Claim on Kohinoor ‘not justified’
By Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 1— “I am grand daughter of Thakur Singh, who was not only Prime Minister to Maharaja Duleep Singh but also his cousin,” claims 87-year-old Mrs Jasbir Kaur, the only surviving daughter of Narinder Singh of Raja Sansi.

Talking to The Tribune at Mansa Devi complex residence of her son-in-law, Lieut-Col Jagga Singh Kahlon (retd), Mrs Jasbir Kaur says, “My grandfather, Thakur Singh, and my father, Narinder Singh, accompanied by some other relatives and villagers of Raja Sansi had picked courage to visit Pondicherry where Maharaja Duleep Singh was kept. They succeeded in calling on the Maharaja.”

“But the British rulers were furious. While my uncle, Gurdit Singh, could never come back to Punjab, both my father, Narinder Singh, and his cousin, Gurbachan Singh, returned to Raja Sansi. But our entire family was deprived of all its landed property. The Raja Sansi fort, which belonged to our family, was razed to ground. From landlords and ruling family, we overnight became homeless and penniless.

“Our agony did not end there. The British also debarred our family from accepting any government job. The only saving grace was the family background of my mother. My grandfather was from the royal family of Kuchesar. It was he who purchased a couple of villages near Raja Sansi for us,” she recalls.

“In fact, my grandfather was a cousin of Maharaja Duleep Singh. Our family suffered because of our loyalty and our relationship to the deposed Maharaja. I was a toddler when my father died. I was hardly 14 when I got married. All my three brothers and two sisters are dead,” she adds.

She maintains that her father had jotted down the family lineage.

“I have no objection to Mr Beant Singh or others claiming sole inheritance of Kohinoor or other assets or property of Maharaja Duleep Singh. But I wonder where were they when the British were persecuting all those who pledged loyalty and closeness to Maharaja at the time of his detention or the subsequent events. Their claims are not justified. In fact, those from the family of Thakur Singh are the rightful owners and claimants of inheritance. We are direct descendants of the family of Bhai Budha Sukhwarchakia, who after baptism became Bhai Budh Singh, the great great grand father of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. While Maharaja Ranjit Singh was a descendant of Nodh Singh, Thakur Singh was a descendant of Chanda Singh, the second son of Bhai Budh Singh,” claims Mrs Jasbir Kaur.

She also maintains that since Catherine Duleep Singh died and no legal heirs are there, the property or inheritance rights go straightway to other blood relatives who had suffered at the hands of the British in the 19th century. It becomes the duty of the authorities concerned to find out other blood relatives or natural inheritors of the Maharaja.

She says since she left Raja Sansi after her marriage and none was left behind, she does not know whether the Sandhawalias, claiming sole inheritance, are from the family of Thakur Singh or just belong to Raja Sansi.

Students prefer tuitions
By Poonam Batth
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 1 — Private tutors and coaching centres in the city are doing the work of colleges and senior secondary schools, going by the number of students they attract in contrast to the latter. The reason is not far too seek. For students desirous of scoring well in entrance tests of various professional colleges, coaching classes have come to be regarded as a must.

In this era of competition, most students have their priorities clear. These Class XI and Class XII students, on an average spend 6 to 8 hours, attending coaching classes of their tutors, in contrast to only few hours in their respective educational institutions. One of the DAV schools principals said that since only 50 per cent marks were required in board examinations to qualify for any entrance examination, serious and ambitious students concentrate their energies on trying to score a good position in entrance examinations.

The concept of entrance examinations which came into effect in 1984 has exposed the credibility of the CBSE and various other state boards. Even when Class XII results are declared, parents and students are bothered about the percentage only from the point of view of joining prestigious coaching classes. The most sought after are private tutors, who are mostly college and university lecturers teaching mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology. Students from outside the city prefer to join coaching academies like the BRC Institute, Sector 19, the KD Academy of Mathematics and the City College as these also help them in arrainging for their boarding and lodging. A Sector 19 mathematics tutor coaches only those students who have got 80 to 90 per cent marks in the CBSE examinations.

School and college principals say that classroom teaching is fast becoming redundant against this craze for private tuitions. Nearly 90 per cent students either do not attend classes regularly or hardly concentrate in the class.

While school and college classrooms, which have infrastructure to accomodate 60 to 80 students always have low attendence, coaching classes are always overcrowded with as many as 100 students in a batch. The infrastructure is not at par with colleges, in some cases.

Normally, students prefer DAV College in comparison to schools as the former does not have strict attendance rules. But this year with the Principal of the college making 66 per cent attendance compulsory in classes, students had to attend classes even if on alternate days. However, going by the attendance record during the year, the Principal had to relax it to 60 per cent. Some other principals said that coaching classes held during school hours were responsible for thin attendance.

While students, parents and educational institutions seem to be fed up with these examinations on various accounts, those holding private coaching classes are busy making money at their expense. While the total expenditure on fee and funds in DAV College is Rs 3,000, popular private tutors are charging anything over Rs 4,000 a month. Some of these academies are charging as much as Rs 4,500 for a short term crash course for medical batch and Rs 4,200 for engineering batch. The charges for two-year foundation course varies between Rs 38,000 to Rs 40,000. Parents are spending upto Rs 1.5 lakh in two years before their wards join any professional college.

Sources reveal that lecturers who work hard on these students in the coaching classes, have earned quick money through this. Even as the UGC rules do not permit them to do so, most of them are doing tuitions under some garb just to make money. University teachers, who are evaluators for the CET, also do not hesitate to help students by way of coaching.

When questioned as to why they cannot sustain the interest of students in classes, school and college teachers say that there is too much disparity between the standards of the CBSE examination and entrance tests. While the emphasis in the classes is on preparing students for the Class XII board examinations, as their results affect teachers' ACRs, coaching classes are more in tune with the needs of entrance examinations. Students also opine that regular periodic tests, besides thorough coaching in each subject, helps them prepare better for what is expected in the examination. Parents also do not want to take a chance, keeping in view the prevailing scenario of everyone who can afford it, going in for tutions.

The DAV College Principal, Mr R.C. Jeewan, is of the view that if the entrance tests are here to stay then 60 per cent weightage should be given to the board examination and only 40 per cent to the entrance examination. There should be lesser parity between the pattern of two examinations. The government should also find ways to check malpractices, prevalent due to entrance examinations, he says. Mr Jeewan says that if the system of board examinations becomes more fool proof and uniform, there will be no need for entrance examinations.

Mrs Sneh Mahajan, Principal of MCM DAV College, Sector 36, also says that scrapping of entrance tests will not only shut these academies, but will also have a positive fall out in terms of better results and improvment in classroom teaching. The Principal of Government College, Sector 46 is also not in favour of entrance examinations.

'Tourists visiting newer places'
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 1 — Summer time, which for most of us translates into vacations and now even summer workshops, is also a time to go out of the City Beautiful to spend time with long-lost relatives and friends, to escape the heat of plains and seek refuge in hills, and in some cases, even to fly across the seven seas. City tourists are travelling to destinations like the quintessential hill-stations, Shimla and Kullu-Manali, religious places like Hemkunt Sahib and some lucky ones are even travelling to Chicago, Montreal and Paris. It is not surprising to see most booking agencies, travel agents, travel-information counters and bus and railway services already geared up to handle the summer rush.

The Tourism Information Office of Himachal Pradesh, at the Inter State Bus Terminus, Sector 17, which reportedly is handling 200 to 250 persons for enquiries alone, sends about 60 to 65 persons to Shimla from Chandigarh and around. "Our peak season is from April 16 to mid-July, and for the last couple of years, Shimla, Kullu-Manali, Barog and Chamba region were the most sought after places by tourists. But these days, people also seem to be more adventurous and try to go to newer places. Since we are also promoting Sangla Valley, beyond Narkanda, in a big way, people are wanting to go to such destinations," said Mr Sunil Bansal, Manager of the Tourism Information Office of Himachal Pradesh.

The rush in summers is definitely a 'time-out' for families than just honeymoon couples. Curiously, once popular religious destinations in Himachal Pradesh like Ponta Sahib, Jwalaji and Renuka Lake are not much sought after in these months. "People do travel to Ponta Sahib after July, but not in large numbers. Jwalaji is visited only during Navratras and it is mostly during the Renuka Fair in October-November, that people visit Renuka Lake," Mr Bansal said.

The most popular religious destinations for residents of the city happens to be Hemkunt Sahib and Badrinath-Kedarnath in Uttar Pradesh, which open for tourists from June 5 to October 5. "The rush from this region is more for Hemkunt Sahib, and not so much for Kedarnath-Badrinath or even Gangotri-Yamunotri. In the year 1997-1998, we sent 600 persons from Chandigarh and neighbouring places to Hemkunt 'yatra', and in the year 1998-99, we sent 480 on this yatra. Due to the recent landslides and earthquakes, the number of tourists going to Uttar Pradesh have decreased drastically. More so from this region, because the media had hyped the issue so much that even our package tours had an extremely poor response. This year, only two persons from the city have registered for our package tours," said Mr Dhirendra Raina, PRO of the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Limited, Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh was also planning to introduce helicopter services for Kedarnath, Badrinath and Hemkunt Sahib, but according to the authorities, since there were few takers for these, the plan had to be shelved. Reportedly, even the number of groups trekking to the popular Valley of Flowers has also come down since the last year. The Chandigarh crowd has never been interested in going to places like Jim Corbett National Park.

With the situation in Jammu and Kashmir returning to almost normal in the last year and a half, tourist traffic from Chandigarh was also seen heading for this area, instead of other much-travelled cities, which were now beginning to face water and sewerage problems. But, with the recent Kargil incident, tourists are once again shying from this region.

But for the 'Babu City', the only refuge is not only the nearby hills, but if the pocket can afford, even the USA and Europe. Mr R.P. Singh, whose agency in Sector 22 handles both international and domestic flights, said, without giving the details of his sale of tickets, "Out of the total sales registered by us, almost 50 per cent are bookings for North America and 25 per cent for Europe. In the domestic sector, people fly to Delhi and Mumbai. There are few bookings for flights to other places in this season, because of the high fare of domestic flights."

"Even in this season, people from this region do travel to places like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, because a lot of them seem to have their relatives residing in these places. As far as people going abroad is concerned, we send around 30 to 35 persons every month to Canada, the USA, Britain and France, from this region," said Mr Satish, an employee of a travel agency in Sector 17.

At one time there was only the business class who used to travel abroad. Today, even the service class people manage to fly to the USA or even Europe, which is more expensive. "People from banking institutions, use the LTA to go abroad. Now, young couples also like to save money to travel to far off destinations and have the label of 'foreign returned' attached to themselves," said a travel agent.

But, Le Corbusier's City Beautiful, which was originally planned only for a population of 5 lakh people and today houses more than 8.5 lakh according to the unofficial figures, is used more as a transit accommodation by tourists visiting hills.

"The occupancy of three government and almost 27 privately-owned hotels is almost 100 per cent in this peak season. But it comprises only 15 per cent of the occupancy by tourists visiting the city. The rest are here to participate in some conference or meet in the city. In the past two years, the number of tourists visiting the city has been on a decline, mainly because the media has not been projecting a good image of this region," said Mr Vinod Kalia, Assistant Director of Tourism, Chandigarh Administration.

Talking passionately about having placed Chandigarh on the tourist map of the country, Mr Kalia said, "There needs to be a check on the number of migrants pouring into the city, in order to boost tourism in the city. Chandigarh mainly has foreign tourists coming from the USA, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, Norway and Israel, who stop over in the city before stepping onto the Himalayas."

'Phulkari' centre set up
From Our Correspondent

SAS NAGAR, June 1 — A 'phulkari' centre has been set up here by the Indian Council of Social Welfare (ICSW), Punjab, for the girls of Shahi Majra village.

The centre, which will run from the Government Primary School, Shahi Majra, was jointly inaugurated by Mrs Ratinder Brar and Mrs Kiran Bedi, Treasurer and Organising Secretary, respectively, of the Punjab unit of the ICSW.

The honorary Secretary-General of the state unit of the council, Mrs J.K. Grewal, said girls would initially learn embroidery by hand and machine. After about a month, coaching would be provided in cutting and tailoring also.

Mrs Grewal said it would be a one-year course and no fees would be charged though the students would have to bring the required material.

She said the aim behind establishing the centre in the village was to work at the grass root level. The Education Department had agreed to give one room of the school for running this centre.

She said the Department of Social Security for Women and Child Development had given a grant of Rs 25,000 for the centre. The ICSW would also contribute an equal amount for it.

Summer workshop begins
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 1— A month-long summer workshop, ''creative camp'', started in the preparatory block of St Joseph's High School, Sector 9, here today. The workshop, for children between three and nine years, is being organised by Mrs Anupam Grewal and Ms Hardeep.

The workshop would cover athletic, social and emotional skills of the children through sketching, pasting, painting and clay modelling. The workshop would also include conversation, discussions, dramatics, a story-writing session, quiz contests and lessons on character development and etiquette.

Meanwhile, the kids club meeting of the Creative Learning will organise participation of children in discussions and interactions on June 3 and 4 through drawings, cutting, colouring and other such activities.