Ludhiana June 11
With respect to the news appearing in certain media sections regarding the attack of helicoverpa armigera on sunflower, a team of scientists was deputed by PAU to investigate the intensity of the attack.

The team members visited the villages of Herhian and Burman of Samrala tehsil of Ludhiana and found that the farmers had already harvested the sunflower crop and could find the crop only in 2-3 fields for recording the observations.

On examination of these fields, the scientists recorded the incidence of tobacco caterpillar, the damage of which was restricted to the leaves only. The incidence of helicoverpa armigera was, however, observed in these fields in traces. The crop in both the villages had matured and it was observed that any subsequent damage to the crop was not expected.

The scientists, thus, suggested not to apply any insecticides to control tobacco caterpillar. The farmers were also advised not to apply pesticides against helicoverpa armigera as the population of this pest was recorded below damaging level.

Ludhiana, June 11
The Punjab Agricultural University is likely to get an annual of grant of Rs 100 crore during the current financial year against the earlier Rs 80 crore.

Disclosing this, Punjab Agricultural University vice-chancellor Dr Manjit Singh Kang said today he had been given an assurance in this regard by the Punjab chief secretary and the finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal in this regard. Earlier it was decided that the annual grant would be enhanced by Rs 16 crore.

But now the enhancement would be of Rs 20 crore.

Dr Kang disclosed that the PAU would strengthen its collaborative programme with the US universities. The PAU, GB Pant Agricultural University, Pantnagar, and Agriculture University of Bangalore had agricultural knowledge initiative (AKI) proramme with six universities of America.

PAU has collaborative programmes with Ohio State University, University of Folk, Corneal University, Purdue University and Texas University.

He said that many persons who had worked with PAU and were now working with US universities had shown interest in joining the university as director of research and on other posts.

He said the state government would have to provide age relaxation in some cases. He said the new directors can be appointed on four-year contracts also.

The PAU board of management also wants to introduce some incentives to attract new talent for research.

Talking about the demerger of departments he said that will be done according to requirement.

"We want to improve the morale of the people and we want to improve the performance of the people. The interaction improves the working and the people have to be in one building," he said.

He said that he had formed a committee to look into the requests for demerger of the departments and he would look into the reports of the committee.

Ludhiana, June 11
Dr Yog Raj Chanana, emeritus scientist and former head, Department of Horticulture, PAU, has been nominated as a member of the Quinquennial Review Team (QRT) by the director-general, ICAR, New Delhi, to review the work done at the National Research Centre for Grapes.

Earlier, Dr Chanana was a member of the appraisal committee of the National Horticulture Board for evaluation of their schemes in Nagaland.

Dr Chanana has participated in many national and nternational conferences.

He is fellow of the Horticultural Society of India and associated with many academic and professional bodies.

He was also felicitated with “Shri Hans Raj Pahwa Award’', ‘'Shri G.L.Chadha Memorial Gold Medal’' and ‘'Sardar Gurcharan Singh Nihalsinghwala Award’' for his contributions in the field of horticulture.

Jagraon, June 11
Under the directions of the Punjab ICT Education Society (PICTES), state project director, Sarva Shiksha Project, Punjab and Chandigarh, and under the patronage of prof Baldev Singh, officiating principal, District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Jagraon (Ludhiana), four 3-day educational satellite (Edusat) script writing workshops of English for the computer faculty of district Ludhiana, were organised.

In the opening session, prof Baldev Singh underlined the importance of computer education and explained to the students that the purpose of the workshops was to make the teaching-learning process of english, which is taught as a foreign language in India, more interesting, exciting and attractive. In these workshops, 245 computer faculty instructors participated.

In the technical session, participants were imparted training and guidance to prepare lesson scripts for class 7 english. Sarita Chopra, a Microsoft Corporation computer training expert from Government In-service Teachers’ Training Centre, Ludhiana, demonstrated, for the participants, specially prepared multimedia and powerpoint slides on english lessons and english grammar  script writing.

Prof Baldev further said the participants were trained to add diagrams,  pictures, etc to make the scripts impressive and exciting.

After writing script, on the pattern of the countrywide classroom, Gyandarshan TV programmes, the participants would prepare powerpoint multimedia computer slides and video films for the telecast of these lessons to all schools and colleges of Punjab through the Edusat system from Mohali. Paramjit Singh, the ICT co-ordinator, DEO, Ludhiana, monitored the workshops  and expressed his satisfaction over  their progress.

The closing function of the last workshop was presided over by Surain Singh, principal, Government Senior Secondary School, Jagraon. Khushminder Kaur, Lakhwant Kaur, Harish Chander, Gurminder Kaur, Nidhi Goel , Kamaljeet Singh and Tej Kaur, all lecturers of english from various government senior secondary schools, served as  resource persons.

Jagdish Lal, senior staff member, Lakhvir Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Piara Singh, Yogesh Kumar, Harminder Singh and Narinder Singh and Rajpreet Singh Aulakh, zonal co-ordinators, also gave technical guidance to the participants for effective script writing.

Ludhiana June 11
Children at Small Wonders summer camp had fun time today. Dance competition was arranged and children danced to the latest numbers like professionals. Drawing and colour competition was also held and children were awarded prizes. Games were arranged for the kids.