The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Need to adopt water-harvesting
techniques: Experts
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 19
Issues regarding water quality, waste water management, water engineering as well hydrological modeling and measurement were discussed on the last day of the workshop on “Water Management Strategies for Food Security” at Punjab Agricultural University here today.

For water engineering, issues discussed were water balance in rice fields, groundwater recharge and filtration of surface runoff, efficiency of surface irrigation system, water harvesting, shrinking wetlands, canal water management, etc. The strategies suggested were a collaborative project by involving faculty and students, grouping of consortium, validation and application of models and training. This workshop was chaired by Dr N. R. Fausey.

In the case of hydrological modeling and measurement, experts held deliberations on modelling in command area to determine the demand distribution, development of decision support system for salinity management, modeling of pollutants in aquifer system and comprehensive database for collective typical sites. Dr. L. Ahuja chaired this workshop.

Regarding water quality and waste water management, certain issues and research needs were identified. These included sources of contaminants and characterization, non-point sources of pollution, water quality in storage reservoirs, ground water contamination, waste water reuse for nutrients, low cost natural treatment technologies for waste water treatment and diagnostic tools to determine the extent of contamination and impact. In this workshop, the experts chalked out certain strategies like identification of core group representatives to be given the charge for specific tasks, development of a work plan with tasks and expected outcomes in addition to seeking funds to perform the proposed work.

Farmers’ plea to PSEB
Our Correspondent

Mandi Ahmedgarh, September 19
Apprehending harassment of farmers by staff of the Punjab State Electricity Board, tubewell connection seekers under the OYT scheme have urged the authorities to let them get the work done from licensed contractors of the board.

The appeal came at a meeting held under leadership of Hari Singh Jandali, former vice-chairman of the market committee, Kilaraipur.

“Past experience shows that stores of the board had been running short of materials. Moreover, the procedure for issuing the materials for various purposes was also complicated,” said Hari Singh.

The farmers demanded that they should be allowed to get the work done through contractors and purchase quality materials from open market so that cost of erection could be reduced.

“In case a contractor does not comply with the regulations of the board, his licence should be cancelled and the security of the consumer forfeited,” suggested the farmers.

EDUCATION

PEC team sweeps Oxford contest with
business plan
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 19
The students of Punjab Engineering College (deemed university) have made the city proud by winning the business plan competition ‘YBD 2007 (Youth Business Development)’ organised by the SAID Business School at Oxford University, London. Another team from the college bagged the runners-up position.

Around 80 teams from across the globe competed for the coveted prize. After having qualified three rounds where the business plans were scrutinised closely by the venture capitalists and the YBD judging panel, two teams from PEC topped the competition.

The team of Anish Sandhir, Ankur Singla, Anuj Atri and Anuj Bhatia won the first position with a B-plan that aimed to uplift the socially and economically backward section of the society. They would receive a £1000 award to put toward their business idea, which involves providing support to local trade people to establish safer and more secure retail businesses.

The first runners-up was a team comprising five third-year students - Vishesh Gandhi, Puneet Dhar, Rohit Bhat, Madhur Behl, and Himanshu Arora.

Anuj Atri from the winning team said, “This competition gave us an insight of the business world and inculcated a spirit of entrepreneurship with a social aspect.”

From Colleges
Graduation ceremony by JD Institute
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 19
The six-days long international modelling and image-building workshop held at JD Institute campus concluded here last evening with their graduation ceremony. The workshop was held under the guidance of Kaushik Ghosh, leading choreographer.

The workshop was open for both boys and girls.This special professional fashion designing and image building workshop was a hit amongst the budding designers. Out of 75 students, who came for auditions, around 25 were selected and they would be given a platform to launch themselves into the world of modelling by means of fashion shows, ads etc.

The workshop trained the students on attitude formation, how to present and market themselves, how to ask for what they deserve and finally to make a niche for themselves.

Declamation contest: A declamation competition was organised by the Ved Prachar Mandal in Guru Nanak Girls College, here today. The competition was presided over by Gurbir Singh, president, the Guru Nanak Education Trust. He motivated the students to raise their intellectual level and urged more and more students to participate in such para-academic activities. Principal Dr Charanjit Mahal acted as the chief organiser of the contest. She said such contests were very significant, keeping in mind the role they played in refining the overall personality of youngsters. Twenty-five students from various streams participated in the competition, held in the seminar hall. The topics for declamation were already given to the students a week before and students could opt for any medium i.e. Punjabi, English or Hindi for oration.

Placement drive: Two BCA students Gaganpreet Kaur and Nupur Maheshwari of the Guru Nanak Khalsa College for Women got placement offer as associate software engineer by Accenture, an MNC. As many as 900 students from various colleges participated in the aptitude test conducted by company officials. Twenty-two students of GNKCW appeared in the test and three were shortlisted for group discussion.Two students got placement offers after clearing HR and technical interview rounds. Principal Dr Manju Chawla congratulated the students.

Campus interview: The computer science department of the SDP College for Women arranged campus interview in the computer science department itself. Expert officials from IBM Daksh Business Process Services, Gurgaon, Haryana interviewed the students for BPO call center. Before the interview, Varun Sharma, general manager, human resources, apprised the students of recruitment process. Six students out of 41 candidates were declared selected by the team. Sakshi Jain, Isha Jain, Srishty Jain, Nidhi Kapoor, Nidhi Malhotra and Kirti Kapoor were the selected candidates.

Teachers stage dharna
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 19
A dharna was organised by the Punjab Government College Teachers Association (PGCTA) at Mini Secretariat today to protest the indifferent and callous attitude of state government towards education and the long-pending demands of teachers.

The state government has allegedly adopted discriminatory attitude towards the teachers. “Whatever is good in UGC notifications is discarded and whatever in less rewarding is implemented”, alleged the president of PGCTA, prof Jaipal. He said the government left them in lurch, while it gave the benefit of 5 per cent interim relief to all its employees. Similarly, the government had adopted a pick and choose policy to implement UGC letters and had given the benefit of ad-hoc service towards senior grade to only one teacher while others were waiting for it.

While the appointment of 52 lectures in English, selected by PPSC, was a welcome step, more than 700 posts of lecturers and 19 posts of principals were still vacant. The reputed colleges shall not be in a position to admit even a single student in some subjects from the next year as the number of posts have been reduced, totally ignoring the norms set by the concerned university as well UGC. “If the govt fails to solve these and other issues listed in our demand charter, we shall be forced to intensity our struggle”, said prof Jaipal. Hardeep Singh, Kuldip Singh, Paramjit Kaur, PS Sidhu and Surinder Bomb also spoke on the occasion.

Natasha Sharma tops in varsity

Ludhiana, September 19
Students of the All Saints Institute of Medical Sciences and Research have made clean sweep in the Bachelor of Physiotherapy IVth year examination, conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.

The students have bagged all three top positions while the fifth and the sixth spot were also claimed by them.

Natasha Sharma with 829 marks secured the top slot, followed by Kirandeep Kaur (809 marks) and Kosh Ankur Paul (808 marks), who were placed at the second and the third position, respectively. Shiwani Gupta (796 marks) and Anjana Guleria (792 marks), also from the same college, bagged the fifth and the sixth rank in the university.

Chairman of the college managing committee Jaswinder Pal Singh and R. Harihara Prakash have congratulated the meritorious students. — OC

PAU begins distance learning
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, September 19
Dr M. S. Kang, vice-chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University inaugurated distance-learning classroom in the College of Agricultural Engineering at PAU here today. The facilities have been created under the US-India AKI project on water management operative in the university. Dr Ramesh Kanwar, professor and chair, department of agriculture, and professor of engineering from Iowa State University, USA, the PI of the project, said through this facility the students from PAU, enrolled under the project, will be able to get classroom teaching from the professor at US Partner University and vice-versa. The registrar, deans and directors of PAU and also the US delegates of the international workshop on water management interacted with Dr Ramesh Kanwar.

‘Write on social evils’
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, September 19
Ajaib Chitarkar, president, Punjab Gazal Manch, has advised the gazal writers to depict the social evils in their gazals. He said this at a meeting of the manch held here on Sunday. On this occasion, Kulwant Jagraon, general secretary of the manch, presented his book of gazals “Harfan De Sheeshey” to Chitarkar. He said he had not only written gazals about love and personal agony, but also against war, terrorism, injustice and corruption.

Inderjit Hasan Puri stressed upon the need of music and simple language in gazals. Prof Gurbhajan Gill and Dr S N Sewak congratulated the Gazal Manch for promoting Punjabi Gazals. More than 36 poets participated in the ghazal darbar.