Karnal, May 26
Former Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala-led Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) MLA from Gharaunda, Ms Rekha Rana, has been booked for creating hurdles in government work and for damaging official files at the Gharaunda Municipal Committee office.

An FIR under Sections 146, 147, 332, 353, 427 and 116, IPC, has been lodged at Gharaunda police station against her, former panchayat member Radha of Jamalpur village, Santosh, Arvind of Gharaunda and over 100 other persons.

Actually, the anti-encroachment cell demolished a temple situated in Bali Nagar of Gharaunda yesterday. Agitated over the demolition, a large number of Gharaunda residents along with Ms Rekha Rana, BJP workers and VHP and Bajrang Dal activists protested against it and some of them reportedly torn some important files after reaching the MC office.

Meanwhile, the district unit of the INLD demanded immediate withdrawal of the case registered against the MLA. At its meeting held here today, INLD leaders said if the FIR was not withdrawn, they would hold a demonstration against the government.

Kaimri (Hisar), May 26
Dr Kuldeep Kumar Goel, former Director, Health Services, Haryana, today inaugurated a delivery hut on the premises of the Primary Health Centre at Kaimri village in the district. The delivery hut has been built with collective efforts of villagers and the panchayat with the help of funds provided by the government.

Dr Ratna Bharti, Medical Officer in charge of the centre, said the delivery room had been built by the panchayat, while the health authorities had provided financial aid for its finishing and provision of facilities. The Health Department is also making arrangements to provide additional staff for handling delivery cases from Kaimri and nearby villages at the centre. Some part-time employees have also been posted here through outsourcing.

Mr Ram Krishan Aggarwal and Mr Radha Krishan Aggarwal of Kaimri village have got a waiting hall constructed and four rooms repaired at a cost of Rs 2 lakh. Many other residents of the village and Hisar have also contributed their mite in the construction of the delivery hut and repair and renovation of the health centre.

Seeing the efforts put in by the local residents and health centre staff, the Health Department also released a special grant of Rs 2 lakh for modernisation and provision of facilities.

Dr Bharti said as per a policy of the state government to encourage institutional deliveries, no money was charged for delivery cases right from admission to discharge and medicines were also provided to them free of cost.

A large number of villagers, besides quite a few prominent figures from Hisar, including Mr R.P. Gupta, Deputy General Manager, Jindal Stainless, were present at the inaugural function.

Panipat, May 26
Hundreds of workers engaged in the pitloom industry observed a complete strike and gathered at the civil hospital today afternoon after a worker died of electrocution here last evening. Omkar (25), a migrant worker died, allegedly, on duty when he met with an accident near the factory in the Chandni Bagh area.

Led by the district president of Indian Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) P. P. Kapoor, hundreds of workers staged a demonstration against the factory owners of the town for not complying with the safety norms in their units. Workers demanded compensation to the dependents of the deceased.

Mr Kapoor alleged that the deceased was send for some work by the factory owner where he was electrocuted when he came in contact with an electricity pole in a pool of stagnant water near the factory. Instead of helping the dependents of the late worker, the workers alleged that the owner was evading his responsibility.

Due to the strike by the doctors, postmortem could not conducted yesterday, said the union leader.

Slogan raising workers lamented the role of the state government for not taking any action against the factory owners whose negligence had caused numerous deaths of workers in the factories.

Talking to TNS, Mr Kapoor alleged that owing to the indifferent attitude of the administration, the authorities had failed to put a check on the atrocities meted upon the working class. Alleging foul play, he said the factory owners deprived the factory workers of benefits under the ESI by not registering them as their workers.

Demanding registering of workers name under the ESI, he alleged that the factory owners were evading the special teams busy in registering names of workers.

The union leader had already made a representation to the DC in this regard. He said the entrepreneurs were evading the ESI officials visits to their premises by closing their units.

He said despite repeated representations to the Chief Minister and the Panipat DC no action had been taken against the factory owners whose units lack industrial safety and violated the basic provisions under the Labour Law.

Ambala, May 26
Haryana Marketing Board chairman Shadi Lal Batra on Wednesday said they were planning to establish a terminal market in the state.

Mr Batra said the terminal market would help traders from other states to bring in their produce, clean and upgrade it.

He said the marketing board would impart training to farmers so that they could get better yield for their produce.

He said during the training, the farmers would be taught about cleaning, grading, packaging and distribution to bring in value addition.

Mr Batra said he had been visiting different grain markets regularly and interacting with farmers, traders and workers.

He visited Ambala City and Ambala Cantonment grain markets.

A memorandum was submitted to Mr Batra by the Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Mandi Association.

The association sought provision of potable water facility at the wholesale market. It also wanted construction of a labour shed for workers.

Besides, addressing of parking problem in the market and improvement in access to the vegetable mandi by building another gate at the rear of the mandi were also sought.

Pinjore, May 26
During the ongoing 10-day personality and character development summer workshop, “Sukriti”, organised on the premises of DAV Senior Secondary Public School, Surajpur, students were imparted training in rifle shooting and rescue operation during Emergency, near here, today.

The trainers were educated about providing first aid to the victims of road accidents and fire incidents. A mock drill was also organised for the students demonstrating “how victims would be rescued from a multistoreyed building while on fire”.

A team of Haryana Home Guard led by Mr Rajinder Singh, platoon commander, trained the students on the occasion.

Yesterday, the campers were educated about the dental care at a camp apart from a music camp, in which the students enjoyed melodious tunes in Punjabi and Hindi. The workshop on dance also provided the participants an opportunity to perform. The students were also given tips on fashion show.

In previous days, the students learnt to install the essential components of hardware besides loading software to the computer systems. They were also given training regarding configuration of the computers.

The teacher also gave tips on MS Word, Power Point, Excel, Excess and other softwares and how to operate them. The students of senior class were acquainted with C and C++ languages, informed Mr R.P. Anand, the school principal. 

Chandigarh, May 26
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today vacated the stay granted by it with regard to over 2000 acres of land acquired by the Haryana Government for setting up an industrial and residential estate in Bahadurgarh areas in Jhajjar district.

Vacating the stay, a Division Bench comprising Mr Justice J.S. Khehar and Mr Justice S.N. Aggarwal also admitted a bunch of petitions filed by land-owners against the acquisition of their land situated in Sankhol village.

The court observed that the Planning Board of the National Capital Region (NCR) had given go-ahead to the plan for setting up the industrial and residential estate. 

Ambala, May 26
Former union minister ID Swami today observed that the spread of terrorism towards Jammu was a matter of serious concern.

Talking to mediapersons here, Mr Swami said the Congress-led UPA government had failed to maintain law and order in the valley.

He opined that the withdrawal of troops from certain areas was a mistake since terror strikes had taken place in those areas.

He stated that the Army should again be deployed.

He said that a rally would be held on June 9 to protest the failure of the government to provide security to the common man in Jammu and Kashmir.

Chandigarh, May 26
The Haryana Government will set up fish farmers development agencies in Mewat and Panchkula districts. This was stated here today by Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Fisheries Department, H.C. Disodia.

He said similar agencies were already operational in 18 districts of the state. He said Rs 16 crore would be spent in the current financial year for giving boost to pisciculture in Haryana. A scheme would also be initiated for promoting prawn culture.

He further said subsidies were being given to farmers and unemployed youths to make rearing of fish lucrative. A large pond (1hectare) would be dug up at a cost of Rs 40,000. An additional subsidy of Rs 8,000 was being given for fish seeds and food, he added.

Mr Disodia said two new varieties of fish, Magur and Singhara, would be introduced in the state from this year.

Karnal, May 26
Three persons of Salwan villages falling under Assandh police station were killed and one person was injured when the jeep they were boarding collided head-on with a truck at Duperi village.

The deceased have been identified as Rajendra, Pawan and Sompal Billu.

While the injured was admitted to the local Civil Hospital, the bodies of the deceased were sent for a post-mortem examination.

The driver of the truck managed to flee from the spot. An FIR was lodged against him at Assandh police station.

Chandigarh, May 26
The Governor of Haryana, Dr A.R. Kidwai, on the advice of the Chief Minister, has withdrawn the Department of Cultural Affairs from Ms Kiran Choudhry, Minister of State, with immediate effect.

This has been done in view of the merger of the Department of Cultural Affairs with the Department of Public Relations, an official press release said here today.

Chandigarh, May 26
Mr Avtar Singh, Commissioner, Gurgaon division, has been given additional charge of Chairman, Mewat Development Agency, relieving Mr G. Prasanna Kumar of the charge.

Mr Chander Parkash, Deputy Commissioner, Mewat, at Nuh will look after the work of the Chief Executive Officer of the agency, in addition to his present assignment. 

Abohar, May 26
Two daughters and a son of a farm worker drowned yesterday while taking out water from a small reservoir in a farmhouse, 47 km from here, in the Sriganganagar area.

Official sources said Mangtu Ram had gone to his relatives' place at Suratgarh for making arrangements for the 'muklava' ceremony of his daughter Saroj (15) who had been married in her childhood. She was to be sent ceremonially to her in-laws on June 4.

The accident occurred when Mangtu Ram's son Setha Ram (5) and daughter Suman (6) went to fetch drinking water from a reservoir located in the farmhouse behind a petrol station but they fell in it while dragging out the bucket.