Ludhiana, September 5
It was a day of the teachers. The teachers were feted and greeted by the students of both schools and colleges. The day was celebrated in a unique manner at some places.

Green Land Senior Secondary Public School: The students took out a rally to spread the awareness of importance of literacy on this day.

BCM Senior Secondary School: The Hindi Day & Teachers Day was clubbed together and an inter-school essay writing and declamation contest was organised on the occasion. The students from different schools participated in it.

Kundan Vidya Mandir: The teachers greeted each other and sang meaningful songs on this day. The function was organised by the KVM management.

Guru Nanak Public School: The day was celebrated as self-government. The headgirl, Harshpreet Kaur was the pseudo principal & Gagandeep Singh, the Head Boy was the pseudo vice principal. An inter-house talent contest was organised.

Tagore Public School: To make the celebrations unique and memorable, the teachers were taken to the Gau Dham. The principal, Amrita Gakhar, congratulated the teachers and motivated them to work with devotion and dedication.

Bal Bharati Public School: A cake was cut by the principal Punam Dogra along with the teachers to celebrate the day. Some art and craft items made by students were displayed.

BCM Arya Senior Secondary Model School: Kiran Sahni inspired the teachers to give maximum support to their students.

Sat Paul Mittal School: S Walia, a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the school, inspired the students to perform one good deed everyday to change the face of earth.

SDP College: Students paid rich tributes to Dr Radha Krishnan on the Teachers Day . Various cultural programmes were presented to entertain the teachers. The students thanked the teachers for giving them support , knowledge, and affection.

Guru Nanak Girls College , Model Town: The students honoured the teachers by presenting the compliments and roses and gave their views on teacher-student relationship.

GMT college of education: The director told the students to be dedicated and disciplined so as to contribute to the society on Teachers Day.

Guru Nanak Khalsa College for Women: The students showed their love and affection for the teachers by singing and dancing for them and teachers enjoyed various games devised for them.

However every thing was not good for all the teachers. The teachers of Government School Teachers Union, Ludhiana, observed Teachers Day as the Black day at a protest rally held outside mini secretariat. 

Doraha, September 5
Students of Sri Guru Harkrishan Public School performed well in various science competitions being organised at both tehsil and district levels. Sujata Bhardwaj stood first in the district-level science seminar. Earlier she had won the science seminar held at tehsil Level organised at Doraha.

At tehsil Level, Sujata Bhardwaj got first prize in chart-making competition. The quiz-team, constituting of Sahil Kapila (Class X) and Sakshi Sharma (Class X), stood second. While in model- making competition Sukhpreet Kaur (Class VIII) got first prize at tehsil level, Aarti (Class X) got 3rd prize at district level. Paramdeep (Class IX) got first prize in model making in mathematics.

Jaspreet (Class IX) got first position in science declamation contest whereas Harpreet Kaur (Class X) and Manpreet (Class IX) got first and second prizes, respectively, in chart- making competitions organised at the tehsil level.

Ludhiana, September 5
The concept of teaching in play-way schools has changed in the recent past for betterment. Gone are the days when teachers in play schools concentrated on only teaching alphabets and counting to tiny-tots, these days much emphasis is laid on enhancing the confidence level of children, developing their personality and bringing out their hidden talent.

Though, the exorbitant fee structure of kindergartens has always been a matter of concern to the parents, once their wards get admission in the schools and their confidence starts developing, they (parents) forget everything.

Majority of managements of these schools ask parents not to encourage their children to always opt for safety and comfort as the real life will not be so protective for them at the time of admissions. The kids are taught about colour concept, table manners, farm activities, wild life, shapes and sizes, vegetables and fruits, importance of parents in life, touch and count, motor repair, festivals and their importance etc. They are given home assignments in which they are taught about animals, their babies, the sound they produce etc.

They are asked to play with mud in schools, make small chapatis, dance on various tunes etc so that they open-up well with others. The parents are asked to send one vegetable (like capsicum, onion, tomato etc) with their child so that they come to know about vegetables and fruits.

Tanu Anand, a parent whose child goes to a leading play way in Sarabha Nagar said she was very happy to see her three years old daughter Isha grow in a natural environment. "She enjoys going to school because everything is taught in such an interesting manner. If she has to call her madam, she has to say excuse me madam. The moment she enters the house, she will wash her hands properly and then wipe them with a towel. These are small things but they do matter in life at the later stage", added Tanu.

Parent-teacher meetings are called on routine basis. Parents are asked about the development of the child. The concerned teachers sort out their problems. Parents are advised to make their child see channels like Discovery and National Geographic (programmes based on animals) to enhance the knowledge about animal kingdom. To meet the competition and to satisfy parents, the schools organise trips for tiny-tots. For getting a thorough knowledge on the subject, they are taken to zoo, motor repair garage, poultry farms and dairies etc.

Ludhiana, September 5
The members of the Government College Teachers Association (GCTA) here wore black badges on Teacher’s Day to protest against the “anti-policies” of the state government.

Prof Jaipal Singh, president of the association, said the association had observed teachers day as black day.

He said long pending demands were not met by the BJP-SAD government and the teachers had lost all their trust in the system.

He added that teachers had been denied five per cent interim relief as given to other government employees. Their retirement age was not increased despite repeated requests and they were also being denied the counting of their past service.

“The government is biased with teachers and we will intensify our agitation in coming days. Our gate rally will be held in Ludhiana on September 19”, he informed.

Club formed: The Commerce and Management club was formed by the department of Commerce and Management of Kamla Lohtia SD College here recently.

Deepak Dhingra, spokesperson of the college, in a press statement on Wednesday said this club would organise different activities like debate and declamation contests, quiz contests, personality development, industry interface and other programmes for exposure of commerce and management students under Dr Sarita Aggarwal.

The president of the club will be Sanjay, vice-president Mahip Sareen, organising secretary Jatin Pal, finance secretary Keshav and general secretary Pawan Pahwa. Bhavishya and Akshay will be the joint secretaries.

The principal Deepak Kaushal congratulated the department on the formation of club.

Ludhiana, September 5
Punjab government is committed towards the professional development of students to make them fit for placement in industry and service sector. This was stated in the high level meeting of the principals and nodal officers of 25 government colleges running PTOSS programme in the state.

The meeting was chaired by special secretary, higher education Jaspal Singh and presided over by the D.P.I (Colleges) Punjab, Dr Kanwar Jit Singh recently.

While highlighting the role of Professional and IT Education, D.P.I (Colleges) said now there was a need to upgrade the knowledge of students as per the current day requirements and make them computer savvy. He said India had become BPO/KPO hub and will be known as the biggest service provider in future. He highlighted the need for developing appropriate soft skills among students, to prepare them for these types of services. He said PTOSS programme was designed on cost-to-cost basis and was offered to students at very marginal price, much lower than the market rate.

In Ludhiana, both SCD Government College and Government College for women had been selected for PTOSS programme and both of these colleges had launched these programmes in their respective colleges. Dr Malkiat Singh, principal of the SCD Government college, Prof Prabhjot Kaur, principal Government college for women, Prof Ashwani Bhalla, Nodal officer SCD Government college attended the meeting held at Government College, Mohali. The meeting was also addressed by general manager, Punjab Infotech Col Rajesh Dua.

Crescent Systems Limited has been appointed as the training partner for running the programme. The students may contact the nodal officers of both of these colleges for enrollment for this 160 hours programme spread in four months followed by placement activities. Col Dua said Punjab infotech will act as certifying and examining agency that will conduct pre-assessment and post assessment examination and award certificates.

In the meeting, Jaspal Singh advised Punjab InfoTech people to collaborate with NASCOM to conduct NAC test for students of these colleges to make them professionally equipped. Prof Ashwani Bhalla said college will organise free demonstration classes of PTOSS on September 5 and 6, 2007, to give the insight of the course to the city students. Any student of the city can register for these classes on September 4. The full infrastructure facilities have been created in both the colleges by Punjab InfoTech limited with hi-tech multi-media lab and latest software.

Ludhiana, September 5
If all goes well then it is perhaps the month of interviews for six major academic posts at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU). More than 50 persons are in the fray for various coveted posts. Though, the decision of the board of directors of PAU will be the final but the candidates have to show their caliber in the interviews as well.

According to sources, plenty of candidates have applied for posts like registrar PAU, director research, additional director research (agriculture), dean College of Agriculture, additional director communication centre and director students welfare.

For the post of registrar, 12 candidates have applied whereas, six candidates are in the race for the post of director research. For additional director research, 10 candidates are in the fray. There are seven candidates each for posts of additional director communication centre and dean College of Agriculture. 15 people have given their names for director students’ welfare, who will be nominated by the experts after thorough assessment.

All the interviews are expected to be held in this month with vice-chancellor as its chairman and three more experts in the interview panel. "The final names for each post will be forwarded to the board by the VC and board's decisionwill be the final. A lot of senior faculty members of PAU as well as several others have also applied for these prestigious posts", said a senior member of the faculty adding that there was hardly any scope for politics in the selection process as everything depended on candidate's qualification and experience.

There are 13 members on PAU Board with M.S.Kang, vice -chancellor PAU as its chairman. Other members include top bureaucrats from the state government. There are some members nominated by the government. Two scientists, including M.S. Bajwa and D.S. Sidhu are also in the Board.

Ludhiana, September 5
The District Consumer Forum has directed the ICICI bank to pay Rs 5,000 as compensation to a consumer, who faced unnecessary harassment as the bank officials failed to credit interest in his account, well in time. The forum termed the services of the bank to be deficient in this case.

The orders were pronounced by the president of forum, A.S. Narula and its member, Puja Dewan while deciding the complaint filed by Vijay Kumar Gupta of Guru Nanak Nagar, Basti Abdullapur, Ludhiana.

It was submitted by the complainant that he was having a saving account with the ICICI Bank.

Since his account was linked with term deposit account, as such fixed deposits were to be automatically renewed. But his two term deposits for Rs 5, 000 and Rs 5, 439 due in March 2004, were not renewed automatically and the interest accrued was not credited in his account.

Regarding this fact, he came to know when he received the statement of account from his banker in April 2004. He immediately notified the bank officials. He was informed that the FDR would be renewed soon after obtaining necessary permission from the head office situated at Bombay.

The complainant further claimed that he approached the bank officials several times but his term deposits were not renewed. Every time he was given only assurance. Finding no solution, he served legal notice in November 2004. Thereafter, the bank informed him in January 2005 that the term deposits had been renewed. But he was not given any compensation for the undue harassment, added the complainant.

While, on the other hand the bank officials denied the allegations. It was denied that the bank officials did not attend to the grievances of the complainant. It was submitted that earlier the interest accrued on the term deposit could not be credited in the account of the consumer due to technical defect in the computer. However, later on the FDR's were renewed and the interest on the term deposits was duly credited in his account.

After appreciating the evidence on record, the consumer forum observed that the complainant had to file a case, as the banker failed to credit the amount of interest in the account of the complainant. This reflected the deficiency of the banker and consumer deserves compensation, says the order of consumer forum.