Jalandhar, October 17
Giving a call to intellectuals and people from all walks of life to build a strong resistance movement against state-directed operations such as Green Hunt, pro-Maoist writer Arundhati Roy said here today that the struggle launched by the Naxals was a necessity.

Addressing a gathering at Desh Bhagat Yadhgarh Hall, Arundhati said there was a need to build diverse resistance movements in the country. “ While the Naxals have been fighting in jungles, others should fight against the onslaught of capitalism in towns and cities”, she said. The Gandhian way of struggle such as “Satyagrah” was nothing but a political theatre, she added.

Arundhati said it was creditable that the poor people in forests were fighting against the world’s richest companies that wanted to take away their lands to mine minerals.

She was invited to speak by the Anti-Operation Green Hunt Democratic Front, an organisation formed by progressive intellectuals, writers and social activists in the state.

She said for the past 60 years, the Indian state was fighting against its own people and using military and the police to suppress them. She named Manipur, Nagaland, Punjab, Kashmir and some other places where the Army and the police had been used to suppress armed struggles.

“While the Naxals were fighting a protracted war against the capitalism and big corporates, the Indian state was fighting such a war against its own people”, she said.

She said the preamble of the Constitution should be changed. It should be called “ Upper caste Hindu corporate republic”. Speaking on the Babri Masjid verdict, she said it was just a settlement. The Indian democracy had become hollow.

She also targeted Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and said he was the best spokesman of corporate houses.

Himanshu Kumar, an eminent intellectual and spearheading peoples’ movement against Operation Green Hunt, said he had feeling that every part of the country would become Dantewada soon. “ I have visited all parts of the country and witnessed so much frustration among people that it appeared that they were preparing to start struggle”, he said.

Jalandhar, October 17
Putting an end to the ongoing speculations, former state Finance Minister Manpreet Badal ruled out any possibility of joining the Congress.

Replying to a question regarding his future course of action, Manpreet said: “The Congress is not an option for me.” To further such queries whether he will float a new party or will join any other party, he chose to keep his cards close to his chest and said he had not given any thought to the issue.

However, Manpreet said he had already replied to mediapersons at different places, including Chandigarh, that “How a person can think of remarriage soon after divorce.”

All burst into laughter when this correspondent said: “Sometimes love affair already goes on even before divorce.” To this, Manpreet clarified that all that happened a few days ago was not pre-planned.

Alleging the three recent incidents as an attempt by the government to curb its political opponents, Manpreet at a hurried called press conference at the Circuit House here this afternoon urged the civil society of Punjab to come forward to protect democracy.

Manpreet accompanied by Jalandhar cantonment MLA Jagbir Brar alleged that: “Firstly, the public was stopped to attend his Saturday Gidderbaha rally, secondly my office was ransacked yesterday and now the main gurdwara at Kahnuwan in Gurdaspur was locked to stop him from holding a public meeting there today.”

He warned the SAD that if all this continued, he would be left with no option than to respond back to these incidents.

On a query whether the present crisis is an outcome of fight for political succession in the Badal family, he requested not to term it as a family feud. Manpreet said he was doing principled politics and he had raised financial issue for the betterment of the people of the state.

Manpreet further said: “I had already conceded to my cousin Sukhbir’s leadership as he became the SAD President and Deputy CM a few years ago.”

In reply to a question regarding an open letter of the CM’s media adviser, Harcharan Bains, he said he did not want to respond to the person who was an employee of the SAD.

Later in the evening, he attended a Dasehra function held under the aegis of the Sri Ram Lila Committee at Jalandhar cantonment.

Ghunnas (Barnala), Oct 17
Ruling out any brewing dissensions within the SAD and also within the ruling SAD-BJP alliance, Deputy CM, Sukhbir Singh Badal, today said Akali Dal was fully in control of the situation.

He was talking to mediapersons before attending the 83rd death anniversary function of Sant Attar Singh Ghunnas here this morning. “I don’t see any threat to the party and we are a united lot,” Sukhbir said.

Skirting a barrage of questions regarding Manpreet Badal, Sukhbir said, “ Manpreet is a younger brother and I will not speak against him.”

However, addressing a gathering later, Sukhbir justified action against Manpreet, asking them if his brother was right in asking for stopping subsidies on power, irrigation as also he schemes like Shagun and Atta Dal. Sukbhir also ruled out any ransacking of Manpreet’s office.

Highlighting the achievements of the ruling alliance, he said the ruling alliance had managed to fill 25,000-26,000 vacant posts of teachers as against 35,000 vacant posts during the previous Congress regime. The rest, he said, would be filled very soon.

He also announced felicitation of the players from the state who made it big in the recent Commonwealth Games. Responding to a question regarding Punjab’s debt, Sukbhir said it was not as serious as in other states.

Chandigarh, October 17
The Punjab Government will continue its negotiations with the Centre on the debt waiver issue. Close associates of Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal said the government had decided that the process of talking to the Centre on the issue would go on under the leadership of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.

Sukhbir’s aides added that officials of the Finance Department had been asked to put forth a detailed presentation in this regard before the Chief Minister, who would then take a call on pre-conditions laid down by the Centre and then take up the issue with the Cabinet. “We are in favour of debt waiver,” said Sukhbir’s men, adding that, “But there is a method to everything.”

They pointed out that the debt waiver was not an issue, which could be handled by a minister in his personal capacity but needed a consensus at the party level. “We will continue with the process that was started by the CM along with the former Finance Minister Manpreet Badal,” they added.

They further claimed that papers shown by Manpreet during his press conference yesterday were only “preliminary letters” sent by the Centre and notes prepared by the state’s Finance Department. “At best, these papers can be termed as ‘letters of intent’ of the Centre to waive Punjab’s loan along with that of West Bengal and Kerala,” said Sukhbir’s associates.

“In the Cabinet where a power point presentation on debt waiver was made, it was the Chief Minister who introduced the issue to the ministers. After the presentation, Manpreet was told to get back to the Cabinet with a firmer proposal from the Centre that gave the exact amount of the waiver. There is no point in discussing conditions laid down by the Centre when we do not even know what they give us in return for abiding by those conditions” they added.

Manpreet was to get back to the Cabinet a fortnight after the Vidhan Sabha session. “Even on the floor of the House early this month, Manpreet was not sure about the figures. And then instead of getting a solid proposal from the Centre to be placed before the Cabinet, he decided to have a public debate over the issue,” they said.

Chandigarh, October 17
Political crisis in the state has come as a golden opportunity for various sections of employees and agitating groups to push for meeting of their demands. Many factions of elementary teachers, veterinary doctors etc, who were leading a peaceful agitation, have taken this “panic of sorts” in the ruling SAD as an opportunity to push for their cases with the government that has indicated its going into a “please-all” mode.

The first to get aggressive among them is the Punjab State Veterinary Officers Association and rural veterinary officers working on contract under the zila parishad. This group has announced that it will hold a state-level dharna and a protest march in the Chief Minister’s home district, Muktsar, on October 18. They are demanding grant of the NPA and regularisation of RVOs.

Five employees’ federations in the state also met Deputy M Sukhbir Singh Badal in his office on Saturday and extended full support to his government, but at the same time reminded him that the government was yet to implement the accord reached with the employees. The meeting at this juncture that reassures the government of their support was obviously not without pressure to meet their demands.

The ministerial staff of the state government has one on a pen- down strike on more than one occasion in the past few days to get the government to accept their demands that include the implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission report. Besides other things, they are demanding promotions for their carders and have threatened to intensify their agitation if immediate heed is not paid to their demands.

Several other groups like elementary teachers, doctors employed by the zila parishads have been demanding that they be regularised as employees of the Punjab Government. These elementary teachers have faced batons and water cannons in the past, but now they have announced that they will adopt a more aggressive stance if the government does not pay heed to them.

Similarly, employees of the state Education Department have also threatened to launch an agitation if their notified pay scales are not implemented.

Anganwari workers, nurses employed with the government and employees of the erstwhile Punjab State Electricity Board are all demanding immediate implementation of the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations along with other demands.

Over the past few days, the PSEB Engineers’ Association has also upped its ante against the government. On October 13, the association in an appeal to the Chief Minister has asked for the scrapping of an MOU with the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and allow the execution of the 2,640 MW Gidderbaha Thermal Project by the state’s own engineers.

Chandigarh, October 17
The state government today gave its nod to programme to develop vocational skills of 10 lakh youths in next 10 years. The step has been taken to make the youth employable in upcoming industry, tertiary, retail and financial sectors.

Giving final touches to the plan, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, in a meeting held here today, said the plan would involve the departments concerned and various sectors of the industry.

The Deputy CM said, “The new skill development plan has identified job potential in high growth sectors likes sales, retail, construction, hospitality, tourism, private security, information technology enabled sector, financial services, logistic, transportation, leather, apparel, nursing, paramedic, gems and jewellery, personal care.” Sukhbir said deficit of training in these sectors was critical to employability of our youths in these upcoming sectors.

In the first phase of the programme, skilled people would be identified in the rural areas and in the second phase, vocational skills would be imparted at the school level with a goal of arranging employment for 10 lakh youths in next 10 years. He added that in the first phase cohesive cluster of districts at Ferozepur, Faridkot, Moga, Ludhiana and Bathinda have been planned and a comprehensive programme chalked out to train minimum 100 youths in each block.

Expressing concern over low literacy rate in Gurdaspur, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, Amritsar, Moga, Faridkot, Bathinda, Ferozepur, Mansa and Muktsar, especially amongst females, the Deputy CM said education and skill development would go hand in hand to achieve larger objectives. Giving the plan details, he said besides roping in industry of the region, various PSUs would also be made partner in this process and by April 1, 2011, all districts would be covered under this programme.

Patiala, October 17
The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) is progressing at snail’s pace in Patiala. As per sources, the senior functionaries of the district administration are unhappy with the number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) families covered under the RSBY so far by the Health Department. Figures available with the TNS shows that from 42,696 BPL families in Patiala, the administration has so far issued smart cards under the RSBY to just 10,870 BPL families.

Under the scheme, five members of a BPL family are given a health cover of Rs 30,000 and 75 per cent premium of Rs 450 annually is borne by the Centre and rest by the state government. The beneficiary has to pay only Rs 30. Notably, in January this year, Anil Swarup, Director General, Labour Welfare, the Government of India, had stated that Punjab had not fared well in implementing the RSBY. Swarup had gone on record stating that Haryana and Himachal Pradesh had shown remarkable results in implementing the scheme.

Expressing his views about the implementation of the scheme in Patiala, Deputy Commissioner Dipinder Singh admitted that he was not happy with the number of BPL families presently covered under the RSBY. He said strict instructions had already been issued to all Sub Divisional Magistrates (SDMs) and Block Development and Panchayat officers (BDPOs) to expedite the work of making the smart cards of the BPL families under the RSBY.

The SDMs and the BDPOs had been asked to take the assistance of the NGOs in spreading awareness among the BPL families about the scheme, so that maximum number of the BPL families get themselves enrolled for availing benefits of the scheme, said Dipinder. He has also directed the Health Department authorities that they should initiate the second phase of enrolling the BPL families under the RSBY, so that the left out BPL families in various blocks of Patiala got the benefit of the scheme.

Meanwhile, as per the data available, so far the 10,870 BPL families in Patiala have been covered under the scheme.

Patiala, October 17
The 30 per cent annual increase in the number of cancer patients has become a cause of worry for the health authorities and common people.

Head of the Cancer Care Centre at Rajindra Hospital, Dr Harjot Kaur Bagga said, “ The number of cancer cases mostly among women are increasing in Patiala are increasing. In 2008-09, there were 5268 cancer patients in the hospital for the treatment, out of which there were 2253 males and 3015 females. As far as the data for year 2010-11 goes, the numbers have already reached 4086 till the month of September with 1538 males and 2546 male patients undergoing treatment.”

The increase in numbers of cancer patients is being witnessed a cause as it can pose a potential threat for the coming generations. There is an urgent need to keep a check of cancer by launching awareness drives to increase awareness regarding the precautionary measures and the symptoms to watch out for.

Rajindra Hospital Cancer Centre is dealing with various therapies to diagnose and cure cancer including radiotherapy, brachytherapy, chemotherapy, cobalt 60 teletherapy etc.

Several patients continue to benefit out of the therapies available at the hospital.

Fatehgarh Sahib, October 17
Increasing numbers of combine harvesting machines are taking a toll on the economic health of the Punjab farmers. With five to eight combine machines in every village in Punjab, the farmers are complaining of diminishing profits.

“I was the first in my village to purchase a combine machine in 2002. Now there are seven more farmers who have one or two combine machines with the same agricultural area,” said Jassa Singh, a farmer from Fatehgarh Sahib. Jassa now owns two combine machines and travels to Madhya Pradesh, Haryana to harvest paddy and wheat crop of farmers at Rs 800 per acre. Jassa said the increasing number of combine buyers has led to a dip in profits, increased input costs forcing farmers to move out in those states where combine machines were still unavailable.

Devinder Singh, another villager said, “Punjab farmers have sold off their worn-out machines to UP, MP and Haryana and replaced them with modern machines. Most of combine owners have more machines to keep themselves afloat in market.

A consultant with Punjab State Farmers’ Commission, Dr P. S. Rangi said, “Currently, Punjab has 8400 self-propelled combine machines and 6270 tractor-driven combine machines. Though the farmers have a buying capacity, but it is not a healthy trend and the practice must be shunned. As per the existing agricultural land, the 4.25lakh tractors in Punjab, are not required.”

The combine machine owners make profits by harvesting wheat and paddy in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh where the wheat-harvesting season starts in February and then they come to Haryana and Punjab to make more profits. Farmers pay Rs 700 to Rs 800 per acre to hire combine machines for standing paddy crop and Rs 1500 for flat crop as extra power and diesel is required to harvest flattened paddy.

“We usually harvest an area of 300 to 400 acres every season and manage to save nearly Rs 50, 000 to Rs 60,000,” said Sukhdev Singh of Khanian village.

Unlike wheat harvesting, the paddy season does not fetch profits. These machines are operated only between 10 am to 6 or 7 pm due to a government ban imposed on harvesting paddy at night to get rid of high moisture.

Fatehgarh Sahib, October 17
A Chandigarh-based NGO has demanded that the use of seat belts be made mandatory in all heavy vehicles in Punjab especially the trucks, buses and newly bought chassis of the heavy vehicles.

Harman Sidhu, president of the Arrive Safe NGO said safety components like seat belts, laminated safety glass for windshield, instrument panel and lighting system, rear view mirrors, power steering in case of buses and heavy commercial vehicles should be made mandatory for safety of drivers, pedestrians.

As per Section 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, the manufacturer of every motor vehicle other than motorcycles and three-wheelers of engine capacity not exceeding 500 cc, is required for vehicles with a seat belt for the driver and the passenger seat. Defaulters are fined Rs 100 for the first time and Rs 300 subsequently. However, several buses and trucks compromise the safety of the passengers by ignoring the rules. The new trucks are seen with out safety features. Although the safety rules are stringent for cars, they are ignored in cases of heavy vehicles.

Patiala, October 17
Patiala Deputy Commissioner Dipinder Singh has taken a strong note of the non-compliance of directions issued by him with respect to submission of the report regarding the encroachments on the government land.

Sources stated that notwithstanding, the instructions of Dipinder that all government departments of the district would submit a detailed report, mentioning the encroachments that exist on the government land, under possession of the respective government departments, many of the departments have failed to send the report to Dipinder.

The Deputy Commissioner has now issued instructions to the erring departments to submit their reports within a week’s time, failing which the officers concerned would be held responsible and disciplinary action would be recommended against them.

Notably, in wake of the fact that the Punjab Government has to submit an affidavit in the Supreme Court giving the details of the encroachments on the government land, administrative authorities of all districts of the state were directed to submit the report on status of the encroachments on the government land to the state government.

Though authorities were tight-lipped on the names of the government departments that have yet not submitted the report, but talking to The Tribune, Dipinder said soon they would submit the report to the Punjab Government.

Abohar, October 17
In a hit-and-run case, a car with red beacon atop, reportedly owned by a VVIP of this region, crushed a five-year-old boy of Chudiwala Dhana village to death late last evening while negotiating a turn at breakneck speed. The deceased, Sahil, was the only son of Roop Ram, who is a compounder in a dental clinic.

Those who attended the last rites of the deceased were agitated over the fact that the police authorities had failed to arrest the culprits so far due to their “political connections”.

Eyewitnesses, who reported the matter to the police, alleged that a car with red beacon atop, which was driven by a VVIP accompanied by a gunman, crushed the boy and sped away from the spot.

Balkar Singh, SHO, Sadar police station, said a case under Sections 304-A and 279 of the IPC had been registered against the culprits.

Sunil Dutt, sarpanch of village Chudiwala Dhana, said the accident took place on the Chudiwala Dhana-Khippawali road. The residents of the village, who were present near the spot at the time of accident, succeeded in noting down the registration number of the vehicle.

A senior functionary of the BKU (Krantikari) said if the police authorities failed to arrest the accused, an agitation would be launched in this area.

Abohar SP Varinder Brar said action would be taken after identifying the culprits.