KHAMANO
regularised: Mr Suresh Sharma, President, and Mr Malagar Singh, Secretary of the P.W.D Field and Workshop Workers Union, in a statement here alleged that only 53 workers have been regularised until now by the Chief Engineer, Public Health, Patiala, by the notification issued on January 23 by Punjab Government. According to the notification other workers have not been regularised against vacant posts and according to the seniority and the case of vacant posts have not been sent to the Finance Department for approval. Due to this there was unrest among daily wage workers of three wings of the PWD. They warned the Chief Engineer and the government that if the workers who were working for the last many years are not regularised, then they will take part in the effigies-burnt -procession on May 3 in front of the Public Health Department’s Office at Patiala. 

KHANNA
Bar Association: The strike of Bar Association of Khanna entered into the second day on Thursday against the alleged manhandling of a local advocate, Mr K. S. Uppal, and registering a case of rash driving against him. A call was given by the Bar Association for strike in all the courts of the state. An advocate of local Bar, Mr Param Jit Singh, claimed that the strike was observed in Fatehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Amloh and other stations. Meetings were held among senior Bar members and police officials for patch up. Some proposals were made but the Bar Association decided to observe strike on Friday, according to Mr Paramjit Singh. He said it was decided at the meeting that a deputation of the advocates of Khanna will meet the Sessions Judge of Ludhiana and the DIG, Ludhiana, on Friday in connection with this incident. On the other hand the SHO city, Mr Rajesh, denied the charges of manhandling said the case was registered as per the law. 

Foundation: A renowned spiritual master and world leader in the human resource development, Art of Living Foundation, has opened its branch at Sri Ravi Shankar Vidya Mandir, Khanna. The chief guest Swami Kishore Vij, who is also a senior teacher, said while addressing the function that the education is a process of unfold from within. The children should be allowed to discover their inherent potential. Stressing the role of a teacher, he said, it is the teacher who plays an important role in giving the students broader vision. So the teachers appointed in such institutions will be given special training. Ms Sawinder Arora, one of the local organisers, Mr Bhullar, DGM, Godrej, Mr Kulbhushan Rai Sofat of Radha Vatika School, Mr Raj Chopra and Mr Des Raj Mehta, were among the prominent speakers on the occasion. 

KHARAR
Cheques given: Mr G. S. Grewal, Deputy Commissioner of Ropar, on Wednesday gave two cheques of grants amounting to Rs 1.5 lakh. Mr Grewal had visited Kharar in August last year, when he announced a grant of Rs 25,000 for the Kharar Journalists Association. He had also visited the Maharaja Ajj Sarovar and announced a grant of Rs 1.25 lakh for the sarovar. He handed over both cheques to the organisers yesterday. 

SAD (B) meeting: A meeting of workers of SAD (Badal) was held here on Wednesday under the presidentship of Mr Mokha Singh, a member of the SGPC, and was attended by many prominent workers of the party, along with sarpanches and panches of 80 villages of Kharar block. According to a press note, the meeting criticised a self-styled Akali leader who was claiming to be close relative of Mr Parkash Singh Badal and son-in-law of a Punjab Minister. The self-styled leader was damaging the image of the party and had joined hands with Congressmen here. They appealed to the people to beware of this person. 

Three booked: The local police on Wednesday registered a case under Sections 307 and 34 of the IPC against three persons of Tira village for attempting to murder a chowkidar of a mill in the village. According to FIR lodged with the Kharar police, Mr Mohinder Singh, who was working as chowkidar in a mill in Tira village, was attached by three persons at about 10.30 p.m. on Tuesday night. He was beaten up and was rushed to the PGI in Chandigarh. Some old dispute was stated to be the cause of the attack. The police registered a case against Sona, Sikander Bhiya and Pali, who were absconding. 

Liquor seized: The local police on Wednesday arrested Radhey Shiam from Badala Road in Kharar following the recovery of 200 pouches of illicit liquor from his possession. A case under the Excise Act has been registered against him. 

LUDHIANA
lecture at DMCH: To create health awareness among the people, the Health Education Cell of Dayanand Medical College and Hospital will organise the 23rd public health lecture on Saturday at Dumra Auditorium. The topic of the lecture will be ‘Hypertension’. Dr B.K. Sharma, former-Director of the PGI, Chandigarh. Dr Sharma will talk about the cases, symptoms and the treatment of the disease. The topic of the lecture has specially been chosen keeping in view the increasing stress in the present era due to which hypertension was merging as an epidemic. “Everyday we see at least 10 patients of hypertension in our OPD. Its prevalence is 25 per cent in urban areas and 13 per cent in rural areas. Generally, it is found among the people above 30 years and the cases are obesity, sedentary life style, excessive intake of salt, stressful life and family history. This disease is not totally curable but it can be controlled by taking the medicine entire life,” said Dr G.S. Wander, Chief Cardiologist, Hero DMC Heart Centre. The lecture will be delivered in Hindi. 

president elected: Dr S.S. Chahal, Professor, Department of Plant Pathology, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), has been unanimously elected as president of the Indian Society of Mycology and Plant Pathology, Udaipur. A communique of PAU released here on Thursday said the society has large membership in India as well as in the SAARC countries. Dr Chahal is fellow of several professional associations and earlier has also served for three terms as Secretary of the Indian Society of Plant Pathologists and Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Plant Disease Research. 

scientist honoured: Dr Pardeep Kumar Chhuneja from the Department of Entomology, Punjab Agricultural University, has been honoured by the Indian Society of Agricultural Research for his paper presented by him at VIIth National Science Congress organised at Project Directorate of Cropping Systems Research , ICAR at Meerut from April 12 to 14. Dr Chhuneja presented his research paper on storage of grains and it was adjudged the best research paper at the conference. He was awarded a certificate, memento and a prize. 

Mahila Morcha: Ms Santosh Kalra, President of the BJP Mahila Morcha has constituted the district executive of the party, in consultation with the district party president Mr Harban Lal Sethi. The following are the members: Ms Sunita Sharma, Councillor, Ms Sunita Aggarwal, Councillor, Ms Rajpati Tiwari, Councillor, Ms Surjit Kaur, Ms Neelam Dhawan, Ms Noori Kalra, Ms Jasbir Kaur, Ms Kailash Rani, Ms Prem Kumari, Ms Manjit Kaur, Ms Suman Jain. 

Rally held: The Class IV employees of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) organised a rally to press for their demands in front of the Thapar Hall here on Thursday. The employees alleged that the office-bearers of the PAU Class IV Employees Union did not hold the elections in a democratic way and organised these on a holiday when most of the employees were not there. The agitating employees demanded that the democracy should be restored while choosing the office-bearers and their demands should including the promotions vide the promotion scheme, be met and vacancies of Class IV employees should be filled. 

MANSA
BASMATI RICE: Dr Mewa Singh Sonar, Director, Agriculture Department, Punjab while addressing farmers at a training camp here on Wednesday, said the Central Government had selected four district from four states for the production of Basmati rice and Gurdaspur district was one of them.

EMPLOYMENT SCHEME: Ms Raji P. Shrivastava, Deputy Commissioner, disclosed on Wednesday that under the Employment Assurance Scheme, a sum of Rs 1.67 crore was released to various gram panchayats in the district during the last financial year for taking up development activities.

PATIALA
sought: The Patiala unit of the Punjab Shiv Sena (Thackery) has urged the District Administration to shift the country liquor shop situated in front of the back gate of the Kali Mata Mandir complex to an alternative place. In a press note, Mr Sanjay Kumar, senior city vice- president of the Patiala unit said the administration should also remove meat shops located on the periphery of the mandir complex as these shops not only posed a serious health hazard but also hurt the religious sentiments of the people. Mr Sanjay Kumar also urged the administration to install lights near the ‘sarovar’ of the mandir. 

Ban hailed: The Punjab Nurses Association has welcomed the ban imposed by the Akal Takht Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti on female foeticide. In a press note issued, Ms Jiwanpreet Kaur, president of the Punjab Nurses Association, has said Sikh doctors should also refrain from doing such operations where female foeticide was involved and added that other communities should also follow suit and ban such foeticides. 

Appointed: Mr Anirudh Tiwari has been appointed as member (Finance and Accounts) of Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB), according to a Board press note. Prior to this appointment, Mr Anirudh Tiwari, IAS, was posted as the Deputy Commissioner of Sangrur District. He has also worked as SDM, Sunam and Additional Deputy Commissioner, Sangrur. 

VC’s stand lauded: The Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Thursday appreciated that the case involving the declaration of the result of former Punjabi University campus president Sandeep Kapur had been solved due to the liberal attitude of the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Jasbir Singh Ahluwalia. In a press release, the ABVP University campus President Mr Gurnam Singh said his party appreciated the objectives and efforts of the Vice Chancellor in realising the academic excellence in all fields. 

SAHNEWAL
inaugurated: The Dashmesh Institute of Computer Technology was inaugurated by Mr Sharanjit Singh Dhillon, General Secretary, SAD (Youth Wing). Talking to mediapersons, Mr Vipin Virdi and Mr Sukhraj Singh, owners of the institute, said that e-mail and Internet services would also be provided alongwith the coaching in computer systems. Among those present on the occasion were Mr Bant Singh, sarpanch, Mr Shamsher Singh Kaile, president, nagar panchayat, Sahnewal, Mr Chajju Singh and Mr Hansraj Virdi.

SAMRALA
policy criticised: The promotions to the post of principals of the Senior Secondary Schools in Punjab by the Punjab Education Department are in the offing but the condition of 10 years of service as lecturer for promotion to the post of principals is not justified, said Mr Bihari Lal Saddi, vice-president of the Government Secondary School Teachers Union, Punjab, here on Thursday. Mr Saddi has criticised the Punjab Education Department for applying the rules for direct recruitment to the promotion rules. While talking to mediapersons in the Civil Rest House, Mr Saddi demanded that the promotions should be made only and purely on the basis of seniority of the candidates/teachers in the lecturer’s graduation list and no condition of experience should be imposed on the promotees.

suicide committed: A local karyana merchant, Manmohan Singh have allegedly committed suicide by taking some poisonous substance on Wednesday evening. The deceased was immediately brought to the local Civil Hospital but due to critical position he was referred to Ludhiana, where he died. After postmortem here, the body was handed over to the family. The police has registered a case. The cause of suicide is still not known. 

Memo sent: The Class IV Government Employees Union sent a memorandum to the Administrator of Chandigarh, the Adviser to the Administrator and the UT Home Secretary on Wednesday. According to Mr Tara Chand Kashyap, general secretary of the union, the memorandum, which was sent by post was also addressed to the UT Chief Engineer and Mr Satya Pal Jain, a former MP. In a press note, the union alleged that they had repeatedly met the authorities concerned, but no concrete steps had been taken to meet their demands. It demanded that those Class IV employees who were matriculates should be promoted to Class III category under the 10 per cent quota scheme. The union also felt that the Class IV employees were facing difficulty in meeting the conditions of the various provisions the Chandigarh Housing Board for owning a house. The union demanded that housing schemes on easy terms should be made available to them.

Awareness camp: An eight-day awareness camp for rural/slum and poor women concluded here on Wednesday at Nehru Colony (UT). The camp was organised by the Society for Social Health (SOFOSH) in collaboration with Chandigarh Social Welfare Board. The chairperson of the board, Ms Kamala Sharma, who was the chief guest on the occasion, exhorted the women to come forward to join income generating scheme in order to be self dependent. She stressed that empowerment in the real sense is economic independence. Dr B. D Chugh, Project Director, State TB Control Society (UT) said TB is one of the major killers and urged the colony dwellers to immediately seek medical help in case of any symptoms of the disease. Mr Arjun Kamboj, Director Jan Shikshan Sansthan, highlighted the importance of first aid and pointed out that proper and immediate first aid can save many lives. 

AIDS camp: About 400 persons attended the awareness- cum -medical camp organised by the State AIDS Control Society, UT, at Mauli Jagran on Wednesday as part of the on- going Yauvan Mangal Mela. While 60 persons availed themselves of the diagnosis and treatment services at the camp, nine blood samples were drawn for further examination from those patients who offered to be investigated further.