R E G I O N A L   B R I E F S

PUNJAB

Amritsar
CHILDREN’S CAMP: A two-week summer camp organised by the Ladies Club of Guru Nanak Dev University for children concluded on the varsity campus here on Saturday. Prof Jagjit Kaur , wife of the Vice-Chancellor, presided over the function and gave away prizes to the campers. More than 90 children were trained in yoga, classical dance, art and craft , drawing and bhangra at the camp.

Bathinda
MEDICAL CAMP: As many as 110 employees of the local Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant (GNDTP) were examined at a neuropathy detection camp organised here on Saturday. They were given 10 ways to treat ailments through neuropathy detection.

Hoshiarpur
Foundation day: Foundation day of Student Book Bank was celebrated here on Sunday. A function was organised in this connection in which Dr Ashok Sud, founder president of the book bank, said the main aim of the book bank was to promote education among the economically backward students. The book bank is financed by philanthropists without any aid from the government. The strength of beneficiary students has increased from 287 in 1990-91 to 1100 in 2003-04. The book bank has procured more than 43,000 book on various subjects.

Elected: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Saini Maha Sabha, Pathankot: president — Mr Pritam Singh Saini; senior vice-president — Mr Om Parkash Saini; general secretary — Mr P. S. Saini; and treasurer — Mr Bal Krishan Saini.

Beopar Mandal: Mr Rakesh Kumar Mahajan has been elected president of Beopar Mandal, Damtal, here on Sunday at a meeting of the members of the beopar mandal.

Nawanshahr
DISCRIMINATION ALLEGED: Mr Pirthi, Mr Makhan Singh Grewal, Ms Nisha Nahar, Ms Jinderjit Kaur, all local Municipal Councillors, have alleged discrimination against the wards they represented. They threatened dharnas if no remedial action was taken.

POSTGRADUATE CLASSES: BLM Girls College here has been permitted to start postgraduate classes in the subjects of Hindi and political science and postgraduate diploma in fashion designing and tailoring by Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, from this session, informed Principal C. Tassuvar.

PSU’S DEMAND: A deputation of the Punjab Students Union (PSU) led by Kulwinder Singh Chahal, state general secretary, met the Director, Technical Education, at Chandigarh on Friday in connection with the demand of withdrawing the condition of 80 per cent attendance imposed on the ITI students. Karam Singh and Harvinder Singh, PSU leaders, said that the Director had assured them that he would accept the demand.

SEMINAR: Sugarfed, Punjab, organised a seminar-cum-field day on mechanised pit plantation technique of sugarcane sowing at the farm of progressive farmer Resham Singh at Barwa village here on Saturday to popularise the technique among the farmers and officials of cooperative sugar-mills in the state. The officials of the cooperative sugar mills, directors of the Sugarfed and progressive farmers from different districts of the state participated.

1 KILLED IN MISHAP: In an head-on collision of a motorcycle and scooter, Jagjit Singh (18) of Rahon died on the spot while his cousin Arvinder Singh (21), Vijay Kumar(24) of Surapur village and Deepa (18) a resident of the local Garhshanker road were injured near Begumpur village on the Rahon road on Saturday.

HONOURED: The Guru Nanak Mission Medical and Educational Trust, Dhahan Kaleran, about 20 km from here, organised a ‘sanmann samaroh’ on the trust premises to honour the donors and motivators, who have been helping the trust to run its charitable projects for the past more than 25 years. Ms Sushil Kaur, Manager, Public Relations, Mr Kulwinder Singh Dhahan, Trustee, Mr Balbir Singh Bains, among others, addressed the gathering and highlighted various social activities launched by the trust. Mr M.F. Farooqui, SSP, in a press note issued here on Sunday said the district police in its drive against the drug peddlers, had seized 50 boxes of English wine, 65 bags of poppy husk and nine gram smack during nakas at different places in the district. The police has arrested as many as seven persons, including two women, for their involvement in the cases of drug smuggling.

Patiala
NOMINATED: Gurcharan Singh Batra has been nominated for the annual International Reiki Healing Foundation ‘Reiki award’ for rendering outstanding performance in the field of reiki.

ELECTED: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Rotary club, Patiala Mid-Town: president — Devi Dayal Goyal, secretary — Rameshwar Gupta, treasurer — Som Nath Goyal and Sergeant-at-Arms — N.K. Jain.

CONDEMNED: Members of the Temporary Engineers Association, Punjab Irrigation Department held an emergency meeting and condemned action taken against B&R engineers merely on record of a carriage contractor allegedly without verifying the facts from the department.

5 injured: Five pilgrims, including three women of a family, were injured after their Tata Sumo collided with another Tata Sumo at the local Sugar Mill chowk on the GT road on Sunday. The pilgrims were returning from Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu to their native place Giji in Rohtak district in Haryana. Those hospitalised included Suresh, driver of Tata Sumo, Ms Sarla, Ms Poonam, Ms Pooja, and Ms Babita.

CHANDIGARH

RED CROSS SOCIETY: The DPI (Colleges) Punjab, Ms Nisha Sharad, has taken over as vice-chairman of the Punjab state branch of the Indian Red Cross Society. The outgoing vice-chairman, Dr D.P.S. Sandhu, handed over the charge to her at a function held at the Punjab Red Cross Bhavan here. Ms Sharad said the Red Cross movement would be taken to all colleges of Punjab and the youth would be involved in welfare programmes.

HARYANA

Bhiwani
CONSUME POISONOUS SUBSTANCE: A 24-year-old youth, identified as Rajbir, consumed a poisonous substance at Ajitpura village on Saturday, a report said. In another incident, a woman of local Lal Masjid area, identified as Suman, consumed sleeping pills unknowingly on Saturday. Both have been admitted to the local Civil Hospital.

Kurukshetra
MAN KILLED: A man was crushed to death when he was attempting to board a bus at Sanjarwas village on the Dadri-Rohtak road on Saturday. According to report, Bhadur Singh (27) of Ranila village slipped when he tried to board the bus.

DOWRY CASE: The police has arrested a woman on the complaint of her daughter-in-law at Sarupgarh village. The complainant said in her complaint that her in-laws were harassing her for more dowry. The police arrested the mother-in-law and produced her before a court on Saturday. She was later bailed out.

Sonepat
SENTENCED: Mr J.S. Jangra, Additional Sessions Judge, sentenced Narinder, an accused in a fake currency racket to six months of rigorous imprisonment following his failure to deposit the surety amount of Rs 50,000 for the release of a fake currency smuggler Mohammad Tayyab on interim bail for a month. Narinder, who was evading arrest, surrendered before the court on Saturday.

DEMONSTRATION: The Shiv Shakti Morcha has decided to take out a procession and stage a demonstration in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s Office here on July 11 to protest against the increase in prices of petrol, diesel, LPG, water and power.

CONDEMNED: The HUDA Karamchari Sangh on Sunday condemned the transfer of Mr R.K. Nagar, a leading sangh leader from Sonepat to Sirsa, and described it as a political vendetta. The sangh demanded cancellation of the transfer and warned that a state-level agitation would be launched against the HUDA administration if it failed to concede to the demand of the sangh.

DEMAND: The Municipal Karamchari Union has urged the state government to implement the agreement reached between the representatives of the state government and the leaders of the union in connection with the long-standing demands of the municipal employees. The union also warned that if the demands of the employees were not fulfiled, the union would launch a state-wide agitation.

AWARENESS RALLY: The students of the NSS branch of the Government Senior Secondary School, Model Town, organised a rally to create awareness for the pulse polio immunisation programme on Sunday. Students marched through main streets of the city. The rally culminated at Kabirpur village situated on the outskirts of the city.

INJURED: A youth was seriously injured in a clash which took place between two rival groups in Arya Nagar area here on Sunday. The injured youth was immediately hospitalised and stated to be out of danger. The police has registered a case. However, no arrest has been made so far.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

Bilaspur
SENTENCED: Chief Judicial Magistrate A.C. Thalwal sentenced Hardyal Singh of Majari village to three years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh under the Section 61 of the HP Excise Act, 1914. The court further directed Hardyal Singh to undergo imprisonment for six months if he fails to pay the fine.

Dharamsala
VC ASSUMES CHARGE: Dr Jagmohan Singh assumed charge as Vice-Chancellor of CSK HP Agricultural University on Friday. He addressed the university community on Saturday. He said there was need to reach small and marginal farmers in far-flung areas and university scientists should collaborate with the Departments of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry for this.

Hamirpur
ROTARY TEAM: Mr N.K. Sharma and Mr Amit Sharma were installed as president and secretary, respectively, of the Rotary Club, Hamirpur, for 2004-05 at a function held on Saturday Mr S.P. Sethi was the installation officer. Ms Veena Sharma and Ms Mukesh Katna were installed as the new president and secretary, respectively, of the Inner Wheel Club. Dr Suman Sharma, CMO, Hamirpur, was the installation officer on this occasion. The new Rotary team announced that free medical camps would also be organised in varius parts of the district for the welfare of the poor and down- trodden sections of society, this year.

PRIZES FOR ECO CLUBS: Eco Clubs excelling in plantation and preservation of ecological balance will be honoured in the district, said Deputy Commissioner Devesh Kumar here at a meeting of chairpersons of eco clubs and forest employees. There are cash prizes of Rs 10,000, Rs 8,000 and Rs 5,000. In addition to this, 10 best schools will also get cash prizes of Rs 2,000 each.

Kangra
BAR ASSOCIATION: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Bar Association here. President — Mr Surender Bhararia; vice-president — Mr Gautam Kayastha; general secretary — Mr Kartik Parsad; joint secretary — Mr Aman Guleria; and cashier — Mrs Meena Chaudhary.

Mandi
RS 50 CRORE FOR ROADS: Mrs Kalvati Thakur, president, Mandi Zila Parishad, at a meeting here on Saturday said Rs 50 crore would be spent to construct roads in the district under the Prime Minister Sadak Yoja. Additional Deputy Commissioner, Mandi, R.S. Gupta said Rs 42.61 lakh had been sanctioned for the Zila Parishad for development schemes.

TARIFF HIKE DECRIED: The Communists Party of India (CPI) here on Saturday criticised power tariff hike announced by the Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Regulatory Commission and demanded that the hike be withdrawn.

Nahan
IRRIGATION SCHEME: Speaker HP Vidhan Sabha Gangu Ram Musafir on Saturday laid the foundation stone of Jhaltu-Jhaged flow irrigation scheme, to be implemented, through the soil conservation unit, of the Himachal Agriculture Department, in Rajgarh Subdivision, here, Rs 8.5 lakh would be spent, on the scheme and 20 hectares of land would be irrigated benefiting 37 families, of the area.

Shimla
DEPUTATION MEET SCM : A deputation of gram panchayat Giu, in Spiti subdivision of Lahaul and Spiti district called on Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh here on Thursday and urged him to open a timber depot in the village and sought telephone facilities for the panchayat.