The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Saturday, December 7, 2002, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

R E G I O N A L B R I E F S

PUNJAB

AMRITSAR
REFRESHER COURSE: Musician of Gwalior gharana L.K. Pandit inaugurated a three-week refresher course in music and fine arts organised by Academic Staff College in collaboration with the music department of Guru Nanak Dev University here on Thursday. He said western music was not bad but it was the duty of Indian artistes to preserve their rich cultural heritage.

BATHINDA
OFFICE-BEARERS: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Pepsu Road Transport Corporation Employees Union: chairman — Mr Kewal Singh; president — Mr Sukhmandar Singh; senior vice-president — Mr Surjit Singh; general secretary — Mr Ram Lal; and organiser — Mr Gurmail Singh.

DENTAL CARE: The district health authorities observed dental care fortnight with the help of the Rotary Club, Bathinda Cantonment. As many as 1,628 persons were examined. Rotarian Parshotam Bansal, president of the club, in a press note issued here on Friday said 30 poor patients were given medicines free of cost. They were also given denture sets free of cost.

TWO KILLED: Two persons were killed in separate incidents reported from the city since Thursday. Mohinder Kumar (24), a resident of Purnia, Bihar, was electrocuted while trying to switch on a motor to lift water. He was employed with a private contractor at a local Rose Garden. Rajinder Singh, a resident of Udham Singh Nagar in the city, was run over by a train on the Bathinda-Sirsa line. The body was handed over to the kin after a post-mortem.

FARIDKOT
SEMINAR: A seminar on drug abuse was organised by Guru Gobind Singh Study Circle at Baba Farid Sabhya Charak Kendra on Friday. Dr Sarabjit Singh, president of the study circle, demanded a ban on the sale of ‘gutkas’ and other intoxicants near educational institutions and holy shrines. The Deputy Commissioner urged NGOs to help the administration in checking drug menace.

HOSHIARPUR
CREDIT PLAN: The updated potential linked credit plan (PLP) for 2003-2004 for Hoshiarpur, prepared by Nabard, was released by Mr Kirandeep Singh Bhullar, Deputy Commissioner, at a meeting here on Thursday. The exploitable credit potential of the district has been assessed at Rs 629.71 crore with a growthrate of 20 per cent.

POWER PURCHASE DEAL: The PSEB Engineers Association of this area, at a meeting here on Thursday, condemned the power purchase deal with a private firm. Mr B.S. Saini, member of the executive of the association said all officers passed a resolution asking for a high-level inquiry into the cases of victimisation of leaders of the association and the power purchase deal.

HOME GUARDS: Mr S.K. Baruta, District Commandant, Home Guards, took salute from Home Guards at a passing out parade organised in connection with the Raising Day celebrations here on Thursday. He read out the messages of the President, the Prime Minister, the Union Home Minister and others.

KAPURTHALA
LITERACY CAMPAIGN: The Deputy Commissioner, Mr Rakesh Verma, on Friday reviewed the progress of the literacy campaign with the functionaries of various departments and voluntary organisations associated with it. He said 23011 illiterates in the age group 15 to 35 had been identified in the district and 2,300 literacy centres would be set up to make them literate. The district had been divided into 86 clusters and principals and headmasters of the areas concerned has been made in charge of these.

MANSA
POLICE REMAND: The Duty Magistrate, Mansa, Ms Jatinder Kaur today remanded Varesh Kumar, an octroi Superintendent of Municipal Council, Mansa, and Subhash Kumar Jindal alias Happy in police remand till tomorrow. They were arrested by DSP (Vigilance) Bathinda, Mr Baljit Singh, under Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

NAWANSHAHR
CONFERENCE: The district unit of the Students Federation of India organised a delegates’ conference here at the Punjab Mata Vidhyawati Bhavan on Thursday. Swaranjit Singh, general secretary of the state unit of the SFI, inaugurated it. Gurbaksh Singh, Surjit Kaur, Harvinder Kumar, Krantivir Singh and Avtar Ram were elected president, vice-president, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer, respectively, of the district unit of the SFI.

AIDS AWARENESS DRIVE: Dr H.S. Gupta, Medical Officer, of the primary health centre at Langroya, as part of the AIDS awareness drive launched by the Health Department, delivered special lectures at government schools at several villages.

EYE DONATION: The Lions Club, Charan Kanwal, Banga, in collaboration with the police organised a function on Thursday to give a boost to voluntary eye donation. More than 50 persons pledged to donate their eyes, Mr Sanjiv Bhardwaj president of the club, said.

PHAGWARA
ARRESTED: Mohan Singh, a clerk in the Punjab Home Guard Department in Kapurthala, was arrested by the Vigilance team at the Kapurthala bus stand on Thursday night while taking a bribe of Rs 2,000 from Ajit Singh, a Home Guard jawan. This was disclosed here by Mr Ranjit Singh, president, Punjab Anti-Corruption and Welfare Council, headquartered at Phagwara, which helped the vigilance team in the arrest.

CHANDIGARH

VISIT: The people for Animals organised a visit of the students of St John’s, Sector 26, as part of their contact programme, to the PFA animal-cum-shelter basera. A total of 108 students of class KG, along with three teachers, visited the shelter. The visit lasted for two hours. The students were taken to see the animal hospital which houses cats, cows, rabbits, birds, etc. They were also made aware of the need to be sensitive towards animals by shelter coordinator, Ms Urmila Nayak.

CELEBRATIONS: Le Meridian and Ebony are organising an evening of celebration, fun and excitement on Saturday from 6 pm onwards. Playing some great melodies will be the Polish band, Flames, which performs regularly under the aegis of Le Meridian. Apart from that Ronika’s dance troupe, Planets, will also be there to add more zing to the evening, which forms a part of the Le Meridian’s month-long New Year celebrations. The idea is to break the restriction of celebrating just the New Year eve and spread the fun all over the days of December. The celebrations have been grouped under the title of “Meridian Mamma Mia Celebrations”.

PROPOSAL CRITICISED: The national president of the Bharatiya Valmiki Sabha, Mr Karnail Singh Sahota, has criticised the proposal put forth by the chairman of a high powered advisory committee on fiscal reforms and financial reconstruction and resources mobilisation in which contract system for education has been recommended. In a press note, Mr Sahota has demanded that the government should not adopt business-based approach towards education. According to him, under the contract system, professors, teachers and other employees will not only be given ‘‘less wages’’ but they will also be deprived of all kinds of loans and other facilities. In that case they will have to look for other source of income and hence their work will suffer.

ASSOCIATION: In a meeting of the Chandigarh Unit of the Engineers Association of the PSEB Mr Surinder Singh, was unanimously elected regional secretary of the Chandigarh unit. The association expressed its resentment against the ‘callous attitude’ of the PSEB management towards honest and efficient engineers. The association said the management’s policy to harass the honest and to protect private interests was not in the interest of the board and the state. It also sought the cancellation of the transfer orders of Mr Padamjit Singh.

CERTIFICATION: The Women and Child Support Unit of the police gave a presentation before the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and the National Productivity Council for acquiring ISO-9001: 2000 certification. If the unit is awarded the certificate, it will become the first police organisation in the country and perhaps the first in the world to attain this international quality standard. The UT police has hired the services of the BIS and the NPC to acquire the certificate. Among others who were present on the occasion included Mr B.S. Bassi, IGP, and Mr H.G.S. Dhaliwal, SP (Operations). Girl students from different colleges of the city and Panjab University, who had joined professional counsellors in their work at the Women and Child Support Unit, were awarded commendation certificate by the UT IGP, Mr B.S. Bassi, during the programme.

SAS NAGAR
NEW SCHOOL: The Aggarwal Educational Trust has opened its first school here in Sector 69. This was disclosed at a press conference organised by Mr Aneet Goel, one of the trustees here on Friday. According to the trustee, the school will be providing education to children using unconventional means and will try to reduce the burden of heavy books for learning. The school will initially be only till Class V and will be recognised by the district education office.

SEMINAR: The Adara Tarak organisation here will be holding a seminar on ‘‘Corruption: the root cause of social evils’’ on December 8 at the seminar hall of NIPER. According to a press statement issued by Mr Ranjivan Singh and Navtej Rana of Adara Tarak, Mr Prem Singh will be presiding over the seminar. Dr Harbhajan Singh Deol and Mr Anupam Gupta will be addressing the audience at the seminar.

HARYANA

AMBALA
SURVEY: The survey of sugarcane for bonding purposes, in areas falling under Naraingarh sugar mill, will start from Saturday. The Deputy Commissioner, Ambala, Mr D.D. Gautam, held a meeting of Shahbad and Kaithal cooperative sugar mill officials on Friday. He said the centres where sugarcane would be weighed had been identified, a release said. Mr D.D. Gautam said that the survey would start from Saturday. The survey would be carried out by representatives of both sugar mills, along with the revenue officials, to assess the productivity of sugarcane. He said the SDMs of Ambala and Naraingarh had been directed to complete the bonding work at the earliest.

MLA BEREAVED: Ambala Cantonment MLA Anil Vij’s mother, Raj Rani (72), who was admitted to the GMCH, Sector 32, Chandigarh, passed away on Friday evening. She died after prolonged illness. She had passed into coma before her death. She is survived by three sons.

FATEHABAD
COTTON DESTROYED: Cotton worth lakhs of rupees was destroyed in a fire that broke out in a local seeds factory at about 12.45 pm today. MC Fire engines which were pressed into action could control the fire in about two hours. The exact value of cotton and other property damaged in the fire was yet to be ascertained.

SIRSA
BLOOD DONATION: The Lions Club, Sirsa, in collaboration with the local Shiv Shakti Blood Bank, organised a blood donation camp at the local C.M.K. National Girls’ College in which 61 students donated blood and pledged to donate their eyes. Dr Ved Beniwal, former president of the Shiv Shakti Blood Bank and patron, IMA, Haryana, apprised the students of the misconceptions prevailing in society regarding blood donation.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

DALHOUSIE
EXPEDITION: The Youth Hostel of India will organise a national Himalayan trekking expedition with its base camp at Dalhousie from December 23 to January 5. According to Mr Simon Samuels, warden of the Dalhousie Youth Hostel, there would be 15 batches drawn from across the country and each batch would have 60 participants.

CHAMBA
RAISING DAY: Raising Day of Civil Defence and Home Guards was celebrated at the Battalion Training Centre, Saroo, about 10 km from here, on Friday. Mr Sunil Choudhary, Additional Deputy Commissioner, presided. Professional demonstrations, band display, sports competition and cultural programmes were held.

HAMIRPUR
‘KHOKHA’ OWNERS: Ms Aparna Sharma, Sub-Judge (second class), on Friday ordered the civic body to maintain status quo with regard to shop numbers 9, 10, 11 and 13 of the khokha market near the main bus stand and file a reply by December 18. She issued the order in response to a case filed by four khokha owners. She also issued instructions that the compliance of the order should be made before the issuance of a stay order as wanted by the applicants.