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Mining on Gola Riverbed
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Govt to rid cities of slums under JNNURM
Govt mulls yoga as subject up to Class V
Creative camp at Nanhi Duniya ends
Sangeet Natak Academy gets campus
Cricket: Associations fail to hold tournaments at junior level
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Mining on Gola Riverbed
Dehradun, January 10 The Union Minister was talking to the media on the sidelines of the inauguration of a photo gallery at City Centre of the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun. Ramesh also categorically held that his ministry was working as per the laws vis-à-vis the Gola river quarrying issue. The minister’s statement assumes significance keeping in view the recent ban on quarrying on the Gola riverbed by the Environment and Forest Ministry, after which prices of construction materials have soared in the region and the ban has rendered many people jobless. Admitting that poaching was becoming a much-organised crime and affecting wildlife enormously, the minister said the participation of local people was a most-effective solution. “We have seen in Gir. How the Maldari community has saved the lion for generations. Similar efforts need to be done to protect tiger elsewhere as police methods are not the solution,” Ramesh said, adding that while 2009 had witnessed a high number of tiger deaths, 2010, being the Year of the Tiger, could further fuel tiger-poaching activities. Dwelling at length on the Uttarakhand wildlife, the minister said the tiger scenario in Uttarakhand was still satisfactory compared to other parts of the country. Disclosing that a Van Gujjar Social Protection Force has been planned for Corbett, he ruled out the eviction of Gujjars from forest areas. “Gujjars are only being shifted from core areas to buffer areas inside the protected zones,” he said. Ramesh also strongly favoured the utilisation of funds generated through eco tourism in a particular protected area for its complete betterment. The Union Minister also spent a good amount of time viewing exhibits at the photo gallery that has come up at the heritage city centre of the FRI building in
Dehradun.
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Guinness record holder teaches kids how to be positive
Dehradun, January 10 Good at communicating with children at their level, thanks to his job which ingrained such skills in him, he wove interesting anecdotes, stories and poems to teach them the significance of positive and persisting attitude. There couldn’t be better than him in this context as someone who exemplified such ethical values in life. Talking to The Tribune, Paramjot credited his parents for instilling in him love for music, specifically for playing the tabla. His father, who sat near him, said it was his tenant, a music teacher in a college, who inspired him to let his children learn from the music teacher. Now, he has been learning from Ustad Kulwinder Singh (disciple of Ustad Allarakha Khan) for the past nine years. When hobby became passion, Paramjot had no idea. It was his other hobby to watch Guinness world records on TV, which he found funny and sporty, leading him to grope for similar feat for himself. He said: “When I searched, I found out a record holder who played tabla for 301 hours. And then I practised vigorously for 13 days. Thereafter, I contacted the Guinness records authorities on the Internet and completed all formalities. I sat on the table in Gurdwara Dukh Niwaran Sahib before the scrutiny of people and played from April 5 to 19. I was allowed to take 5-minute rest every one hour. I used to use collective rest of two hours after 24 hour or one hour in 12 hour or so accordingly.” He thanked his family for their unstinted support during that testing time. “It was six members of my family who would continue to talk to me to deviate my mind from sleep. Last three days filled me with excruciating pain. I lost sense of time, surrounding and myself. My parents, too, became wary of my mental equilibrium. They would feed me whereas my hands were on tabla all the time. The moment I crossed few minutes above 301, I was about to stop but a phone from Canada rang up to ask my parent to finish me at 313, to turn the perception of considering 13 as inauspicious. The euphoria of having made to the records invigorated me with new-found energy and I forgot the burden of fatigue and sleeplessness in a jiffy,” he smiled. Paramjot’s journey from being ordinary to extraordinary brought a whiff of good things along with, not the usual ‘success getting on head’ phenomena. “The recognition, which I wanted to earn to bring laurel to my community, made me more responsible. I feel, I am being watched by prying eyes all the time, so I weight my words and conduct before others,” he remarked. Taste of this new success has egged him on to conquer another record of 1,260 beat in one minute on tabla. He has already reached to the level of 1,200 beat. Other than that, he is coming with a video album with his friends. He also wants to turn his passion as paying profession so as to be able to spend all his time with it. “I have floated a website on which I would teach tabla online to students worldwide. I have already prepared 70 videos of tabla lessons,” he summed up.
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Govt to rid cities of slums under JNNURM
Dehradun, January 10 In consonance with the policy on slums of the Central government that aims to rid the country of slums in five years, the state government, too, has to fulfil the mandate. “It will be a comprehensive survey that will provide information on the number of slums, livelihood needs of the people residing in these, facility for drainage and sanitation. The survey will be completed in three months for which an expression of interest has already been floated,” said Nidhi Mani Tripathi, Director, Urban Development. While the Central government favours giving property rights to slum dwellers, the issue continues to be tricky in the state with land becoming a scarce commodity. Moreover, changes in property legislations will have to be brought in to factor in giving possession rights to new settlers. The Basic Service for the Urban Poor (BSUP) programme under JNNURM is under way in Nainital, Haridwar and Dehradun. In Dehradun, six slum-renewal projects are under way. At the Shantikushth, a colony of lepers and one of the projects, 30 per cent of work towards renovation and reorientation of 28 houses has been undertaken. In Ram Mandir Colony, 40 per cent of work towards renovation of houses, building of toilets and livelihood centres has been completed. The Rotary Kusht Ashram project has not taken off as only two parties responded to the tender. As a result, the matter has been referred to the Finance Department. For the Chaksha Nagar project, Rs 2.4 crore have been released and the Khala Basti in-situ project, for which 80 houses have been sanctioned, 16 residents have approached the courts expressing dissatisfaction with the design of the houses. “We have begun work from the other side of the basti, excluding the houses whose residents have approached the courts,” said Tripathi. The Pandewala slum project under BSUP in Haridwar also involves rehabilitation and construction of houses and toilets on which a total of Rs 96 crore will be spent. In Nainital, 200 houses in Durgapur have to be rehabilitated for which Rs 2 crore (approx) has been sanctioned.
The project took off only lately after the issue of high tension wires passing over the area was
sorted out. For the non-mission cities on the lines of Urban Infrastructure and Governance (UIG), work has been started in Mussoorie to overhaul sewerage with an allocation of Rs 79.7 crore, of which Rs 24 crore had been released in October. Ten zones have been earmarked for strengthening water lines and sanitation to be undertaken by Peyjal Nigam in 2010 The Central government has sanctioned two more projects under the Urban Infrastructure Development for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) programme that includes solid waste management for Chamoli and Gopeshwar. Since the launch of the mission in December, 2005, a significant progress has been made in triggering reforms in the urban sector across the country but Uttarakhand is still lagging behind.
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Govt mulls yoga as subject up to Class V
Nainital, January 10 Bisht said: “We are having talks with Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth for introducing yoga as a subject from Class I to V. The course has already been designed by Acharya Balkrishan who is a close associate of Baba Ramdev”. He said in the first phase, the yoga studies would be introduced in the schools located in urban and semi-urban areas of Uttarakhand and at a later stage these would be introduced in the schools in rural areas. The minister also said as of now no new teachers would be recruited for teaching the subject, but the teachers who were interested in teaching yoga would be given the responsibility to give training in yoga. He further said the government had undertaken an exercise to simplify and make attractive the curriculum in mathematics so that more and more students took up the subject out of sheer liking. Talking about the changes being introduced in the educational setup, he said the government was promoting teachers to ensure that schools did not remain without head. Till now, 111 principals of high schools had been promoted as principals of inter colleges. Similarly, 124 teaches had been promoted as high school principals and 117 teachers as high school teachers. The minister said the government was in the process of recruiting 1,600 LTA teachers outside the purview of the State Public
Service Commission. Talking about ensuring a proper execution of the Mid-day Meal scheme in the schools across the state, Bisht said the government was appointing district coordinators for the purpose. Meanwhile, the minister said if there were two government schools within an area of 1 km and having a strength of less than 10 students, the government planned to shut down one ot the two schools.
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Creative camp at Nanhi Duniya ends
Dehradun, January 10 The 15-day camp was conducted by Alok Ulfat and his team from India and abroad. Ulfat completed teachers’ training in the United Kingdom and has been closely associated with the National School of Drama, Film and Television Institute of India and is presently developing alternative curriculum for schools. Chief guest for the occasion was AK Johri, Director, Operations and Projects, UPCL. Organised for eight-16 years age group, it aimed to hone the creative, and intellectual abilities of students through music, creative writing and story-telling. However, the attraction of the day was a captivating play and dance by the team members. Enthusiastic children dressed in the chilly evening danced and enjoyed being a part of such a camp. The team of teachers included Satvika Goyal (Shamak Davar trained dancer), Raman (actor), Sachin (actor), Florian (acrobat, guitarist), Veronica (teacher), Linnya (teacher), Mansi (acting coach).
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Sangeet Natak Academy gets campus
Dehradun, January 10 The announcement that took place here today is expected to give the necessary fillip to art and culture in the state. The minister held that while ownership of the city centre would be purely with the FRI, it could be used for activities linked to art and culture. He suggested that a memorandum of understanding be signed between the FRI and the state authorities to work out the modalities of such an arrangment. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had requested the Union Minister for facilitating the opening up of the Sangeet Natak Academy at the FRI city centre. The minister also described Dehradun as the forest capital of India and asserted that the time was not far when the entire forestry headquarters would be shifted to Dehradun from Delhi.
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Cricket: Associations fail to hold tournaments at junior level
Dehradun, January 10 The state associations are sweating it out in the promotion of cricket. There is just one tournament throughout the state in the under-15 category, organised by the Little Master Cricket Club (LMCC). Narendra Shah, president of the LMCC, said, “The associations are more concerned about getting affiliation from the BCCI. They may organise tournaments at the senior level to show their involvement in cricket, but they are ignoring the most important aspect for the promotion of cricket at the junior level. “They should make efforts to organise as many tournaments for the young cricketers as is being for the seniors”. He was of the view that tournaments would be of great help to identify talented upcoming players at a relatively young age and then help them evolve gradually. The association are not to be blamed completely for lack of involvement, the schools are also equally responsible for not doing their bit. Presently the schools in Dehradun are more satisfied to organise cricket at the inter-school level during a particular season. After the season gets over they take the least interest in making their teams participate in district-level matches, which automatically provides a bigger platform for the game. The other big block in organising the u-15 level tournament is absence of cricket grounds. The grounds used for holding the tournaments are mostly occupied for senior-level tournaments, therefore, leaving no place for any other tournaments.
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Abhimanyu Cricket Academy thump LMCC with 118 runs
Dehradun, January 10 Batting first, Abhimanyu Cricket Academy piled a modest total. It scored 233 runs in 34 overs. The team began with a fine start with its opener Vishal scoring 86 runs in 51 balls smashing the bowlers in all directions. Once Vishal set the pace for his team, then no bowlers could stop ACA team batsman. The team maintained the run rate throughout the match. Lower order batsman Sunny was the second highest scorer for the ACA team. Another batsman Nishant scored 27 runs in 32 balls. LMCC team members although took wickets at regular interval, but they failed to curtail the ACA team from scoring freely. Rahul was the most successful bowler for the team. He took three wickets in his four overs spell, whereas Vipul, Sunny, Manoj, Jaibeer and Sonu took one wickets each. The target of 234 runs proved to be an uphill task for the LMCC team. Its batsmen failed to adjust to the tight bowling line up of the ACA team. The LMCC lost its first wicket at 17 runs in the form of
Vishal Kumar. Another opener Nadeem scored 16 runs in 35 balls. First down batsman Jaibeer scored 16 runs. Middle order batsman Vipul showed some resistance and scored 29 runs. But after him there was no other batsman who clicked for his team. For ACA team Sushant was the lead wicket taker. He scored three wickets in his six over spell, while Nishant and Saksham took two wickets each.
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Lalit's fiery 50 leads Sachivalay to victory
Dehradun, January 10 The Axis Bank batsmen -failed completely to put up a good total. The team could only managed to score 173 runs in their 35 overs. Though it was a fine start by Axis Bank team. Its opening pair of Amit and Chandan scored 35 runs in the first eight overs. Amit made 23 runs off 33 balls, whereas Chandan just managed to score nine runs. First down batsman Manish scored 28 runs off 43 balls. Supporting him on the other end was Piyush who made a useful contribution of 30 runs off 31 balls. Lower order batsman Ravinder was the highest scorer for the team with 31 runs. For Sachivalay team, Lalit took two wickets in his five over spell, whereas TH Khan, Bhupender, Deepak and Rajender took one wickets each. In reply Sachivalay began its innings on a bad note. It lost both its openers in the first five overs of the match at the score of 12 runs. First down batsman Amit along with Bhupender tried to stabilise their team run rate, but were soon out for 16 and 15 runs respectively. It was through Lalit that the team made a comeback in the match and then went on to win. He made 51 runs off 54 balls. Another lower order batsman Rajender scored 31 runs, whereas Vikas scored 23 runs. For Axis Bank, Rakesh was the pick of the bowlers. He took four wickets in his first five over spell, whereas Vikas claimed two wickets. In the end Sachivalay won by two wickets.
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Winter camp concludes
Dehradun, January 10 This was the third year in succession that this camp was organised at the inter-college. As many as students from 16 schools participated at the camp. Children in the age group of 6 to 15 years took part at the camp. Mayor Vinod Chamoli was chief guest on the closing ceremony along with the Kedar Singh Fonia, patron of the academy and SB Joshi, in-charge of planning department. Vipin Singh organiser of the camp said, “The camp turned out to be a huge success. Seeing the good response, we have decided to open up a Strikers Sports Academy, that will completely focus on the games.” Revealing more about the camp he said, “At the camp young children of various age were imparted basic knowledge about the different games and their rules. The children were also educated about the importance of being fit.” He said that in the present scenario, children are more inclined to play games on their computers and spend most of the time on studies, which makes them sluggish and physically inactive. There were five coaches who groomed children at the camp.
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