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Bus stations ill-equipped to handle Maha Kumbh rush
H1N1 collection centres fail to take off
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Delhi to replicate plastic recycling plant at Kathgodam
PNB’s accounts in phishing net
Experts discuss alternative sources of energy
Rush at LPG refill stations
Dry spell takes toll on rabi crop
Rain brings cheer to apple growers
Ministerial Association holds protest
Youth strangled to death
Residents hold protest, demand bypass
Body of tiger found
Street plays spread awareness about road safety
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Bus stations ill-equipped to handle Maha Kumbh rush
Haridwar/Rishikesh, January 6 With a huge chunk of people expected to use bus transport services during the mega fair, the bus stations in Haridwar and Rishikesh assume greater significance. But, it’s sad that while just a week has left for the first festive bath in the Ganga, these bus stations are not yet ready to cater to a huge rush of pilgrims. For the Maha Kumbh, temporary bus stations are being constructed at Rishikul, Chandighat, Dakshdeep and Motichur. The main bus station will be set up at Rishikul where the roadways bus station will be temporarily shifted for the Maha Kumbh period. Initially, it was planned that by January 4, the roadways bus station will be shifted to Rishikul, but now the shifting date has been further extended due to incomplete work. Assistant Regional Manager Hari Mohan Dabral says all things are in place and by the first festive bath, the main bus station at Rishikul will get operational when the main roadways bus station gets shifted there. Managing Director of Uttarakhand Roadways Surendra Singh Rawat during an inspection did not find the arrangements up to the mark and strictly directed the nodal departments concerned to speed up their respective works. “In all probability, the Rishikul bus station, which will be the main bus station during the Kumbh, will be ready before the 14th of this month,” said Rawat. Though a shoddy light arrangement has been done in these temporary stations and there is a lack of other basic facilities, only ordinary lights are being replaced with sodium and high-mast ones. Also only drinking water and toilet facilities are being set up there, which itself speaks of the working of related agencies towards these bus stations neglecting the aspect of a major pressure of pilgrims there during the fair. Similar is the case with the Rishikesh bus station. With the Maha Kumbh mela areas covering Swargashram and Muni-ki-Reti in Rishikesh and considering the pilgrim status of Rishikesh, it’s quite imperative to have a elaborate functional bus station. On the first look itself the Rishikesh bus station seems in a poor shape and doesn’t even give a glimpse of it being a station of a world-renowned city where foreigners match in numbers with the locals and tourists. Pot holes, garbage, stink and uneven surface make the bus station commuters’ nightmare. Add to it, a lack of shelter, water and sanitary facilities at the bus station put a bad impression of the city. Though there is barely a week left for the first festive bath of the Maha Kumbh, a proposal sent by the Rishikesh transport authority to the mela administration is still in consideration and it’s anybody’s guess when will the proposal gets passed and finally when will the work gets started? Forget the finishing touches as already the Kumbh works are trailing behind their schedule completion. And with the start of Kumbh the immense rush will make more difficult for carrying out renovation work of these bus stations. The Rishikesh transport authorities have submitted a Rs 54-lakh proposal for the renovation, beautification and maintenance of the bus station to the mela administration. However, it is still under consideration. The mela administration office says such a proposal has been received and it’s up to the authorities concerned for giving the project a go-ahead. Considering the mela area now expanding to Rishikesh and with no paucity of funds, the probability of getting the order passed is higher. |
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H1N1 collection centres fail to take off
Dehradun, January 6 The tenders that were invited in December elicited a poor response with only two companies submitting applications. According to sources, the provisions in the tenders making accreditation by National Accreditation Board for testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABCL) mandatory for aspiring laboratories do not specify any norms for the collection centres. The poor response to the tender is being attributed to the non-specification of quality for collection centres. As a result, the government will be forced to re-invite tenders further delaying the setting up of centres either in Dehradun or Haridwar. The collection centres are to be set up exclusively for the Kumbh Mela so that the samples could be sent for testing to the laboratories and later results sent through fax. This way the administration aims at setting up an independent arrangement and not putting any pressure on the existing state nodal facilities. At present, all samples of suspected H1N1 patients are being sent to testing centres in Delhi. Only a few laboratories in Dehradun have the facility for undertaking real time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests. The cost of the test at any private laboratories could be between Rs 2,500 and 3,000. The government’s intervention is aimed at keeping the costs under control. |
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Delhi to replicate plastic recycling plant at Kathgodam
Nainital, January 6 According to Vipin Kumar, who is a consultant with the Uttarakhand government as well as the government of India on solid waste management, “They have written to us showing interest in replicating the model that envisages the outsourcing the functioning of the plant in a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The dialogue is on and hopefully a plant will be put in place very soon in the days to come”. Vipin is in Nainital to conduct a training of representatives of the municipal bodies on “Issues in Municipal Solid Waste Management through People’s Participation”. Talking about the preparations being made in New Delhi ahead of the coming Commonwealth Games with regards to the solid waste management, he said the Delhi government had done a commendable job in this direction. Besides giving a facelift to the city, the Delhi government has set the ball on solid waste management rolling by involving not only the citizens, Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) and the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) but also private companies. He said the Delhi High Court order banning the use of plastic bags with a density of less than 20 microns had led to a qualitative change in the direction even as the industry producing these bags had curled up. Talking about the seriousness with which the Delhi government is moving in the direction of solid waste management, he said a sum of Rs 3.5 crore had already been allocated by the Delhi government for procurement of green and white bins for segregated collection of bio-degradable and non-degradable waste in the city. “They are sensitising the children on this issue and are taking it up as a long-term policy programme,” said Vipin. Meanwhile, during the ongoing training programme, he gave an insight to the participants on the world of plastics. He called upon the civic bodies representatives to not look at the issue of plastic bags and the menace caused by them in isolation but to look at tackling the issues thrown up by the plastics as a whole while laying special emphasis on the plastic bags. He dwelt at length how plastic could be recycled to make things of utility and how value needs to be added to discarded plastic so that it became economically viable to recycle it. “We have to link the community and the collectors of discarded plastic to the end product that comes from segregation and recycling,” he said. |
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PNB’s accounts in phishing net
Dehradun, January 6 Some of the customers of the bank are receiving emails with faked domain of the PNB and asking them to enter their personal information in order to update their account unless it will result in termination of the account. “Someone has hacked PNB’s software and is sending the fraudulent emails to the customers with bank’s domain asking them to update their accounts by entering the password and the account number. The moment you enter your personal information the miscreants transfer the money to some other account. In case, a customer wrongly enters his personal information in this email then the customer should as soon as possible change his password or freeze his account number before the information reaches in wrong hands,” informed Archana Sethi, chief manger of the bank. The chief manager added that to make people aware of this they had pasted posters in every branch of the bank and also released circulars. “The customers should be aware of the phishing. The real domain and the duped domain both are totally same, there is only a minute difference in the link of the two,” Sethi said. Surprisingly, this is the only bank whose software has been hacked. Rakshit Tandon, a cyber crime expert, who also helps the government in the cyber crime cases, said the PNB’s software was weak and was slightly more vulnerable to be hacked in comparison to other banks. “The PNB should do something to modernise its technology and should invest in modernisation of the software otherwise it will lose credibility among the customers,” voiced a customer of the bank. Meanwhile, the customers are a harried lot with several such frauds are coming to light with this bank. In a strange case, on December 28, Lt Col D Chaturvedi (retd), who has a pension account at the Survey of India branch of PNB, came to know that an amount of Rs 4,93,528 has been withdrawn from his account by someone. While Chaturvedi doubted that this was done with the connivance of the bank employees, but the bank denies such allegation terming it a case of hacking. “It is impossible that without the authorisation of the bank it could be done. I never shared my password with anyone and never disclosed my personal information,” said the victim. The bank authorities say that this was the case of phishing and transaction password of the customer has been hacked. The SHO of Kotwali police station said nothing was done manually so there was no question of bank’s involvement in it and was a hacking case. Meanwhile, the matter is being probed by the cyber crime cell. |
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Experts discuss alternative sources of energy
Dehradun, January 6 Directors, heads of departments of different colleges, professors and research scholars from different institutions attended the lecture. During the seminar, experts from abroad informed about the optical fibre communication technology, which can prove to be a solution to global warming. Dr EJ Thomas, Deparment of Chemistry, Manchester University, USA, elucidated on Synthesis of Biologically Active Naturals for arriving at Drug Discovery to combat diseases inflicting mankind. Another lecturer from the University of Nevada, USA, Dr BS Rawat informed that nuclear energy and non-renewable sources of energy like fossil fuels were the best-known sources of generating electricity, as of today. He focused on the usage of solar energy for the past 30 years out of which not more than 12 per cent of the energy has been able to achieve efficiently. He elucidated on the urgent need for generating and storing energy efficiently and cost effectively. In his lecture on ‘Energy Challenges of the Future’ he added that countries like France had started researches in generating electricity by using sea currents. Dr Rawat informed that the basic principles of generating electricity through electrons by magnetic induction and electromagnetic induction should be kept into account. Basic natural energies like wind, solar, heat and gravity could be utilised to generate energy. Besides these, electrostatics or tribo electricity could also be explored to generate electricity that could be supplied to houses and offices of the urban as well as rural areas. Dr Rajendra Dobhal, Director, UCOST, said, “India can gain energy security if approaches like solar energy for lighting, LED concept, recycling of light and utilisation of solar energy through photon concept is adopted gradually”. Dr Rawat laid more emphasis on saving energy by the usage of optical fibre technology and on Information Technology that had not been able to keep pace with optical technology till date. It was concluded that optical computers would change the face of energy sector in India in the coming two to three years. Eminent scientists Dr BS Arora, former Director, Wadia Institute of Geology, Dr GS Rawat, secretary, NASI, Prof MSM Rawat, Head, Department of Chemistry, HNB Garhwal University, Dr DP Uniyal, Dr BP Purohit, Dr DS Negi and Dr Prashant Singh, DAV (PG) College, were present at the meet. |
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Rush at LPG refill stations
Dehradun January 6 A large number of LPG customers with empty cylinders were seen at various gas agencies from the early hours of the morning. The first purchaser arrived at the agency at 4 am while others had a tough time to get a refill. Chaos was also witnessed once the distribution started. However, those who could not get a refill, showed their resentment by shouting at the dealers. They demanded for distributing the LPG cylinders at least till 3 or 4 pm, so that even ladies can go to purchase the same without inconvenience. Similar, was the case at other gas agencies in the city. |
Dry spell takes toll on rabi crop
Pitthoragarh, January 6 “The wheat, barley and ‘masur’ crops sown in the Kumoan region required rain in the second fortnight of December, but due to paucity of rain in December these crops are in crisis and if the sufficient rain does not come by January 15, the top soil will start drying,” said AK Singh, agriculture scientist, based at Krishi Vigayan Kendra, Pitthoragarh. As the higher reaches above 9,000 ft are witnessing snowfall the lower valleys are shivering with dry spell, the cold without rains. “In Didihat and the Pitthoragarh areas the temperature has gone down to 4°C, which is a record in the past 10 years, but rain which was a frequent phenomenon every year, is evading the region this year,” said Damoder Rathor, an environment activist. The farmers in the Chaukhutiya region in Almora district are a disappointed lot, as due to lack of sufficient rain their rabi crops are drying out like last year. “If the rabi crops fail this year the farmers will starve,” said Khushal Singh Bora, from Bhikiyashain in Ranikhet. In the potato-rich Champawat region the farmers are losing not only rabi cereals, but also the winter crops of potato, which is a cash crop for the farmers of the region. “We are waiting up to next week and hoping for rain, but even if it does not happen, the farmers of the district will lose more than 90 per cent of their wheat and potato crops,” said Gopal Singh Bhandari, district agriculture officer. “This year even the frost is not sufficient enough to get the top soil smear with moisture. Had the frost been sufficient the farmers would have been able to sustain the crops for some more time,” said AK Singh, agricultural scientist at KVK Pitthoragarh. |
Rain brings cheer to apple growers
Dehradun, January 6 The farmers can now hope for a better crop this year. Buoyed by the rain, the Horticulture Department has issued directives to farmers to plant saplings of apples, pears and walnuts in view of good climatic conditions. Under the National Horticulture Mission plan, 174 hectares are under apple plantation and new plantations of walnuts, peaches and apples are on approximately 210 hectares. The total area under apple production in Chakrata and Kalsi blocks is 6,000 hectares. Procured from the USA by the Horticulture Department, these varieties include star king and top red grown at a height of 6,500 ft and red chief, organ spur, scarlet gala, red Fuji and vale spur, suitable for growing at an elevation of 5,500-6,000 feet. These varieties begin to bear fruit after three years. “The spur varieties of apples are disease resistant and can withstand temperature variations. These grow in cold conditions and require dormancy break of 72 hours in December and January. “We have advised farmers to use cow dung fertilisers and insecticide and also to protect the plant from extreme cold,” said Dr Amar Singh, District Horticulture Officer. Besides distributing free saplings, the Horticulture Department also distributes free fertilisers and nutrients. And around 75 per cent subsidy on apple plantations is also extended to farmers under the centrally funded scheme. “The farmer can get Rs 22,500 as subsidy that is given in instalments in three years,” said District Horticulture Officer Amar Singh. Apples in the state were introduced in the pre-Independence era and the popular variety was red delicious, a hybrid variety that was also introduced in Himachal Pradesh by British officers. In Uttarakhand, apples could not become the mainstay of the economy or even change the fortune of the farmers who did not take to apples in a big way. But the popular red delicious variety of apples is grown mainly in Chobatia, Munsiyari, Chakrata, Uttarkashi, Harsil and Joshimath. |
Ministerial Association holds protest
Dehradun, January 6 The employees submitted a memorandum to Pujan Bharadwaj, Director, Ayurveda and Unani Medicine. Besides the regularisation of ministerial employees, promotion orders of the senior members and setting up of a structure of the ministerial cadre, the employees are demanding the reinstatement of sacked employee DC Budlaokoti. “For the past three months, Budlaokoti is unemployed for no valid reason,” said Sunil Kothari, president of the State Federation of Ministerial Association. They said if their demands were not met soon, then they would launch a massive protest from January 11. |
Youth strangled to death
Nainital, January 6 According to sources, a boy, Ankit Gupta, was recovered from the forests of the Ghoraparav area in the morning. He is said to have been strangled to death. Son of a prominent trader in the Mangalparav area of the township, the victim was studying in Class XII. He had not returned to his house since Tuesday evening. The police is yet to make any headway in solving the case. Even the motive of the murder is yet to be ascertained. Meanwhile, the nursing home, where the alleged rape of a patient had taken place on Sunday night, was ransacked by an agitated mob which indulged in arson. The activists of the Uttarakhand Kranti Dal have sought the cancellation of the license of the nursing home and have pointed out that it is the reluctance of nursing home to recruit proper nursing staff that is leading to such incidents. Accused Jeevan Singh Chilwal has been sent to judicial custody. He was the ward boy who had allegedly committed the crime after sending the husband of 42-year-old victim to purchase certain medicines when the victim had complained of a severe back pain. |
Residents hold protest, demand bypass in town
Nainital, January 6 The residents marched to the sub-division office after a public meeting outside Krishna Talkies. They handed over a memorandum addressed to the Chief Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank for an early solution to the demand raised by them. They said that the demand for a bypass is the need of the entire population of the town. They said if the government fails to take any concrete steps towards addressing the issue, they would be forced to launch an agitation. The residents of the town mentioned that while the
population of Khatima has increased manifold the facilities have failed to keep pace with it. Till 1961, the town was known as a timber market but after that it grew as a commercial centre with various industries and services coming up. In the absence of clear-cut policies and their implementation, the roads in the town fell victim to encroachments by the people. The political parties have kept on promising a solution to the problem of encroachments but have failed to deliver till now. The residents are
now preparing to approach the High Court on this issue. |
Body of tiger found
Dehradun, January 6 “The tiger’s body had injury marks amply revealing signs of struggle with another tiger,” Corbett sources said. Territory struggle continues to be a major reason behind deaths of tigers in Corbett in the recent times. There have been suggestions to expand the area of Corbett, which has is one of the sanctuaries with the highest density of tigers in entire Asia. Today’s tiger death is the first such incident in Corbett in 2010, which is being observed as the year of tigers. |
Street plays spread awareness about road safety
Dehradun, January 6 Performers staged a street plays at Rajpur Road, Hathibarkala, Sai Institute, Dharampur Chowk, ISBT and Gandhi Park imploring people to use helmets while riding two wheelers, not using cell phones while driving cars and the compulsory use of seats belts. At Gandhi Park today, the COO of GVK EMRI Anoop Nautiyal paid tributes to the individuals who lost their lives last year. He said road accidents continue to increase in the state because safety rules were not being followed. He called upon the youth to follow rules while driving. Last year, a total of 3,573 persons were victims of road accidents in Dehradun district. |
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