Dehradun, July 25
The body of Lance Naik Rohit Gurung (30), who died in a landmine blast in Poonch district, was cremated with full official honours in Chanderbani crematorium.

Rohit died on the spot, while a Junior Commissioned Officer got injured when he stepped over a landmine resulting in this powerful blast. His body reached Dehradun at about 6:30 am. JCO A Mukherjee, along with 2/5 Gorkha Regiment colleagues, brought the body to Doon.

Relatives and friends gathered at the house of Gurung as his body arrived his Jaliwala-situated home this morning to pay obeisance. Social Welfare Minister Khazan Das, MLA Rajpur Ganesh Joshi, MLA Lakshman Zhula Dinesh Agarwal and Bharuwala Grant pradhan Sarita Gurung visited the family of the martyr.

A large number of persons followed the body of the departed officer to the cremation ground. Relatives and other dignitaries of the state government laid floral wreaths. The martyr was given official honour by his infantry colleagues.

Army retired Prem Gurung, father of Rohit, said had he got another son he would have sent him in the Army. He added that it was a matter of pride for him that his son had laid down his life for the country.

Rohit’s mother Rita and wife Suman wept incessantly. The inconsolable wife of the martyr said, “Though we are sad on his demise, we are proud that he has attained martyrdom”.

Dehradun, July 25
Families of the six martyrs of the Kargil war and three of Operation Prakram were honoured by the Subhash Nagar-Member district panchayat at Jogiwala here today.

They were offered shawls, honour letters, mementos and chandan saplings by the panchayat, said Subhash Bhatt, member of the Panchayat.

Literary personality Leeladhar Jagudi presented the mementos and shawls to the families of the martyrs.

Sarita Devi, wife of Bhairab Datt who died in Operation Prakram, rued that her brother-in-law (26) was unemployed and hadn’t been given a job by the government as was promised.

Sarita, mother of two in Mothrowala, is surviving on her husband’s pension. Her brother-in-law and mother-in-law live in the same house, while her father-in-law died a few years ago. “There is no earning hand in the family. We have visited government offices several times for job, but nothing has happened,” she said.

Son Dhan Singh and wife Kalavati Bisht of martyr Hawaldar Ranjit Singh lamented that they hadn’t got the possession of the land they were promised till today.

“Even after making several efforts, we didn’t get the possession of the land the government had announced for us,” said Dhan Singh who lives in Nathanpur.

For father Mangal Singh Rawat whose son Pankaj Rawat died in his first posting during Operation Prakaram in 2002, there was no fear. He didn’t hesitate sending his another son for the service of the nation.

Mangal, who is a farmer of Raipur, said it was a matter of pride for him that his son had died for a noble cause.

Dehradun, July 25
While the young and old alike have fun riding in ropeway trolleys, the dangers involved are ignored most of the time. Friday’s incident in which a major tragedy was averted at the Sahastradhara ropeway has exposed the lack of preparedness and safety measures at such spots by ropeway operators and the administration.

Due to a technical snag in the 300-m ropeway, run by a private company, at Sahastradhara, the trolley had to be halted midway. It was reportedly experiencing jerks.

According to reports, as members of the staff were travelling in the trolley at the time of the incident, a major tragedy was averted. They were later rescued.

Investigations revealed that checks are seldom done at these centres which double as amusement parks.

No effort is made by the district administration or any other government authority to see whether these are serviced and maintained properly from time to time.

As per experts, persons riding in aerial ropeways can be subject to a high degree of risk if any important part of the plant fails or malfunctions. So the operating company needs to take foolproof steps to ensure the safety of the riders.

Major inspections are mandatory in the event of a failure, upgrading and a change in the original design, added the experts.

The fact that no rescue and medical teams are visible at these spots compounds the problem.

Neither the administration nor the ropeway employers seem to be taking the matter seriously despite the Revenue Department being quite regular in collecting entertainment tax which almost comes to 30 per cent of the collection.

AK Tiwari, manager of the Sahastradhara ropeway, said that if any accident occurs, they follow the disaster management system. The police is immediately called for assistance which then brings it into the notice of the Fire Department, medical team and the local community.

“All private players operating ropeways should have a rescue team capable of taking immediate action. We usually send our team on receiving a call,” said MA Ganpathy, IG, Garhwal range.

But Sahastradhara is located a little distance away from Dehradun and a tragedy can take place by the time the police arrives on the scene.

The Tribune learnt that at Sahastradhara, the owner had developed the ropeway on his property and had to go through 15 departments for a no-objection certificate. But there are no stringent measures to ensure regular maintenance which is mostly left to the owner.

Experts said that for these fixed grip ropeways, magnetic efficiency, grip and age of iron should be checked half yearly. AK Tiwari said that maintenance at the Sahastradhara ropeway was being undertaken by a third party and utmost care was taken that all suggestions were followed. The last maintenance at the ropeway was carried out in January last year.

Dehradun, July 25
The formation of Lok Shiksha Samitis at the district level in the state for the Sakshar Bharat Mission programme has got derailed, due to litigation in the court.

The mission, aimed at reducing illiteracy among target groups began work in March 2010 by creating Lok Shiksha Samitis at the panchayat level, hit a road block after the Zila Panchayat Adhyaksh of Haridwar went to court resenting the importance being given to the District Magistrate in the Zila Lok Shiksha Samiti.

While the ground work of educating the target groups through the services of voluntary motivators is on since March 2010 and is as per satisfaction, it is the lack of progress at the district level that is worrying the officials.

In reply, the government of Uttarakhand had filed a counter affidavit to expedite the matter which is still pending in the court.

“We began working on the mission in March 2010 and our work at the gram panchayat level is moving on course with joint accounts being opened in the name of gram pradhans and head teacher. We have managed to form Public Literacy Centres or Lok Shiksha Kendras where the classes will be held in 50 per cent of the villages,” said Manisha Panwar, Secretary, Education.

In all, there are 2,282 gram panchayats in the state. Besides, the main exercise of surveying illiterates has to be undertaken in the villages so that they can become part of the programme. “The exercise has to be followed up at the block and district levels, but soon we will be out with our own web portal where every detail of the survey and the number of people being educated along with their names will be on the web. At least 20 per cent of the work will be complete by August,” said RK Kunwar, Additional Director, Education and Project Manager, for the programme.

The five districts selected for the programme in Uttarakhand are Tehri with 49.04 per cent women’s literacy, Bageshwar with 57, Udham Singh Nagar with 53.04, Haridwar with 52.01 and Champawat with 54.02 per cent women literacy as per the census figures of 2001.

The State Literacy Mission (SLM) is conducting this programme in Uttarakhand. “We have before us an ambitious target of taking the national literacy levels from 64 per cent currently to 80 per cent by 2017, and reduce the gender gap from 21 per cent at present to 10 per cent, eventually,” said Manavi Tripathi, Executive Director, State Resource Centre.

Tribune News Service
The much-awaited rains, when it came, exposed the tall claims of the government and the administration about their preparedness. As expected the traffic came to a standstill repeatedly in various parts of the region with travellers being left high and dry.

The trailer of what was expected had been felt in Nainital weeks back when the first rain had tones of filth floating into the famous Naini Lake.

The preparedness of the administration could well be gauged from the fact that an excavating machine got submerged while cleaning the muck.

Three cranes took three days to pull it out and all this while the traffic had gone for a toss. But, things have been much worse in other parts, primarily rural areas, of the region.

Mussoorie, July 25
More than 2,000 saplings were planted in various schools and organisations of the city till now, but the past experience suggests that only a few will go on to become trees and contribute to a safe environment.

Gurbaksh Singh Sahni, a retired school teacher, however, has a different approach to the whole plantation drive in Mussoorie.

Sahni, along with four other young enthusiasts, has chosen to plant only five saplings every Tuesday in the area which is prone to landslides in Mussoorie. Sahni said merely planting saplings in large numbers and then forgetting these was not the correct method to increase greenery in the town. They had adopted a more sensible way by planting only five saplings and caring for these on a weekly basis. He said five of them during their morning walk would keep an eye and nurture the saplings of oak, cyprus, silver oak, etc. on a regular basis. Five trees are manageable leading to affinity towards each plant in the process to more chances of their survival.

He said their group, which they fondly called Koshish, was formed accidentally. One day he was sitting in his room after retirement and watching a tree in front of his window. Suddenly he started chatting with the tree and energised by the talk he jotted down a poem which was liked by young students. It was then the five of them united and planned to do something worthwhile for the country and the planet. And this is how the Koshish came into being, said Sahni.

Sunil Panwar and Vinayak, other members of the group, said till now they had planted more than 35 saplings and all were surviving and were in a good shape. They had resolved to care for these till the end of their lives. Vinayak further said they had named the trees to create a bonding with the them.

The other members of the Koshish are Mannu Aggarwal and Sandeep Aggarwal.

Dehradun, July 25
A three-day national-level data users’ seminar for teachers of the Senior Secondary School level began here yesterday. Inaugurating the seminar, Dr B Bhattacharjee, member of the National Disaster Management Authority, laid stress on the importance of sensitisation among schoolchildren towards precaution against disasters.

Dr M Sudhakar, Adviser, Ministry of Environment and Sciences, called for frequent convening of such seminars. He said teachers held much importance as they gave a turn to the society by molding the lives of younger generation.

Manoj Tayal, Additional Director General of Survey of India, and Dr Saraswati Raju from Jawaharlal Nehru University, were other prominent speakers on the inaugural session of the seminar.

Among those who participated in the sessions included Dr AK Mahajan, a scientist at Wadia Institute, and SS Khera of Welham School delivered their address on trees on Doon.

The seminar will familiarise the teachers with data users and training to use data effectively as a teaching tool. The workshop further aims to undertake capacity building of the participants.

A seminar is being organised by the Learning in Geography, Humanities, Technology and Science (LIGHTS) and supported by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Central Waters Commission and Ministry of Environment and Forests.

Nainital, July 25
Taking a lead in yet another sphere amongst the state agriculture universities of India, the Gobind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology at Pantnagar has launched an International School of Agriculture.

The school was launched by Agriculture Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat yesterday. Simultaneously, the first academic programme of the school international diploma on hi-tech agriculture was also shown a green flag.

The first batch of this course comprises 11 students from Maldives who were present on the occasion. Member of Parliament from the Nainital Constituency KC Singh Baba, along with legislator HS Cheema and a former legislator Preetam Singh Panwar, was also present.

Rawat said the international programme would bring people of two countries closer and hoped that Maldivian students would carry the age-old Indian message of Vasudev Kutumbkum to their country and other places around the world. Cheema and Panwar, while appreciating the efforts of the university to have its impact globally through its students, faculty and seeds, described the school as another milestone in the golden jubilee celebration of the university.

Vice-Chancellor Dr BS Bisht stated that the programme had been meticulously designed as per the needs of Maldives and approved by the Academic Council, Board of Management and the Government of Uttarakhand. It would be run on self-financing mode with little or no extra investment on infrastructure, faculty, farm, laboratory, etc. He said the existing resources would be meaningfully used to run the course effectively. He also said the university planed to design new international courses in future.

“In this era of the globalisation, new campuses may be started in other nations in times to come high hopes are attached with this programme to prepare faculty for the agricultural education at global level,” he added.

Registrar and Course Coordinator of this programme Dr J Kumar said the course would use innovative custom-made curriculum, teaching methodologies and evaluation procedure. It is envisaged to use concurrent evaluation of participants and faculty for continuous improvement.

Dr J Kumar added the experiences gained by experts during the course would help in planning for future international programmes.

Dehradun, July 25
Avdhesh Chaudhary and Kamlesh have been elected as president and general secretary of the Uttarakhand Volleyball Association, respectively. The new office-bearers were announced by Rama Avtaar Singh Jakhad, observer of the Volleyball Federation India and joint secretary, at a press conference here today.

The association today held an election under the supervision of Jakhad, Narayan Singh Rana, president of the Sports Council, Magistrate DD Sharma (retd), Election Officer and GS Kohli, vice-president of the Olympic Association, Uttrakhand.

The elected candidates expressed their gratitude to the association and undertook the responsibility with eagerness and dedication.

Mussoorie, July 25
It seems that the green project, a dream project of the state government undertaken by Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank with much fanfare recently, has gone haywire due to the callous attitude of various departments involved in it.

Saplings of oak, cedar, silver oak and bamboo brought for plantation have been left, without any sensitivity or care by forest officials, on the side of the Survey Road in Mussoorie.

The saplings were destined for the Khatta Pani area, but low-rung officials have left these in an abandoned state on the premises of the Survey of India Department. When the locals demanded the saplings for plantation, the guards refused them as the premises fall under the Defence Ministry, and entering without permission would lead to trouble.

The Chief Minister had announced to achieve the target of planting six lakh saplings this monsoon, but witnessing the callous attitude of the officials it seems to be a far-fetched idea as most of the saplings will meet an untimely death as these have been strewn on the Mussoorie-Dehradun road and on the road leading to the Survey Ground.

Guards in the Survey of India Department informed that the saplings had been dumped there from elsewhere and were on look out for the real owner.

On the other hand Divisional Forest Officer RG Verma was of the view that their plants had been kept in various designated nurseries in Mussoorie and they had already distributed more than 10,000 saplings in three days. He added that some enthusiasts might have taken the saplings for plantation, but considering the distance of Khata Pani, abandoned those to fetch them later. A register is maintained for every sapling, but people also had a responsibility to treat the saplings in a caring manner and not let these go waste.

When asked about the saplings strewn on the Mussoorie-Dehradun road, he said he would look into the matter. If this exercise continued, the government might achieve the target, but the survival rate would always be under question, he added.

Dehradun, July 25
Doon Star defeated the Gorkha United Football Club 3-1 in the Nemidass Super District Football League held on the Pavilion Ground here today.

Rajesh (55th minute), Sanjay Saini (55th) and Nitin Saini (65th) each scored a goal for the winning side. While Mona netted the lone goal in the 16th minute for Gorkha United.

For CT Young it was one-sided affair beating Sarvodaya 5-0. Goswami (20th), V Nair (25th), Rakesh (55th and 72nd) and Amit (70th minute) scored goals to enable their side to register facile win.

Tomorrow Sunderwala will face Gorkha United on the Pavilion Ground.

Dehradun, July 25
On the closing day of the two-day acting workshop conducted by the Roshan Taneja Foundation for Performing Arts, participants gave thrilling performances as guided by their mentors.

Roshan Taneja, a renowned personality in the film fraternity, started an acting school in Dehradun two months back to hone the skills of budding actors, and the course has reached half way. Admissions were conducted on the basis of an audition, but to give more knowledge about the theatre and the entertainment world, the acting school held a two-day workshop, free of cost.

The director of the school enlightened the participants at the workshop and promised to conduct similar programmes relating to acting in the future.

Dehradun, July 25
A government functionary sitting in one corner of the state will be able to keep tabs on the progress of important projects by holding video conferencing with other officials sitting in any part of the state. This is made possible through the first Himalayan info highway called as the Uttarakhand State Wide Area Network (U-SWAN) to be launched shortly.

It will be able to provide connectivity at all 85 tehsils and 95 blocks of the hill state through two-four MBPS lines, a first for the IT Department of Uttarakhand that had pretty little to boast about in the past five years.

“The project is ready and we will be able to achieve a high degree of connectivity between tehsil-block-district and the state headquarters and ushering in connectivity between inter departments and also the Central government,” said Nitesh Jha, Additional Secretary of the IT Department.

The project is expected to give fair degree of mobility to officials at all levels without moving an inch from their chairs, thereby saving vital time. The arduous geographical landscape in the state has always been a handicap and for the first time it will addressed via technology which is very simple and commonplace.

All land records will be available on line, simplifying procedures and ushering in more transparency and openness in land transactions. The project has been completed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) together with the BSNL extending its lease lines network, costing around Rs 76 crore. Initially, the project cost was Rs 95 crore when it was being given on the PPP mode.

The government is also setting up a state data centre at the Secretariat with the total project cost of Rs 43 crore. The centre is expected to house all records of the state, to be available at the click of the mouse for officials.

Besides, records of other departments like revenue, police, agriculture, and finance, too, would be available online.

Dehradun, July 25
In order to deliver assistance to needy women, specially in the Garhwal region, the Mahila Adhikar Vikas Samiti, an NGO, announced free education, vocational training, eye checkups and conducting training camps of knitting, sewing and stitching for them.

Anjana Uniyal Walia, president of the organisation, also accused the state government of assuring fake promises to the public and not materialising those.

While addressing mediapersons, Walia said the programme would be initiated with the aim of providing awareness, making women self-reliant and independent. The organisation would also give them credit as well as fulfil their needs so that they could also have a peaceful life ahead.