Thursday, June 17, 1999
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N E W S Thursday, June 17, 1999 |
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Winged winter visitors stay
back CHANDIGARH, June 16 — Spot bill, comb duck, whistling teal, brahmini duck (surkhab), pintail duck, shoveller... the names are endless. Yes, these migratory birds from Siberia are regular winter visitors to the subcontinent between October and March. But once the winter loses its nip they wing their way black to the Siberian heights. But defying the natural habitat migrations, these birds are making the vast water stretches of the city and nearby areas their permanent home. In the heat of June with the mercury touching 40 degrees Centigrade, these Siberian birds can be seen wallowing in the water feature at Chhat Bir Zoo in the mornings. But once the sun beats down on them they disappear into the thick marshland-type growth around the water pond. More than 1,000 Siberian birds were floating on the water when we first visited the water feature on Sunday morning. During another visit to the same spot in the afternoon of Tuesday, we could spot just about 20 of the birds. But one of the zoo officials pointed at the dense growth of weeds on the banks that is where they are hiding. As one of the helpers walked towards the dense forest side of the water feature, the birds emerged from the growth. And soon they took off making a rhythmic sound of their flapping wings. Karam Singh clicked the camera. We could spot the comb duck, the spot bill and the pintail duck. On Wednesday morning we were at the zoo’s water feature at 7.30. Migratory birds of different colours floated in the water. Seeing us approach, they took off forming a colourful umbrella. It was a sight worth going miles to see. What has kept these birds back in the summer heat? The abundant food near the weeds, the water supply to the pond from different tubewells and the shade provided by the nearby jungles has made the birds stay back. The nests and eggs are enough proof that the next generation to come will be not from Siberia, but from the Chhat Bir Zoo. Dr Vinod Sharma, Director of the Chhat Bir Zoo, said the weather had also not been that harsh. Besides, the birds seemed to have got acclimatised to the local temperature. And with the serene atmosphere all around the birds seem to be enjoying their stay in their new permanent home. The disturbance caused
by our staff, saw the birds winging their way. And we
found them floating in the Ghaggar, four kilometres away.
But within an hour they were back at the zoo water
feature. |
Rush to get car films removed Chandigarh, June 16 — A large number of car owners rushed to to the Sector 28 motor market here today to get black films removed from the window panes of their vehicles. City residents also went to places in Panchkula and SAS Nagar. This morning the police distributed hand bills at traffic light points to educate members of the public about the challaning drive. On Friday, all Station House Officers, staff of police stations and other wings of the police, besides the traffic wing, would be put on duty to check people from using black films on their car panes, police authorities said. The men removing the films used a special soap solution and spent an hour or so on each car. The rate was Rs 200 for a small car like Maruti or Matiz and between Rs 400 and Rs 500 for big cars like Santro, Honda, Ford, Astra and Omni. Another aspect of this was increase in sale of curtain cloth. Tailors, who usually make seat covers in the Sector 28 motor market, were busy making curtains as per specifications of the cars. The rate to fix curtains varied between Rs 400 and Rs 800, depending on number and size of the windows of the vehicle and the quality of the curtain cloth. Also in demand were coloured sticks on panels. The rates varied according to the design on the panels. The Chandigarh Police has clarified that the ban on the use of black films will also cover all government and official vehicles. An exemption will be made for security reasons and proper permission will have to be obtained from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Chandigarh. Exemptions granted by the Deputy Commissioner on health grounds under relevant provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, will also apply. In case of cars allotted to Punjab and Haryana officials, the respective Director-Generals of Police (DGPs) will issue the permission on foreseeing any security threat. According to Mr Balbir Singh, SP, Traffic, any vehicle with black films on its panes must have a proper permission or it will be challaned from June 18 onwards. The traffic police has also been directed to challan tourists passing through the city in cars having black-filmed panes. ''Ignorance of the law will not be treated as an excuse," the SP said. Those using curtains in cars would not be checked as there was no mention of cloth curtains in the court order, he added. Such cars can be challaned under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, if visibility from outside is bad. No percentage of visibility has been fixed for tinted glasses or curtains. The order to check use of black films was issued after the Supreme Court directed the Punjab and Haryana High Court to do so. Last year, the Supreme Court had stayed a judgement of the Punjab and Haryana High Court on traffic and safety regulations. Only the stay on the ban on use of black films has been vacated by the Supreme court. All other directions of
the court, like ban on cycle rickshaws in Sector 17,
various regulations for school buses, ban on use of
musical horns, one-way traffic outside select schools and
ban on use of red light atop vehicles, among other
things, have been stayed. In the past few months,
Chandigarh Traffic Police has been implementing the
one-way traffic system outside four schools on its own
due to rising traffic problems. |
7 hospitalised for food
poisoning PANCHKULA, June 16 — In a case of adulteration and food poisoning here, seven persons were admitted to General Hospital, Sector 6 yesterday evening. The incident occurred during a birthday party at a house in Sector 11. The gathering had ordered a cake from a bakery in Chandigarh, and sweets from a shop in Sector 11, Panchkula. Soon after eating the food, three adults and four children had to be admitted to the hospital. The local police has registered a case against the sweet shop. Dr M.P. Singh, the doctor on emergency duty said he had informed the Chandigarh Police to collect samples from the bakery, which was done within six minutes. Dr H.C. Nagpal, Civil Surgeon, Panchkula, and the District Health Officer, reached the site immediately and collected samples from the sweet shop at Panchkula. The DSP, city, Mr Raj
Singh, has assured adequate action into the case. |
Failed youth ends life CHANDIGARH, June 16 — A teenager, Rajesh Chauhan, who reportedly failed for the second consecutive time in the Class X examination, allegedly hanged himself to death in his Sector 15 home this evening. He was rushed to the Sector 16 General Hospital where he was declared dead upon arrival. The youth, aged about 18 years, was alone in the house when he committed suicide. A suicide note was found in the pocket of his shirt. His father, an employee of the UT Health Department, was out of station, while his mother and sister had gone to the market. In the note the youth
said that he had tried to commit suicide a couple of
times before but had failed. Today he bolted the door of
his house and used a chunni ( scarf) to hang himself from
a hook inside the kitchen. |
Model schools run short of
forms CHANDIGARH, June 16 — The rush for collecting admission forms for plus one classes continued for the second day today, with most of the senior secondary schools selling them in about an hour's time. As many as 3,900 forms were given to various schools for the purposes of distribution. The response was more in GMSSS-22, GMSSS-23 and GGSSS-18 which sold as many as 600, 500 and 400 forms respectively. Though these schools witnessed a large number of people in the morning, the number gradually decreased as people, unlike yesterday, also went to the nearby schools for getting the forms. Other schools which sold out all their forms are GGSSS-8, GMSSS-16, 19,35, 40 and 46. Shortage of forms was reported from the model schools in Sectors 37, 40 and 46 which were given only 50, 50 and 100 forms, respectively, even as their requirement was more. People who came to these schools after 11a.m. had to go back disappointed. The Sector 18 school, which is one of the collection centres had to collect some additional forms from a nearby school. However, forms were available in GMSSS-33, GMSSS-20 D, GSSS-47, GSSS-Dhanas and Sector 38 (West) till the time they closed the counter for the day. The response was lukewarm in the ordinary senior secondary schools in rural areas such as GSSS-Dhanas and Karsan. The school in Dhanas sold only 10 forms of the total 50 it got yesterday. Going by the tremendous response, the authorities have placed an additional print order for 3,000 forms. They had earlier got 12,000 forms printed and they are likely to be sold out by tomorrow. The last instalment of 3,000 forms has already been sent to GMSSS-22, the main collection centre for distribution tomorrow. DAV College, Sector 10,
sold a total of 1,200 forms till today for its 720 seats
in the science stream. The counters will be kept open
tomorrow even though it is a holiday. The college has
made a provision for 2,500 forms in its stock and the
same will be distributed till the last date. |
British High Commission to have
office in city CHANDIGARH, June 16 — The British High Commission is all set for a high profile presence in Chandigarh by proposing to set up a multifunction office here, says Mr Rob Young, British High Commissioner to India. Talking to The Tribune here, Mr Rob Young said that the proposed office would have a modern British Council Library, a Basic Information Centre and a Visa Information Centre. The Commission is awaiting final approval from the Ministry of External Affairs. Once approved, the new office will raise profile of Britain in the region, besides helping people of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh get latest information on Great Britain. Mr Young, Mr Adam Noble, First Secretary, and Mr Kamaljeet Rattan, Political Adviser, have been on a tour of Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh for the past few days. He called on Mr Hari Jaisingh, Editor of The Tribune, in his office this afternoon. Mr Young said that his Government condemned any violation of the Geneva Convention and was committed for investigation of all such cases of violations. He was referring to torturing to death of six Indian soldiers by Pakistan before their mutilated bodies were handed over to Indian authorities last week. "The Geneva Convention norms must be respected. There are certain norms of behaviour in an armed conflict. In such conflicts, laid-down norms about treatment of POWs should be observed," Mr Young said. Talking about the stand of his country on escalating tension in South Asia, Mr Young said that the British Government was quite clear to recognise a large heavily armed group of infiltrators to have crossed the Line of Control into India. "The British Government wants both sides to show restraint as no one wants the conflict to spread despite failure of talks between foreign ministers of the two countries last week. There are still chances of a negotiated solution. We also want to see a solution which minimises the chances of a fight," he said. "We have consistently maintained that the Line of Control should be respected. We fully understand India's position on this. We were hopeful that with the Lahore visit, new phase of negotiations had started. We hope that the spirit of Lahore is not dead," he said. Talking about his present visit, Mr Young said, "I have been in Punjab for the past few days to study the political and economic situation in the state to further strengthen bilateral relations with Punjab and Haryana. Punjab has extraordinary deep links with my country and I have been feeling very much at home here." Mr Young, accompanied by his wife and other members of his entourage, also visited the Golden Temple complex on the night of June 13 and spent 40 minutes listening to Gurbani. He also participated in some religious ceremonies at the temple. Tomorrow, he will leave for Shimla. Recalling his visit to Punjab, Mr Young said he had been highly impressed by dynamism and entrepreneurial skills of Punjabis which were better than those of people of any other state. We have been benefitting from their skills as a large number of Punjabis have moved to the United Kingdom," he added. Talking about India-Britain cooperation on controlling terrorism, Mr Young felt that the problem of terrorism had reduced considerably in this part of the country. "We have made our position very clear that we are opposed to all kinds of terrorism. We should continue to cooperate with each other in this regard," he said. The British High Commissioner said that Smith Kline and Beecham was coming up with a 36 million-pound pharmaceutical project in Haryana which would become operational in a few years' time. "We have been the
largest investor in India since 1991. The trade between
the two countries last year was more than $ 2
billion," he said, adding that investment approvals
were four times the actual investment made in India. Both
the Centre and the state government should find out the
answer to this big question, he said. |
Award for two city teachers CHANDIGARH, June 16 — Two local school teachers — Mr Brahmjit Kalia and Ms Raksha Gupta — have been awarded the National Award for Teachers by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development for their services in the field of education. Mr Kalia is currently posted as the District Education Officer (DEO). He is the first male UT-cadre teacher to be elevated to this post. He joined the UT Education Department as mathematics teacher in 1968. He has been Principal of both Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 23, and Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 33. This is not for the first time that he got a major award. He was awarded the State Award for Teachers in 1997 by the UT Education Department. Last year, NCERT had selected a project, undertaken by him, after a national-level competition. Ms Gupta is a teacher at Government Primary School, Mani Majra-I. She also has a distinguished record. Awarded the State Award for Teachers in 1990, she has been honoured by many organisations. the Lions Club declared her the best teacher in 1987. The awards comprise Rs
10,000 in cash, medals and commendation certificates.
These will be presented in New Delhi on September 5 on
the occasion of Teachers Day. |
Girls beat boys again PANCHKULA, June 16 — In line with the overall better performance of girls as compared to boys in the Senior Secondary School Examinations results of the Haryana School Education Board (HSEB), girls have outscored boys in this district in the commerce and science streams. Boys have, however, secured the first three positions in the arts stream. The private schools in the district appear to have performed better as compared to the government run schools going by the top positions secured by the students. The overall pass percentage of students in the district is around 50 per cent. In the science stream, a girl student of Government Senior Secondary School, Pinjore, S.Aggarwal has topped by securing 76 per cent marks followed by Poonam of the same school who got 66.45 per cent marks. Pushpinder Kaur of Government Senior Secondary School, Pinjore, has secured 63.5 per cent in the science stream. Three students of Hindu Girls Senior School, Kalka, — Neha Anand, Bhawna and Preeti Yadav — have secured 73.6 per cent, 72.6 per cent and 71.6 per cent marks, respectively, in the commerce stream. Mehnaz of Government Senior Secondary School, Rajipur, has scored 64.2 per cent marks. In the arts stream, Tanvi Rajput of Hindu Girls Senior School, Kalka, has stood first by securing 72.6 percent marks. Two more students of the same school, Anuradha Jain and Bhawna, have secured 72.2 per cent and 71.8 per cent marks, respectively, in the arts stream. Among the government
schools, boys have outscored girls in holding the first
three position in the arts stream. Parveen, a student of
Government Senior Secondary School, Rajipur, has secured
65.6 per cent marks. Two other students of Government
Senior Secondary School, Kalka, Sanjeev Kumar and Deepak
Bakshi have got 65 per cent and 64.8 per cent marks,
respectively, in the arts stream. |
Southern sectors go without power
Chandigarh, June 16 — Residents of some of the the southern sectors had a sleepless night following a technical snag in the Sector 39 power substation late last night. Consumers of the sector, besides Dadu Majra, Maloya and other parts served by the station were affected. According to officials, the fault was yet to be detected but efforts were on since last night to rectify the fault. Overloading and sparking in some of the equipment installed was stated to be the reason. The substation was reportedly swamped by consumers all night long. People had to face a scorching day without power today. According to residents, the power was switched on for varying intervals of only 10 minutes to half an hour at a stretch. A Sector 32 labour colony truck passing through the colony smashed a power transmission line, disrupting power supply late last night. The people, who gathered on the Sectors 31 and 32 dividing road, alleged that the driver of the truck, carrying some construction material, insisted on taking the truck through a road that had been barricaded and closed to all vehicles . He reportedly tried to manoeuvre his vehicle through some of the damaged barricades but the truck got stuck mid-way. On seeing this, some women urged him to go back and take the other road but to no avail. In his attempt the truck suddenly rammed into a transmission line pole, breaking it in the process. As a result the overhead lines got entangled and after some sparking the entire area was plunged into darkness, they said. The residents alleged
that while the officials of the Electricity Department
expressed their inability to do anything in the matter
till the morning, the police was also trying to play down
the incident. |
276 blood units for wounded
soldiers Chandigarh, June 16 — To express solidarity with the soldiers fighting in Kargil, residents of Bhiwani deposited 276 units of blood with the Blood Bank of Command Hospital, Western Command, yesterday. The blood donation, held under the aegis of the Haryana Yuva Shanti Sena, was a voluntary effort and the number of units collected would have been larger but for the inadequate facilities for collection, storage and transportation to the hospital, according to Mr Sampuran Singh, President of the organisation. He presented the blood units to Major-Gen Virendra Singh, Commandant of the hospital. Accompanying him were Col J.S. Chaudhri of the NCC unit of the district, and others. Camps have been held since June 11 in the district and a large number of donors have been women. He said more camps would be organised in memory of Subedar Randhir Singh, Nk Ram Kumar and Sepoy Suresh Kumar, hailing from their district who had laid down their lives in defending the borders at Kargil. Their aim was to collect blood equalling the weight of these martyrs. The General thanked the residents of the district for the noble gesture. Meanwhile, members of the Sant Nirankari Mandal have offered to donate blood for Army jawans injured in the Kargil sector. Mr Kesho Ram Nandwani,
zonal in charge of the Nirankari Satsang Bhavan,
Chandigarh, said in a press statement here today that the
mandal could meet the blood requirements of soldiers in
Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana,
Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan by organising
camps. |
'Shradhanjali' to soldiers CHANDIGARH, June 16 — Nari Chetna, an organisation dedicated to the welfare of women, at a meeting held today under the chairpersonship of Mrs Manjit Kaur, Vice-President, CTCC, offered ''shradhanjali'' to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives defending Indian territory against Pakistanis in the Kargil area. It also decided to collect funds for the families of those killed in the operation. A blood donation camp would also be organised to collect blood to meet the requirement of the defence personnel wounded in Kargil and adjacent areas. Mrs Manjit Kaur in a
press release criticised the BJP government at the Centre
for soft-pedalling towards Pakistan in the present
situation. She appealed to the Prime Minister not to hold
talks with Pakistan until all intruders were cleared from
the Kargil area and the Government of Pakistan gave an
assurance that it would not interfere again. |
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Punjab nurses
suspend stir The proposed dharna in the home constituency of the minister has also been put off. Mrs Jeevanpreet Kaur and Ms Gurcharan Kaur, President and General Secretary of the Punjab Nurses Association, respectively, said the demands assured to be implemented included stopping the recovery of new scales, increase in allowances, change in the designations, promotion scale of Rs 6,400, besides revising the scales for promotional posts. GIC staff seek wage revision MVI post 'not abolished' It was stated that the proposal to create the posts of senior assistant, MVI, stenographer, helper and driver had been sent to the Ministry of Finance for approval and the sanction was likely to be received soon. On the charges of corruption levelled against the Assistant Secretary by transporters, the Secretary said the complaint had been made under forged signatures. This was in response to a news item which appeared in these columns on June 6. TTTI meeting The meeting discussed ways and means of increasing internal resources with a view to improving the financial position of the institute. A proposal to start the MBA course was also discussed. Congregations mark martyrdom day The highlight of these congregations was bhog of akhand path and special kirtan darbars where eminent ragis recited Gurbani. Special community kitchens and "chabeels" of sweetened water were held at all gurdwaras and various places in the city. At a number of places, even refreshments, including chana-puri, were also served. The main functions were
held at the gurdwaras in Sectors 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 19,
20, 21, 22, 29, 30, 34, 35 and 44. Reports of special
congregations were also received from SAS Nagar, Kharar,
Zirakpur, Dera Bassi, Mullanpur-Garibdas, Panchkula,
Kalka and Pinjore. |
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