Starvation

Police have suggested over the last week that she may have been suffering from a disability. The children, Mansi, Shikha and Parul, are well remembered in the neighbourhood.

Gola recalled a day, about two years ago, when Singh came into the studio to get a family picture clicked with his wife and all three daughters. “If a man who runs a tea stall gets a family picture clicked in a studio, it means he loved them. It was an extra expense for him,” he said.

The bodies of the three girls — 8, 4 and 2 years old — were found in Talab Chowk, where the family had moved last Saturday after being evicted from their Saket Block home. Police and medical reports have said that the girls died of starvation, a finding that has sent shockwaves through the Delhi government and civic administration.

But a preliminary report by an independent magistrate on Friday suggested that the children were given an “unknown medicine” by their father a day before they died. The report, submitted by the district magistrate of Shahdara, K Mahesh, to deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, stated that the girls were suffering from “loose motions and vomiting,” which may have been due to a stomach infection.

Mangal Singh has been missing since Tuesday morning.

People in the neighbourhood said that Singh’s tea stall ran into financial trouble sometime in 2016. He was unable to pay the lease, and ended up losing it. The stall, however, is still up and running at the same spot -- now taken over by a new management.

Soon after losing the stall, Singh took a rickshaw on daily rent and started ferrying passengers in east Delhi.

“The family’s downfall started when he could not pay the lease amount for his tea shop and after running it for four years, he had to give it up,“Gola said. “It was that very year, after losing his shop, that Mangal started losing his grip on life.”

The man who took over the tea stall from Mangal in 2016, and who knew him from before, said that his financial situation led him to alcohol addiction. “After a year of working as a rickshaw puller, Mangal had started drinking heavily. Last year, he hurt his leg badly, but could not afford treatment. His injury soon turned into a sore . We heard he suffered from diabetes. His walking was affected and his work suffered. It had a major impact on his income,” said the stall manager, who asked not to be named

“Despite these odds, Mangal worked hard for his family and managed to send his eldest daughter to school,” he added.

Another former neighbour, Imran Malik, who runs a scrap shop in the locality, said he and Singh joined a money-back scheme together in 2015. “He wanted to start a shop again. He used to come to me regularly as our agent was the same. He had been irregular with the monthly payment for past few months,” Malik said.

The two were in touch until last Saturday, when he moved out of the neighbourhood to Talab Chowk, about a kilometre away.

While the search for Singh is still on, Beena was admitted to the psychiatry ward of a government hospital on Thursday, according to deputy commissioner of police (east) Pankaj Kumar Singh. Beena has been unable to tell the police how the kids remained deprived of food, or where her husband is.

PTI leader Naeemul Haq told the media on Friday that his party would be forming the government both at the centre and in Punjab provincem Pakistan’s largest. Haq said Khan had asked different party leaders to contact the leadership of different political parties in a bid to build a coalition. At he same time he said he was not aware of any contact with the leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party. “I don’t think we will be entering into any understanding with them,” he said.

PML-N has charged that the election had been rigged following a bitter campaign in which Pakistan’s powerful military was accused of tilting the race in favour of Khan, and trying to erase democratic gains made since the most recent spell of military rule ended in 2008. On Friday, however,pml-n seemed ready to accept that Khan would be the next prime minister .

“We are going to sit on opposition benches, despite all the reservations,” said Hamza Shehbaz Sharif, a parliamentarian and change.” Khan campaigned on nephew of Nawaz Sharif, who is promises to end widespread graft in prison after being convicted on while building an “Islamic welcorruption charges that he has fare state”. Known in Pakistan as disputed. “Taliban Khan” for his calls to

“(PML-N) would play the role hold talks with insurgents, he of a strong opposition,” said increasingly catered to religious Shehbaz Sharif, the PML-N presihardliners during the campaign dent and brother of Nawaz Sharif, — particularly over the hugely according to the English-laninflammatory charge of blasguage Dawn newspaper. Nawaz phemy — spurring fears that his Sharif himself said the polls had leadership could embolden been “stolen” and the “tainted extremists. On Thursday, he and dubious” results would have vowed to tackle corruption that a “bad impact” on the country’s was “eating our country like a politics, according to a number of cancer” and touched on promises his party leaders who visited the to balance relations with the US Adiala jail in Rawalpindi to meet that would be “beneficial” for him after the elections. both countries. Khan also said he

European Union (EU) moniwas open to sitting down with tors said on Friday that the elecIndia to discuss ongoing disputes tion had not been fought on a level in Kashmir. Khan’s party also playing field. The EU Election appears to have succeeded in Observation Mission, in its prewresting control of the local liminary report, said the camassembly in Pakistan’s biggest paign week featured a “lack of province, Punjab, from the Shaequality”. “Although there were rifs. The News newspaper and several legal provisions aimed at other l ocal media reported ensuring a level playing field, we PML-N was unlikely to form the have concluded that there was a government in Punjab, home to lack of equality and opportumore than half of Pakistan’s 208 nity,” chief EU observer Michael million people and the power Gahler told a news conference. base of the Sharif family for more He added later: “The credibility than three decades. or the legitimacy of this process, that is for the people of Pakistan [to decide on].”

Khan, during a speech declaring victory on Thursday, offered to investigate opposition claims of vote-rigging and said he wanted to “unite” the country under his leadership. He also held out an olive branch to India, promising to match with two steps every step India takes towards Pakistan.

Analyst Ayesha Siddiqa said observers who suspect rigging behind Khan’s victory may have underestimated the depth of feeling among Pakistan’s growing middle class.

“This is a middle class revolution,” Siddiqa said. “Remember they grew up on this narrative of a corrupt Pakistan being damaged and needing a new leadership... In all this hue and cry, we didn’t notice there is another

Pakistan there that wanted this Dilip Ganguly, assistant professor at Centre for Atmospheric Sciences at IIT Delhi.

Delhi was in May 2018 named by the World Health Organization as the world’s most polluted megacity, particularly because of high dust levels and particulate matter. This June — otherwise considered an off-season for pollution levels which peak in the winter — PM10 particulate matter levels had shot up more than 8.5 times the daily safe standards because of a dust storm.

D Saha, the former chief of air quality laboratory, Central Pollution Control Board, said: “Dust pollution in severe in city due to its geographical location. The top soil is loose with no grass and intensity of rainfall is very low.”

The sensors offered benefits for parking lot operators, too. They could, for example, give data about when spaces are typically filled, and allow operators to improve occupancy rates.

“These sensors and other equipment have not been able to bring any difference in the parking system. Some of the sensors are either not functioning properly or damaged. We are still getting the cars parked manually,” said a parking attendant N-block in Connaught Place, who asked not to be named.

The civic agency has now set August end as the new deadline for completing the project.

“The concessionaire has been asked to fix the problem in another one month and make the project operational by August end, else we will impose fine. . Apart from sensors, most of the other facilities are in place,” said Kumar. appointment of judges. He said, “The Supreme Court had in its NJAC (National Judicial Appointments Commission) judgment directed high courts to set up secretariats for the collegiums. How many high courts have done it ? “

Justice Lokur also blamed the high courts for not doing enough ground work on the names of the new judges to be appointed and said, “We need to introspect whether there is enough scrutiny of the names and this is one of the reasons for this ping-pong that is going on (over) the appointment of judges.”

Justice Ranjan Gogoi talked about introduction of artificial intelligence to solve the problem of rising pendency in courts. “Scope of Artificial intelligence in judiciary must be explored.”

Justice Gogoi also stressed the need to use alternative dispute resolution mechanisms to deal with cases, but was not optimistic about getting help from the government.”i am not optimistic of additional budgetary support from the government for alternate dispute resolution,” he said.