Chohla Sahib (Tarn Taran), September 10
The disorder in the education system of the two government senior secondary schools (meant for boys and the girls) in this historic township is becoming a blot on the face of the state government which is trying to leave no stone unturned for the overall development of the town.

Keeping the religious importance of the town in mind, the state government, according to its policy, declared its overall development.

Only five days back, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal laid the foundation stones for different development works here.

The town has Government Girls Secondary School and Government Secondary School (boys) here for the past over 70 years.

Since long, both the schools have bene running in complete disorder.

As many as 450 students are studying in the girls’ school, while the boys’ school has more than 300 students.

There are 137 girl and 111 boy students in class XII.

The sorry state of the schools can be gauged from the fact that these are running without principals and all the posts of lecturer are lying vacant for a long time.

At the boys’ school, the Education Department filled the post of the principal in the beginning of this year, but the principal got himself transferred to an urban area against the policy of the department.

According to the policy, no employee can be transferred within a period of three years since his present posting at a place.

At the boys’ school, for teaching high classes, there are only four teachers against 12 sanctioned posts. The posts of English, social studies, Hindi and science teaches are vacant.

The position in the girls’ school is no better. Only five out of 10 sanctioned posts were filled.

The claims of the Education Department, to make exams copying-free, seem false in the light of the factthat the schools face an acute shortage of teaching staff.

When the position is so bad in a township where Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Ranjit Singh Brahmpura is taking personal interest, one can imagine the state of other places.

Amritsar, September 10
The city would be keeping a keen eye on two cyclists at the Delhi Commonwealth Games. Gurbaj Singh and Pana Chaudhary are students of local DAV College and BBK DAV College for Women, respectively.

Interestingly, both the players came here for study purpose and originally hailed from different cities. Gurbaj is from Gurdaspur while Pana landed all the way from Bikaner in Rajasthan.

Pana is among the nine-member woman team formed to slug it out against the leading teams from the world. She would participate in the 30-km long distance race. Her last timing for this event was recorded 46 minutes 13 seconds.

She was putting her wholesome efforts to excel her speed and bring down the time. However, she has been recuperating from fever which she caught while staying at Delhi. “I arrived at Patiala on the night of September 9 and hope to resume practice in a day or two,” she quipped.

She secured 12th position in the Asian Championship held in Dubai this April in Road and was 11th in Masthead (100 km). Among the Indian eves, she was the top cyclist.

In the All-India Inter University held last year, she clinched the silver medal in the individual pursuit and was third in the track event. She had bagged fourth position in the under-18 and senior categories in the National Games held at Hyderabad in 2007.

The Hyderabad National Games was the first major event in which she played after a gap of one and half year as she had been under treatment following a life threatening accident. Her right leg had fractured and a steel rod was implanted. Earlier, she had been bagging first positions in the under 14 category in the nationals in 2003 and 2004. Gurbaj Singh joined the game after being inspired from her maternal uncle Bawa Singh, a former international cyclist. He is part of the 18-member men’s team, out of them six belong to Punjab.

He managed the place in the Indian cycling team after he clocked 1 minute 13 seconds in the one-km race.

The current national record is held by Bikram Singh of Manipur with 1 minute and six seconds.

He had made a record in the All-India Inter University Games by clocking 1 minute 11 seconds and 45 micro seconds last year.

Notably, the Punjab Government has not provided any monetary help to its cyclists shortlisted to play in the CWG whereas the Rajasthan Government had given cash assistance of Rs one lakh to each player.

The requirement is paramount keeping in view the expensive equipments. A pair of shoe for cycling costs Rs 10,000 whereas a cycle of international standard costs around Rs 2.5 lakh.

When asked, Gurbaj replied that he was paddling the racing bicycle which was procured some time back at Rs 60,000. He accepted that the technology had advanced but costs of these equipments were very high.

Amritsar, September 10
No fire was lit in their kitchens in the past four months nor could they afford to pay for their medical aid or their children’s educational expense.Over 400 municipal corporation employees, which included tubewell operators, gardeners and chowkidars, did not get their salaries due to official rigmarole prevailing in the corporation.

Reason: The corporation could not table their case in the House to seek approval, as a majority of them have been shifted here from the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board since 1996.

Ironically, a subcommittee comprising four MC officials, including Mayor and councillors, had already given its nod for releasing their salaries, after having deliberations over the issue, but in vain.

Today more than 50 MC workers gheraoed the office of the Mayor to demand their dues but that too wasn’t enough. They were told to come to the Mayor’s residence tomorrow.

MC officials argued that their salaries could not be released until the consent of the MC House was sought.

Interestingly, the MC Commissioner seemed to be apathetic to the employees and remarked that their case would be sorted out as the report of the subcommittee would have been enough to clear their dues, but the Mayor was adamant on tabling the matter in the House meeting, the schedule for which has not yet been finalised.

Parkash Chand, a class IV employee, who was shifted from the Sewerage Board, rued that he was facing hard days in the upkeep of his family, consisting of three young children.

“I am a sick man. The doctors have demanded Rs 1.5 lakh for treating me. I have been postponing the medication due to money constraints. Being the only earning member of the family, I am under great depression, how would I bring up my children. I do not have money to pay their school fee, but MC officials hardly listen to our problems,” he complained.

His was not the lone story, there were at least 300 identical cases.

Apart from this, the delay in their salaries was not the only issue. They have been fighting a legal battle for the regularisation of their jobs. The corporation dithers on the issue of regularising them even as the Punjab and Haryana High Court had ordered the civic authorities to grant them the minimum grades with no increments from January 2010.

Amritsar, September 10
Keeping in view of different anatomy, lifestyle and bone structure of the Asian community, a specially designed knee-joint replacement system has been evolved which was officially launched at a function here today.

The earlier developed knee replacement systems are based on anatomy dimensions suitable for the western people having different bone size and structure as compare to people of Asian community, explained noted orthopaedician Dr Avtar Singh. Due to this the major portion of knee bone has to be cut for proper fitting of the artificial knee caps manufactured in the United States.

He said the inflammation some times reoccurred in the patients who had undergone knee replacement after passing of few years. They even could not bend their legs properly due to increased size of knee cap manufactured on the pattern of western people.

The newly developed knee joint system allows optimal high flexion motion to ensure natural bending motion required to perform daily activity besides helping the patients to resume active lifestyle within weeks unlike existing knee replacement systems, added Dr Singh during its launch.

Tarak Buch, Director, Maxx Medical, a Singapore-based company that manufactured the knee joint replacement system, speaking on the occasion said it took about five years for the research team, including senior orthopaedic surgeons besides engineering experts from various parts of the world, to develop this knee joint replacement known as Freedom Total Knee. He said the studies conducted by various experts are testimonial to the fact that Asians have different anatomy structures.

Giving some data, Dr Avtar Singh said in Punjab osteo-arthritis is one of the most common diseases affecting people above 50 years of age and most of them are women. He said more than 50 per cent of elderly population in the holy city is suffering from arthritis.

Amritsar September 10
The Social Security and Women and Child Development Society, Amritsar, presented a play ‘Sikhar Dupehare Raat' highlighting the menace of drugs in the contemporary Punjabi society.

They play was staged at DAV Public School. Rajinder Pal Singh Gill, DSSO, organised the event and exhorted the youth to imbibe cultural value and take their responsibilities seriously.

The play depicted a Punjabi youth falling to drugs and spoiling his life thus shattering the dreams of his parents.

The play ended with an emotional scene, with the death of the youth who was not able to come out of his habit despite the treatment and prayers of his parents.

The students appreciated the play and took a pledge to stay away from this dreaded habit and keep the society clean of social evils.

Amritsar, September 10
“India’s unity is like the colours of a rainbow. If one is removed, its charm and beauty would be diminished,” these words became the motto of Shaheed Sardar Nanak Singh, who dedicated his life for peace, integrity and unity of India.

The birth anniversary of this martyr, which falls tomorrow, is being celebrated at Shaheed Sardar Nanak Singh Marg, Ranjit Avenue, Amritsar, by the foundation formed by his name. A langar would be part of the programme.

Taking a random round of this road, the first thought which would come to mind is the incredible upkeep and level of maintenance of the statue of this great soul installed at the T-point and its surroundings.

Wrapped in a glass to prevent dirt or birds’ refuse from finding their way in, its sanctity has been maintained by a team of the foundation.

Caretakers Parminder Sandhu and Ashish Kakkar said: “Now we are planning to install lights to make this place more attractive.”

This could otherwise be a lesson for the Amritsar administration and political parties to learn when it comes to the preservation of the statues of great martyrs. Instead of fighting for the credit to be taken for installation of statues, they should compete with each others in the upkeep of these memorials.

Born on this day in 1903, Shaheed Sardar Nanak Singh was a known figure of a part of Punjab, now in Pakistan. He said that Muslims were part of India. He was strongly against the idea of partition.

A dynamic police inspector with the British police, he was awarded 29 commendation certificates.

He threw away his police career when he was ordered to open fire on an unarmed procession of freedom lovers in Sargodha, now in Pakistan. As punishment, he was transferred to Dhera Ghazi Khan, a tribal area on the North-West frontier, because he refused to be part of another incident, identical to Jallianwala Bagh.

Ultimately, he gave up his job and started legal practice. He established himself as a successful advocate and fought to defend prisoners of the Indian National Army (Azad Hind Fauj) started by Shubhas Chander Bose and General Mohan Singh.

He was martyred on March 5, 1947, at the age of 43 while saving 600 students of DAV College, Multan. These students were taking part in a peaceful procession against the partition of India while they came under attack from religious fanatics.

Amritsar, September 10
The authorities of Air India Express (AIE) have decided to cancel some of its flights of IX-191 (Amritsar-Dubai) and IX-141 (Amritsar-Muscat-Abu Dhabi) in September and October on account of scarcity of cabin crew staff.

The IX-141 is four days a week flight and its all flights on Sundays and Tuesdays in September and October have been cancelled.

The IX-191 is a daily flight and its operations on Mondays and Thursdays in these two months have been abrogated.

However, the cancellation of flights is expected to cause harassment to the passengers from the Majha and Doaba regions, especially as they prefer to travel through it. A large number of people from here are engaged in jobs in the Middle East.

Sources in the AIE said the unsavoury decision had become a compulsion following operational constraints. When asked, on the condition of anonymity, they divulged that the constraint was scarcity of cabin crew.

They said curative steps were being taken to fill the lacunae and the normal schedule would be reimposed from November. Meanwhile, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) opened a medical investigation room at Rajasansi International Airport for the convenience of passengers. The Officiating Director, Rajasansi International Airport, Anil Nanchahal, inaugurated the room and said with a view to provide medical aid to the passengers at the airport talks were going on with leading hospitals.

Meanwhile, with a view to provide first aid to the passengers, this first aid centre was opened with a doctor. He said the international airport had an ambulance and in case of emergency the patient could be swiftly transported to the nearest hospital.

Amritsar, September 10
Sixteen students of Guru Nanak Dev University’s All-India Services Pre-Examination Training Centre and the Centre of Preparation for Competitive Examinations have cleared the preliminary wxamination for the Punjab Civil Service (Judicial) conducted by the Punjab Public Service Commission. They would now appear in the main examination of the PCS.

According to Dr Jagrup Singh Sekhon, Director of the centres, Akash Garg, Savjot Singh, Rajinder Singh, Karanjit Singh, Sukhnandan Singh, Satinderpal Sokhi, Gurinder Singh, Kawaldeep Singh, Mamta Kumari, Sumit Kumar, Hardev Singh, Meenakshi, Abishek Rattan, Baljinder Kaur, Garish Kumar and Amrinder Singh have been declared passed by the PPSC.

The company would start its work by next week, said Harish Taneja, secretary and committee spokesman, adding that it would be completed within three and half months. The plant would cost approximately Rs 1.03 crore. —TNS

Amritsar, September 10
Guru Nanak Dev University has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on technical cooperation with DyStar India Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, an international company which manufactures dyes and chemicals used in wet processing of textiles.

Dr Surinder Singh, Dean, Academic Affairs, inked the MoU on behalf of the university, while Rajesh Balakrishnan, president, South Asia, DyStar, signed the agreement in the presence of Vice-Chancellor Ajaib Singh Brar.

Brar stressed upon the need to undertake realistic MoUs so that a productive outcome could be ensured by both the parties and the real essence of signing the understanding could be realised.

Dr Surinder Singh, Dean, Academic Affairs, said apart from providing training, the university would offer cooperation to DyStar in product development as well as in research and development.

The private company, in turn, shall offer its laboratories to the students and faculty of the textile chemistry wing of the department of applied chemical sciences and technology of the university for training and research, offer merit award to a meritorious student of B.Tech (textile chemistry) and also assist in funding of collaborative research projects, he added.