Chandigarh, July 8
After taking into consideration the submissions made by Chandigarh-based Wonderland Skate Club, a division Bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, comprising Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Rajiv Bhalla, on July 5 issued a contempt notice to Suresh Kalmadi, president of the Indian Olympics Association, and others for August 13.

Confirming this, counsel for the club Jatin Salwan said: “The court has issued a show-cause notice to IOA president and other persons concerned to explain why contempt proceedings may not be initiated against them for their failure to include roller skating in the national games held recently at Guwahati.”

The club, a creation of parents of the city skaters, had filed a civil writ petition in the court seeking direction to the IOA and hosts Assam Olympic Association (AOA) to include roller skating as medal discipline in the games held in Guwahati (Assam) from February 9 to 18.

The court had directed the IOA and the AOA to include roller skating as one of the medal disciplines in the games. They were further directed to submit compliance report of the orders of the court on March 7.

“In spite of the knowledge of the orders and being aware of its contents and consequences, the action of the respondents in not including roller skating in the national games is disobedience of court orders. Further, they did not submit the compliance report on the date fixed, which amounts to willful disobedience, and their malicious conduct has the effect of diminishing the prestige and authority of the court”, added Jatin Salwan.

Club president Naseeb Singh said: “Skating has put the country on the global map and has been included in Asian Games. Here, we are fighting to get it included in the national game, Isn’t it ridiculous?

“Moreover, the worst sufferers are children whose effort will not be recognised till the game is played in national games and they will be deprived of the benefits of admission to further classes. The court has issued contempt notice for their pernicious act,” rued another member of the club.

The club members claimed that they delivered the copies of the orders to offices of the IOA at Delhi and the AOA at Assam three times by hand.

Defying the court directions, the IOA neither included roller skating in the national games nor submitted the compliance report on the stipulated time i.e. March 7.

The club members rued that instead they had included two games i.e. ‘karate do’ and ‘rugby 7s’ in the list of games in spite of the fact that these games were not in the original list of the games released by the IOA.

Chandigarh, July 8
Though the Bhawalpuris belong to Bhawalpur, a province in Pakistan, and share similarities in language, faith and customs with the Punjabis, yet members of the community have maintained their identity and have preserved their cultural traditions. Known for their fearlessness and valour, many of them actively participated in the freedom movement.

Though it is not known as to when exactly the first Bhawalpuri family came to Chandigarh, it is believed that due to partition of the country, people living in Bhawalpur district were displaced. Gradually, families started migrating to Punjab first and later to Chandigarh.

There are around 1,000 Bhawalpuri families residing here. All members of the community are bound together with Bhawalpur Panchayat established in the early 70s. Most of the members still speak their dialect Lehanda amongst themselves.

At present, the community doesn’t have a formal bhavan or a fixed venue for holding various community activities, but the members propose to have a bhavan within a year.

The members get together once a month for meetings and once in a week for discussing marriage prospects of eligible youngsters within their own community.

Bhawalpuri is one of the most widespread communities with members spread across various places like Rajpura, Faridabad, Panipat, Sirsa, Bathinda, Malerkotla, Patiala, Sri Ganganagar, Bikaner Jaipur and Sikar, Muzaffarnagar, Agra, Gaziabad, Haridwar, Kanpur and Ranchi.

An educated lot in the city, most of the members of this community are placed well in their respective fields. While most of them are eminent doctors, teachers, defence personnel and professors, a majority of them are even engaged in politics.

Some of the prominent members of the community are Bhajan Lal, former chief minister, Anand Dev Hargobind Mehta, ex-chairman, Indian Airlines, Raj Khurana, presently chief parliamentary secretary of finance, Punjab, R.R. Dhara, ex-chief engineer of Chandigarh, Shanti Swarup Diwan, former Justice, Punjab and Haryana High Court, Dr Rameshwar Nath Taneja, former major general, Chetan Das Diwan, advocate general, Arjan Dev Kapur, professor, State University of North Carolina, USA.

Chandigarh, July 8
The young prodigious danseuses brought alive the diverse folklore and classical dance traditions of many states in a cultural bonanza 'Anjuman-2007' at the Randhawa auditorium of Punjab Kala Bhavan here today. The socio-cultural event, organised by Shri Sai Arts in collaboration with Chandigarh tourism, SBI and Haryana and UT cultural affairs department, saw theme-based solo and group dance performances by the upcoming danseuses and danseurs from the city.

Starting with ‘Shiv stuti’, the programme gained momentum as Chandni Malhotra delineated the vitality of the Marathi folk dance 'Laavni' in an exuberant style. With her electrifying movements and nimble footwork Arzoo Upadhaya, a well-acclaimed kathak prodigy gave an adroit dance spell before Surbhi Sood captured the fervour of Holi festivities of Rajasthan. The best dance item came from Abhinanadan Bhatia (7), who attempted to portray the gestures and emotions certainly not within her conceptual grasp. Choreographer Seema Bhatia led her students from Bhavan Vidyalaya only to spell magic of 'Terah taali dance' based on a devotional legend 'Rajasthani Swami rama peer'.

Besides Gaurav Sharma, Harpreet Kaur presented kathak tarana and folk dances.

The poor audio and anchoring in a ballet on Chandigarh, scripted by programme director Jatinder Kinra, failed to impress despite virile folk dances by Amandeep, Gurdip Kaur.

Earlier, the chief guest minister of state for finance Pawan Kumar Bansal honoured Vinod Kalia, Manvinder Bajwa, K.K. Monga and Dr Diwan Singh for excellence in their respective fields. Vivek Atrey, director tourism, was the guest of honour. P.H. Vaishnav and O.P. Poonia also graced the function.