the explosives used are specially designed for demolition of such buildings, and they had sourced it as a special order from Solar Industries, one of the country’s biggest brands in the same. “KMP Enterprises, Palwal, an authorised magazine holder, that can store explosives and transport them, was hired.” Read the full report here
Delhi is likely to hold a State Achievement Survey (SAS) in the last week of October for students of classes 3, 5, 8, and 10 of government-run, local body-run, government aided and private schools in the city.
This achievement survey will not cover schools run by the Central Government.
The Delhi government’s Directorate of Education (DoE) has designed a reduced syllabus for all grades for the ongoing academic year to ease them into their return to classroom teaching and learning. The learning outcomes and syllabus covered by the SAS will be in line with this reduced syllabus. Read more here
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