Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sanjay Bansal pronounced the sentence against Telgi and other accused who were produced before the court through the video conferencing.

Telgi, who is lodged at Bangalore jail, had pleaded guilty during the previous hearings in April and May this year in the cases registered with different police stations in the capital following recovery of fake stamp papers with face value of over Rs 213 crore.

In a case registered with Hauz Khas police station in New Delhi in January, 2001, relating to recovery of fake stamp papers with face value of Rs 211 crore, the court awarded eight cnvicts Sohail Khan, Peter, Mansoor, Mohsin, Mohd Asif, Tabrej, Pramod and Shekhar five years prison term and slapped fine of Rs five lakh on each.

Besides Telgi, another convict Deepak Kudale was also sentenced with seven years prison term in the case.

In another case registered with Daryaganj police station following the recovery of fake stamp papers with face value of Rs 2.5 crore in August 2001, the court sentenced Mansoor Ahmed, Sohail Khan, Pramod Mahadev, Laxman Maruti, Khatan Mohd Saha and Deepak Kudale, besides Telgi to five years prison term and imposed fine of Rs five lakh fine on each.

The court handed down five years imprisonment and a fine of Rs five lakh each to accused Vijay D Patil, Sohail Khan, Laxman Maruti and Sachin Kalge in the case registered with Defence Colony police station with regard to recovery of fake stamp papers with the face value of Rs 2.57 lakh in March 1999.

All the convicts who were sentenced to the prison term had earlier admitted their guilt in the three cases during the hearings before the court from Bangalore and Pune Jails.

Two convicts Parmod and Shekhar were produced in the court from Tihar jail.

Justice Reva Khetrapal granted Varun’s plea, while rejecting the submission of Delhi Police that the court had no jurisdiction to entertain the petition as the FIR against him was lodged in Uttar Pradesh.

Varun, in his petition before the Allahabad High Court, sought quashing of the FIR registered against him in Philibit for his alleged inflammatory and communal speeches.

“The draft of the proposed Delhi Tourists Safety Act is being fine-tuned to ensure that all aspects related to tourists’ safety in the city are covered by it,” a senior official in the State Tourism Department told the news agency.

He said the proposal is at a very nascent stage and is being envisaged to ensure safety of domestic and foreign tourists, visiting the national capital.

“Such a law is necessary as Delhi is ranked one of the favourite tourist destinations in the world. Moreover, it is relevant in view of the Commonwealth Games next year when around 10,000 foreigners besides 10,000 sportsmen and women are expected to throng the city,” he said.

Among several proposals being considered in the draft is the registration of tour operators to prevent fleecing and misbehaviour with the tourists.

Fine and punishment against those found guilty is also under consideration.

“The issue is being deliberated threadbare to whether or not make the Act implementable in the entire city”.

“We are in the midst of deciding whether to cover entire Delhi or some important tourists hot-spots under the proposed Act,” the official said, adding that precautions are being taken to ensure that the law is not misused.

“Tourism accounts merely 5 per cent of our total earnings and it is likely to increase in the coming years. But we want that the Act is a balanced one and all the loopholes are plugged,” he added.

Once the draft is prepared, it will be sent to the Delhi Cabinet, which will finalise its modalities to be later on passed by Delhi Legislative Assembly.

“This means the Bill will see the light of the day only after the Lok Sabha elections,” the official said.

According to realty consultant Cushman & Wakefield (C&W), Connaught Place in New Delhi and Nariman Point in Mumbai has been ranked at 12th and 6th places respectively in the list of most expensive office locations, in which Honk Kong topped.

“In Mumbai, IT/ITeS and BFSI (banking, financial services, and insurance) sectors continued to remain the principal demand drivers, while the city witnessed increased demand from other sectors like pharmaceuticals, aviation, infrastructure and real estate developers, albeit their contribution to overall demand was marginal,” C&W Managing Director Anurag Mathur said.

The other cities that ranked above Mumbai are Tokyo, London, Moscow and Dubai.
Paris, Damascus, Abu Dhabi and Singapore also found berth in the list of the twelve most expensive cities.

“With the slowdown in the global economy, many corporates eased or postponed their expansion plans in Mumbai resulting in subdued demand for office space. As a result Mumbai witnessed an overall vacancy of about 12 percent in 2008, which is significantly higher than the previous 4-5 percent of vacancy recorded in 2007,” C&W said.

The consultant pointed out that Worli, which came at the 10th position, witnessed a correction of about 13 percent in rental values in 2008 over the previous year.

It recorded a vacancy of about seven percent last year as against two percent in 2007.

The report by C&W compares office occupancy costs in 202 key locations in 57 countries around the world. Of these, 58 percent showed rental growth, 26 percent saw stable rents and 16 percent showed a rental fall in 2008.

However, globally office rent rose by an average of three percent last year, which was significantly below the 14 percent growth achieved in 2007, the consultant said.

“The early morning fog has disrupted about 20 domestic and international flights,” airport sources said, adding one flight was cancelled.

The fog started to engulf the airport around 3 am when the visibility began to deteriorate.

The visibility dropped to 125 metres for main runway while 100 metres for new one, and did not improve for next two to three hours, affecting the movement of flights.

Fog has been disrupting flight movement at the IGI airport this winter, with over 1,200 being delayed and around 150 being cancelled.

This move will not only address the shortage of living space for the women who are working in Delhi far away from their homes but would also ensure that elderly couples whose children are not staying with them get good tenants and are safe, Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Choudhary told reporters at New Delhi on Tuesday.

“We are envisaging a scheme where four women can live with one couple in their house,” she said.

The ministry was also coming up with a hostel for working women in Jasola exclusively for those from the North-East which will have an accommodation of 500 women.

She listed domestic violence, rape and trafficking of women and children as the major problems being faced by women in the country.

In order to stop people from female foeticide, the Government has revised adoption norms to encourage adoption of girl child and has begun the ‘Dhanalakshmi’ scheme under which parents of the girl child are given some remuneration on every step of the growth of the child.

The minister said the Government has also promoted compulsory registration of marriages to prevent child marriages and deserting of brides by NRI husbands.

The Centre has also ensured gender budgeting in all ministries for the overall development of children.

The move came after Speaker Somnath Chatterjee referred the matter to the Union Home Ministry which decided to hand over the investigation in the cash-for-vote scam to the Delhi Police Crime Branch.

The cash, which was sealed in a parcel, was handed over to Assistant Commissioner of Police Rajendra Bakshi who has been appointed the Investigating Officer by Rajya Sabha Secretary General P D T Achary.

On 15th December, a Lok Sabha Committee submitted its report on the scam exonerating Samajwadi Party General Secretary Amar Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel, saying they had no role to play in it.

The Committee, however, recommended a probe by an “appropriate agency” into the role of certain persons including Sanjeev Saxena, said to be an aide of Amar Singh, alleged broker Sohail Hindustani and Sudheendra Kulkarni, an aide of BJP leader L K Advani.

After handing over the cash, Achary told reporters that the Home Ministry had informed the Lok Sabha Secretariat that the city police would be investigating the matter.

On receiving the cash from Achary in his Parliament House office, the Delhi Police team took it to another room and counted the money.

The police officials then re-sealed the parcel and took it to the Crime Branch ‘malkhana’ (room where evidences are kept).

“It was a relief handing over the money to police as I had been keeping it since 22nd July,” Achary said.

Sources said the Speaker was against extending the one-month deadline given to the government to hand over the probe to an appropriate agency.

The sources said Chatterjee had said that if the money was not collected by investigators before the deadline, it would be deposited with the government as “unclaimed property.”

On 22nd July last year, the day the UPA government won the trust vote, three BJP MPs Ashok Argal, Faggan Singh Kulaste and Mahavir Bagora had tabled a bag full of currency notes inside the Lok Sabha.

They had charged they were offered Rs three crore in bribe by Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh and Ahmed Patel had also played a role in asking them to either vote in favour of the confidence motion or abstain.

Following demands, a House Committee, headed by Congress MP Kishore Chandra Suryanarayana Deo, was set up to probe the “cash-for-vote” scam during the confidence vote.

Two opposition MPs who were members of the panel — V K Malhotra of BJP and Mohd Salim of CPI(M) gave dissenting notes on the 466-page report.

“The Cabinet decided that the hike in fee will range from Rs 100 to Rs 500 depending on the current fee structure of the schools. The hike will be effective from September, 2008,” Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said.

Elaborating on the decisions, Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely said schools were placed in different categories depending on the current fee structure of the schools.

He said any school which is currently charging a monthly fee of Rs 500 will be allowed to hike Rs 100.

Likewise any school charging a monthly fee of Rs 1000 will be allowed to effect a maximum hike of Rs 200.

Lovely said schools charging a monthly fee of Rs 1500 can hike Rs 300 and those having fee structure ranging from above Rs 1500 to Rs 2000 will be able to hike not more than Rs 400.

For rest of the schools with monthly fee of more than Rs 2,000 will be allowed to hike the fee Rs 500, he said.

On the arrears, Lovely said maximum cap on the arrears will be Rs 4,000 which would be payable in two installments.

“A school charging a monthly fee of Rs 500 will be able to collect arrears of not more than Rs 1,000. The schools charging a monthly fee of Rs 2,000 and above can collect maximum arrears of Rs 4,000,” he said.

He was 54 and is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.

Mr Sharma, who had been suffering from throat cancer for quite some time, was admitted to Apollo hospital a few days ago.

Currently representing the Rohtas Nagar assembly constituency in East Delhi, Rambabu Sharma was the president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress committee from 2004 to 2007.

Earlier, he held many positions in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi including the Chairman of the Standing committee of the coproration and Leader of the Opposition in the MCD House.

Making his political debut in 1971 from student politics, Sharma was involved with Universaity politics till 1980.

In 1980 he was made the general secretary of East Delhi Youth Congress Committee by Indira Gandhi. Later, he was elevated to the post of president of the East Delhi Youth Congress, a post he held for a record 10 years.

In 1996, he was made the president of East Delhi District Congress Committee and in 1998, he went on to become the Leader of the Opposition in MCD.

In 2003, he first time contested successfully for the Delhi Legislastive Assembly from the Rohtas Nagar assembly seat.

In 2004, he was appointed the president of the DPCC by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, a position in which he remained till 2007.

He was reelected from Rohtas Nagar assembly seat for the second time in the 29th November assembly polls.

Lately he had been keeping a low profile due to his illness

Issuing notice to the city police, a Division Bench of Chief Justice A P Shah and Justice Sanjeev Khanna said “this is a very serious matter and needs to be investigated by a senior level officer of the Delhi police”.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by Bachpan Bachao Andolan, an NGO, which alleged that placement agencies were responsible for illegal trafficking of girls and sought a direction to the state government for compulsory registration of all such agencies.

Appearing for the NGO, senior lawyers H S Phoolka and Kavita Tiwari submitted before the bench that the girls were sometimes forced into prostitution and boys were forced into illegal activities.

According to the NGO, early this month about 35 girls and four boys were rescued from various placement agencies in New Delhi.