Admissions for kindergarten to Class 1 from today

NEW DELHI: The online admission process for nearly 200,000 unreserved seats in entry-level classes -- nursery, kindergarten and class 1 -- in around 1,700 private schools in Delhi will begin on Thursday. Schools will release registration forms on their websites from early morning and the last date of submission of forms is March 4.

The centralised admission process, which usually commences in November or December, has been delayed this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The websites will upload the first list of selected candidates on March 20. The second list will be released five days later (March 25), and a subsequent list, if required, will be announced on March 27. The admission process will conclude on March 31. Parents will have to pay an amount of ₹25 (non-refundable) as admission registration fee.

Since admissions to entrylevel classes are determined by a points system, followed by a draw of lots, most schools have allotted points to several factors such as distance, siblings in the school, alumni parents, and girl child. “Distance” remained the criterion with the most weightage points across schools.

For instance, Mother’s International School has fixed 40 points for distance criterion, 30 points for siblings in school, and 10 additional points for girl child. The Indian School has fixed 60 points for the distance criteria, 20 for siblings and 20 for first-born child.

Similarly, Sanskriti School has fixed 0 to 30 points for distance, 25 for siblings of already enrolled students, and 25 points for the children of alumni.

In Tagore International, 50 points is given to applicants residing in areas where school transport is available, 30 to the first-born child, 10 each to siblings, and children of alumni and staff.

Mount Abu Public School has fixed 85 points for distance, 10 points for siblings and five for alumni and staff. In Birla Vidya Niketan, 60 points have been fixed for distance, 20 for siblings and 10 for the children of alumni.

Principals of several schools said they have not changed any admission criteria. Ashok Pandey, chairperson of Ahlcon schools, said, “Change in any criteria would have caused unnecessary inconvenience to parents at the last moment.”

NOIDA: Two boys aged 13 and 14 years were detained by the Noida police on Wednesday in connection with the death of a 10-year-old boy in October last year. Police said that the two had allegedly assaulted the victim and then strangled him to death.

The deceased boy, the son of a daily wage earner, had gone missing from his home under Sector 49 police jurisdiction on October 11, 2020, and subsequently, a kidnapping case had been registered. Later that week, his body was found from near a construction site in the area in a decomposed state.

Police said that this was a blind case, initially.

“We had questioned the neighbours and friends multiple times but didn’t get any clues. A few days later, a man in the area left the locality and went to Banda where we tracked him. He was a person of interest but upon questioning it turned out that he wasn’t involved. But he mentioned that his son was the deceased boy’s friend. When the son was questioned, he said that he and a few other boys had seen the suspect boys misbehaving with the deceased on a couple of occasions,” said Rajesh S, deputy commissioner of police, Zone 1.

According to police, the 14-year-old boy, one of the suspects and son of a local property dealer, was then interrogated who allegedly admitted to the crime and revealed about his accomplice as well.

Police said that he and the other boy had allegedly sexually assaulted the deceased on an earlier occasion as well. “On October 11, they molested him again and when he resisted, they assaulted him. He then threatened to inform his family about it, after which the juveniles pushed him and he hit his head on a brick. They then used a rope lying nearby to strangle him. The autopsy had confirmed ligature marks around the neck. The body was dumped at a construction site from where it was later recovered,” the official said.

The officials also said that the juveniles were allegedly helping the victim’s family put up missing posters but the police have witnesses who alleged that the duo used to bully the deceased. The teens were booked for murder, kidnapping and unnatural sex, police said, adding that they were produced before the juvenile justice board and sent to a juvenile home.

THE DUO HAD EARLIER SEXUALLY ASSAULTED THE VICTIM; THE BOYS ALLEGEDLY KILLED HIM AFTER HE THREATENED TO TELL HIS PARENTS