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Students pay for failure to pay dues Tourists make a
beeline for hills Tourist season to be prolonged Butail lashes out at BJP |
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Sinking of hill damages salt mine Red Cross mela from June 3 Women’s panel to the rescue of rape victim Nathpa-Jhakri project fully operational Khairwood case: HC allows reinvestigation Two held for locking revenue officials in room Delhi-Manali AC buses soon Restoration of telegram facility demanded
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Students pay for failure to pay dues Solan, May 19 The Students Welfare Officer, Dr A.S. Chandel, has issued a notification regarding his removal. The other notifications have been issued by the respective Deans of the College of Forestry and the College of Horticulture on May 14 and May 16, respectively. This has caused widespread resentment among the students a section of the students opined that it would adversely affect their future if the decision was not reversed. Though the university authorities cited non-payment of dues as the reason behind this action, but students opined that it was due to of the recent incident of violence where a group of visiting boxers and university students had clashed. Not only had the university authorities booked students for causing violence on the campus but this had earned disrepute to the university. They pointed out that on earlier occasions when the students had failed to deposit the dues on time they had been given some more time to settle them. But this time the authorities had adopted a severe posture. |
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Tourists
make a beeline for hills Shimla, May 19 All big hotels of the state tourism development corporation in Shimla, Manali and Chail are having cent per cent occupancy and advance bookings indicate that they will be full upto middle of June. The trend is similar for private sector with occupancy in excess of 85 per cent in major resorts. However, the Dalhousie and Dharamsala sectors are not having the best of season. There is a decline of 25 to 30 per cent in the tourist traffic as compared to last year. The improvement in law and order situation in the neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir has affected the tourism industry in this part of the state. According to Mr Umesh Akrey, vice-president of the Himachal Hotel and Restaurant Association, a large chunk of tourist traffic from Maharashtra and Gujarat has diverted to the Kashmir valley. He said as per the reports available from travel agencies in the two state about five lakh tourists would visit the Kashmir valley this season. Another reason for the arrival of low tourist in Dalhousie is that a portion of the Pathankot-Dalhousie road falling in Punjab is in a bad shape. The tourists were not keen on undertaking a backbreaking drive to the hill resort. The season began on a promising note as mercury soared abruptly in the first week of April. The tourist traffic also increased suddenly and the hotels in all major resorts recorded a good occupancy. However unseasonal snow affected the flow of tourists. The slump continued until election. While tourists are arriving in erstwhile British capital in large numbers, the local people are finding the weather too hot for comfort. It has been an unusually hot summer with mercury touching 28.5°C in April against the normal average temperature of 22.5 ° C for the month. The weeklong spell of hailstorm snow and rain towards the end of the month brought much relief to the people from sweltering heat but affected the tourist season. The mercury has been steadily rising in May and the highest temperature of 30.2 ° C was recorded on May 17. With little possibility of rain over the next few days the tourism boom is likely to continue for sometime. |
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Tourist season to be prolonged Shimla, May 19 The state Tourism Development Corporation in collaboration with the Tourism Department will organise an Indo-Pak friendship golf championship from July 2 to 6 at the Naldehra golf course. It will be followed by a Pakistani food festival at the local Hotel Holiday Home. Besides, efforts are on to bring Ms Tara Sayeed, daughter of a famous Pakistani singer, Malika Pukhraj, for a musical nite. An anarkali bazar is also being planned which will be a sort of “exhibition-cum-sale” of Pakistani handicrafts, particularly costumes and jewellery. The whole idea is to add a new attraction to help prolong the tourist season which starts declining towards the end of June, says Mrs Upma Chaudhary, Managing Director of the corporation. Mr K.C. Anand, member of the board of directors, has already visited Pakistan in this regard. The state capital will host a national conference here in September on tourism industry which will be jointly organised by the corporation and the Confederation of Indian industry. All the stake holders in the industry, right from travel agents to policy makers, will be invited to the conference. In all 300 persons will participate in the conference which will provide a forum for a face-to-face interaction between the industry and the government to help chalk out an effective plan to promote tourism. |
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Butail lashes
out at BJP Shimla, May 19 Reacting to the statement of the state BJP chief, Mr Suresh Bhardwaj, he said while the vote percentage of the Congress had gone up from 41 to 51 per cent, the BJP was terming it as the defeat of Congress defeat. He said these statements only reflected the frustration among the BJP leaders over the fact that the Congress had won three seats while it lost the Hamirpur Lok Sabha seat with a narrow margin. Mr
Butail, said the poll results had established that the people had rejected the policies of not just the NDA government at the Centre but had still not forgiven the Dhumal regime for the anti-people policies pursued by them. He said people had realised that it was only the Congress which could ensure overall development of the country and upliftment of the weaker sections of society. He said the BJP regime in the state had been marred by nepotism and corruption at all levels. |
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Sinking of hill
damages salt mine Sundernagar, May 19 Mandi is the only district in India which produces rock salt. At present, Hindustan Salt Ltd is managing the production of rock salt at two sites, one at Gumma and the other at
Drang. Both these salt mines are situated along the national highway. In October, 2003, water entered the salt mine at
Gumma, due to which the production of the salt had to be stopped. Later, the Gumma Hill started sinking, due to which the mine was damaged. At the site, one can see boulders and small stones rolling down from the hilltop. The road also gets blocked at times. The salt mine used to yield about 4,000 tonnes of rock salt per year and generate a revenue of Rs 50 lakh per annum. Mr Virender Kumar, Manager, Salt Mines, Mandi, said the mine was centuries old. Hindustan Salt Ltd started its activity in 1963, after which scientific mining was started at this place. He said a nullah was flowing on the slope of hill, which had damaged the mine. He added that all workers had been shifted to another site at
Drang. The residents have been protesting against mining, but to no avail. The residents assert that if the mining had been stopped earlier, the mine could have been saved. |
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Red Cross mela from June 3 Shimla, May 19 Stating that meetings of the Red Cross would now be held regularly as today the general house met after four years, Mr Negi said more people came to Shimla for treatment and other work, who needed help from the Red Cross. He regretted that in the past due to paucity of funds, the Red Cross was unable to extend help to people. He said as part of the membership campaign, 225 new members had been enrolled and a sum of Rs 3 lakh collected, which would be used for helping the poor. He said the society was providing ambulance services at Theog, Rohru, Chopal and Rampur, and was running a serai at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital here. He said the children ward at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital had been adopted by the Shishu Jagriti Mission, which was providing medicines, equipment and other facilities to the needy free of cost.
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Women’s panel to the rescue of rape victim Shimla, May 19 Ashadeep, a local non-government organisation, brought her plight to the notice of Mrs Viplove Thakur, chairperson of the commission, who immediately directed the police to look into the matter and report back to the commission by May 25. She also asked the police to provide security to the woman and forwarded the complaint of the woman in this regard. Acting on the complaint, the police registered a case of rape and intimidation against the suspect. In her complaint, the woman, working as a sweeper at a local hospital, said she was born at Ani and as there was no one to look after her, a local woman, Kamla Devi, brought her to Shimla, where she lived with Dhani Ram. The two had illicit relations and when she was 14 years old, Dhani Ram also established physical relations with her in connivance with Kamla. The two also tried to sell her to a person of Punjab in 1996 for Rs 30,000, but she saved herself by consuming poison. He continued to exploit her as a result of which she gave birth to three daughters. One of which was given away to a woman named Shiela by Dhani Ram. In 1999, Kamla died and subsequently she got a job in her place. She wanted to lead a decent life and bring up her children, but Dhani Ram threatened her and took all her wages. She said she never got married to Dhani Ram, but he was claiming to be her husband just to enjoy her money. She had been living in hiding as Dhani Ram was threatening her with dire consequences. He even said that he would commit suicide and she would be blamed for it. |
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Nathpa-Jhakri project fully operational Shimla, May 19 The 1500 MW project is expected to run to its full capacity during summer if sufficient water is available to operate all six units. The corporation is targeting to generate 4000 MW power during the 11th Five-Year Plan. The additional power available from the project would meet the peaking requirements of Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh during the ongoing summer season. Meanwhile, the third desilting chamber of the project has been commissioned, increasing the availability of water for the project.
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Khairwood case: HC allows reinvestigation Shimla, May 19 The court directed the investigating officer to complete the investigation and submit a supplementary report in terms of Section 173 (8) of the Cr PC to the Special Judge (Forest) within four weeks. Mr Justice Sood further directed all accused, including the Chief Minister, to appear before the Special Judge on June 14. The challan was put up by the investigating agency against Mr Virbhadra Singh, the then Secretary (Forest) O.P. Yadav, former Deputy Secretary Geeta Ram and partner of M/s Sagar Katha Udyog Dinesh Kumar, in which they were charged with granting undue benefits to the M/S Sagar Katha Udyog by alloting him 25 per cent quota of khairwood without following proper norms. |
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Two held for locking revenue officials in room Palampur, May 19 According to Mr. Sanjiv Gandhi, DSP Palampur, Mr Hem Raj, Bhagwan Dass and Raj Kapoor were on official duty to demarcate land in the village. As they reached the village a few villagers took them to a house and locked them in a room. Later the matter was reported to the police. Senior Revenue officers reached the spot and got all officials released.
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Delhi-Manali AC buses soon Shimla, May 19 The bus service will operate at night both Manali and Delhi and reach the respective destinations in the morning. The new bus service was being introduced to attract more tourists to Himachal Pradesh and make their journey comfortable, an HRTC spokesman said. The one-way fare of the bus will be Rs 825 and it will start at 7.30 pm and 4 pm from Delhi and Manali, respectively.
— PTI |
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Restoration of telegram facility demanded Nurpur, May 19 |
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