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| Saturday,
October
11, 2003,
Chandigarh, India
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Three held for kidnapping priest SAS Nagar, October 10 The three — Maya Dass, Somnath and Ravinder Kumar — all resident of Patiala district had hatched the conspiracy. According to the Superintendent of Police, SAS Nagar, Mr Harcharan Singh Bhullar, Jeet Dass who had been with the dera for the past 25 years had developed illicit relations with some women of the area. “He had some photographs with one of these women. Jeet Dass’s brother’s relative Maya Dass somehow got hold of one such photograph. He then contacted persons in his village, Bolar Kalan, and planned the kidnapping. He told the two that Jeet Dass had recently been given large sums of money by PUDA for acquiring a piece of his land and they could extract some money from him by blackmailing him about one of his such photograph. As per plan, Maya Dass reached Jeet Dass’s dera early in the morning on October 8 pretending to have come to meet him. They took him in a car to Sohana. “They showed him the photograph and told him that they had a complaint against him and he was required to go to Sector 39 police station with them. But Maya Dass convinced Jeet Dass to pay up. All four went to the bank and took out Rs 1 lakh and gave them to the two. After which the two left,” said Mr Bhullar. The police said a special team was constituted by the SP under Mr Ramandeep Singh, SHO, Phase VIII who conducted raids at places at Patiala to catch the culprits. |
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4 acquitted in Jammu blast case Chandigarh, October 10 Attarjit Singh, Ravinder Kaur, Balbir Singh and Paramjit Singh were acquitted acting on the discharge application moved by them, claiming that the main witness in the case, Sai Dass, had died on July 21, 1997, 12 days after the bomb blast and many of the witnesses in the case did not identify any of them while deposing before the court. Another accused, Ranjit Singh, alleged to be involved in the case, had been declared a proclaimed offender by the police. On June 6, 1997, four persons had died and 12 had sustained serious injuries in a bomb blast that took place in a bus at Jammu. The four were alleged to be responsible for the blast. They were arrested on charges of murder and under sections of the Explosive Act. Sai Dass, who was main witness in the case, had made a statement to the police that he had overheard that the four persons were involved in the bomb blast. |
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PU plans to cut
options in MA courses Chandigarh, October 10 The university faculty is “shocked” and strong resentment is being shown against the proposed move. Certain departments have communicated their opposition to the university. “The streams of the arts courses are famous for the wide range they offered in the options going in line with the status of teaching facilities available at a university. PU happens to be among the premier institutions of the country so cutting down on the number of options available was unfortunate”, a senior faculty member said on a note of anonymity. An official communication from the office of the Dean, University Instructions, said, “The Vice Chancellor has observed that compared to their utility and needs, the number of specialised papers in MA courses at our university is too large. He has desired that MA I contains only compulsory papers. In MA II there should be three compulsory papers and only one optional paper with not more than two or three
specialisations.” The communication added that each Board of Control, Board of Studies and Academic Committees of the departments should seriously debate on the issue and arrive at a conclusion so that new teaching programme of MA II students is finalised at the earliest possible. Chairpersons of teaching departments which offer MA courses are requested to comply with the orders and send an action taken report. In a related development it is interesting to point out that the number of options available in paper IV of the English Department have already been cut down to two. Other options have been stopped following tabulation of data and papers with maximum applicants were left. Sources in certain other departments said they were already offering far lesser than possible options, and further tightening the choice available for studies would take away the beauty of the range available for studies at the post graduate level. A senior professor in defence of the university move said the number of teachers was falling in absence of fresh recruitments. Admissions with less teachers had little relevance. In that context, the university was justified in reducing the number of options so that it could concentrate better on the available academic programme. One easiest way for taking a decision about the choice of a paper was to see the total choices by all students. The options securing the largest numbers of seekers could be run by a department, sources said. The departments could repeat the exercise each year to determine the top priorities. Prof
K. N. Pathak, Vice-Chancellor, said the university’s intention behind limiting the number of options was not to cut them permanently. “Going by the existing conditions, the university proposes to pick the top options in any course and follow it for that particular year. The choices can be changed the next year,” he said. Referring to the English Department, he said the university could even offer four options in case each paper had at least 20 takers. There was no point in running courses which had only two or three takers. |
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Rally against raids on Maya’s premises Chandigarh, October 10 Led by Mr Narinder Kashyap, national general secretary of the party, Mr Avtar Singh Karimpuri, Punjab unit president and Mr Balbir Singh Jhanghra, the party workers raised slogans against the BJP-led government at the Centre. The rally, which started at 10 am ended with a five-member delegation submitting a memorandum on the issue to the Punjab Governor and UT Administrator, Justice OP Verma ( retd). Earlier addressing the rally, party leaders said with the assembly elections in five states due in December, the NDA government at the Centre had got the raids conducted out of political vendetta. Mr Balbir Singh alleged the raids were conducted at the instance of the Prime Minister to defame Mrs Mayawati. The BSP would emerge as the third largest party in four of the states. The party leaders demanded that all the ministers and members of the family of Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee should be asked to make public their movable and immovable assets. He stated that the CBI was silent over allegations of corruption being levelled against BJP leaders. Reports of hundreds of BSP workers holding rallies in protest against the raids on Mayawati’s premises were also received from all over the region, including Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, Gurdaspur and Jalandhar. |
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Jaspinder,
Micky rock Leisure Valley crowd Chandigarh, October 10 She began the presentation with “Kudi kunwaari tere pichhee” and went on to present “Naiyo naiyo”, the mega hit from “ Soldier”, which made stars out of Preity Zinta and Bobby
Deol. Punctuating her presentations with Punjabi compositions of Sufi saints like Baba Bulle Shah, Jaspinder gave the gathering a taste of her versatility. After moulding the audience, she presented her most celebrated song, “Pyaar to hona hi tha”, which had fetched her the Filmfare best female playback singer award. Jaspinder also sung duets from her films with her brother
Micky. |
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A singer with
exuberant style Chandigarh, October 10 The quintessentially “devotional” singer, who still loves to host “jagratas” where she sings praises of
Durga, Jaspinder earlier won the Filmfare Award for best playback singer for her full-throated rendering of “Pyar to hona hi tha” with Remo Fernandes. Remaining humble in success,
Jaspinder, who was in the city to present a live concert at the Leisure Valley, said, “Our industry is promoting mediocrity by promoting people who are deforming the very soul of music. I am happy with my award, especially because the norm is to reward people, irrespective of what they are offering.” Making an early beginning under her father,
K.S. Narula, whose compositions fill the HMV repertoire of Punjabi music. With an MA and a PhD in music, Jaspinder took the commercial leap quite late in life. “When Kalyanji heard me at the residence of Ustad Amjad Ali Khan in Delhi, he advised me to come to Bombay.” But it was after a two-year stint in Canada and also long after cutting many devotional albums that Jaspinder made her foray into films. With Anu
Malik, Anup Jalota and Kalyanji on her list of friends, getting a break was not a problem. As Jaspinder said, “My first song was for Jagjit Singh in a film on Guru Gobind Singh. Later Viju Shah gave me my first commercial film break with a song in Dev Anand film, “Master”. The film went unnoticed but the song was heard.” Rest is history which
repeats itself time and again. With super hit songs like “Judaai”, “aye dil itna bata de”, “akhiyon se goli mare”, Sona
sona, Naiyo naiyo, behind her, it is not surprising that Gulzar insisted on getting Jaspinder to sing for his magnum opus “Pinjar” which is due for release now. Along with the Wadali brothers, who are virtual masters of the Sufi tradition, Jaspinder will sing praises of the God. “I have always sung
sufiana. I am also coming out with an album of “sufiana” musical offerings.” Jaspinder will also be heard in the next Yash Chopra production. |
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Move to privatise octroi work opposed SAS Nagar, October 10 Mr Sham Bansal, municipal councillor and president of the Vyapar Mandal, who was addressing a press conference here today, said the proposal to privatise octroi collection work from January 1 next year was going to be discussed by the house in the Municipal Council meeting scheduled to be held on October 13. He said that he, along with 10 other municipal councillors, would oppose such a move of the civic body. He said he only needed the support of four more councillors to get the proposal rejected. He appealed to the residents of the town, who had been harassed by employees of the octori contractor, to approach the municipal councillors of their wards and request them to oppose such a proposal. He said that a large number of complaints of harassment by employees of the octroi contractor were received from residents. The civic body had failed to have any control on the contractor. He had not even spared municipal councillors in this regard and council officials merely acted as silent spectators. Mr Bansal said the president of the civic body had said last year that the work of octroi would be privatised only for one year and it would be put up in House only if the work went on smoothly. He said the work of octroi had been given on contract for Rs 16.59 crore and it was expected that the contractor would earn Rs 17.03 crore, making a profit of Rs 44 lakh. He said had the council not privatised the work, Rs 44 lakh could have been spent by it on the development of the town. Mr Bansal also appealed to other municipal councillors not to clear the proposal on the privatisation of octroi work. He said at the time of elections, the Congress party had promised to abolish octroi in the state but instead of sticking to its promise the work had been privatised, leading to problems for residents. Members of Vyapar Mandal said the employees of the contractor were not even aware of the rates at which the octroi had to be imposed on various items. They imposed their own rates and even misbehaved with residents. |
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MC meeting
to take up octroi issue SAS Nagar, October 10 The meeting being held within a fortnight from the last meeting will review the working of the sanitation contractor who was initially given the contract for three months ending on October 18. The agenda item with regards to the sanitation contract states that the working of the sanitation contractor has been found dissatisfactory and more than Rs 2 lakh have been deducted from the original amount paid to the contractor for three months. While most of the municipal councillors are of the opinion that the contract should be cancelled after October 18, sources in the council have stated that the contractor could be given another chance if he agrees to improve his working. The issue of the continuation of private collection of octroi is also likely to cause a major furore in the meeting with some of the councillors already raising their voices against privatisation of octroi collection. ‘‘The contractor who was chosen to collect octroi in the township last year has worked badly and we will not allow octroi collection to be given on contract again,’’ said Mr Shyam Bansal, councillor. Octroi collection in the township had been given on contract on January this year despite massive opposition from a set of councillors, the residents and the industries in the township. According to them, private collector causes undue harassment to the public. Through the year the municipal council office has been flooded with complaints from residents against the octroi collector alleging harassment and these too are likely to figure in the meeting. |
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Mystery
shrouds death of cop Panchkula, October 10 While the police claimed that Jaiveer had shot himself dead with his service revolver, relatives of the victim said they suspected foul play. The brothers-in-law of the victim, Mr Paramjit and Mr Narinder, who had reached the spot, said Jaiveer was being harassed by a senior police official for the past five years. They also alleged that several inquiries had been ordered against him at the behest of this official. It is learnt that the Station House Officer of the police station was in his office when some gun shots were heard. Another Head Constable Raj Kumar had immediately rushed to the SHO's office and informed him about the death of the cop. Police sources say that the Head Constable took the extreme step after an inter-departmental inquiry was initiated against him on charges of embezzlement. An inquiry was ordered against him on charges of embezzlement of about Rs 95,000 from the maalkhana of the police station. This cash was the case property of various cases of theft, burglary and robbery that was recovered by the police over the years. The sources say that he was under depression ever since the inquiry was ordered
against him. The Superintendent of Police, Panchkula, Mr Ranbir S. Sharma, informed TNS that an inquiry into the entire episode was being conducted by the SDM, Kalka. |
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Nayyar heads BJP dist unit Panchkula, October 10 The outgoing president, Mr Kanwar Sen Singla, has been elected to the state council of the BJP. Mr A.P. Manchanda was the returning officer for the election. Sources within the party said Mr Nayyar’s name was not in the list of contenders for the post. The names on the panel for the election were Mr Kanwar Sen Singla, Mr Surinder Kaushik, Ms Rekha Sharma and Kamal Sharma. However, just before the elections, senior leaders of the party said Mr Nayyar would be made the district president. Several leaders raised a hue and cry over the issue of Mr Nayyar being made the president. One of the contenders, Mr Surinder Kaushik, later resigned from the party, citing family problems as the reason. After his election, Mr Baldev Nayyar appealed to the workers and office-bearers of various mandals to extend their cooperation to glorify the district BJP. Mr Hans Raj Swan, national vice-president of the BJP, Mr Sham Lal Bansal, and Mr Harbilas Jindal were among other BJP leaders present during the election. |
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PANCHKULA
ROUND-UP Panchkula, October 10 The members of the committee will give coupons to all customers who make purchases worth over Rs 250. On offer for this draw is a Maruti 800 car, a Kawasaki motor cycle and hordes of other electronic goods, which have been put on display in the market itself. The customers will be required to drop their coupons in a box erected in the market and the draw will be held on November 14. Aid given Members of the Lioness District 321- A2 today gave mattresses, bedsheets and other essential items to the authorities of Saket Hospital, Sector 1, here. A press note of the club said 10 bed mattresses, 50 bed sheets and 40 metres of cloth for making robes for patients were distributed. The items were handed over by the club members led by the district president, Ms Savindra Chopra. Awarded Dr V. P. Paul, Principal of Chaman Lal DAV Senior Public School, Sector 11,was awarded “Thanks Badge Award” by the Governor Babu Parmanand at a state-level function organised by the Haryana State Bharat Scouts and Guides Association yesterday. Choir singing A choir singing presentation was organised by students of Class VIII at Satluj Public School. The students had been learning choir for the past six months and displayed their newly acquired skills before the school assembly this morning. The presentation was organised by Mr Jog from Blivia, Chief Musician, and Mr and Mrs Cyriac representing Judah Assemblies of God. |
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Youngest
scientist to get Bhatnagar award SAS Nagar, October 10 A Ph.D from Kolkata, Dr Dey, along with his wife, did post-doctoral research in the USA first at the California Institute of Technology and later at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. Dr Dey says that the decision to leave the USA and come back to India to work was a major one was certainly not easy. “But we both decided that India is where we want to be. I joined at the National Institute of Immunology and later shifted here.’’ The NIPER was just starting its first departments when Dr Dey joined the Department of Biotechnology in September, 1994. ‘‘Then I was involved less with science and more with the building contractors who were constructing the place. There were no labs and, in fact, twice I thought I have had enough of malba and electrical wires, but then I owe it to the Director, Dr C.L. Kaul, who asked me to hold on and survive through the teething stage of the institute. His vision has succeeded.’’ At the NIPER, Dr Dey initiated a research programme on diabetes both in understanding the disease progression and developing novel targets for new drug discoveries. ‘‘By 2025, there will be about 300 million people affected by diabetes mellitus worldwide and India will be the diabetic capital of the world. Currently many companies across the world are involved in the formulation of oral anti-diabetic drugs. In fact, crores of rupees are being projected to be spent on newer drugs which will be required as the currently used drugs suffer from inadequacy and serious side-effects. To screen for anti-diabetic agents, there were only animal models available and screening the large number of compounds was not only very expensive but also variability in animals makes research difficult,’’ he explains Within five years, Dr Dey managed to develop a simulated model of insulin-resistant cell which can be used to test anti-diabetic agents. Further using his model system, Dr Dey identified a protein as a possible new drug target. The outcome of his research has put the process of development of anti-diabetic drugs across the world on a fast drive. Exuding exemplary humility even in the midst of intense media attention following the announcement of the award, Dr Dey points out that like any other human being he, too, has not grown alone. ‘‘To say that I alone deserve this award would be unfair. Had it not been for my mother, Jharna Dey, who despite many odds managed to send me to college in Kolkata, I would not have been here.” Dr Dey will be receiving the award early next year from the Prime Minister. The award carries a citation, a plaque and Rs 2 lakh. |
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Valmiki
Jayanti celebrated Chandigarh, October 10 Addressing gatherings at various places,
various speakers remembered Maharishi Valmiki for propagating the path of truth and kindness. He devoted his life to improve the quality of life of the downtrodden, oppressed and the under privileged sections of society. They said the message of peace, universal brotherhood and love for humanity would continue to guide the humanity in times to come. |
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Nayagaon
NAC soon, says minister Chandigarh, October 10 In a press note, Mr Kang said he held a meeting with officials of the local bodies, sewerage and water supply maintenance bodies and the Punjab State Electricity Board Department in this connection. Officials of the Ropar district administration also participated in the meeting. Mr Kang said the state government would move the High Court to get the stay vacated to set up of a notified area committee at Nayagaon. He said the pending work of sewerage in Morinda, Kurali etc would be completed soon. For providing sewerage at Nayagaon, Rs 50 lakh had been approved, he added. |
Water
line for
Sector 21 Chandigarh, October 10 The Mayor, Mr Subhash Chawla, officers of the corporation and a number of councillors were present on the occasion. |
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Prayer
meeting Chandigarh, October 10 |
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Staff, management
of financial co booked for cheating Chandigarh, October 10 A case under Sections 420 and 120-B of the IPC has been registered at the Sector 17 police station on the complaint of Mr Baldev Singh Bhatia, a resident of Sector 16. Mr Bhatia complained that Sudhir, Vishal, Col
R.S. Dhindsa (retd), Sanjeev Verma, Arati and all staff members of the company were allegedly involved in cheating him. The complainant said he had paid an amount of Rs 50,000 in July for arranging a loan of Rs 35 lakh from banks. He alleged the company management and staff neither returned his money nor arranged the loan. Chain snatching
Ms Promila Bali, a resident of Sector 22, reported that three motor-cycle-borne persons snatched her bag, which contained Rs 7,000, some documents and a mobile phone, near the Shivalikview turn, while she was coming on a rickshaw. Theft
Mr
K.D. Sharma, a Panjab University resident, has reported that someone stole Rs 10,000, a diamond ring, a gold ring, four pairs of earings and a gold chain from his residence on Thursday. One killed
A 25-year-old sweepress Shanit Devi was killed when she was hit by a garbage collection van. She was taken to the PGI, where she died on Thursday. |
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One held for
liquor
smuggling SAS Nagar, October 10 Mr Harcharan Singh Bhullar, Superintendent of Police, said that the accused, Ganesh Singh, a resident of Amritsar, along with his accomplice was coming from Chandigarh last night in a Palio car when they were asked to stop by the police near the Phase VII Amb Sahib traffic lights. ‘‘Both men stopped the car and tried to run away. While one of them
succeeded in getting away, Ganesh was caught . His car was checked and it was found that 27 cases of IMFL were lying at the car’s back and in the boot,” said Mr Bhullar. |
Kapil
launches 4 Kinetic models Chandigarh, October 10 The General Manager of the company, Mr Puneet Choudhary, said the sale of the four new models-Kinetic Laser, Kinetic Velocity, Kinetic GF 170 and Big Boss, had begun from today. He said the showroom built as per international specification would have separate sections for scooters and motor cycles. Meanwhile, Kapil Dev while taking to mediapersons criticised the statement of Imran Khan about Sachin Tendulkar. It may be recalled that Imran had said a few days ago that Sachin was a not a match-winner. Kapil said Sachin had his own standing and had been compared with the cricket legend Don
Bradman. |
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