Posts tagged delhi
Pawar attacker in court; bandhs in Maharashtra
Nov 25th
New Delhi/ Mumbai: Harvinder Singh, who slapped Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar would be produced in a Delhi court on Friday.
Immediately after he slapped Pawar yesterday evening, Harvinder was taken to Barakhamba Road police station for interrogation. The Delhi police booked him under Section 323 (Causing hurt), 353 (Attack on public servant) and 506 (Criminal intimidation).
n Maharashtra, angry over the attack on their party chief, National Congress Party (NCP) workers have called for a bandh in Pune, Sangli and Beed.
Watch: Sharad Pawar slapped by youth
Protesters were held in many parts of the state after reports trickled in about the attack on the Maratha strongman. Demonstrations were held in parts of Mumbai, NCP workers forced shop-owners to down their shutters in Sion, Dadar, Worli, and Kandivali areas among others.
Suburban rail services were also disrupted for a few minutes after party workers squatted on the tracks at Masjid Bunder and Kurla stations.
Protests were held in other parts of the state like Nashik, Kolhapur, Latur.
In Delhi, as the Parliament is in session, NCP MPs may raise the issue in the house.
Harvinder Singh is from Rohini in Delhi and is the son of a transporter. He was reportedly upset with Pawar over the persistent rise in essential commodities and growing corruption in the country.
Pawar (71), who went to a literary function at a public auditorium on Parliament Street, was caught unawares when he was slapped by Harvinder Singh, who had assaulted former Telecom Minister Sukh Ram outside a court on Saturday last after he was sentenced in a corruption case.
The NCP veteran and one of the seniormost politicians in the country, who has very little security, lost his balance for a moment but regained composure after the assault, moved towards the exit of the auditorium and got into his waiting car.
A news agency quoted police sources said that during interrogation, Harvinder Singh reportedly claimed that actually he wanted to target Mukherjee but gave up the idea because of his age.
Is this a good time to sell your house?
Jun 20th
As property prices surpass 2008 peak levels, realty experts believe that a correction is possible in the next couple of quarters, especially in Mumbai and Delhi. This offers an opportunity to real estate investors to book profits.
Parvinder Singh Sidhu, a Navi Mumbai-based marketing executive, concurs. Five years ago, Sidhu had bought a second home, a 750-sq-ft flat at Belapur in Navi Mumbai for about 13 lakh. Currently , the flat is priced at 35-40 lakh. With the talk of correction in the property market, Sidhu is planning to sell this house now. “If property rates correct in the future, I could buy a similar property at a lower price,” he says.
Yashwant Dalal, president of the Estate Agents Association of India, says, “If you bought a house only as an investment, you should sell it at the earliest and buy later at lower rates,” says Dalal.
Pankaj Kapoor, MD of Liases Foras, a real estate research firm, believes that if the prices fall, it could take two to three years before they return to the current level.
Your decision should depend on various other factors. Here are some that you should consider.
Property market in your locality/city
What is applicable for city limits in Mumbai or Delhi may not be true for the location where you own property. The residential property market is location-specific and the prices will vary for different areas. Markets where houses are largely owned by investors could be more exposed to steep drops than areas occupied by owners, as investors are more likely to sell at the first hint of a market flux.
How soon do you need the money?
Do not sell your property in a hurry if you don’t need the money urgently. Getting the best deal may require patience or even spend some money to add value to your house. You also need to consider the rental return from the property as it will be a source of steady income.
Price it right
The biggest mistake sellers make is in pricing their property too high. The best way to determine the ideal price for your property is to check with brokers in the locality or by listing it on an online property portals such as magicbricks.com or 99acres.com.
Consider the taxes
How much you actually get after you sell the property will depend on how long you had held the investment. Vikas Aggarwal, a Delhi-based tax consultant, says that if you sell your house within five years of buying it, you will lose all the tax benefits that you had claimed for loan repayments. “You will also have to pay capital gains tax on the profit. One way to avoid this is to use the sale proceeds to buy a house within two years of selling the previous one, or use it to fund a house you bought a year before,” he says. You can also avoid the capital gains tax by investing in specified bnds issues by Nabard, NHAI and REC that are eligible for capital gains tax savings.
Is the property mortgaged?
Selling a house that has an outstanding loan requires a lot of documentation. So try to pay the loan and then sell the house. If you are unable to do so, you will have to sign an agreement of sale with the buyer outlining the terms of payment. The buyer can either pay you upfront and you can use the money to prepay the loan, or you can take a second loan, pay off the first one and then sell the house. The sale proceeds can be used to pay the second loan.
How to sell
Selling property is much more difficult than buying one. Unless you know of people who are willing to give a good price for your house, a property broker may be your best bet. However, do your homework before approaching one and do not be guided simply by what he says. Brokers usually have a wider reach and are more clued in to the local property market than an individual seller. You can also list your property online. Some realty portals allow sellers to list the property for free for some time. Others may levy a fee of 500 for six months. Over the past couple of years, people have also invested in property, where builders have offered to buy it back at the end of a specified period. Even if you have this option, it will be better to check the open market before approaching the developer.
Supreme Court to hear plea against Baba Ramdev eviction
Jun 6th
The Supreme Court will hear on Monday a public interest litigation petition seeking a directive to the Centre and the Delhi Police to issue a White Paper on the alleged police action in the ‘BabaRamdev eviction incident’.
The apex court will also hear the sequence of events ie the entire details of talks, negotiations and the so-called ’deal’ between the union government and Baba Ramdev.
On Sunday, petitioner Ajay Agarwal, an advocate, has named Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P Chidambaram, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal, tourism ministerSubodh Kant Sahai and parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal as the respondents.
Home secretary GK Pillai and Delhi Police commissioner BK Gupta are also among those named as respondents in the petition.
The petitioner said this record should be made available within 24 hours.
Ramdev, who was evicted from Delhi’s Ramlila ground along with thousands of his supporters in a midnight drama on Saturday night, was flown by a special plane to Dehradun from New Delhi’s Palam Airport.
The talks between the Central Government and Ramdev crashed with both sides citing betrayal.
The cabinet ministers, who were making all attempts to persuade Ramdev to give up his fast said that he had promised he would end his fast last evening. A letter was produced in this regard.
Ramdev, however, said the government was lying, and added that the letter had been conditional upon the government agreeing to his list of demands.
Ramdev started his indefinite ‘fast-unto-death’ stir on Saturday to demand several radical reforms in the prevailing political system, including a death penalty for corrupt officials.
The truth about Indian men
Jun 3rd
Delhi dudes — mostly loud and aggressive or also large hearted? Bengali men — all fascinatingly creative, intellectual … and a bit of mama’s boys too? Are Goan men totally laid back or have they cracked it early in life? Some are fun, intelligent, conservative, protective, laid back, interested in cricket more than anything else, witty and some are chauvinistic, aggressive, mama’s boy, players and a lot more. And keeping in mind all the positive and negative aspects, there’s one thing that’s undeniable — all Indian men are culturally rooted. But what makes them tick? Model Indrani Dasgupta and actress Sugandha Garg are going to travel their way through 10 different cities in the country to find out what makes Indian men tick on a new show on Fox History & Traveller — What’s With Indian Men?.
“This show is not a regular travel and luxury show. It is about discovering places probably one had heard of but never visited, along with talking to men from those places. It is about how the cities have shaped their men,” explains Indrani, who fell in love with the concept of the show the moment she heard about it. The two women kick-start their journey exploring Indian men from Delhi and moving on to places like Jaipur, Goa and Kochi. Ask them about their experiences during the travel, and Indrani says, “Every city was a unique experience. But, the men of Kochi completely charmed me. It was such a tourist-friendly place with men who are simple, intellectual and rooted to their culture.” To which Sugandha adds, “Indian men, surprisingly, have a great sense of humour! Every man is so influenced by his respective state — making their brand of humour very different. Thanks to all of them, we enjoyed a lot and laughed our way through the show.”
Explaining the concept of the show, Sugandha reveals, “With every city, there is a cliché attached to their men. The concept of this show is to question the men about the cliches attached to them. For example, the Delhi dudes are considered to be more aggressive, while the Goan guys are said to have a chilled out attitude.” She further explains, “And, when we did question them about the cliches, they were very honest and had a very unique perspective.”
Ask them what they think was common to all Indian men, and Indrani promptly replies, “Every Indian man still wants to be the provider of the family — he wants to take care of everything, no matter what.”
On a concluding note, Sugandha adds, “Being a part of this show was like doing a doctorate on Indian men. We left all our inhibitions aside while interviewing the guys and were amazed with their candid confessions. Indian men are so diverse that such a show can only be made in our country and no where else. The show is not scripted and has captured true reactions of everyone — the Indian men and the two of us”
A very light-hearted and witty show, What’s With Indian Men? goes on air from June 4, Saturday, at 10 pm on Fox History & Traveller.
source:http://ibnlive.in.com/news/the-truth-about-indian-men/156355-60-121.html
16-year-old from Hyderabad youngest IIT-JEE topper
May 26th
Like the past six years, IIT-Bombay zone, home to Kota, will send the largest pool of students to the Indian Institutes of Technology. Top honours, however, went to the southern zone that produced possibly the youngest-ever rank 1 – 16-year-old Prudhvitej Immadi of Hyderabad – and bagged four other slots in the top 10.
Of the seven zones (sliced on the basis of the old IITs), the western region saw the highest number of students qualify – 3,336. IIT-Madras zone will send 3,126 candidates to the 15 tech schools. Delhi zone took third place with 2,138 successful candidates, with Dravyansh Sharma of DPS Ghaziabad ranking seventh overall.
Among the top-100 students, 32 come from the western zone while 30 are from the south. The IIT-Bombay zone has the highest number of candidates in the top 1,000 ranks — 290. The best ratio of number of students who appeared to those who qualified in the JEE went to IIT-Madras zone. In all, 13,602 students cleared the exam.
“Only 481 students of the 8,325 students who took the JEE from Mumbai city qualified. Another 1,508 candidates out of 39,483 from Rajasthan, many of whom prepared from coaching centres in Kota, made the cut,” said Jaya Joshi, IIT-Bombay’s public relation officer.
In all, of the 4.68 lakh students who took the JEE in April, 13,602 qualified; another 400-odd candidates have been shortlisted to join the year-long preparatory course.
Rajasthan boy Shubham Mehta topped the IIT-Bombay zone at AIR2 (All India Rank); Dravyansh Sharma (rank 7) from the IIT-Delhi region; Archit Gupta (rank 14) was on top in the IIT-Kanpur area; Ankit Jalan (rank 45) from the IIT-Kharagpur zone; Kunal Chawla (rank 6) from the IIT-Roorkee region and Amol (rank 41) from the IIT-Guwahati zone were the region-wise toppers.
Overall scores and subject-wise cut-offs went up a bit. Faculty attributed the rise to the errors in the question paper, for which the IITs had no option but to give marks to everyone.
IIT-Kanpur director said across India, the performance of reserved category students improved. Of the 2,545 OBC candidates who qualified, 1,540 made it to the common merit list. In case of SC students, of the 1,950 who qualified, 122 made it without the handicap of score relaxation and of the 645 ST candidates shortlisted to join the IITs, 33 made it to the common rank list.
In all, the 15 IITs, IT-BHU and ISM Dhanbad, have 9,618 seats. Of these, 4,858 are for the general category, 2,597 for OBCs, 1442 for SCs and 721 for STs.
Now petrol is dearer than jet fuel
May 17th
MUMBAI: Jet fuel is cheaper than petrol now, but airlines do not appear to be in any mood to cut the fuel surcharge on tickets. With jet fuel or aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices dropping by over 2.9% and petrol prices rising by Rs 5 a litre, it’s cheaper now to fuel a jet aircraft than it is to fuel your car. On Monday, the cost per litre of ATF in Delhi was Rs 58.8, while that of petrol was Rs 63.4. In Mumbai the gap between prices of aircraft and car fuel was wider than that of Delhi with ATF costing Rs 59.6 per litre while petrol stood at Rs 68.3 a litre.
The ATF prices went down on Sunday, after international oil rates slumped bringing about the first reduction in ATF costs this year. In Delhi, the ATF price fell by Rs 1,766/kilolitre, while in Mumbai the fall was Rs 1,827. The 3% fall in ATF prices is not going to translate into reduction in fuel surcharge. The reduction in ATF price has come after 14 successive hikes since October, 2010, when international crude oil prices started soaring.
But there is no respite for the passenger. If you are planning a last-minute summer holiday and have not booked your airline tickets yet, then the only good news is that fuel surcharge will not shoot up till the month end. Airfare still be on the higher side with the peak season demand influencing the prices.
“When ATF prices go up in succession, we raise the fuel surcharge after a few hikes,” said an airline official, requesting anonymity. “Now, it has gone down only by 2.9%, which is too small a drop to effect a change in fuel surcharge,” he added. Unfortunately, for the passenger there will be no respite. In short, the savings will be pocketed by the airline. “The drop maybe only 2.9%, but considering the quantity of fuel an airline’s entire fleet guzzles per month, the savings will not be negligible,” said an aviation analyst. It’s not the first time that jet fuel became cheaper than car fuel. Only two months ago, between March 1 and 15, ATF was Rs 55.5 per litre in Mumbai, while petrol price was Rs 63. In Delhi too, ATF was priced Rs 54.93, while petrol stood at Rs 58.37.
DMK mulls pullout after Sonia call
May 16th
CHENNAI: Upset with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s courtesy call to AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa, the DMK is considering pulling out its ministers from the Union cabinet and provide only outside support to its long-time ally at the Centre.
An AIADMK statement on Saturday said Sonia had called Jaya to convey her ”best wishes” on her electoral success.
DMK seniors, including party chief M Karunanidhi, have held informal discussions for two days since Saturday and probed the option of providing outside support to Congress. While Sonia’s greetings to Jayalalithaa may be perceived by some as mere courtesy, in Tamil Nadu political opponents are not known to exchange such pleasantries. The Sonia-Jaya telephone conversation is seen as a needless provocation by DMK which is sore about the perceived apathy of the Congress in the wake of CBI action against Karunanidhi’s family members.
A section within the DMK, however, cautioned restraint, pointing out that with the party now out of power, it should not lose its clout at the Centre as well. DMK has six Union ministers, including two Cabinet ministers M K Alagiri and Dayanidhi Maran. Pulling them out would leave the DMK with no political capital at a time when the party has suffered a major rout in the assembly elections. ”Until the next Lok Sabha polls in 2014, the party should focus on rebuilding its image and strengthening relations with political allies,” some senior leaders told Karunanidhi.
The mood in the DMK camp, grim since its disastrous performance, plunged further after news of Sonia’s call on Saturday. ”Thalaivar (leader) expressed reservations about Sonia’s call to Jayalalithaa. We can understand his feelings. We didn’t mind the Prime Minister calling the AIADMK leader. But the political implication of Sonia calling her is different. They have never shared a good relationship. We believe Congress is now opening doors to the AIADMK.
In our opinion, they seem to be planning for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections,” a former minister told TOI.
Congress spokeswoman Jayanti Natarajan said the AICC president also congratulated leaders of other parties who won state elections along with Jayalalithaa. ”In a democracy, it is a healthy trend,” she told the media in Delhi. On reports that Sonia had invited Jayalalithaa for tea to Delhi, she said, ”I have no idea, I have no information.”
Rajdhani fire survivors reach Delhi
Apr 19th
As passengers travelling on the Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani, three of whose coaches caught fire near Ratlam, reached New Delhi railway station here on Monday afternoon, relief was almost palpable among their families and well-wishers. Fighting fatigue, they seemed relieved that they had survived what could have been a major tragedy.
According to train staff, the fire started in the pantry around 2 a.m., apparently due to a “short circuit,” and spread to adjoining coaches B-5, B-6 and B-7. No casualty was reported and one person was injured while jumping off the stationary train at Ratlam.
Uttam Nagar resident Nidhi Bajaj, who was returning to Delhi after vacationing in Mumbai, was travelling in coach B-7. “I was on seat 71, just next to the pantry. The fire spread rapidly, even as the train pulled to a stop. The staff use fire extinguishers, but the flames were out of control,” she said.
“I was sleeping in the pantry car when I realised there was smoke all around. Someone woke me up even as heat increased inside, and the smoke was so thick it was difficult to see,” said Pradeep, one of the staff. He said the staff acted quickly, waking up passengers in nearby coaches. “We asked the passengers to get out of the coaches first, without worrying about their luggage,” added Pradeep. All his possessions were destroyed in the fire.
People in other coaches were also alerted and extended all possible help to their fellow passengers. Railway employee and Ambala resident Mahinder Kumar Sharma and his wife were returning from a family function in Mumbai. They were travelling in coach B-3 when a train staffer informed them about the fire. “I helped my wife, who is a heart patient, to get out of the train carefully…We got out into the fields where the train had stopped and I helped another family with a baby come out comfortably. We managed to bring out our blankets and waited for help to arrive,” he said.
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