DELHI, India 18 March 2018: Everything comes at a cost, doesn’t it? Fare hike in Delhi Metro since the past months has been speculated to bring down ridership to a 4-year low. Although the Delhi Metro’s total network length has crossed the 250-km mark recently, yet the fare hike seemed to have forced millions of commuters to stop or avoid using the signature public transport of one of the world’s most polluted cities.
Last October’s tariff hike has appeared to have hauled the Metro’s ridership to pre-2015 levels that is, when the trains on fewer corridors, spanning around 190 km in length. The average daily ridership has dropped by 15 per cent as opposed to previous months.
Unable to repay debt, culprit murders financier
Four men have been arrested and a juvenile have been apprehended in connection with the murder of a 47-year old financier in South Delhi’s Malviya Nagar.
On March 14, Dinesh Chandan (22) was arrested and a juvenile Chirag was apprehended on the basis of a tip-off. On questioning, they revealed that it was due to the instructions of Rohit Thakur (30) and Rajender (33) that they killed Sanjay Chawla., and for this action they received Rs35,000 each.
Subsequently, the knife used to stab and the clothes worn by Chawla at the time of the incident were recovered. Rohit, Rajender and Manjot Singh (48), a gemstone dealer have been arrested. Chawla had succumbed to his injuries during the treatment in February.
During the investigation, it was found that Chawla used to provide loans against interest on a monthly basis, and Singh revealed that he had taken a loan of Rs5.2 million from Chawla against monthly interest and as Chawla started pressuring him when he was unable to pay the interest,he roped in his acquaintances for the action to be carried out, and promised to pay them Rs500,000, as said by DCP Romil Baaniya (South).
Reviving dead Sanskrit language
Delhi is planning to open 70 new Sanskrit centres. Last December, the Delhi government has reconstituted the general body of the Sanskrit Academy while underscoring that the aim of the committee was to propagate interest in the language to further expand it to a wider audience.
Deputy Chief Minister, and Art, Culture and Language Minister Manish Sisodia pressed on the importance of detaching languages and culture from religious identity, that Sanskrit was not the property of the RSS, just like Urdu does not belong to the Muslim community, to attach Sanskrit to Hinduvta will only cause it harm, adding that Sanskrit has literary, scientific and philosophical knowledge of which the evolution is difficult because of the disconnect with present times, nonetheless the young generation can certainly benefit from learning it to contemporise it.
Pierce Brosnan apologises for Paan Masala
Remember when Hollywood Pierce Brosnan acted in a Paan Masala advertisement that caught everybody’s eye? Well, he has apologized and offered to campaign against tobacco products, a Delhi government official said on Wednesday.
The actor was responding to a notice served to him by the Delhi government’s Health Department. He had issued a similar statement back in 2016, and distanced himself from the brand which featured him promoting paan masala and that ran into a controversy, the actor’s lawyer made it clear on his behalf that he was not aware of its hazardous nature, as the company kept him in the dark and since the agreement is over he is ready to assist in anti-tobacco campaigns.