Roorkee, November 13
Thousands of commuters were a harassed lot following the blockade of National Highway-58 by agitated farmers for over six hours here today.

Due to the blockade, long queues of vehicles were seen at various points on the highway, including in front of College of Engineering, Roorkee (COER), Gur Mandi and Pohana. The traffic to Haridwar was disrupted as commuters had to take an alternative routes to avoid harassment.

Earlier, hundreds of farmers under the banner of the Uttarakhand Kisan Morcha (UKM), along with their tractors-trolleys, reached in front of the COER around 10.30 am and blocked the road by parking their vehicles on the middle of the highway.

Following it, the traffic 
was diverted to the road along the Gang canal.

While at Gur Mandi and Pohana, the members of Bhartiya Kisan Union Tikait (T) and BKU (A) jammed the highway, respectively.

At these points, the blockade lasted around six hours as it was lifted only around 5 pm.

“By blocking the highways, we are just giving the message to the government that the farmers are ready to go to any extent in favour of their demands,” said Gulshan Rod, national president of UKM.

Meanwhile, the farmers did not disrupt rail traffic today as per their schedule.

“The farmers’ bodies would hold meeting on Sunday. There we decide the next step, ‘rail roko’. Next time, we would come out on the roads with out families and cattle,” said Rakesh Aggarwal, national general secretary, UKM.

The farmers are demanding to take back the sugarcane ordinance by the Union government and fix cane MSP over Rs 250 per quintal.

There are over two lakh cane growers only in Haridwar district.

Dehradun, November 13
The Uttarakhand Congress workers today held a protest against the state government and marched from Congress Bhavan to the office of the District Magistrate (DM). Thousands of workers led by state president Yashpal Arya submitted a memorandum of their demands to the state Governor through the District Magistrate.

The main complaint of the Congress party was against the hike of 20 per cent in the power tariff in the state. Yashpal Arya alleged that the state has been facing a severe power crunch and besides the common people industries, which came to the state to set up plants are suffering immensely.

The party also demanded that an inquiry should be conducted in the scam involving providing mid-day meals to the schools students in the entire state. Arya alleged that crores of rupees have been swindled in the name of providing mid-day meals to poor students.

The party also highlighted the issue of malpractices in the issuance of ration cards and below Poverty Line (BPL) cards. Arya said that the state government has failed on all fronts whether it was maintenance of law and order or implementation of the centrally sponsored schemes.

He said that the implementation of the Mahtama Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the state was highly unsatisfactory and the alleged corrupt practices galore.

Dehradun, November 13
Chief Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank said today the government was committed to provide free and quality medicines to the poor.

The Chief Minister said Dehradun had also emerged as a leading pharma city in the shortest possible time. He said every possible facility was being provided to pharma companies keen to set up units in the state.

“These units will have to pay attention to the quality of medicines being produced,” he said.

He was speaking at the inaugural session of a workshop organised by Federation of Pharma Entrepreneurs today at the Forest Research Centre.

Adding further he said the pharmaceutical industry had seen a steady increase in the past two decades. From a share of Rs 5,000 crore in 1990, the pharma industry had increased to Rs 85,000 crore.

He called upon the pharma industrialists to raise the quality of their medicines to international standards, “For this they will have to concentrate on international research and development,” stressed Nishank.

The Chief Minister said he had requested the Prime Minister to increase the industrial package to 2020. He also asked the companies to concentrate on traditional systems by focusing on research development.

Health Minister of Himachal Pradsh Dr Rajiv Bindal, who was also present, said in the last decade around 700 pharmaceutical companies had set shop in Uttarakhand. He said for the benefit of pharma industries, the Himachal Pradesh government had simplified license procedures in the state.

Haridwar, November 13
Despite strict instructions from Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Mela Officer Anand Vardhan, it seems Kumbh nodal agencies have not paid any heed and once again several roads in the city are being dug up.

While one department completes the work and the road is levelled, in no time another department starts digging up, and this has been the norm for Kumbh works in the city which has put city life to a halt for the past year.

But it seems working agencies and departments seem oblivious of the problems caused to the public and over spending of the government expenditure.

In Devpura Colony, the road was laid a few days back, but now digging work has once again started and so is the case at other areas like Kankhal, Bhoopatwala, Station Road, Sri Nath Road and various pockets in the mela area.

Residents have been too perturbed by the digging works all through the year. They had gheraoed the Chief Minister, Union Minister, District Magistrate and Municipal Councillor on the problems and inconvenience caused to them by slow and non-stop digging of roads in the city.

The mela administration, too, is taking this matter seriously and has directed all departments and agencies involved in Kumbh and routine developmental works to have better coordination between them.The residents complained that even when less than two months were left for the Maha Kumbh to start, they had no respite from digging works and it was quite problematic to commute on interior roads.

Umesh Dimri, a resident of SriNath Nagar, said nine months ago the Colony road was dug up for laying sewer lines and for six months the road had not been not levelled.

Dehradun, November 13
The Dehradun Mahanagar Bus Seva Association and Simadawar-Nalapani City Bus Owners Association submitted a memorandum of demands to the Transport Commissioner and protested against the plying of 40 more buses on the Doiwala route, which according to them would make it overlapped.

Girdhar Gopal Luthra, President of the Dehradun Bus Association, said that the government had given permit to 46 new buses but later authorised only six of them and cancelled the permit of the rest.

Now, the remaining 40 bus operators are leading a tough life as they had invested money in buying buses, which are now not allowed to ply.

But now as the transport commissioner is set to give permits to these 40 operators the issue of routes on which they would be plying has become serious. Both the bus associations raised concerns over plying of these buses over Doiwala route, which they say has already sufficient number of buses on these routes.

The associations said that if these buses would be permitted to ply on the Doiwala route, it would make it difficult for the existing bus operators to make their two ends meet.

Meanwhile, the meeting chaired by transport commissioner Umakant Panwar was postponed for next week. In the meeting the important decision on plying of these buses was to 
be taken. 

Nainital, November 13
The District Magistrate Shailesh Bagauli has sought an explanation from various department heads on the slackening of growth rate in various sectors in the district, including agriculture and industry. Participating in a district-level review meeting here on Friday, he expressed concern on the decrease in the cash-deposit ratio with the banks that have registered a decrease of 3 per cent in a year.

Asking the authorities to take appropriate steps to give impetus to the development process, Bagauli asserted that that a decrease in credit is bound to have an adverse impact on development. Taking stock of the distribution of Kisan Cards in the district, he suggested that Dhari development block should be taken as a popular centre for distribution of these cards.

He pointed that some growth has been registered in the services sector and that is a positive sign. He instructed officials to pull up their socks and ensure that there was positive growth in the last quarter of the current financial year.

Giving directions to continue subsidy to local entrepreneurs under the Vir Chandra Singh Garhwali scheme, Bagauli ensured that appropriate funds would be made available under the scheme. Similarly, while taking stock of the Swarn Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana, he asked various groups facing problems to maintain constant communication with various banks for their redress.

After going through the performance of the scheme for urban areas, he pointed that barring Ramnagar, the remaining urban areas are short of targets and told the executing officers to ensure that the targets are achieved at the earliest. The Director of the District Rural Development Authority (DRDA) has been asked to ensure that the artisans seeking loans under various schemes did not face any problems.

Representatives of RBI and NABARD assured all possible assistance.

Nainital, November 13
Nanotechnology can play a major role in mitigating the problem of climate change. This has been concluded by Smita Bhatt of Amrapali Institute of Technology at Haldwani.

In a paper presented at the recently held Uttarakhand Science Congress, Bhatt had stated, “Advanced nanotechnology can address the problem of climate change providing low-cost solar energy and by removing the accumulated carbon-di-oxide from the atmosphere.”

The study highlights the role of nanotechnology in three broad categories, namely the development of efficient hydrogen-powered vehicles, enhanced and cheaper photo voltaic or solar power technology and the development of a new generation of batteries and super capacitors.

The presenter has also underlined that the bio-sanitiser developed by the Bhawalkar Ecological Research Institute (BERI) at Pune acts like a nano forest that can be used in any polluted liquid or gas to covert pollution into resources.

“With no production of sludge or greenhouse gases and without any assistance in the form of machinery or electricity, the bio-sanitiser is a self-operating and self-improving system,” says Bhatt.

With reference to the role of nanotechnology in responding to climate change, the report states, “Nanotechnologies are a platform technology and, as such by itself, will not have a dramatic impact on climate change. “But its incorporation into larger systems such as hydrogen-based economy, solar power technology or next generation batteries can potentially have a profound impact on energy consumption and hence greenhouse gas emissions.”

Bhatt has asserted that nanotechnologies hold great promise for creating new means of detecting pollutants, cleaning polluted waste streams, recovering materials before they become wastes and expanding available resources.

She points that “Like all emerging technologies with great promise, nanotechnology and nano chemistry industries will present new challenges in ensuring that environmental risks are properly managed.” 

Pitthoragarh, November 13
The public-private partnership (PPP) mode in the state is getting a slow response as only six out of 73 proposed projects have been executed so far.

Planning and Water Resources Minister Prakash Pant said here today that the six projects, which had come into execution costing a sum of Rs 341.90 crore, were in health, tourism, transport and housing sectors.

“These projects include management of mobile health vans, management of MRI instruments in Doon Hospital, construction of a five-star hotel in Dehradun, an inter-state bus terminal and a commercial complex in transport sector,” said Pant.

The state government has invited bids for 14 projects under PPP costing Rs 1278.68 crore. These projects include a research unit on cow urine near Rishikesh and construction of bus stands in various cities of the state.

“Besides, we have 53 other projects in general sector which include projects in agriculture, power, information technology, health, social welfare, tourism, transport, housing and the urban development departments,” added Pant.

The PPP mode was established in the state in 2007 after deliberation with the Union Finance Ministry followed by the establishment of the Uttarakhand Public-Private Partnership Council. This council started working in Uttarakhand with the help of the Asian Development Bank from February 2008.

“We want sufficient private investment during the 11th Plan so that we could increase the activities related to commerce,” said Pant. 

Dehradun, November 13
The ONGC has been recognised as India’s top blue chip company ranked first in the FinanceAsia 100 listing for 2009 with the highest aggregate net profit (before exceptional) of $13,764 million over the three-year period (2006-2008), as per a press statement of the ONGC.

FinanceAsia 100 is the investors’ annual guide to Asia’s Blue Chip Companies published by FinanceAsia, Haymarket Media Ltd, Hong Kong. It ranks the top 100 firms in Asia by three years’ aggregate profit. The guide and FinanceAsia 100 index represents a powerful message to the Asian and global investment communities and reinforces the importance of the Asian equities market. The list is compiled by Citi annually with the index updated daily by FinanceAsia. 

Nainital, November 13
Various departments in the district have been asked to come up with only those financial proposals for the next financial year, which they are sure to utilise by the end of the year.

These directions were given by the District Magistrate Shailesh Bagauli while discussing the preparation of the Annual Plan for Nainital district for the financial year 2010-11 at Bhawali on Friday.

He also laid stress on focusing on those projects that are important in the public interest.

The District Magistrate also directed the officials to avoid making plans for those pieces of land, which are disputed and asked them to ensure that proper land is available for a proposed project and the land has been duly transferred from the forest department for initiating a public project.

Keeping in view the shortage of houses for the employees, he gave directions for construction of pooled housing.

Bagauli stated that the departments that are unable to utilise the funds allocated to them for the current financial year will be facing a cut in the allocation for the next financial year. He directed the departments of irrigation, public health, drinking water and power in particular to ensure that the money lying with them is utilised properly by March 31.

The next meeting for passing the proposed district plan has been scheduled for November 17 in which the minister in-charge for the district Balwant Singh Bhauryal will also be participating. 

Dehradun, November 13
First-ever live demonstration of Insulin Pumps will be the highlight of Diabetes Update-2009, a Health Care India initiated camp for Diabetes-affected patients to be held at Sadbhawna Medical Centre on November 15.

Briefing media persons at Sadbhawna Medical Centre, Dr Ajay Sharma said it was for the first time in Dehradun that a live demonstration of Insulin Pumps Dr Suresh Purohit Founder Member of Data Care Centre was taking place.

He said while insulin pumps were a common in west, it was limited to few of metro cities in India. Dr Sharma said live demonstration of insulin pump in Dehradun was first ever such initiative.

He said the camp would be conducting free of cost Sugar Fasting Test and would conduct other tests like HBAC, Urine with Micra and other tests in heavy discounted rates.

Describing diabetes as a lifestyle disease, Dr Ajay Sharma of Sadbhawna Medical Centre said sedentary lifestyle coupled with overeating as the main reason behind the rise in diabetes patients.

He said by the time diabetes was diagnosed, it’s already couple of years old and proves to be a silent killer for the patient. “Less eating and more of walking is the key mantra to keep oneself safeguarded against disease like diabetes”, Dr Sharma asserted. 

Dehradun, November 13
Elections of the members of the Bar Council of Uttarakhand have been completed. In total, 20 members have been elected in the state, out of which eight are from Dehradun.

Those selected to the state body from Dehradun are Surinder Pundir, Yoginder Tomar, MM Lambha, Prithviraj Chauhan, Chander Shekhar Tiwari, Anil Pundit, Razia Beg and 
SK Mittal.