Gurgaon, October 21
Waking up finally to the contentious issue of honour killings, the government has identified protection homes in all districts for newly wedded couples apprehending honour killing by their family members.

In a communiqué sent to the Haryana DGP, all DCs, Police Commissioners and SPs, the Financial Commissioner-cum-Principal Secretary of the Home Department has asked them to ensure proper board, lodging and security arrangements at the protection homes.

The couples, who have married against the wishes of their family members and apprehend honour killing will be provided shelter as well as security at the protection homes.

As per the communiqué, the government has identified protection homes or centres at the district level. These homes or centres will provide shelter and security to the couples apprehending honour killing.

Gurgaon Deputy Commissioner Rajender Kataria said the protection home for such couples will be in the hostel of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) here.

According to a district-wise list provided along with the letter, the protection homes in 10 of the 21 districts in the state will be located in the Police Lines.

In the other districts, other sites, including government quarters, rest houses, working women and youth hostels, Red Cross Society hostels and NGO buildings have been identified for establishing protection homes for the runaway couples.

Fatehabad, October 21
This may sound shocking, but this is true. A majority of private hospitals and nursing homes in Fatehabad have stopped attending to serious patients.

Even cases where they have reasonable apprehension that the patients may not survive by the time their kin shift them to some hospital in Hisar or Maharaja Agarsen Medical College at Agroha are not being attended.

The trend that started creeping in a decade ago has become almost a “rule” among the medical fraternity here for the past some years.

An increasing trend of ransacking of hospitals by kin of patients who die during treatment is said to be the reason behind the change in attitude of private doctors.

Over 12 incidents of attacks on hospitals have been witnessed in the past one decade, some of them recently, resulting in the loss of property and humiliation to doctors. Even cases of criminal medical negligence have been registered in some cases.

“I do not give any injectable medicine to the dying patient even if it is highly recommended. I cannot take the risk of being accused that my injection resulted in the patient’s death,” admits a doctor.

“After all, doctors are not gods. They can only treat and do not have a magic wand to cure every case,” says a senior pediatrician.

Another pediatrician says societal behaviour has undergone a big change over the years and now people are becoming intolerant and do not hesitate in blaming doctors if anything goes wrong.

“When people come with their seriously ill patients, they treat us as gods, but the same people go berserk if the patient does not survive, although the prognosis of the case is normally explained to them in advance,” says another doctor.

“It is not that all are like this. The behaviour of some local people who are able to collect a mob has been found to be particularly aggressive in such circumstances,” he says.

Interestingly, people who are not even distantly connected with the patients have been seen joining the kin in attacking hospitals in certain cases.

“People start envying our infrastructure without realising that these were results of years of hard work and investment put in by us on our studies and medical practice,” said a doctor.

He says doctors are not happy to refer patients when they know that the shifting involves risk to their lives, but are left with no option as they too have families to look after.

“Doctors should not treat everyone alike. It becomes the moral and professional duty of a doctor to treat his patient to the best of his skills,” says an advocate, who has contested some cases of medical negligence against doctors.

He says in a study of recent cases where hospitals have been attacked by relatives of patients, it has been found that inhuman behaviour of doctors or their staff triggered anger.

Chandigarh, October 21
The Haryana State Drug Controller sealed a unit manufacturing ayurvedic medicine in Panchkula and took samples of drugs, seized pamphlets, cartons, bills for violating the Drug Magic Remedies (prohibited Advertisement) Act, 1954.

Contrary to provision of the Act, the unit was claiming to have a cure for diabetes and publicising the same. A complaint along with supporting documents was received from the office of the national Drug Controller-General by the state department.

State Drug Controller GL Singhal said that advertising products that claim to cure 54 diseases, including blindness, cataract, leprosy is prohibited under the Act. "We have collected our evidence and sealed the unit. Sometime next week, we, along with officials of the Ayurveda Department, will visit the unit again. They will carry out an inspection independently to verify if everything is as per the licensing terms since it was a licensed manufacturing unit approved by the department," he said.

The controller's office said preliminary findings indicated that the unit, in the name of selling a cure for diabetes, was merely selling methi (fenugreek) which was packaged on the first floor of the premises in the Industrial Area under a different name.

"We traced the office through a mobile number mentioned in the complaint and first went to their corporate office in the Mansa Devi Complex. The employees there told us that the unit was in the Industrial Area of the city which we subsequently raided," Singhal disclosed.

Later, on going around, they found that while the ground floor of the unit was provided a licence to make an ayurvedic medicine, the first floor which belonged to a chemical unit was, in fact, making the medicine and bottling it for sale.

"While the medicine was billed at Rs 200 per bottle by the licencee, the chemical unit which was packing the medicine was marketing it for Rs 800 a bottle. Though the workers denied that they had anything to do with making and marketing it, the ground reality was totally different with finished goods, cartons, labels and pamphlets lying there. We called in officials of the Ayurveda Department and sealed the area," Singhal explained.

While this is the first such case where a unit has been proceeded against for violations of the Act, the Drug Controller office maintains that they would keep a tab on all such units for any violations.

"Action against this unit will send out a message that violation of the Act will not be taken lightly. This should be deterrent enough for other units and reason for them to fall in line," he said.

Hisar, October 21
The Haryana State Counselling Society and the Computer Science Department of Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology organised a two-day IT-fest "Kshitij" to mark the 15th foundation day celebrations of the university.

Students from 14 technical colleges of Haryana took part. Inaugurating the celebrations, vice-chancellor ML Ranga said cultural festivals provided youth with a platform to recognise their talents and use them positively.

Ranga said it was the duty of teachers to help students identify their inner strengths.

A mock parliament session was conducted by the participants. During the session issues of corruption, crime, poverty and inflation generated considerable heat. A discussion on the Commonwealth Games provoked the opposition to walk out of the house.

A quiz on the struggle for independence was also organised. Students evinced keen interest in the contribution of Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chander Bose to the freedom struggle.

A face-painting workshop organised as part of the festival proved the biggest hit with the youth.

Participants also read papers on IT-related subjects. Computer programming skill tests gave an opportunity to the students to share their knowledge of the art of programming.

Faridabad, October 21
Entrepreneurs here have lamented that although automobiles are the major polluters of air in the state, it is the industry that has been labelled as the prime culprit.

Speaking at an interactive session, involving Dr AS Chahal, chairman of the Haryana State Pollution Control Board, and Sajjan Jain, president of the Faridabad Industries Association, the industrialists alleged that automobiles contributed to 70 per cent of the air pollution. The industry vide the FIA made it known that the HSPCB should give up harsh postures of holding threats of enforcing closure or shut downs of the industrial units. Rather, its approach should be to steer the pollution board to maintain the laid down norms. The organisation should continue to adopt the role of a facilitator to the efforts made by entrepreneurs to make the environment in Faridabad clean and green, the FIA added.

Jain urged Dr Chahal to use his good offices for the allotment of sites to processing and dyeing units which were related to garment industry in IMT, Faridabad. The units had come up several years ago in the DLF area. Since then, the area had become a residential hub and the units were also facing shortage of water.

According to him, the units should be shifted to a specified place with adequate water supply and where a common effluent treatment plant could be installed. This would not only allow the units, which employees a large number of people, to prosper but also ensue a cleaner environment, he added.

Directed by: Jennifer Lynch

Produced by Split Image Picture Pvt Ltd and presented by Venus Records & Tapes, “Hisss” stars Mallika Sherawat, Irfan Khan and Divya Dutta. “Hisss” has been an eagerly awaited film, which tells the popular naagin saga in this thriller.

Music director Anu Malik has composed a special, foot-tapping “Holi” number for “Hisss” which would be released worldwide in 2,200 screens.

Mallika Sherawat in “Hisss”

It opens today at Sun City-Hisar, Fun, Minerva (Ambala), Fame Shalimar-Panchkula, Sheila-Rohtak, Fun Cinemax (Panipat), Harsha, Movie Time, Inder Palace (Karnal), DTCC, DTMM, DT Mega Centre, SRS Wedding, Big Adlabs (Gurgaon), Glitz-Kurukshetra, OHM-Sirsa, SRS Sec 12, SRS Sec 31, INOX (Faridabad), 
Everest-Rewari.

Jhootha Hi Sahi

Directed by: Abbas Tyrewala

Abbas Tyrewala’s “Jhootha Hi Sahi” promos are out and have generated a lot of interest among the cine-goers. The trade circle has pinned high hopes on this romantic comedy, which stars John Abraham, Pakhi, Manasi Scott in the lead roles. Pakhi, Abbas Tyrewala’s wife, has also penned the script. AR Rahman has scored the music for the film.

The film opens today at PVR MGF, PVR Sahara, PVT Ambience, DTCC, DTMM, DT Star, Big Ansal Plaza, SRS Omaxe, SRS Wedding Mall (Gurgaon), SRS Sec 12, SRS Pristine, SRS Shubham, PVR Crown Plaza, INOX Parsavnath Manhattan Mall, Parsavnath City Mall (Faridabad) Fame Shalimar-Panchkula, Fun, Cinemax (Panipat) Fun Ambala, Glitz-Kurukshetra, Harsha, Movie Time (Karnal), OHM-Sirsa.

Rakta Charitra

Directed by: Ram Gopal Varma

“Rakta Charitra” is a bilingual movie (Hindi and Telugu) and is said to be based on the life of slain political leader Paritala Ravi. The film stars Surya, Shatrughan Sinha, Sudeep, Vivek Oberoi, playing the role of Paritala Ravi, and Priyamani.

The film opens today at PVR MGF, PVR Sahara, PVR Ambience Mall, DTCC, DTMM, DT Star, Big Ansal Plaza (Gurgaon), SRS Sec 12, SRS Pristine, SRS Shubham, PVR Crown Plaza, INOX Parsavnath Manhattan Mall, Parsavnath City Mall (Faridabad), Suraj, Fame Shalimar (Panchkula), Fun Cinemax (Panipat), Glitz-Kurukshetra, Movie Time-Karnal, OHM Cine Garden-Sirsa.

— Dharam Pal

Yamunanagar, October 21
The shortage of raw material has hit the production of plywood industry in the district by over 30 per cent. The industry has not been getting raw material, mainly poplar and eucalyptus, from UP as per its demand, resulting in losses to manufacturers. According to sources, there are about 230 plywood manufacturing units in Yamunanagar and the production of these units depends on the availability of raw material. About 30 per cent of the units are forced to stop production due to the non-availability of raw material.

The situation has aggravated with the closing of the Yamunanagar-Saharanpur national highway after cracks appeared in pillars of a bridge. This has led to an increase in the cost of raw material for the industry since it has to be transported via Karnal by covering additional 150 km. The manufacturers can hardly afford it due to high cost of raw material used in plywood production. The sources disclose that the district has 918 wood-based industrial units and they need 25 lakh tonnes of timber for smooth functioning. Every year, the industry purchases timber worth Rs 500 crore from farmers of Haryana, UP and Punjab and produces wood-based products worth Rs 1,500 crore. Meanwhile, Ashok Sangwan, deputy commissioner, said the repair work of the bridge had already been started by the Bridge Corporation of India and efforts were on to throw it open for traffic soon.— TNS

Sonepat, October 21
Buoyed by the performance of sportspersons from the state, particularly from Sonepat district, who bagged three gold, two silver and three bronze medals in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games, local Congress leaders have demanded opening of a sports university in the district.

CWG medal winners, Anil Raipur, Anil Kundal, Sanjay Shahpur and Deepak Sharma, have also supported the demand.

The leaders, including Jitender Singh Malik, MP and DCC (rural) president; Pradeep Gautam, president, DCC (urban); Jaitirth, MLA, Kuldeep Sharma, MLA and working president of the HPCC; and Satish Dahiya, former national general secretary of the NSUI, are likely to raise the demand before Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda when he will visit the district to honour the medal winners on November 1.

The leaders have joined the issue with Kiran Chaudhary, Tosham MLA and former minister, who had made a similar demand soon after the conclusion of the Games.

Political analysts are of the view that the CM during his programme at Rai on November 1 might announce upgrading of the MNSS to a sports college or a university.

In support of their opinion, they mention that sports infrastructure of international standards like a swimming pool, stadium, Astroturf, gymnasium, athletic tracks etc are available at MNSS, Rai, which is spread over 200 acres.

Chandigarh, October 21
The minimum support price (MSP) of wheat and other crops announced by the Central government for the coming season has failed to satisfy the main opposition parties in the state.

Both the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the BJP have described the increase in the MSP of agriculture produce as inadequate and far from realistic prices.

INLD chief Om Prakash Chautala said the increase of mere Rs 20 per quintal in the MSP of wheat was a “cruel joke” played by the Congress government with farmers. This hardly covered the cost of production, leading to further debt burden on farmers.

He said the MSP for wheat should have been at least Rs 1,600 per quintal. In the past one year, the INLD leader said, the cost of production had gone up manifold with drastic increase in the price of diesel, fertilisers and other agriculture inputs. The government wanted to buy wheat from farmers at Rs 11.20 per kg, while wheat flour was selling in open market for Rs 20 per kg.

Demanding a reconsideration of the MSP for various crops, Chautala said the rates should be fixed according to the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission. He said while the farmers should be paid handsomely, the government should give adequate subsidy to consumers to buy food grains.

Terming the MSP as grossly inadequate, national president of the BJP Kisan Morcha, Om Prakash Dhankad, said last month the government had announced a 10 per cent increase in the salaries of its employees by way of revision of dearness allowance, whereas the increase in the MSP of wheat was only 1.8 per cent and 1.09 per cent in the case of mustard.

Dhankad said the government had overlooked the fact that the production cost of both these crops had increased because various inputs like diesel, electricity, fertilisers, insecticides, seeds, transportation and labour had become costly. The meagre increase in the MSP of these main crops was insufficient to cover the cost of production.

The BJP leader alleged that the decision had once again revealed the “anti-farmer attitude” of the Congress.

Rejecting the increase in the MSP of various crops, the front organisation of the BJP demanded that it should be hiked by at least 10 per cent. It also demanded a 10 per cent bonus on paddy.

Dhankar said it was ridiculous that the government had fixed the MSP for gram, masoor and sunflower crops, but there was no arrangement for their procurement.

Kurukshetra, October 21
The second crosscountry competition and prize distribution function was organised at DAV Centenary Public School, Pehowa, 25 km from here, on October 16.

School principal NC Bindal said 576 students participated in the function. The boys’ trophy went to Vivekanand House, while Hans Raj House won the girls’ trophy. The combined trophy went to Vivekanand House.

Mahesh Aggarwal, DIG, CBI, Anti-corruption, Chandigarh, who presided over the function, gave away prizes to the winners. He praised the performance of Haryanavis in the Commonwealth Games, 2010.

Sonepat, October 21
The two-day Technova-10 organised by the Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science and Technology, Murthal, concluded recently.

Students from the university, YMCA, Faridabad; BMIET, Sonepat; IITM, Murthal; PDM, Bahadurgarh; Hindu College of Engineering, Sonepat; IIM, Gurgaon; and DITM, Sonepat; participated in as many as 71 events.

Dr ML Ranga, vice-chancellor, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology, Hisar, gave away prizes to winners of different events. HS Chahal, VC, Murthal university; RK Arora, registrar; Dr RS Jaglan, GJU registrar; DP Malik, dean, student welfare programme; Surender Singh Bhinder, coordinator; and faculty members were present on the occasion.

A street play, “Jimmedar Kaun” based on the prevailing corruption in society and presented by artistes of Mast Andli under the banner of Savera Society was the star attraction of the closing ceremony.

Following were the winners of different events: Vinay and Riya in “Electrical TPT”, Dinesh and Sonu in “Mechanical Mantra”, Haiman and Anubhav-”Toon-o-logy”, Neha and Pooja-”Bio-bizzzz”, Alisha and Shaifali-”Dream PRO”, Riya and Garima-vision test, Navven and Rohit-”X Floor You”, Himanshu and Anubhav-tattoo-making and Tarunim-mosaic, Gaurav and Upadhi-Alchemy, Shaifali-response test, Anju Kansal-”Mind athlon”, Gaurav and Ajai-electrical quiz, Manish Kumar-”Electo Twister”, Bhuvnesh-”Power Mantra”, Asish Bhati and Naveen Rathi-business quiz, Monika Jangra and Suresh Yadav-review rangers, and Resham-craftsman event.

Similarly, Navven got first position in aeroplane race, Ankit and Kaurprit in back-to-back race, Sonu and Vineet in balloon in black and white, Tripati and Nilika in radio jockey, Tripati in “Rangeela”, Ranbir and Sunil in “Quiz Your Thoughts”, and Shaifali and Alisha in innovations.