Mohali, August 5
Due to rapid growth in the hotel industry the employment opportunities in the industry have registered remarkable growth. India, which is emerging, as a tourist hub required 1.5 lakh, trained graduates in this field, stated Kamal Piyush, director, Chandigarh College of Hotel Management, Landran. Kamal Piyush was working as manager of Ashoka Group of Hotels for last 30 years.

India would be hosting Common Wealth Games in 2010, which will require at least 70 new star category hotels in Delhi alone. There is also great demand of hotel management’s professionals in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Mauritius, Canada, Europe and Switzerland. “Future is sound and secure for the students who have joined this field after passing class XII,” said Piyush.

Speaking on the occasion, Satnam Singh Sandhu, chairman, CGC and Rashpal Singh Dhaliwal, president, CGC said by 2010 India would emerge as the leader in tourism, which would lead to growth in job prospectus in this industry.

Chandigarh, August 5
The second day of the UGC national seminar on “Managing College Libraries in the Digital Environment: Opportunities and Challenges”, opened today is being held at Dev Samaj College, Sector 45.

The seminar started with theme paper of Dr S. Majumdar, librarian, University of Delhi. Speaking on the topic “accessibility to electronic resources through public domain”, Dr Majumdar listed the types and number of e-resources and e-resource databases in arts and humanities, social sciences, sciences and technology and in general and reference categories and talked at length about the important role e-resources play on account of their easy access and space-service and easy maintenance features.

Chairing the second technical session of the day, Dr Jagtar Singh, prof of department of library and information sciences, Punjabi University, Patiala, spoke on “Key Concerns and Consequences of Collection Development in College Libraries”.

Dr V.K. Anand, university librarian, Panjab University, talked of the static past, dynamic present and the dubious future of libraries. Other speakers for the day included Gausia Nayab from the department of library and information sciences, CSJM University, Kanpur, Gurmej Singh Mann of GNN College, Nakodar, and Atuna Kumar Sinha from Vishwabharti University, Santiniketan. Twenty papers on various sub-themes were also presented on the second day of the seminar. 

Chandigarh, August 5
As many as 250 plants, procured free of cost from the department of forests, UT, were planted at Government College for Girls, Sector 11, yesterday as a part of vanmahotsav celebrations under the ‘Greening Chandigarh Action Plan’ of the UT.

Members of the environment society ‘Prakriti’ and the science association, jointly organised the tree plantation drive and held a number of on-the-spot competitions such as poetry writing, poetry recitation, eco-rangoli, landscape designing, poster making and slogan writing.

A power point presentation on landscape and greenery in Chandigarh prepared by the Environment Society was also presented.

V.K. Bharadwaj, chief engineer, Chandigarh, was the chief guest on the occasion, who inaugurated the programme by planting ‘Triveni’ of Pipal, Burr and Neem.

Vanmahotsav was celebrated in collaboration with ‘Saplings - Care We Share’, a city based NGO, who gifted saplings of medicinal importance, ornamental value and fruit trees to all participants for planting in and around their homes.