Fazilka, July 1
The body of Jarnail Singh, a jawan of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), who laid down his life while fighting the Maoists in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, was cremated at his native village Badha, one kilometre from here, today with a guard of honour.

A contingent of the CRPF jawans fired three rounds in the air after reversing their arms and sounding the last bugle as a mark of respect to the departed 
soul. Jarnail Singh was recruited as sepoy in the 39 Battalion of CRPF about 21 years ago.

A sea of humanity descended on the cremation ground which rented with repeated raising of slogans like ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and ‘Jab Tak Sooraj Chand Rahega, Jarnail Singh Tera Nam Rahega.’ People were scrambling to have a last glimpse of their hero. The body was brought to the village in a flower bedecked truck from Malout. A number of youths, who were on motorcycles, were leading the funeral procession.

A large number of people belonging to all age-groups lined up alongside the lanes and bylanes of Badha village 
and waved the Indian tricolour when the body was being taken to the cremation ground from the house of Jarnail Singh.

DIG, CRPF, Sat Pal Rawat, Ferozepur Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav, Surjit Jiyani, MLA, Fazilka, Mohinder Dhingra, chairman, Improvement Trust, Anil Sethi, president, municipal council, Ajay Sood, SDM, Fazilka, Devinder Sachdeva, a political leader and senior functionaries of the police attended the funeral.

Baljeet Singh, nephew of deceased, who received the telephonic message in connection with the death of Jarnail Singh, lit his pyre. Jarnail Singh is 
survived by his parents, wife and two teenaged daughters.

Jarnail Singh was among those CRPF personnel who were killed by the Maoists by laying down an ambush in the thick jungle area of Narainpur-Raipur districts of Chhattisgarh while they were returning to their base camp after executing the road opening task on Tuesday.

The DC said he would write to the Punjab government for extending financial help to the next kin of the family of the deceased. 

Fazilka, July 1
A district-level demonstration against the Congress-led UPA government over skyrocketing prices was held here on Wednesday by the BJP organisational district Abohar unit.

Local MLA Surjit Kumar Jyani, state general secretary of the BJP, Rajiv Jagga, district president, Arun Narang, former MLA, Abohar, Ram Kumar Goyal, local BJP president, Jagdish Setia, Municiapl Council, president, Anil Kumar Sethi, Market Committee, chairman, Ashok Jairath, Zila Parishad, vice-chairman, Prem Kularia, Improvement Trust, chairman, Mohinder Pratap Dhingra led the protest.

Hundreds of activists of the BJP from Fazilka, Abohar, Jalalabad and Balluana Assembly constituencies including women clanged empty utensils as a mark of protest against rising inflation. They held the Central government responsible for the inflation. — OC

Sriganganagar/Abohar, July 1
High incidence of cancer in the Ferozepur district and detection of fresh cases in the Abohar-Fazilka area has started ringing alarm bells in the Sriganganagar district.

Taking notice of the issues raised at the recent rally of newly formed Gang Nahar Bachao Samiti in Sriganganagar as well as by the Rajasthan Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, the administration here launched a comprehensive plan today to check impurity in the drinking water.

Notably, the senior functionaries of the farmer organisations including Captain (retd) Subhash Sehgal and Hans Raj Poonia, husband of the Sriganganagar Zila Parishad chairperson Shanti Devi Poonia, had alleged that the Punjab government was willfully supplying highly contaminated water through the Gang (Bikaner) canal and Rajasthan feeder to Sriganganagar and Hanumangarh region. Sriganganagar DC Ashutosh AT Pednekar confirmed that a campaign has been launched today under the National Rural Drinking Water Quality Control Programme.

The district administration had already organised camps to train ANMs (health workers) to check drinking water resources at village level. The first phase of the programme has been kick-started in Sriganganagar while Srikaranpur and Raisinghnagar would be covered in the second phase, he said.

Fazilka, July 1
“The Beopar Mandal would launch an agitation, if the officials of the Sales Tax department continue to harass the traders. If need be, the traders would roll down their shutters in protest against those officials, who have been troubling them in the name of conducting assessment of their shops.” This was unanimously resolved at a meeting of Beopar Mandal Fazilka held at the local Sundar Ashram recently.

While presiding over the meeting, Beopar Mandal president Ashok Gulbadhar, expressed concern that some officials of the department are harassing the traders though the traders have been depositing the tax regularly.

Citing the example, the Beopar Mandal chief recalled that at the time of implementing VAT in Punjab, the state government had assured the traders that no assessment of the account of the shopkeepers would be made for five years but contrary to it, the government started conducting assessments in the very first year after implementing the Value Added Tax (VAT) causing inconvenience to the traders. Beopar Mandal patron Dina Nath Sachdeva, Punjab Pardesh Beopar Mandal secretary Satish Kumar Dhingra and representatives of more than five dozen trader unions participated. 

Bathinda, July 1
With admission process beginning, fresh faces beautifully attired can be sighted in almost every college here.City colleges are welcoming freshers with wide range of courses, like BA, B.Com, B.Sc (in different streams), PGDCA, BBA, BCA, MBA, MCA, MBA, M.Sc and various other professional courses like engineering.

Also, a spirit of competition is evident as various educational institutions try to allure students with offers of discounts and incentive plans.

The Government Rajindra College was observed as the first choice of a majority of the students, may be due to its nominal fee structure and various other reasons including its decades old history.

The most sought after course in Rajindra College is BA, for which the college has about 600 seats, while more than 1000 students have already submitted their admission forms. The college is still hopeful of hundreds more till the final merit list will be displayed on July 5. Further, the college is getting good response for admission in B.Sc (non-medical), where more than 300 students have already applied for admission against a total of 80 seats.

Among other courses, for which the college is getting a substantial number of application forms is B.Com. Admissions for B.Com-I will start from July 2 but about 290 students have submitted their forms against a total number of 120 seats.

Principal of the college, Sukhchain Rai Garg said the number of application forms was quite high than in the previous year.

Further, going through the details procured from the DAV College, it was found that the college was offering a special discount to allure students, who had scored pretty well in their previous classes.

It mentions that students applying with 90 per cent and above marks in previous classes will be charged only Rs 350 as college fee per semester, while students with marks between 80-90 per cent will have to pay Rs 1,000 and students with 70-80 per cent score will be charged Rs 1500 as semester fee.

Further, the college is even offering substantial fee concession to students who have won gold medal in any sports event or cultural activity.

On the other hand, if one goes by the regular fee structure of the college, it appears to be quite hefty in comparison to the government college.

About the response from students, college authorities said except for B.Com-I, applications for all other classes were less in number as students would come to them only after they are unable to get admission in government college.

Principal of the DAV College Dr JS Anand said he was aware that students prefer Government College due to its nominal fee structure but he maintained that the quality of education in DAV College was incomparable.

Though students have started approaching the SSD Girls’ college, the staff there was still waiting for admissions to gather pace.

The Baba Farid Group of Institutions, located at village Deon in Bathinda, is also offering a number of awards, concessions and scholarships to attract students. Its spokesperson informed that students had started turning up for admission but there were still some courses, for which, the admission process was yet to start. 

Bathinda, July 1
Local Congress MLA Harminder Singh Jassi today started 10-day corner meetings’ programme in the city to listen to the problems being faced by the residents in connection with power cuts, drinking water, disposal of water, sanitation etc.

Today’s meeting was held in Bhuleria mohalla of ward number 23.

On the occasion, Jassi said after apprising himself of the problems being faced by residents that he would raise the same at proper platforms so that these could be redressed.

The MLA said during the rule of the SAD-BJP government, the city’s development had been affected adversely though Badals had been making tall claims of developing this city as a model city in the state.

The legislator said his programme would continue in the wards till July 10. In these programmes, he would meet people and would make all efforts to get their problems resolved by taking up the issues with the authorities concerned, he added. — TNS

Bathinda, July 1
A wreath laying ceremony was organized in the honour of soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for their motherland at Yodha Yaadgar in the Army campus at Bathinda. The ceremony was held today on the occasion of the 31st Raising Day of the 10 Corps.

The wreaths were laid by General Officer Commanding (GOC) and the Chief of Staff of Chetak Corps. The occasion was solemnized by 14 Offrs amongst 60 other ranks in the attendance of the Guard of Honour and a pipe band.

The parade included sounding of the last post and a two-minute silence in the memory of the sacrifice of the martyrs. The event was conducted with complete ceremonial décor and honour to the valiant soldiers in the highest traditions of the Indian Army. — TNS