NEWS

The Delhi High Court on Monday sought response of the AAP government on a PIL for releasing on bail those undertrial prisoners (UTPs) who have served more than half of the maximum sentence which would be awarded to them if convicted for the lesser of the multiple offences they are facing trial. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan issued notice to the Delhi government and sought its stand on the plea by a trust, India Undertrial Prisoner Support Forum, which has contended that granting bail to such UTPs would be a long term solution for decongesting the jails in the national capital which are presently housing prisoners nearly double their actual capacity. The trust, represented by advocates Vishal Gosain and Neeha Nagpal, told the bench that the Supreme Court had in 2015 and 2016 ordered setting up of a Undertrial Review Committee (UTRC) to consider cases of UTPs who were entitled to benefit of section 436A of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) which provides the maximum period for which a UTP can be detained.

Traffic on the 270-km long Jammu-Srinagar national highway remained suspended for the second straight day on Monday due to heavy snowfall around Jawahar Tunnel and in Banihal of Ramban district.

Though the road was cleared of landslides at Magerkot, Battery Chashma, Mom Passi, Marog and Panthial in Ramban distict, heavy accumulation of snow on the north portal of Jawahar Tunnel in Lower Munda has been hampering vehicular movement.

Hundreds of trucks from avalanche prone area in Lower Munda were cleared and allowed to pass through the Jawahar tunnel towards Banihal.

After receiving heavy downpour over the weekend, Delhi-NCR witnessed rain and thunderstorm on Monday evening too.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had on Sunday said North India is likely to witness an intense wet spell, accompanied by thunderstorm, lightning and hailstorm at isolated places till January 5. IMD has also issued an orange alert for Delhi till Tuesday.

IMD predicted the minimum temperature in Delhi to be around 10 degrees Celsius and the maximum temperature 18 degrees Celsius.

On Sunday, heavy rains lashed Delhi where the minimum temperature settled at 9.9 degrees Celsius, while the maximum settled at 15.8 degrees Celsius.

Taking cognizance of the complaints about frequent disruptions in rural water supply scheme, the panchayati raj department has resorted to the use of computer-based application to keep a tab on operation of motorised pumps across Bihar.

As part of the state’s mission to provide tap water supply to each and every household, the state government has assigned the department with the task of rolling out the scheme in over 58,000 wards of rural areas by the end of this fiscal under the chief minister’s flagship Har Ghar Nal Ka Jal project.

Additional chief secretary, panchayati raj department, Amrit Lal Meena said that all water towers would be equipped with specially designed device, internet of things (IOT), to calculate operation time of pumps and flow of water from the towers. “The device will be connected with a centralised computer network and operation status of each and every pumping station and water tower could be watched from the control room on realtime basis," added Meena.