R E G I O N A L   B R I E F S

Regional Potpourri

PUNJAB

Abohar
IDENTIFIED: A delegation of senior trade leaders has identified four potential sectors — hydro electric power, tourism, horticulture and floriculture — in Jammu and Kashmir where private investors can invest. The fact-finding mission comprised Mr Sanjay Sethi, president, Akhil Bhartiya Beopar Mandal, Mr Madan Lal Kapoor, president, Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal, and other senior functionaries.

Amritsar
RECOVERED: The police apprehended three vehicle thieves and recovered two stolen vehicles from their possession. The accused are identified as Rajwinder Singh, alias Raju, Shankar, both of Kot Khalsa and Pawan Kumar, alias Bunty of Haripura. The police seized two motor cycles and a Hero Honda. A case under Sections 379 and 411 of the IPC has been registered at police station, Islamabad.

MERGED: The breakaway group of the local Small Savings Agents Association merged with its parent body on Saturday. A press release issued here stated the decision was taken at a meeting of the association held under the presidentship of Mr Jang Bahadur.

Barnala
CRITICISED: The district unit of the BJP, which held a meeting under the presidentship of Mr Dhiraj Kumar Dadahoor, criticised the state government’s anti-public attitude. Addressing the meeting, Mr Dadahoor said the erratic power supply in the city had made people’s life miserable. Mr Dadahoor said the district unit had decided to hold a protest rally against the state government’s policies on June 8.

Hoshiarpur
PROTEST: Hundreds of women, including Ms Amarjit Raman, Municipal Councillor, Ms Sudesh Sharma, Kanti Rani, Priya Silli, Subhash Rani, Sunita Sud and Shashi Jain, local BJP leaders, protested and demonstrated at the Istri Sabha at the local Nai Abadi on Saturday against the state government and the Municipal Council for sending water supply and sewerage bills at enhanced rates to residents of Hoshiarpur. 

Muktsar
ORGANISED: A function for the distribution of aid to physically-challenged students of various schools under the Sarva Sikhya Abhiyan (SSA) was organised at the local Government Girls Senior Secondary School. Mr Dalip Kumar, Deputy Commissioner, addressed the gathering.

Pathankot
DEMONSTRATION: More than 300 residents of the Arya College road held a demonstration on Saturday in protest against the municipal authorities in protest against the supply of contaminated water to the area.

CLUB: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Lions Club Pathankot (Service): president — Mr Rakesh Wadhera; general secretary — Mr Vidya Dhar; and treasurer — Mr R.K. Khanna.

Tarn Taran
POWER THEFT: A high-level team of the PSEB claimed to have detected a case of power theft from a meter in Amritsar. The consumer was fined Rs 9,000 by the team. Mr R.K. Seth, Superintending Engineer (SE) city circle, told this correspondent that the consumer had been stealing power from the meter installed recently.

CHANDIGARH

Environment rally held: Students of Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 38 (West), and members of the Senior Citizens Awareness Group took out a rally on environment awareness in Dadu Majra colony here yesterday. The principal of the school, Mr Karam Chand, flagged off the rally. The students also took pledge to plant at least one plant in their locality. Mr Pradeep Sharma, coordinator of Yuvsatta, gave away prizes to the students. 

CONDOLED: President and members of the Institute of Sikh Studies have mourned the death of Justice Ranjit Singh Narula, former Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Maj Gen Jaswant Singh, secretary of the institute, said Justice Narula was a fearless champion of human dignity

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

Turning the HEAT on graft

TURNING THE TABLES ON THE CORRUPT: S.C. Chabba, an official of the Guru Gobind Singh Super Thermal Plant, Ropar, has been fighting against bribery.

It’s easy to be part of a corrupt system. But only those who take a stand against such social evils can help to change the system. S.C. Chabba, Superintending Engineer (Civil) in the Guru Gobind Singh Super Thermal Plant, Ropar, is one such person who has openly been raising his voice against corruption.

“In fact, I began my campaign against corruption way back in the 1970s by airing my views in the letters to the editor columns. I have so far contributed more than 150 letters to this column of The Tribune,” he recalls.

And he practices what he preaches. Early last month, a senior official of a private cement company in Himachal Pradesh came on a routine visit to the thermal plant and handed over a parcel to Chabba in his office.

Chabba asked one of his staff to open the parcel and was taken aback when he found that it contained Rs 15, 000. Within no time, he informed senior PSEB officials about the incident. The official of the cement company was caught and released only after he gave a written apology.

“The official attempted to bribe me for a free supply of ash. But I told him that the thermal plant authorities already had an agreement with two other companies for supply of free ash and it was not possible to oblige him,” Chabba adds.

Publishing blues

Arun Kumar Bhatia (66), an inmate of a Bridh Ashram near the cremation ground in Sangrur, has appealed to the President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to help him in getting his work Aaj Ki Mahabharat published. The President can get the manuscript examined from scholars, if need be, he says.

He says that he completed his manuscript in the past four years and its contents relate to terrorism, the cultural heritage of our country, corruption in politics, rising prices and unemployment, among other things.

Hailing from Amritsar, Bhatia says he has no money to get his book published, which is why he will now send the manuscript to the President and seek his help. His entire family, including his wife, two sons, a daughter, a brother and two younger sisters, was killed by the militants in Amritsar in 1983.

“People nowadays prefer to bring up a dog but not a helpless person,” he laments, adding, “It is due to such attitudes that I am forced to live in the Bridh Ashram.”

Story of steel

Prof M.M.Juneja, Head of the History Department, CRM Jat College, Hisar, is writing a book on the late Haryana Power Minister and steel baron Om Prakash Jindal. Professor Juneja, who did his Ph.D on Haryana Kesri Pt Neki Ram Sharma, has written 14 books so far. Prominent among these are Hisar City: Places and Personalities, History of Hisar, a biography of G.D.Birla, and Why War? A Historical Analysis.

The historian is primarily interested in India’s struggle for independence and wants to educate the younger generation about the great contribution of our freedom fighters. Earlier, he was planning to write about the role of Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru, Chandrashekhar Azad and other revolutionaries. But following the tragic demise of Jindal, he has made the industrialist-turned-politician the subject of his next book. Recounting his previous literary experiences, he says that during the writing of Hisar City: Places and Personalities he came across several interesting facts in a diary of noted Arya Samaj activist Dr Ramji Lal Hooda, a brother of Matu Ram, the grandfather of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.

According to him, the three defining years in the history of Hisar are 1354, when Ferozeshah Tughlaq got the famous Gujari Mahal constructed (around which the city was later developed); 1809, when Asia’s largest and world’s second largest cattle farm was set up; and 1970, the year in which Haryana Agricultural University was established.

Contributed by Kiran Deep, Sushil Goyal and Sunit Dhawan