R E G I O N A L   B R I E F S

PUNJAB

Abohar
ARRESTED: Aleesha alias Nishu, a resident of Patiala, was arrested by the anti-fraud squad of the district police on a complaint by Hans Raj, a resident of Sapparwali village. He alleged Alisha and her mother had duped him of Rs 6 lakh for arranging a government job. A case has been registered under Sections 420, 120 B of the IPC. She was remanded to judicial custody by a court here on Wednesday.

BOOKED: Bhim Sain a resident of the Nai Abadi locality, was remanded in judicial custody by a court here on Wednesday. He was arrested on Tuesday under Sections 498A, 323, 506, 148 and 149 of the IPC for allegedly intimidating his wife Savita, daughter of Babu Ram a resident of Bathinda who had lodged a complaint naming seven persons, including her husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

CAMP ORGANISED: A three-day Internet awareness camp organised by the Hind Savera.Com concluded at G D Senior Secondary School here on Wednesday. Mr Bharat Bhardwaj Director, Pure Foods Limited, gave away the certificates to 200 participants. Two websites were launched at the closing ceremony. Others who addressed included Ms Praveen Bhardwaj, Mr Ram Kishor Shastri and Mr Ghanshyam Nagpal. They advised that promoting the Internet among the students was essential to move with modern educational technologies but care to safeguard the future of adolescents would have to be taken with responsibility.

RESOLVED: The newly elected team of Teachers Club has resolved to honour all teachers who had retired during September1, 2003 and August 31, 2004. Mr Baldev Singh Pyasa, president, Mr D. K. Chaithley, secretary, and Mr Rakesh Raheja, treasurer of the club, said they would be presented mementoes at the Teachers Day function to be held on September 5. All heads of the school here had been requested to send nominations immediately.

Amritsar
LECTURE: Professor Hillel Levine, an eminent scholar of Sociology and Religion at University of Boston (USA) delivered a special lecture on “Between conflict resolution and reconciliation”, at Guru Nanak Bhawan Auditorium of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) here on Wednesday. He said religion had been playing a crucial role in the human history and legitimising the distinct identities.

Dera bassi
SAPLINGS PLANTED: Fifty saplings of ornamental plants were planted by employees of Punjab National Bank, Mubarikpur branch, in and around the bank premises at Mubarikpur village, about 2 km from here, on Thursday. Mr R.M. Mittal, Senior Manager of the branch, inaugurated the plantation drive. Teachers and students of Government College, Dera Bassi, also participated in a tree plantation drive on the college premises. Mr Amritpal Singh, president of the Dera Bassi Municipal Council, who was the chief guest, inaugurated the drive by planting a sapling.

LUDHIANA
ATM inaugurated: Mr K.R. Srikantan, managing director, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, inaugurated the 175th ATM of the bank here on Thursday. Talking to reporters, Mr Srikantan said the bank proposed to install more ATMs and branches in the city. The ATM will have connectivity with SBI network and cards issued by State Bank of India, its associate banks HDFC, UTI, Andhra Bank and Indian Bank will be operative on the ATM.

PATIALA
VANAMAHOTSAVA: The Environment Watch Committee and NSS volunteers of Khalsa College organised a vanamahotsava week from August 21 to 26. Deputy Commissioner Tejveer Singh had inaugurated the function by planting a sapling on the college premises.

TUMOUR REMOVED: Dr P.K. Singla, operated on a child and severed a tumour that had ballooned to a circumference of nearly five or six inches. The doctor said the operation was conducted successfully a few days back and that the child had now recovered fully.

OFFICE-BEARERS: The following have been elected office-bearers of the National Federation of General Insurance Employees Union: president-Ghansham Dass; working president-C.M.S. Ahuja, general secretary- R.S. Gujral, organising secretary-Harcharan Singh, senior vice-president- K.S. Kathuria and Mukkhtiar Singh and vice-president-Varinder Malik.

MEMBERSHIP: Punjabi University has decided to seek a membership of India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi. Registrar of the university Param Bakhshish Singh said the decision to this effect has been taken by a high-level committee here on Thursday. He further said that as per the tie-up arrangements with IIC the faculty and research scholars would be able to avail of the library, hostel and auditorium facilities.

Effigy burned: Members of the Punjabi University Students Confederation burnt the effigy of the varsity administration in front of Law Department to protest against the ‘anti-students’ policies of the university here on Thursday. President of the confederation, Gurpal Singh Dhaliwal, alleged that the statement issued by the varsity authorities that they had accepted all the major demands of the students was baseless. He said the core issues, including the hostel facility, roll back of the massive hike in the hostel fee and the counselling fee and the decision to introduce internal assessment had not been taken up.

Phagwara
SUICIDE: A youth, Anil Kumar (22) committed suicide by hanging himself at his Ranpura residence here on Wednesday. Domestic tension reportedly drove him to suicide.

BOOKED: The local police has booked retired Colonel R.N. Khanna of Sector 26-A of Noida, Uttar Pradesh, under Section 420 and 406 of the IPC on charges of fraud and criminal breach of trust for duping Mr Paramjit Singh of Guru Nanakpura of Rs 3.5 lakh for sending him to Canada but failing to do so.

NABBED: The police nabbed Mohammed Anwar alias Rafi near Kotrani village and recovered 1.2 kg of charas from him. Anwar belongs to gali no 9 of Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar.

GANG BUSTED: The police claims to have busted a three-member gang of thugs who used to defraud fellow migrants and recovered Rs 6000 from them. They were identified as Sarwan Kumar, Ramesh Paswan and Ballu Kumar of Kishen Ganj in Bihar.

ASSAULTED: Mr Bal Ram Sharma, president of the Khalsa Taxi Union, Phagwara, was allegedly assaulted with a sharp-edged weapon and injured in the arm here on Tuesday. The incident took place while he was trying to dissuade a youth, Banty, from beating up a rickshawpuller in front of his office near the bus stand on the GT road.This enraged the youth who attacked Mr Sharma with a “dattur” and fled away.

SEMINAR: Prof S. Verma from L.R. DAV College, Jagraon, and Dr Baljinder Bedi from Toronto educated students on spirituality at a seminar held at S.R.P.A.B. College here on Tuesday. 

CHANDIGARH

70 challaned: Chandigarh police challaned more than 70 persons and impounded eight vehicles, on Thursday for irregularities. Challans were issued for not wearing helmets and other offences. The police also impounded eight vehicles.

PANCHKULA
SIGNATURE CAMPAIGN: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Wednesday started signature campaign in Panchkula. Signatures of the residents of Haryana would be submitted with memorandum to the President of India, demanding the state’s share of river waters.

Cattle pound: The proposed cattle pound will now come up in Sector 28. Half an acre has been identified by HUDA for construction of the cattle pound. The only cattle pound in the town is in Old Panchkula. 

RESTAURANT OPENED: A restaurant was opened at Hotel Pallavi in Sector 5, along with a fourth banquet hall on Thursday. The restaurant was inaugurated by Managing Director of Hafed, Devender Singh.

Mohali
WORKSHOP HELD: A one-day workshop on environmental education for science teachers was organised at the PSEB here on Tuesday. The workshop was attended by nearly 400 teachers from affiliated schools. The keynote address was presented by Ms Shruti Shukla, Project Officer (Science) PSEB. 

HARYANA

AMBALA
DEMAND: Senior vice-president of the Haryana Chamber of Commerce and Industry N.C. Jain on Thursday demanded that the effort to establish cluster development of scientific instruments industry at Ambala must be undertaken at the earliest. He said about two years back, Central Government had sanctioned industrial cluster development for engineering and automobile component industry of Faridabad and Gurgaon, scientific instruments industry of Ambala and aluminium, brass and stainless steel utensil industry of Jagadhri. BJP municipal councillor Kamal Kishore Jain has questioned the lack of inaction on the part of MC Ambala Sadar President Pandit Shankar Dass with regard to encroachments taking place after the flood. However, the president has termed the charge as baseless.

PAINTING COMPETITION: Students of DAV Public School have won the running trophy in a painting competition organised by the Bharat Vikas Parishad. School principal said Shivani and Meenakshi won the first and third prize in an on-the-spot competition organised on Tuesday in Sanskar Vikas Saptah. Puneeta Walia was their arts teacher.

RESIGNATION DEMANDED: Vikas Parishad municipal councillor Gokulesh Awasthi on Wednesday demanded the resignation of Municipal Council president Pandit Shankar Dass. Mr Awasthi said that the Ambala Sadar was facing problems as the BJP had failed to honour the commitment reached with the Vikas Parishad after the MC polls. He alleged that Pandit Shankar Dass was not active in his work which had led to the situation.

CONCERN EXPRESSED: President of the Ambala Wholesale Cloth Merchants Association Harcharan Singh Bhatia expressed concern over the attitude of the Municipal Council for not taking any step to check water-logging in the market which had caused the loss of Rs 100 crore to shopkeepers recently.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

Hamirpur
ABVP victory: Activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad celebrated their victory in the SCA elections in the local college. The parishad activists received the winners in the morning at the entrance of the campus and took them inside with the beat of drums and singing of songs. They also held a rally on the college campus where they described their victory as the victory of right-thinking forces.

SEMINAR: A two-day conference on materials and their application started at the NIT here on Thursday. Nearly 200 persons of various engineering institutes are taking part in the seminar. Prof G.Venkattappa Rao, Professor of IIT, Delhi, delivered a lecture on coir-based products in civil and bio-technical engineering development imperatives.

Kulu
ARRESTED: Mr A.P.Singh, Superintendent of Police, said here on Wednesday that the district police had arrested two persons during a special drive launched against drug traffickers. Babu Ram of Nepal was arrested from near the Rasol bridge in Parvati valley, about 30 km from here and recovered 12.5 kg of charas recovered from his possession. In another case, the police arrested a Malwai national, Evbaro Khai Ohinach, from Gojra village and recovered 160 gm of opium from his possession.

Mandi
PLANTATION DRIVE: Mr C.S. Singh, Conservator of Forests, Mandi circle, said here on Wednesday that chandan plantation had been started in the Sarkaghat block and over 720 hectare had been brought under plantation till August 20 in the district. He added that on the higher reaches of the district, deodar and pine trees would be planted on a priority basis.

STATED: Mr K.D. Sultanpuri , president, Planning and 20-Point Programme, said here on Wednesday that the government would spend Rs 3.29 crore under the Swaran Jayanti Self-Employment Yojna this year in the district. Chairing the 20- point programme review meeting, Mr Sultanpur said 44 small industrial units in the district had been set up so far, benefiting the local.

ARRESTED: The Mandi police on Thursday arrested Raj Kumar, son of Kesar Singh, from Mandi Sadar. It recovered 400 gm of charas from his possession. The police has registered a case under the NDPS Act.