Sarv shiksha does not hold true in Mewat
Aarti Kapur
Tribune News Service

Mewat, January 17
“I want to make my daughter literate but can’t send her to a school which is far away from my village,” says Shakeena’s mother living in Adhaka village in Mewat district. She wants to make her daughter self-dependent by making her literate and capable to earn a living for herself.

But she is helpless as there is no school in the village and she cannot muster courage due to her religion to send her to a school outside the village.

This is not the story of Shakeena alone, there are numerous children in the village who spend time in performing day-to-day work at home rather than attending school.

One of the panchayat members, Khurshid Ahmed, reveals that there are around 200 families in the village who have about 250 primary-going children. Interestingly, out of these only 10-12 children are going to school in a nearby village, which is 2 km away.

Ahmed says at present there is only one matric pass student in the village and over 90 per cent of the village children are illiterate. He says the panchayat has been making requests for the opening of a primary school for the past two decades but all in vain. Every VIP who visits the village or candidates during election time promise to fulfill the demand of opening a school and a dispensary in the village but so far nothing concrete has been done.

Similarly, in Mesroli village of the district, the villagers have been demanding opening of a primary school but nothing happened. In the village, there are around 300 children out of which only five to six children are attending school, which is far away from their village. Out of these, three children belonging to well-off families are going to Nuh, which is 9 km from the village, for education.

As per the government circular, if a village has more than 150 students eligible for going to school and the village panchayat demands opening of a school, the administration is bound to fulfill the demand. If there is no building available in the village for running the school, the administration has to arrange classes in a private building till the school building is ready.

But in this case, despite repeated requests by the panchayats, the district administration has failed to open a school in these villages. It is mandatory for the panchayat to provide land for the school and the panchayats say they are ready to give land for this noble cause.

A villager remarks that just putting a banner of the Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan in the village does not serve the purpose of providing education to the children. He says a slogan written on the banner that “shiksha pana har bache ka adhikar hai” looks meaningless when there is no facility for education in the village. He says the percentage of literacy in Mewat district cannot increase just by framing policies.

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Bridge to save villagers from floods
Nishikant Dwivedi
Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, January 17
The construction work on a bridge over a nallah fed by the Yamuna on the Laakar-Nawazpur road in Chhachhrouli here has picked up. The bridge is likely to be completed before the onset of the monsoons. The nallah separates Malimajra and Nawazpur villages of the district from the mainland. The bridge would also benefit residents of Bhelpura, Laakar and Kanyawala villages.

These villages have been suffering during to regular floods and the swelling of the Yamuna. There are no landline telephones in these villages though the district administration has provided solar lights in these villages.

The work on the bridge had started in 2004, but it was stopped due to certain reasons, said sources. At that time, the estimated construction cost was only Rs 49 lakh, but now it has shot up to Rs 81 lakh. The work was started again in September last year. The villagers had been demanding the construction of the bridge for more than a decade as they get cut off from the rest of the world during rains.

The bridge being constructed by the PWD would be a great help for the people living in the catchments of the Yamuna in Chhanchhrouli block.

Pala Ram, a resident of the area, says his land is near the Uttar Pradesh border and it is impossible to reach there during rains or when the river swelled. “We hope the bridge is completed before the monsoons,”  he adds.

Villagers say during rains village children are not able to go to schools in Yamunanagar for several days in a row. They have been facing problems in transporting their poplar and sugarcane to plywood units and sugar mills, respectively. “Once the bridge is complete we would be able to reach Yamunanagar on tractor-trailers and cars even when the flow in the creek is heavy,” says Nakali Ram Sharma.

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Women engineers invade male bastion
Geetanjali Gayatri
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17
“Man” power is gradually paving way for “woman” power at the office of the Haryana Power Generation Corporation Limited. From being confined to working in the secretarial jobs in the department, women are now empowered, rubbing shoulders with their male counterparts in the engineering wing as well.

The engineering wing was practically out of bound for women with hardly any engineers from among the fairer sex. However, the second half of the previous year changed the “complexion” of the department with at least 16 per cent of the new selections being that of women.

And it was done without any bias. Says the managing director of HPGCL, Jyoti Arora, “Of a total of 209 assistant engineers and assistant executive engineers, there were only six women among them in June last year. It was especially shocking since women are doing very well for themselves everywhere and there is hardly a department where they are not found”.

However, in the recent recruitment of assistant engineers undertaken by the department, a beginning has been made. Of the total of 163 engineers selected by way of a fixed criteria of marks for academic qualifications and experience. “Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda gave us a lot of freedom to make selections and we did it purely on merit. While we kept 75 marks for academics and experience, 25 marks were set aside for performance in interview,” Jyoti, who herself has had a long, successful stint in the power department, explained.

The women are doing everything the men are doing in the department, working in shifts, in the procurement section, the maintenance section, at thermal power stations in Panipat and Faridabad and everywhere else. “Given a proper environment, I strongly believe whatever men can do, women can do better,” quips the MD while adding that the department, too, is going all out to make them comfortable.

For starters, they have been given postings near their home districts to enable them to manage family and office with equal efficiency. For women posted in the field, the department has made arrangements for safe hostel accommodation. Then, arrangements have been made to ferry the women employees from the hostel to the plant where they are working.

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Jhajjar village owes a lot to this VC winner
Deepender

Jhajjar, January 17
As a mark of honour to the Victoria Cross winner, Capt (honourary) Umrao Singh, the Army postal service has released a postal envelope depicting the brave warrior in action at Kaladan valley in Burma during the World War II.

Capt Umrao Singh, known as VC in his native Palra village of the district, died on November 21, 2005. He was awarded Victoria Cross, the highest gallantry award during the British rule, for his heroics against a Japanese offensive in Kaladan valley. His parent regime 22, Field Regiment has released the envelope that contained the picture of Umrao Singh and his depiction of striking at the enemy.

Sukhbir Singh, grandson of the late soldier, informed that the envelope was released on the occasion of 63rd Victoria Cross Day on December 15 last year in Devlali, Maharastra, headquarters of the regiment. Sukhbir, who attended the function, told that a silver statute of his father was unveiled at the headquarters. He said a theatre, a mess and a shopping complex at the headquarters had also been named after the late VC winner. The painting of Umrao Singh had been displayed at the museum of the regiment.

The Army has also recruited 25 youths of his native Palra village following instructions of General J.J. Singh, who attended the funeral of the soldier in the village. Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had also declared to develop Palra as a model village.

Ved Prakash, a son of Capt Umrao Singh, said they were overwhelmed by the gesture of the Army. He said the entire village was proud of his father that a brave person of this village had contributed to the development of the village as well as provided jobs to the youths.

It may be mentioned that serving in the Army is a tradition in this village as almost every family has at least one member as an Armyman.

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Ambala lawyers wage a long battle
Suman Bhatnagar

Ambala, January 17
The persons who are the most instrumental in the justice delivery system are themselves at the receiving end of the Ambala district administration.

Around 750 lawyers have been sitting under tin sheds for the past several decades as no chambers have been constructed for them. A few years back a judicial complex was constructed in Ambala City by the state government, but nobody spared a thought for chambers for the lawyers.

The Ambala Bar Association is the oldest Bar of the northern region. It has the credit of providing not only freedom fighters like Lala Murlidhar but also eminent legal luminaries like justice Manmohan Liberhan, justice R.N. Mittal, justice R.K. Nehru and presently the serving judge of the Punjab and Haryana Court Nawab Singh.

However, the Bar lacks even the basic facilities like sanitation and chambers. New judicial complexes have been constructed in various districts with a provision of chambers for the lawyers. Now a days, the advocates are using computers, laptops and other electronics gadgets to modernise their profession and chambers are essential to set up these apparatus.

Members of the Ambala Bar Association have been running from pillar to post for the construction of chambers, but in vain. President of the association Harish Bakshi says there is a proposal to construct 250 chambers but due to one or other reason the site has not been finalised so far.

Kanwar Chaman Singh, former president of the Bar, says he had made lots of efforts in this regard during his tenure. Justice V.K. Roy, the then chief justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, had assured him that chambers would be built soon, but nothing was done thereafter, he adds.

Another senior lawyer Ajay Jain says the lawyers are forced to face the icy winds in winter and hot summer as they have been sitting under tin shed in open ground. Moreover, the clients could not discuss their matter due to lack of privacy.

It is learnt that the advocates have already contributed Rs.10,000 each for the construction of chambers. The Bar has been urging the administration to construct the chambers over the piece of land lying vacant close to judicial complex, but to no avail.

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Potable water a luxury in Jind
Bijendra Ahlawat
Tribune News Service

Jind, January 17
All is not well with the drinking water supply system in the district. Though there is a canal passing through the middle of the city, majority of the population is forced to drink water supplied from tubewells.

While the authorities have proposed to supply treated water from the canal for the upcoming new residential sectors in the town, the existing population residing in the old areas have no option but to consume water which has high fluoride content and pose a health hazard. The district has at least four canals passing through it, but the main source of water for drinking as well for agricultural purposes has been tubewells.

The state government sanctioned several crores for the improvement of water supply system in the past two years, but only 59 villages out of the total 310 get an average per capita supply of 70 lt. As many as 78 villages have been found deficient in water supply out of these 44 villages have a per capita supply of less than 40 lt.

The city has several planned and laid out residential colonies, but the water supplied to nearly all of them is slightly brackish and heavy in nature due to high content of fluoride in it.

“This has adverse effects as consumer is not getting the quality which is required to be supplied as per the WHO norms,” claims R.S. Punia, a resident of the Urban Estate here. He says while majority of health conscious people have gone for the installation of RO system water filters, many others have opted for the supply of treated bottled water from private suppliers in the city.

Still a large number of residents are dependent upon what is being supplied due to their ignorance or helplessness.

According to experts, the potable water supplied in the city has fluoride content of at least 7.5 percent while it should be below 1.5 per cent. “This makes water heavy in nature, says Dilbagh Singh, a resident of the Palika Bazar area here. He claims water quality in 70 to 80 per cent of the residential colonies and villages in the district is not fit for drinking.

The four canals passing from the district include Hansi canal (Jind city), Sundar branch (Julana), Bhakra canal (Narwana) and BNC canal near Uchana. As per the details available from the authorities concerned, the augmentation work on the water supply system for a total of 190 schemes has already began. Of these, 113 schemes based on canal water are meant for the urban areas like Jind, Julana, Narwana, Safidon, Uchana and Kalayat while another 189 schemes are for villages.

During the past two years, it is claimed that the work on a total of 19 schemes has been launched which include one scheme in Jind town, nine in Julana, three in Safidon and four in Uchana.

Despite the fact that the water table in the district is depleting fast making the government to declare the region as “dark zone”, the department concerned has gone for digging of at least 52 new tubewells in the past two years.

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Inside Babudom
Promotion creates problem for IPS officer
Shubhadeep Choudhury
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17
Satyendra Kumar, a 1979 batch IPS officer of Haryana, has been recently promoted to the rank of ADGP. However, rather than being a good thing, the promotion has created a problem for him. As a result of the promotion he did not get his pay for the month of December given in January. This is because the post assigned to Satyendra Kumar does not exist in the official records. Since it is not a sanctioned post, the finance department has refused to approve the salary to be drawn against the post.

The government has now decided to give salary to him by drawing the money against a sanctioned post of ADGP which is lying vacant. It would have been better if Satyendra Kumar, posted as ADGP, Home Guards, had been shifted to a sanctioned post of ADGP, two of which were lying vacant. But it was not to be. Putting the IPS officer in either of the two vacant posts of ADGP perhaps would have given him more job satisfaction also. Moreover, giving him salary by drawing the money against another post is in all likelihood a violation of the law. But a government is too powerful an entity to bother about the finer aspects of the law.

Kumar was earlier posted as IGP, Home Guards, and this post was simply upgraded as ADGP when the promotion of 1979 batch officers became due. Some time ago S.N. Roy, an IAS officer, was also assigned a non-existent post by the state government and as a consequence was dogged by the problem of not receiving his salary for a while.

Talking of indiscretion in the posting orders of government officers, another instance that comes to one’s mind is that of the posting of Ashok Khemka, also an IAS officer, as special secretary, Land Use Board. In fact, Khemka, following his exposure of the inflated rates at which the power sector is reimbursed by the government for supplying power cheaply to the agricultural sector, was shifted to various posts in quick succession and finally made special secretary in the Land Use Board.

There is no provision of posting a special secretary in a board unless it is done under the directions of a minister. But the agriculture minister did not give his posting orders. Khemka has brought the anomaly to the notice of the government.

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Bhajan’s suspension strengthens Hooda
Yoginder Gupta
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17
There could not have been a better start to the New Year for Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Not only he won kudos from a person who was not seen as very favourably disposed towards him, but the beginning of the year also saw the virtual banishment of his bete noire from the Congress.

When Margaret Alva replaced Janardhan Dwivedi as AICC general secretary in charge of Haryana, many presumed that she would not be as benevolent towards Hooda as Dwivedi was perceived to be. Many also felt that she might have been brought on the Haryana scene by the high command as some sort of an olive branch to former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal because at one time Alva had a good equation with the only surviving member of the famous troika of the “Lals” of Haryana.

Just around the time Alva took over the supervision of the state Congress, rumours were also galore that certain senior leaders in the high command, who had been very close to Bhajan Lal when he used to rule the state, were working hard to evolve some formula to bridge the gulf between the rebel and the high command. Alva’s new assignment only added some element of credibility to the rumours.

For his political survival, a Congress Chief Minister has to fight with his own partymen as much as, if not more, with his political opponents outside the party. Keeping his cool amidst such rumours, Hooda made his moves on the Congress chessboard quietly. Within days after the Congress was humbled in the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, Hooda loyalists moved petitions seeking disqualification of Bhajan Lal and two another MLAs loyal to him from the assembly on the plea that they had joined a new party. The petitions were filed exactly a month after Bhajan Lal and his MP son Kuldeep Bishnoi launched their own party at Rohtak on December 2 last year.

Such a step could not have been taken by the Hooda loyalists without the consent of the high command. It was a clear gain for Hooda.

If there was still some doubt about who is calling the shots in the Haryana Congress now, six days later Alva described Hooda as the “star Chief Minister” of the Congress. Alva was speaking to the mediapersons after a meeting of the Haryana Congress Committee members at which certain workers complained of being ignored by the state leadership. Alva took no notice of such complaints.

The New Year was not even 15 days old when news came that the high command had suspended Bhajan Lal and his loyalists, Dharampal Malik and Rakesh Kamboj, from the party. The suspension of these leaders is only a precursor of their ultimate expulsion from the Congress, as working president of the Haryana Congress Kuldeep Sharma says.

Their expulsion will also be the successful culmination of the 17-year-old unflinching campaign led by Hooda for the ouster of Bhajan Lal, a campaign that put Hooda much ahead of the others in the state Congress.

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They owe their success to scientific dairying
Ramandeep Singh
Tribune News Service

Karnal, January 17
Rajbir and Sompal, both brothers of Badsalo village in Nilokheri block of this district, who were mainly dependent on agriculture till 2005, now own a commercial dairy farm and are earning more income, besides providing regular employment to seven persons on their dairy farm.

Sompal met scientists of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in 2005, who advised him to introduce scientific dairy farming on his traditional dairy farm. Encouraged to see the results of improved scientific dairy farming, he underwent training at KVK in 2005.

After the training, both Rajbir and Sompal, having a total land of around 40 acres, decided to start a dairy farm on scientific lines. Dr Dalip K. Gosain, senior scientist of the NDRI, and the KVK team helped the entrepreneurs in working out the detailed plan for making cattle shed in one acre of land.

Rajbir started his dairy farm on January 1, 2006, by purchasing 65 elite crossbred cattle from various districts of Haryana and Punjab. They also brought a sizeable portion of land under fodder cultivation. Rajbir said he invested around Rs 19 lakh in the purchase of these animals and the construction of the cattle shed.

Sompal said in the first year they could sell milk to the tune of 900 kg per day to the dairy cooperative society at Pipli in Kurukshetra district. These crossbred cows are being artificially inseminated by Raju of nearby village of Shamgarh, who is also trained by the KVK.

Rajbir says they own 115 crossbred dairy cows, including 50 heifers (female calves). To feed fodder to such a large number of dairy animals year around, they have 17 acres under fodder cultivation and taken the advice of the KVK experts in growing newer fodder crop combinations. They have got advice of the scientists of the animal nutrition division of the NDRI for making cattle feed that is economical to them, besides having quality assurance.

Rajpal says at present 33 cows are in the advanced stage of pregnancy and 32 are yielding around 500 kg of milk per day that is being sold at a premium because this is clean milk taken out using machines and sold to Nestle.

Having a modern scientific outlook Rajbir’s dairy farm still follows the age-old tradition of keeping a “deity cow” at their farm, adds Dr Gosain, head, KVK. He says this will help in conserving the native breed of cattle.

Rajbir says one of his buffalo has been conferred second prize in beauty competition held in November 2007 at Samalkha, organised by the Haryana State Dairy Development Department.

Seeing the success of his dairy farm, Sompal told TNS that his relative Ram Singh of Kheri Sakhra village and Rajinder Singh of Jadola village of adjoining Kaithal district have started building dairy farms on scientific lines and are having 15 crossbred elite cattle each.

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His swangs drew crowds for 50 years
Nawal Kishore Rastogi

Rewari, January 17
Master Neki Ram, an eminent bard, folk musician and a sangi (performer of operas) of the Ahirwal region, who regaled audiences in various parts of India and Pakistan for over 50 years (1934 to 1985), has now almost gone into the dark realm of obscurity owing to obvious reasons.

It is an established fact that the great art of composition and performance of swangs (operas), which greatly flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, has almost reached a dead-end owing to the rapid advancement of electronic media.

Very few people now remember that there was a time when this consummate sangi virtually strode like a colossus in the rural areas of Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Assam, Sikkim, Andaman Nicobar Islands and Lahore, where he gave performances to the delight and entertain huge audiences.

Besides, his swangs were in great demand in the Army cantonment areas of Silligudi, Darjeeling and Jalpaigudi.

However, it is a matter of great satisfaction that the Haryana Sahitya Akademi as well as the recently constituted Master Neki Ram Sahitya and Lok Natak Kala Sanrakshan Parishad have now undertaken the task to restore the vanished glories of this great sangi.

While two kavi sammelans, one in June 2006 and another in November 2007, were held in Neki Ram’s memory at his native Jaitrawas village, 12 km from Rewari, a library “Lok Kavi Master Neki Ram Pustakalaya”, set up at Jaitrawas by the parishad, was recently inaugurated by akademi director Desh Nirmohi, who also promised to donate 500 books for the library.

Neki Ram’s grandson Alok Bhandoria has brought out a book containing some of his bhajans, ragnis and lyrical plays. The Haryana Sahitya Akademi is also going to publish an anthology of his 300 poetic compositions by June 2008.

Born in a well-known Dalit family of Chamar community at Jaitrawas village on October 6, 1919, Neki Ram took early lessons in stagecraft from his father Master Mool Chand, who, too, was a noted sangi of his times.

When Neki Ram was in his teens, his promising brilliance in stagecraft won him praise from Pt. Lakhmi Chand, the most celebrated sangi of the first half of the 20th century, who told Neki Ram that he would surely dominate the domains of stagecraft in the years to come.

Certainly the time came when he earned accolades from his contemporary Dhanpat Singh, a celebrated sangi of North India, for his brilliant performance that drew such large crowds that left Dhanpat’s own pandal virtually empty at Bansur in Rajasthan. Both had staged their swangs simultaneously at Bansur on that night.

Like most other noted sangis, Master Neki Ram, too, picked mythological, historical, fictional, social and romantic narratives for his swangs. Almost all his swangs were composed by himself in sweet and ornate language which was a fine blend of Haryanavi, Rajasthani, Urdu and Brij dialects.

Phool Singh Nautanki, Shahi Lakkadhara, Pingla-Bharthari Hari, Meera Bai, Raja Sultan Nihalde, Bhakt Pooran Mal, Thakur Amar Singh, Raja Harish Chandra-Tarawati, Heer-Ranjha, Leelo-Chaman and Raja Bhoj-Bhanvati were among his most popular swangs.

He died on June 10, 1996, at Jaitrawas village where now stands his samadhi. 

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Power generation to be ‘new industry soon’
Tribune News Service

Gurgaon, January 17
Power generation would be a new emerging industry in India soon as the graph of net deficit of power shortage is going up in almost all of the states of the country and private players are entering in this industry to cater to the demands of the people.

An industrial expert revealed that as the net deficit gap of power shortage is increasing in different states of the country, the private players are investing in setting up power generation companies to cater to the increased demands of the consumers. Very soon time would come when the entrepreneurs would prefer to set up a power plant for generating electricity and sell power to the consumers. He said this industry has a bright future and is much profitable than other industries in the coming time. Lately, in some of the states, the entrepreneurs have set up merchant power plant to sell power to the industry.

He said at present, the industry is mushrooming in some of the states like HP, Rajasthan, MP and Haryana, but with the passage of time, it would expand to all parts of the country. These power plants would specially serve the purpose of the industry, which is badly affected by power cuts. Citing an example, he said if now an industrialist in Haryana has to pay around Rs 7 per unit, he would have to pay around Rs 5 after taking power from private players. While talking to The Tribune, managing director, Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Ltd, P.K. Das said that Haryana is also promoting the open access policy under which the industry is free to buy power from any private distributor. 

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Colleges shy of employing regular principals
B.S. Malik

Sonepat, January 17
A number of institutions of higher education in Sonepat are being run without regular principals for the past many years. The management committees have been managing the affairs of these institutions with acting principals for their own convenience and self-interest.

Three of the six institutions run by the Tika Ram Education Society, Chhotu Ram Arya (CRA) College, Tika Ram Girls College and the Tika Ram College of Education, are being run with the temporary arrangement of acting principals. Interestingly, J.P. Verma is officiating as the third acting principal of the CRA College after the retirement of his two predecessors, both acting principals.

Similarly, after the retirement of Dr Kamlesh Malik as regular principal of Tika Ram Girls College, Dr Geeta Dabas was given additional charge of the principal and later she was succeeded by D.V.S Tehlan as acting principal for sometime. After his resignation, Sunita Deswal was given the charge and she has been working as acting principal for the past two years. The Tika Ram College of Education has also been managed by an acting principal, S.P. Sheokeen.

Similar conditions prevail in a number of institutions run by the Hindu Education Society. After the termination of the services of regular principal of Hindu Girls College Shamim Sharma, Dr Lajja Goyal has been serving as the acting principal for the past two years. The other two institutions, the Hindu Institute of Management and the Hindu Institute of Technical Education are also being run without regular principals.

However, under pressure from the university and the education department, advertisements had been given several times in newspapers for the appointment of regular principals, but every time the interviews were either cancelled or interview committees could not finalise the selection.

In the opinion of prominent educationists, acting principals feel obliged to the managements and hesitate to take independent decisions on the matters directly concerning them. Moreover, they do not enjoy all powers of regular principal and depend on the management for taking decisions. Due to regular interference of the management in day-to-day affairs, the acting principals generally lack in enforcing discipline for providing congenial atmosphere of studies in the institutions.

They are also of the opinion that the state government and the university authorities are also responsible to some extent for such conditions and they have to take firm decisions to ensure that regular principals manage the institutes of higher education.

Ultimately, the sufferers are the students and their parents who spend a lot of money on the education of their wards.

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Mass participation must to save environment: Expert
Kiran Deep
Tribune News Service

Sirsa, January 17
The government can start a number of schemes, but their success depends on the common man whose participation makes all the difference, says eminent scientist Kuldeep Dhindsa.

Citing an example, Dr Dhindsa says a scheme called biological conservation programme was started to clean the water near the ghats of Banaras. Under the scheme, 1,000 turtles were put in the river with an idea that dead bodies would be eaten by the turtles and the water would remain clear.

However, when another study was undertaken on the reproduction of those turtles after six months, the scientists were shocked to see that there was not even a single turtle in the river. It was found that all turtles were poached by local residents, who say turtles taste very good. This shows that without the participation of the common man nothing can be done to protect the environment, says Dr Dhindsa, who has been campaigning at the national and international levels for framing schemes and their implementation for environment protection.

He is presently working as the director-general of JCD Vidyapeeth and besides several national and international awards, he was given the best scientist of the year award-2003 by the National Environmental Science Academy.

Dr Dhindsa says despite spending over Rs 1,500 crore by the Ganga action plan since its inception in 1984, the river still remains polluted. The water of Ganga at Hardwar is at D level.

Dr Dhindsa reveals that according to an estimate during its 2510-km long course from Gaumukh to the Bay of Bengal, nearly 1 billion liters of untreated sewage gets disposed into the Ganga. The situation is same of the Yamuna, which is known as the lifeline of Haryana and Delhi. Only 2 per cent of its total length passes through Delhi. But this track of 21 km is responsible for 71 per cent of the total pollution that is caused by the disposal of sewage and wastewaters of Delhi.

Talking about the major cause of environmental imbalance, Dr Dhindsa says inappropriate technologies and mismanagement of resources are responsible for environment degradation. But these are not the root cause, he says, adding that at the root is the socio-political structure of the country. 

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ISKON to spend Rs 7 cr on temple
Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, January 17
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKON, will build a temple in Dadwa village located on the Jagadhri-Saharanpur road here. The temple, Shri Radhakunj Bihari and Vedic Sanskara Kendra, will come up at a cost of Rs 7 crore.

ISKON would also build a temple in Ludhiana, Punjab, and the land for the same has already been purchased.

ISKON has been organising Jaganath yatra in the district for the past several years. ISKON has acquired five acres in the village for the construction of the temple, which is likely to start soon. There would be five wings in the proposed temple, including Hare Krishna gaushala. An agriculture centre based on latest scientific techniques will also be part of the temple. Poor and needy will get food at the Hare Krishna Food for Life centre at the temple.

There would be a world-class guesthouse in the temple for the benefit of the followers visiting the temple. An exhibition hall would also come up where devotees would be get spiritual teachings through audio-visual techniques.

Divyapurush Dass, local manager of ISKON, says Shri Prabhupad, founder of ISKON, has said a temple is like a hospital, in hospital one gets physical treatment and in temple one gets treatment of soul through spiritualism.

He says the life members of ISKON and devotees of Lord Krishna are contributing towards the construction of the temple. 

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Citizens’ Grievances
Passport, when?

I applied for the passport of my daughter (Saarvi Dhall, file reference no. M002482-07 dated 26.03.07) nearly 9 months back and still there is no clue as to when will I get the same. Now even the status of the passport application does not appear on the Internet and it turns out to be a blank status. I have written several letters to the chief passport officer, but these failed to evoke any response.

Sachin Dhall

Unfair policy

The NCTE has lowered the qualification rule for lecturers in B.Ed colleges in Haryana due to which the private colleges are relieving regular staff with out mentioning any reason though the staff was appointed for full session. The colleges are now appointing MA, B.Ed teachers for which they have to pay less than those with higher qualification like M.Ed, M Phil, P HD. The higher education qualification is being ignored due to this unfair policy. The NCTE should review the rule so that justice should be done to those lecturers who are more qualified.

R.K. Sharma, Kurukshetra

LPG shortage

Domestic LPG cylinders are being used freely in taxies right under the nose of the police and transport authorities, but no action is being taken. The unauthorised gas kits, which cost about Rs 1,500, are installed in Maruti vans and other vehicles used for the transportation of people. Most of the taxies fitted with LPG gas kits are poorly maintained and totally unsafe, causing risks to the lives of the passengers.

On the other hand, the commercial use of domestic LPG in vehicles, dhabas, restaurants and halwai shops is creating artificial shortage of the gas in the town.

A cylinder that costs around Rs 290 is being sold at the rate of Rs 500 on the black market. Residents also complain that the system made for booking and supply of cooking gas by local Confed Gas Agency is mismanaged.

Surinder Pal Singh  Wadhawan,
Shahabad Markanda

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