Hazur Sahib, November 1
The two-day Guru Gobind Singh Khalsa Sports Festival organised by the SGPC concluded here today. Union minister for sports Manohar Singh Gill gave away prizes to the winning teams.

Earlier in the morning, industries and tourism minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chauhan inaugurated the Martial Art Games and lauded the efforts of the SGPC for organising such a unique sports festival at the sacred place of Nanded.

The star attractions of the today's events were the gatka, folk dance of the Banjara community and open-style kabaddi, especially the final match played between Punjab and Haryana.

Players of international eminence Ajitpal Singh (hockey), Pargat Singh (hockey) and Kartar Singh (wrestling) were honoured with a cash prize of Rs 51,000, a citation and memento each for bringing laurels to the Sikh community at the global level.

Presenting a vote of thanks, Dalmegh Singh, secretary, SGPC, appreciated the contribution made by Kanwarjit Singh Sandhu of the Sandhu Group of Companies, Mumbai, for making this sports event a great success. Former Union minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Punjab PWD minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa and director, Education, SGPC, Dr Gurmohan Singh Walia were present on the occasion.

Results: 

Punjab Style Kabaddi (Men): Punjab winner; Haryana runner-up

Punjab Style Kabaddi (Women): Haryana winner, Punjab runner-up

National Style Kabaddi (Men): Maharashtra winner, Punjab runner-up

National Style Kabbaddi (Women) Punjab winner, Maharashtra runner-up

Wrestling: Vishav Khalsa Kesri Khitab amounting to Rs 3 lakh was won by Palwinder Cheema defeating Rajiv Tomer.

120 kg: Rajiv Tomer UP (first), Palwinder Cheema Punjab (second), Satinder Chandigarh (third)

84 kg: Rambir Singh (First), Naresh Delhi (Second), Muhammad Shuab Pakistan (Third)

74 kg: Ramesh Kumar RSPB (first), Gurdial Singh SSCB (second), Rajinder Bhatti UP (third)

66 kg: Amit Kumar Haryana (First), Ajay Tomar UP (Second), Sudhir Rana Third

60 kg: Yogeshwar Dutt Haryana (First), Kirpa Shankar (Second), Mohsin pakistan (Third); 55 kg: Vinod Kumar Haryana (first), Anil Tomer (second), Sombir (third). 

Chandigarh, November 1
Demanding an apology from the Congress for the killings of Sikh soldiers in the riots after the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, the ex-servicemen’s wing of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today wanted martyrs’ status for the deceased soldiers.

"The Congress was in power at the time of the incidents, so it was responsible for the anti-Sikh riots that also involved the men in uniform," general secretary of the ex-servicemen wing Col P.I.S. Phulka said at a press conference here.

He said he had located the kin of 50 defence personnel targeted by Congress-backed mobs at railways stations and other public places. However, the Defence Ministry after 24 years came out with a list of just 34 servicemen killed in the anti-Sikh riots, he added.

"Now the Defence Ministry has admitted that the soldiers who were in uniform and were on duty were also killed in 1984," he said. The ministry has so far only acknowledged 34 deaths, while the number of killed was about 300, he claimed.

Colonel Phulka claimed that the government of the time had white-washed the events by conducting fake courts of inquiry or by declaring killed soldiers as deserters.

Demanding a consolidated list of Sikh soldiers killed, Colonel Phukla said If the government did not release the list and did not give due compensation to the families of the dead soldiers and other benefits, a case of treason and violation of the Geneva Convention could be filed with the the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Wanting the Punjab government to declare period from November 1, 2008, to October 31, 2009, as “year of repentence”, he said the state government should provide land for a memorial to the deceased soldiers.

On compensation to the families of soldiers killed during the riots, Colonel Phulka said so far only eight families had received assistance. Compensation and other benefits for such families are the same as given to the civilian Sikh families, he added.

Chandigarh, November 1
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held Punjab sales tax authorities in the wrong for “gross dereliction of duty” in refunding illegally recovered amounts.

A Division Bench has also called for evolving a mechanism to fix responsibility in cases of inordinate delay; and has ruled: “If the department has the right to recover, it cannot ignore its duty to refund the amount found to have been illegally recovered”.

Taking cognizance of ever mounting piles of petitions for refund, the Bench of Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel and Justice L.N. Mittal has also passed strictures against the sales tax department, which in a particular case took 17 years to refund the amount without even paying the interest.

In one such petition against the State of Punjab, J.K. Tyre and Industries Limited had sought refund of amount “in light of an order dated September 1, 2005, passed by the sales tax tribunal”.

Pronouncing the directions in an open court, the Bench entrusted the task of fixing the responsibility on the state chief secretary. “We direct the chief secretary, Punjab, to look into the matter and take appropriate action against the persons found responsible….”

Fixing November 25 as the next date of hearing in the matter, the Bench added: “We make it clear that if the chief secretary fails to comply with the orders, he will be held personally accountable for the default”.

In its detailed order, the Bench observed: “It is clear that there is gross dereliction of duties in making refund for a period of more than three years, and the assistant excise and taxation commissioner did not take any steps in the matter.

“The excise and taxation commissioner, Punjab, has also failed in performing his duties in overseeing the work of the department and also in not ensuring the refund, which is the statutory right of the petitioner.

“There is a flow of cases of this nature and at times it is stated that the refunds are not given for extraneous considerations. In another petition, it has been pointed out that the refund has been given after 17 years and that too without any interest.

“This shows a dismal picture of honesty and responsibility of the sales tax officers responsible for giving refund…. A mechanism has to be evolved by the administration to fix accountability and responsibility for the abuse of power,” the Bench concluded.

Amritsar, November 1
Economic meltdown across the globe has had a cascading effect on the aviation sector, which had been badly hit due to fall in the passenger traffic across the country.

A large number of international flights operating from the Rajasansi International Airport here were considering curtailing their international operations due to a decreasing number of passengers and cargo.

Singapore Airlines, which had started its tri-weekly flights from the holy city connecting major destinations across the world three years ago, was planning to drop its operations next year. The airport, which was ahead of others airports in the country showing more than 20 per cent growth, recorded a marginal negative growth of 0.9 per cent during August.

According to sources, Singapore Airlines has been contemplating dropping more than 10 flights a week across metro towns in the country due to lack of tourist and business visitor to the island country.

During the same month last year, the airport had handled 52,493 passengers against 52,043 this year. The highest decline was recorded at the Port Blair airport with 72.1 per cent negative drop. Other affected airports included Srinagar (33 per cent drop), Jaipur (23 per cent) and Ahmedabad and Goa (20 per cent each). The only airport, which has shown an increase in traffic handling was the Calicut airport that 
recorded 25 per cent growth during August.

Sources in the Airports Authority of India revealed that Jet Airways, which was operating six flights a week from Amritsar to London, might curtail the flight operations during this winter season.

The Confederation of Indian Industry, Amritsar unit, felt that though the city airport had been granted international status, the airports authority continued to impose exorbitant landing charges on Singapore Airlines, double the normal domestic rates.

Dr Shavinder Singh Sandhu, local chairman of the CII, said the airport levied Rs 1.94 lakh per landing as against Rs 75,000. He said the government must immediately bring about parity on the charges at all airports. He urged the government to encourage cargo operations from here and make customs process simple as majority of exporters had rued that they were not getting their duty drawbacks within the time frame.

Sangrur, November 1
The SAD has finally decided to contest four seats in alliance with the BJP in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections. These seats are Jangpura, Rajouri Garden, Shahdra and Adarsh Nagar.

This decision was taken after the SAD informed the BJP high command in Delhi last night that it was ready to contest the Jangpura seat. Over the remaining three seats, both parties had already reached a consensus.

Talking to The Tribune over the phone today, secretary-general of the SAD and MP from Sangrur Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said president of the SAD Sukhbir Singh Badal and the Delhi unit of the SAD decided the previous day to contest from Jangpura, the fourth seat selected by the SAD.

Dhindsa said the SAD would field its candidates for the Rajouri Garden and Shahdra Assembly constituencies on its election symbol while two candidates of the SAD would contest on the BJP’s election symbol from Jangpura and Adarsh Nagar as per the understanding with the BJP.

Dhindsa said for selecting the fourth seat, the BJP had given three options to the SAD, including the Jangpura seat. He said a discussion on the Jangpura seat had been held at Hazur Sahib in which besides him Sukhbir Badal and president of the Delhi unit of the SAD Manjit Singh took part. 

Chandigarh, November 1
Recently removed Punjab CPM general secretary Balwant Singh, upon his return from the US today, claimed that his adversaries had taken advantage of the death of former party supremo H.S. Surjeet to remove him from all party posts on trumped up charges.

National CPM general secretary Prakash Karat had visited Chandigarh on October 16 and announced the removal of Prof Balwant Singh from all party positions held by him, besides suspending him from the primary membership of the party.

The disgraced leader claimed that a conspiracy had been hatched immediately after the death of Surjeet to replace him. He said it was unfortunate that a “brutal” attack had been made on his moral values and character.

Defending himself against all wrongdoings and charges of sexual harassment of a widow of a party leader, he said he had all regards for the family, which had been used to bring him down. He said he was very close to the family and could not understand why it had been used against him.

He maintained that the party had not given him any opportunity to explain his stand before taking the unilateral decision to remove him from all party posts. He said the alleged incident was said to have occurred on September 7 and he was in India till September 21. He said no one informed him about the complaint against him nor was he involved in any inquiry on the issue.

Balwant said even though the party knew that he was scheduled to return to India within a week or so, the party did not wait for his return to involve him in the alleged inquiry. He claimed this proved that some leaders had hatched a conspiracy to ensure his removal.

Meanwhile, the former state party chief, who has also been removed as managing director of the party’s newspaper Desh Sewak, headquartered in Punjab, said the paper had remained in profit under his leadership. He maintained there was no embezzlement of funds in the management of the paper.

The Communist leader said he was collecting all needed facts and that he would meet members of the Politburo and put his case before them.

Amritsar, November 1
Manoranjan Kalia, minister for local bodies, today laid the foundation stones of projects worth Rs 10 crore in Amritsar.

The projects include construction of 320 flats on one acre at Rasulpur village under the Basic Services to Urban Poor project, city bus depot in Mal Mandi, besides projects at Transport Nagar and City Centre.

At a press conference here, Kalia said the Akali-BJP government was trying to improve infrastructure for the state development. To speed up development of industrial projects, the government had started projects like constructing two corridors, Mohali to Ropar and Jalandhar to Kapurthala. He said the government had acquired 100 acresto set up the information technology (IT)zone in Kapurthala where all facilities linked with the IT sector would be provided.

Kalia said 16 luxury buses would be introduced in Amritsar under the City Bus Service scheme and in the first phase bus service from Verka to Kachehri, Daburji to Kachehri and Central Jail to Chatiwind Gate would be started and all buses would pass through the interstate bus terminal. Under the project, 148 shelters would be constructed, besides providing small eating joints at these places. He said special concession would also given to schoolstudents.

Navjot Singh Sidhu, BJP MP, criticising the Central government for not initiating any developmental project in the state, said due to the Union government’s apathy Punjab had lagged behind neighbouring states. He said apart from projects worth Rs 185 crore launched in the city, more projects would be brought in for the city.

Patiala, November 1
Describing the ground situation pertaining to outbreak of dengue in Punjab as “very serious and alarming”, the Punjab Civil Medical Services Association (PCMSA) has deplored the approach of authorities concerned as “casual and negligent”.

The association has also disapproved the lack of coordination between various state departments which, according to the body of government doctors, were indulging in “blame game on each other” rather than undertaking the requisite preventive and other measures at war footing.

“Such lackadaisical approach in face of unprecedented situation which has arisen due to lack of will and initiative, has allowed the disease to take shape of an epidemic,” said Dr. M.S. Randhawa, the association patron.

Dr D.S.Gill and Dr Manjit Singh, president and general secretary of the association, respectively, appealed to the Chief Minister and chief secretary to take immediate stock of the “grave situation”.

The association urged the health department to immediately declare the dengue epidemic as a medical emergency in public interest to save innocent human lives that were falling prey to the “deadly viral disease,” the fatal onslaught of which even claimed the life of former director, health services, Dr Prithipal Singh, despite best available treatment.

The association appealed to the general public to take preventive measures at personal and community levels. These included safety from mosquito bites by keeping bodies covered with clothes or use of mosquito repellants, avoiding dawn and dusk outdoor exposure to mosquitoes, draining out water from coolers, flowerpots and other exposed containers and spaces in their households and surroundings to take “anti larvae measure” to stop further breeding of mosquitoes.

Dr Randhawa and other association office-bearers warned people to be extra cautious about cases of fever around them and help the patients to get free “peripheral blood film” test done at the nearest health centre for early and proper diagnosis, because any delay in these cases adversely affected the prognosis of the patients.

Amritsar, November 1
In view of complaints of delay in the issue of birth and death certificates and alleged corruption in the department, deputy commissioner Kahan Singh Pannu visited the premises of the civil surgeon’s office here yesterday.

Finding inconsistencies in the process of issuing birth and death certificates, the DC directed the Health Department to get the whole system computerised besides preserving the decade-old records.

The district administration and the department had decided to go for computerisation. Pannu said the decade-old record would be microfilmed besides preserving these in a scientific manner.

He also contacted Dr R.S. Bawa, registrar, Guru Nanak Dev University, who assured all possible help to the district administration in the computerisation of the records.

Pannu said he had identified many bottlenecks in the working of the department. He said the work to remove these would start soon.

Dr Lehmbar Singh, civil surgeon, said the department was consulting professionals in connection with the computerisation of the records. Dr Arjun Dhawan, district health officer, was also present.

Moga, November 1
The district administration of Moga has almost failed to implement the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995, effectively.

There were reports that the cable operators were not showing the two main satellite channels of the Doordarshan, DD-1 and DD-2, on the prime band, thus violating the Cable Act.

The viewers in many places in the district and some localities in the district headquarter were deprived of the regional news and other programmes being broadcast by the Doordarshan from its regional station at Jallandhar.

According to Section-11 of the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995, it is mandatory for every cable operator to run the two main channels of Doordarshan- DD-1 and DD-2 in addition to the regional channels.

Despite stringent provisions in the Act, which clearly specifies that any violation of the Act would invoke penal action, including confiscation of the operator’s equipment and imprisonment up to six months, a large number of operators in the district were still avoiding the transmission of DD channels, preferring transmission of other more revenue-generating channels.

This seems to be happening on account of laxity in the attitude of the district administration authorities and partly due to the DD authorities failing to take any notice of the large-scale violation of the Act.

When contacted, a senior official of the district administration revealed that a district-level cable monitoring committee had recently been constituted to look into the complaints against the cable operators but so far not even a single complaint had come before it.

A cross section of the people revealed that they were not aware of such committee formed by the district administration as no publicity had been done in this regard.

It may be mentioned that a political nexus between the cable operators and politicians of the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) party had crushed the demands of public, resulting into ‘total control’ in the cable business.

It was learnt that a leading transporter of Ludhiana, enjoying friendly relations with SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal, had indirectly taken control of the cable business almost in the entire state by getting franchise rights of the leading satellite channels and the small cable operators in the cities and towns were now at his mercy to run their cable business.

There were many Punjabi satellite news channels that were not being shown by the cable operators due to political pressure from the ruling party, even as these channels were broadcasting special news bulletins of the state with a strong network of news reporters.

Chandigarh, November 1
The Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) has introduced Energy Conservation Awards to encourage energy efficiency in large and small-scale industry, government and commercial buildings, educational institutions, agriculture sector, poultry farms and domestic sector.

Bikram Singh Majithia, science and technology minister, yesterday disclosed that these awards had been instituted to encourage people to conserve energy keeping in view the global energy scarcity. The minister said the investment grade energy audit of 10 government buildings had been started and the recommendations by the consultant to bring energy efficiency in these buildings would be implemented by the departments concerned.

Majithia said the Punjab government had decided to introduce energy efficient municipal street lighting system at Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Bathinda and initiate energy efficiency in the district administration complexes at Ludhiana, Patiala, Bathinda, Sangrur and Mini-Secretariat, Chandigarh. PEDA had made a detailed project report for these projects and tender for these projects would be floated by the Local Government Department and PWD (B&R). 

Jalandhar, November 1
Dalbir Singh Mahal, a Jalandhar-based lawyer, has been appointed member of the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC). A close confidant of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Dalbir is committed to bring transparency in the PPSC selection process.

Talking to The Tribune he said, “It will remain my first priority to provide opportunity to deserving candidates and maintain complete transparency in the system. The candidates will get fair access to every information on the PPSC website. Apart from this, it will be my genuine effort to give details pertaining to PPSC exams, its pattern and results well on time. Above all, the PPSC website will be updated regularly”.

He said, “Until I do something at the ground level I do not want to make sky-high promises. Let me officially undertake this responsibility and bring deserving candidates to the fore. It will indeed give me pleasure to do good work at this level”.

Born at Chamiara village near Kapurthala in 1958, the 50-year-old PPSC member did his schooling from his native village Rajab near Kartarpur. He did graduation from Arya College, Ludhiana, in 1980 and degree in law from DAV College, Lucknow. Dalbir started practice as a lawyer in 1984 in Jalandhar court.

Patiala, November 1
In the case pertaining to the alleged murder of her daughter Harpreet Kaur by former SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur and her associates, the statement of the then chief judicial magistrate Sanjeev Beri was recorded in the court of district and sessions judge Inderjit Singh Walia today.

When the case was being heard by Beri, he had made prime accused Balwinder Singh Sohal a government approver. Today, Beri admitted this fact before the court.

The lawyer of another accused, Satnam Singh Kler, objected to Beri’s statement. He said he would argue on the case only after he was given proper documents.

The judge adjourned the case to November 29. Ganga Singh, security in charge of Bibi Jagir Kaur, also deposed before the court. He said at no point of time did he give any sort of statement to the CBI. He also admitted that he had no knowledge of whether Jagir Kaur’s car had been stopped at the Chaheru bridge.

However, the CBI had admitted that the car had been stopped at the bridge. The CBI had also said Raipur Singh and Nishan Singh had actually met Jagir Kaur.