Nainital, August 22
With incessant rains continuing to lash the Kumaon region, there are problems galore for residents of the region on account of disruptions in transportation along with water and power supplies.

Floods continue to cause havoc in the Terai region, particularly in parts of Udham Singh Nagar where people from eight villages in Sitarganj and Shakti Farm areas are learnt to have been shifted to safer places. The rising level of the Sukhi river has led to the breaching of the embankment causing the floods.

Even in Nainital district, villages like Thapla in the Kotabagh region are facing a large-scale destruction on account of the rising level of the Nihal river, forcing people to move to safer areas.

A major tragedy at Syat village, near Kotabagh, was averted as children of a Navodaya Vidyalaya had gone home on account of the holidays being declared on account of the weather condition. A major landslide damaged the school hostel which otherwise would have had the presence of more than 200 children.

Waking up in the light of the Sumgadh tragedy of last week in which 18 children were buried alive, the Education Department in Nainital district has declared 20 schools as sensitive and six others as very sensitive and has advised the Principals not to run classes in the endangered buildings.

Meanwhile, a woman from Chhota Haldwani village reportedly fell into the Baur river while taking her cattle out to graze. She was washed away in the flow of the river.

The link between Chor Galiya and Sitarganj was also snapped on Saturday on account of breaches in the embankment of Sukhi river. This compelled the people to go via Kitcha.

Nainital, August 22
The voice that moved the conscience of the masses of Uttarakhand has fallen silent. A man with multiple facets of being a social activist, a poet, a cinema artiste, a theatre personality and above all a lovable human being, Girish Tiwari, who was fondly called Girda, breathed his last at the Sushila Tewari Hospital in Haldwani this morning. Although he had been battling ill health for long, an ulcer that had burst proved the immediate cause of his death.

His departure has left a void in the social life of the state. Girda was a man who thought from his heart and loved being among the common people. He was the first to turn up at events where people’s issues were being taken up. He was a “rebel for a cause”, as his friends describe his personality.

Born into a rich family of Jyoli village in Hawalbagh Block of Almora on September 10, 1945, Girda did not have a proper formal schooling. However, he studied up to intermediate as a private student. Always wanting to be amongst the masses, he even plied a rickshaw in Lucknow before going onto work at low ranks in the Public Works Department and the Hydel Department. At the same time he was a regular feature on the All-India Radio. He went on to join the Song and Drama Division of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry in 1967 and then took voluntary retirement in 1996. Despite being a government servant he always stood up for the cause of the masses and never shied in standing along with the common man.

His coming to limelight in the field of social activism is traced back to 1977 when he led the protests in the Forest Movement in Kumaon playing on the hudka (musical insturment) and singing songs. The movement saw an end to the auction of forests along with the burning down of the state guest house in Nainital. His song, “Aaj Himalaya tumin ke dhatyu cha, Jago ho jago meri lal; Nahin kari di halo hamri neelami, Nahin kari di halo hamro halal...” (Today the Himalaya calls upon you my son to wake up, don’t allow them to auction and slaughter trees) had become an anthem of the movement.

His old associate Vinod Pande relates that Girda was deeply influenced by the Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and had translated a large number of his works into Kumaoni, including his most popular poem “Hum dekhenge, lazim hai ke hum bhi dekhenge”. Besides he wrote numerous poems himself.

Pradip Pande recalls that Girda was a leading light in all the people’s movements and agitations in the region whether it was the “Nasha nahin rozgar do” movement of 1984 or the movement for the creation Uttarakhand.

His old colleague and friend Dharam Vir Parmar says: “Being a Brahmin, he had taken up to playing hudka which was mostly played by people from lower castes. He had even lived with Nepali labourers for a long time in Nainital. He was a man of the masses”.

Girda’s friends relate that his poetry on Holi was unique. He linked Holi with spreading strong social messages. In the traditional Kumaoni style of giving best wishes to the guests during Holi, he used to hit upon local, regional, national and even international issues. His Holi wishes were full of sarcasm as they dealt with issues like the United States bombing Iraq or corruption at the local level.

A theatre artiste associated with Yugmanch, Zahoor Alam recalls it was Girda who brought staging of modern plays to Nainital with a performance of Dr Dharamveer Bharati’s “Andha Yug”. He had also written and staged the play, “Nagade Khamosh Hain”.

“Girda had performed plays like ‘Thank You Mr Glaad’ and ‘Andher Nagri’ during the Emergency. He was an encyclopaedia on the Kumaoni folk. He was a rebel who had even rebelled against his body,” he told The Tribune.

Girda leaves behind his wife Heera and a son who is studying in Delhi. His body will be consigned to the flames tomorrow morning at the cremation grounds, Pines.

As the news of his death spread people from all walks of life made a beeline for the hospital to pay their last respects. Condolence messages have started pouring in from all corners and his demise is being mourned on various social networking sites on the Internet.

Former Chief Minister Bhagat Singh Koshiyari had visited him at the hospital on Saturday. Among the first to reach the hospital after his demise was Congress leader Indira Hridayesh. In his condolence message, Congress leader Dhirendra Pratap has described Girda as a great gentleman and frontline crusader for the cause of Uttarakhand.

Dehradun, August 22
In a major recognition to its bamboo construction expertise, the Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fiber Development Board has embarked upon the formidable task of constructing the biggest bamboo structure in the country. One of its kinds, a bamboo museum-cum-workshop is to come up in the neighouring state of Himachal Pradesh.

At an expanse of 4,000 sq ft, this museum-cum-workshop comes at the behest the Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology (IHBT), a constituent laboratory of the CSIR situated at the picturesque town of Palampur.

A three-wing bamboo museum with a central dome structure will be marvel of bamboo architecture in the country and will be utilising a total of 50,000 running ft of bamboo poles. It’s structural finesse lies with the fact that bamboo for the first time is also being used as reinforcement component for the walls to add strength. Bamboo board’s, bamboo-weaved mat and bamboo blinds will also be utilised to give both strength as well as aesthetic look to the museum.

“Already the works are being done speedily and we are hopeful of completing the first big bamboo museum of the country within an year,” disclosed STS Lepcha Executive Officer, Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fiber Development Board, the executing agency. He said it was certainly an honour for the broad to get such a key assignment.

Significantly, the IHBT had initially approached the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), an international agency, taking into account the expertise needed to require to come up with one of biggest bamboo structures of the country. But, INBAR on its part asked the IHBT to seek services of the Board that keeps an excellent track record in all spheres of bamboo construction activities.

To come at a minimal cost of Rs 60 lakh, the bamboo museum-cum-workshop will open up a new vista for bamboo study and usage. It will house every kind of bamboo products apart from much needed bamboo treatment laboratory.

Bamboo species like Dendrocalamus hamaltoni, Dendrocalamus strictus, Bamboosa bamboos and Bamboosa Newton found in abundance in Palampur are being put to use by engineers of the Board for the construction.

Structural engineer in the Board Meirisiyang Pamei supervising the entire construction activity disclosed that local bamboo was being put to use and treatment too was being done on the very spot, thus, drastically cutting the cost of construction.

Interestingly, foreign delegates from countries like Tanzania, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Mozambique have already visited Palampur to have first-hand knowledge of this unique bamboo structure.

The Uttarakhand Bamboo and Fiber Development Board, as the name reveals, was established after the creation of Uttarakhand with the objective of creating livelihood opportunities with the help of bamboo and natural fiber species in rural areas of the state. Since its inception, the Board has been intensively working in the fields of resource development, awareness generation, trainings, product development, research, bamboo house construction and other market linkage activities.

As the monsoon rains have brought havoc in Uttarakhand, the most shocking incident was the death of 18 young primary school students who were buried in their classroom when their school was struck by a massive landslides at Sumgarh village of Kapkot tehsil in Bageshwar district. While children older than the victims ran to safety, these tiny tots could not apprehend the danger as stones and boulders started raining on their school located near a hill. Within minutes, they were buried alive.

Such tragedies keep on occurring due to natural disasters in Uttarakhand located in mid-Himalayas, one of the most ecologically fragile areas. The Himalayas itself is one of the youngest and tallest mountains in the world that is still in the making, leading to a lot of tectonic movement. But, the extreme weather conditions play havoc with the life and property of the people living in high mountains. People particularly dread monsoons that brings in heavy rains followed by landslides and cloudbursts.

The problems faced by the people living in the high hills could be imagined by the fact that Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank was able to reach the tragedy struck Sumgarh village after 36 hours as the weather did not allow choppers to fly and the roads were damaged and bridges washed away.

Last year during August, tragedy had visited the Nachni area of Munsiyari tehsil of Pitthoragarh district that led to the death of 43 persons. These incidents highlight the vulnerability of the people living in the Himalayas to natural disasters.

It has also brought to the fore a lack of preparedness of the state government in dealing with such situations. Every time a disaster takes place, the administration looks helpless and takes so much time to respond to the needs of the victims. Even at Sumgarh village, it was local villagers who started the relief work immediately as the district administration was unable to reach the place even after six hours.

Now, Chief Minister Nishank has announced to rehabilitate more than 100 villages prone to such natural disasters. However, the record of the state government has not been up to the mark in rehabilitation work. Interestingly, the Uttarakhand government does not have a rehabilitation policy.

Past experiences had shown that any disaster in the mountains is more problematic to deal with because of the topography and inaccessibility of affected areas.

The two earthquakes in the Uttaranchal region, Uttarkashi in 1991 and Chamoli in 1999, had amply shown the inadequacy of the state government machinery to deal with such natural calamities.

On both occasions, rescue, relief and rehabilitation works were done in an unscientific and ad-hoc manner putting immense strain on the already meagre resources. In the end, the result was unsatisfactory relief and rehabilitation.

There is no disaster management plan keeping in view the peculiar geographic and topographical conditions prevailing.

Nainital, August 22
Scientists at the Gobind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology at Pantnagar have advised farmers to sell brinjal as soon as possible in the forthcoming season starting from next month.

The scientists working in a sub-project of the National Agriculture Innovation Project entitled “Establishing and Networking of Market Intelligence Centres in India” have given this advice to farmers after conducting a market survey of a Haldwani regulated market, a major market for brinjals in the state.

One of the objectives of this project is to make price forecasts well in advance of sowing of selected agricultural commodities and during harvesting. The scientists analysed the market prices that had prevailed for the past 20 years in this market.

The leader of the research team leader, Dr Jagdish Kumar said the results of econometric analysis showed that the wholesale prices of brinjals in the Haldwani market would be in the range of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 per quintal in September and Rs 550 to Rs 750 per quintal in October. However, in November the market prices of brinjal in Haldwani market are expected to be between Rs 650 and Rs 850 per quintal, which was higher than the farm level prices that had prevailed during these months last year.

According to traders at the Haldwani regulated market, due to heavy rain during this monsoon season the brinjal crop, along with other vegetable crops, has been adversely affected and prices in general for all vegetables are double than those the previous year and this situation is likely to continue in the coming two to three months. The traders also said October and November are the major arrival months of brinjal.

In Uttarakhand, brinjal is mainly grown in the plains in an area of 1,685 hectares. Dehradun, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital are the four major districts producing brinjal and contributing about 60 per cent to the total production in the state.

Dehradun, August 22
KVSL Meerut got the better of JLA Bareilly by 23 runs to emerge as the winner of the KV Regional Sports Meet-2010 here today at Survey of India stadium.

While KV Hathibarkala-1 won the match for the third place.

In the final match today, SL Meerut while batting first set a target of 35 runs in 11.3 overs.

Rajat (16) and Saurabh (16) were the principal scorers for the Meerut team. Rest all batsmen could not score respectable number and went early to the pavilion.

In reply, the Bareilly team even found this target too big much to achieve. Its batsmen gave an embarrassing performance and had no clue of the bowling attack of rival team. Amit (9) was the top scorer for the batting side.

Earlier, KV Hathibarkala -1 beat KV Shajapur by four runs in the match played for the third 
position.

The winning team scored 52 runs with Vishav (31) top scoring for it. Shajapur chased well got out for 49 runs.

Gurjinder (17) put his best effort for the side but with the lack of support his team lost the match.

Education Officer of Dehradun region, NS Rana gave away the prizes to the winners.

He met with the players and also congratulated them while motivating them to do well.

Dehradun, August 22
Kendriya Vidyalaya Barbasa Cantt and KV Birpur became the champion of the KV Regional Sports Meet-2010 in the boys and the girls sections of volleyball, respectively.

While NER Bareilly and JRC Bareilly got the third place in the boys and the girls section, respectively.

In the boys final, KV Barbasa Cantt beat KV NHPC Banbasa 25-20, 20-25, 15-13. Rohit of the winning team and Dishan Ajgar of NHPC were the top scorer for their respective teams.

NER Bareilly reserved the third spot beating KV Hathibarkala number two 25-22, 25-19, 16-14.

In the girls final, KV Birpur got the better of KV Hathibarkala number two to grab the title of the tournament.

JRC Bareilly managed to ensure its the third place by getting past KV Shanshai in the girls section.

Dehradun, August 22
Kendriya Vidyalaya (KV) Roorkee defeated KV Haldwani (second shift) comfortably by 26-14 to grab the girls’ basketball title of the KV Regional Sports Meet-2010 here today. KV Hathibarkala was declared third after it beat KV OFD.

In the girls’ final encounter, KV Roorkee looked confident from the start and dominated the proccedings throughout the match. Neha was the main scorer for the winning team she scored three points.

Also, KV Hathibarkala didn’t have much difficulty leaving behind KV OFD in the race for the third position by 17-10. The players were later given away gold, silver and bronze medals by the chief guest.