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Amarinder’s roadshow gets rousing reception
Umesh Dewan
Tribune News Service

Patiala, November 26
Amidst the bursting of firecrackers, showering of flower petals and chanting of slogans in favour of the Congress, the roadshow of the PPCC chief, Capt Amarinder Singh, got a rousing reception in his home town Patiala today. Right from Bahadurgarh Stadium on the outskirts of the city, the Congress activists could be spotted in every nook and corner of Patiala to welcome their leader. Flanked by his wife, Preneet Kaur, who is Minister of State for External Affairs, and son Raninder Singh, who is PPCC general secretary, former Finance Minister Lal Singh and former minister Surinder Singla, Amarinder Singh responded warmly to Congress leaders and activists.

Notably, Amarinder arrived on his political and family ground for the first time after being appointed to the coveted post. Party leaders were spotted jostling with each other to secure maximum political mileage as Amarinder’s cavalcade entered Patiala from Bahadurgarh. The Congress leaders had set up a big welcome gate on the Sadar Police Station Road to greet Amarinder Singh.

Amarinder Singh, who was there in an open gypsy, did not address the Congress workers but in his brief interaction with mediapersons, a visibly happy Amarinder Singh said, “I am elated with the overwhelming response from the Congress rank and file. It is a memorable moment for me.”

The Congress leaders in Patiala had virtually flooded the city with hoardings to welcome Amarinder Singh. The Congress activists presented siropas, shawls and bouquets to him. His cavalcade stopped at about two dozen places in the city before culminating at the District Congress Committee (Urban) office.

“With Amarinder Singh’s elevation as the Punjab Congress head, the days of the SAD-BJP are numbered. The mammoth gathering of the people clearly indicates that the Congress will return to power in the next Assembly elections,” said former Finance Minister Lal Singh.

Madan Lal Jalalpur, Brahm Mohindra, Sadhu Singh Dharmsot, Nirmal Singh Shatrana, Randeep Singh (all MLAs), Jasjit Singh Randhawa, Brij Lal Goel and Ramesh Singla (all former MLAs), leaders of urban and rural units of the District Congress Committee, representatives of the District Bar Association, leaders of the NSUI and many other senior party leaders had arranged functions in Patiala district to greet Amarinder.

Meanwhile, commuters on the Rajpura-Patiala road, particularly from Punjabi University to the city had to face a lot of difficulty on account of the traffic snarls because of Amarinder Singh’s roadshow.

Rajmeet Singh reports from Zirakpur: The roadshow by Amarinder Singh that kicked off from Zirakpur on Friday turned out to be a show of strength by the ticket seekers for the next Vidhan Sabha elections.

Starting off at 11 am from Zirakpur, amidst chaos on the Chandigarh-Ambala National Highway, the cavalcade of Amarinder Singh, moved towards Patiala, with brief stopovers along the highway.

For a beginning, the roadshow turned out to be one by Deepinder Singh Dhillon, one of the claimants for the Dera Bassi seat and a loyalist of Preneet Kaur. RR Bhardwaj, a senior Congress leader and Chairman of the Finance and Planning Cell, who is also a strong contender for the Dera Bassi ticket had also organised a gathering of his supporters. A helicopter was engaged to showed flower petals on the cavalcade. 

Amritsar, November 26
Reacting to the GNDU’s recent move to curtail Punjabi lectures in its BSc courses, state Education Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan today stated that deliberations over the issue with the university authorities would be made shortly.

Even as the Vice-Chancellor of the university had stated that the lectures in many disciplines, including Punjabi, were reduced for restricting the excess teaching hours, the move had invited the ire of various organisations of Punjabi littérateurs’ fraternity.

Sekhwan said, “I straightaway condemn the university’s proposal to restrict Punjabi lectures. It is our mother tongue and exception could not be made in this case. We endeavour to promote our mother tongue, which itself does not find much favour with people of Punjab especially the youth. Now, if the university initiates a move to restrict it in its courses, I strongly oppose this view.” He was presiding over the concluding day of Punjab Language Week-2010, at SR Government College, here.

Meanwhile, the guest of honour for the day, Vice-Chancellor AS Brar, was conspicuous by his absence.

While citing the Punjab Official Language (Amendment) Bill-2008, the minister said the basic aim of this Act was to ascertain that Punjabi being the official language of Punjab, it should be the language of work in all departments. “But if we overlook this aspect, Punjabi language will suffer a set back and this should be avoided,” he said, adding that a state-level Punjabi promotion committee had been constituted to monitor the implementation of Punjabi language in all official departments.

Ludhiana, November 26
A 21-year-old youth from Ludhiana was stabbed to death by a youth of Punjabi origin following a brawl in Calgary, Canada on Wednesday night.The accused has reportedly surrendered before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The victim, Jeevanjot Ghai, was a resident of Sham Nagar, Ludhiana.

He was stabbed by Harpal Singh Dhillon. As per information, the incident took place at the parking lot of Cool Heart Community centre located in Calgary. It is learnt that the duo exchanged blows inside the community centre and later fought again at the parking lot where Dhillon stabbed Ghai several times.

The Royal Canadian Mounted police has stated that Dhillon had also attacked another man who tried to resolve the dispute.

The victim had moved to Canada along with his family few years ago and was a promising football player. 

Bathinda, November 26
Colour was today added to the “Punjab Jago Yatra” of rebel Manpreet Singh Badal when his father Gurdas Badal, who is the younger brother of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, joined the campaign against the SAD-BJP combine government in a series of public meetings in Muktsar district.

Gurdas Badal was conspicuously missing when the yatra was launched at Faridkot on Wednesday, but he accompanied his son at five public meetings that were held today in the home turf of Parkash Singh Badal.

However, Gurdas Badal remained quiet and did not speak at these public meetings and confined himself to meeting prominent persons individually.

Manpreet added to his agenda two new points: banning wasteful expenditure on foundation stone laying ceremonies and fixing eight hours as the duty time of cops to improve the functioning of the police.

He said the duty of policemen stretched to about 20 hours a day as a result of which the efficiency of the department had nosedived. Three shifts should be introduced at police stations to reduce the stress of police personnel.

He also demanded the de-politicisation of the police set-up and making it accountable for any lapse.

Manpreet emphasised that wastage of public money on foundation stone laying ceremonies should be stopped immediately. Public money should also not be misused for the personal publicity of politicians.

He underlined the need for radical administrative and economic reforms to check corruption and accelerate the development of Punjab.

He warned the SAD-BJP combine government not to create hurdles in his yatra.

Fatehgarh Sahib, November 26
Teaching and non-teaching staff of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Engineering College, today, took out a protest rally from the college to the SSP office after attack on the vice-principal of the college.

The protestors said the Vice-Principal, Lakhvinder Singh, was attacked by some assailants with ulterior motives. They submitted a memorandum in the office of the SSP demanding immediate arrest of the assailants.

Professor Amritbir alleged that the police was dilly-dallying over the issue by not arresting the accused. Professor Gagan Deep Sharma said even after five days, the police deliberately failed to arrest the accused despite repeated complaints by the colleagues and relatives of the Vice- Principal.

He added that the college staff would intensify their agitation if the

police failed to arrest the accused immediately.

The Vice-Principal of the college was beaten up by some people last week

when he was buying milk in the local market in the morning. He received head injuries and was rushed to local civil hospital. His condition is stated to be normal.

Ropar, November 26
The District Food Supplies Controller(DFSC) has written to the district police recommending registration of a case against Chamkaur Sahib gas agency for having 1,783 bogus connections in the name of non-existent people.

DFSC Daljit Singh Bhatia said on Thursday his office had written to the SSP, Ropar, requesting registration of an FIR against the gas agency owners. “Having 1,783 bogus connections is a big deal. We have strongly recommended that a case be registered against the accused. The police would be provided with more information as and when we receive communiqué for the same from the office of the Deputy Director Civil Supplies,” Bhatia added.

Assistant food supply officer Rakesh Gupta and his team comprising food inspectors, grade I, Sewa Singh and Kulwinder Kaur, and grade II inspectors Manish Gupta and Ravinder Singh, had detected these bogus connections over a period of one month.

The only LPG outlet at Chamkaur Sahib is in a soup after the controversy. Besides issuing number of bogus connections to over 53 villages of Chamkaur Sahib, the agency has also issued as many as 60 cylinders in the name of a single Gurudwara at Chamkaur Sahib.

There are around 17,000 total domestic connections of Chamkaur Sahib gas agency, of which more than one per cent have turned out to be bogus. Maximum bogus connections were found from village Rasidpur. Around 52 bogus connections were detected in this village alone.

Similar bogus entries were detected in villages of Kotli, Balrampur, Dholaran, Bassi Gujaran and the nearby villages. Out of the 1,783 bogus connections, as many as 626 are from the city of Chamkaur Sahib, while rest were from others villages. 

Phillaur, November 26
Although two militant outfits, the Babbar Khalsa and Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) are still active in their attempts to revive terrorism in the state and about half a dozen terrorists are still operating in the state, their designs would not succeed and revival of terrorism would not be allowed at any cost in Punjab.

This was stated by DGP, Punjab, PS Gill, while talking with mediapersons after taking the salute at the passing-out parade of 464 women constables at the Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur, today. He said 90 terrorists belonging to different militant organisations could have been arrested by the Punjab Police during the past 10 months.

He, however, claimed that the law and order situation in the state was almost normal and the crime rate was decreasing.

Replying to a question about the ratio of recruitment of women constables in the Punjab Police, the DGP said a minimum of 10 per cent women constables would be recruited in the Punjab Police soon as compared to the present ratio of only three to four per cent.

He said 500 women constables would be recruited in the coming days. PPA Director Rohit Chodhary, DIG Sharad Satya Chahuan and Phillaur DSP Harkamalpreeet Singh Khakh were also present.

Bathinda, November 26
The state government is going to implement disbursement of old-age pension and other financial assistance schemes of the Social Security Department through biometric system soon in one block each of Mansa, Ferozepur, Ropar, Kapurthala and Amritsar districts as a pilot project.

This system will reportedly help the department in bringing transparency in disbursement of pensions among the beneficiaries in a big way.

Some nationalised and private banks have been given the task to execute the plan. A bank will disburse the assistance among the beneficiaries of one block, for which the list of beneficiaries will be provided to it by district social security offices.

A district social security officer said the banks would form a cluster of five villages each and would send their employees there to disburse the pensions among the beneficiaries by taking their thumb or finger impression on the biometric machine. A day before the visit to the village, an announcement would be made to inform the beneficiaries about the pension disbursement.

It is also learnt that December 31 has been fixed as a deadline for the implementation of the project.

About two weeks ago, a meeting between officers of the Social Security Department and the banks was held at Chandigarh in this concern.

However, an officer of the Social Security Department said the department authorities were hopeful that the pension and financial assistance due in December would be disbursed among beneficiaries with biometric machines in the identified blocks of the districts. 

Hoshiarpur, November 26
A couple of years ago, farmrs Kuldeep and Surjit seemed to have no other option but to migrate abroad. With very small farm holdings, they felt they had no future in the country. Same was the case with Raghav Puri, son of a kinnow grower, who wanted some challenge in life.

However, now all of them want to stay in their native land. Kinnow cultivation has given them the confidence to dream big. Both Kuldeep and Surjit have built new houses and now own vehicles, too. Raghav has prospered by taking to waxing and grading, which has added value to his farm’s substantial produce.

Despite a moderate crop this year, the lucky run of youngsters seems to be continuing with the fruit doing well in central and south India. Kuldeep and Surjit, who own only six acres of land each, have earned Rs 1.62 lakh and Rs 1.60 lakh per acre, respectively, this year. Raghav, too, expects to earn big through effective marketing.

Kinnow cultivation, which started in a big way in this district in the late 90s, has seized everyone’s interest and is ideal for sandy soils of villages like Sandhran, where Kuldeep and Surjit live.

Kuldeep said, “In 2002, I had made up my mind to migrate. But, I got to know about kinnow cultivation. Then with guidance from horticulture officers, I started kinnow cultivation on three acres of land that year, adding another 2.5 acres in 2005.”

Both farmers, along with many others in Sandhran village, are examples of how farming can pay dividends if you are involved in field operations rather than leaving it to hired labourers. They look after their orchards themselves and sell their produce to a contractor only when it is ripe.

While Kuldeep and Surjit do not market their produce themselves since they still do not have the required infrastructure to do so, Raghav produces and markets his fruit himself.

Raghav, who has his own waxing and grading plant, said his father, horticulturist Deepak Puri, was his inspiration. The Puri family has exported kinnow to Sri Laknka and the United Kingdom earlier, but now is concentrating on south India with cheaper Pakistan kinnow having pushed its Indian counterpart out of the international market.

Horticulture Joint Director Gurkawal Singh said the state was witnessing an average 10 per cent increase in kinnow cultivation each year.

He said, “At present, the fruit is grown in 40,000 hectares and around 45 per cent of the growers are small farmers. The average yield of the fruit has also increased from 150 quintals per hectare in 2001 to 195 quintals per hectare presently.”

Fatehgarh Sahib, November 26
A resident of Madhya Pradesh was killed after a roof collapse in Mandi Gobindgarh, while another received serious injuries. While the deceased has been identified as 22 years old Manoj Kumar, the injured is Govinda, who is also in his twenties.

As per information available, heavy cranes were pressed into service to lay sewerage in Prem Nagar area. The cranes, adjoining the wall of an empty godown, created a deep hole. Large quantity of fly ash was stored beside the wall, which collapsed due to the vibrations created by the cranes.

The wall collapsed on the road and three people, including a minor were buried under it. While the minor, a boy, was rescued safely, one of them died and another received injuries and is undergoing treatment at the civil hospital.

Senior police officials have reached the spot and are enquiring into the incident.

Faridkot, November 26
A local court has adjourned the trial against SAD President and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal to December 9 in a criminal case of attempt to murder registered against him for allegedly assaulting Naresh Sehgal, a Kotkapura-based journalist, when the latter was covering the 1999 Lok Sabha elections.

The criminal case was registered against the junior Badal and some of his supporters under Sections 307, 392, 327, 323, 201 and 120-B, IPC, at a police station in Kotkapura on June 30, 2006, following directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Sukhbir’s legal counsel Surinder Iqbal Singh Brar appeared before the court of Sangeet Pal Singh on Friday but the trial was adjourned to December 9 as the high court had stayed proceedings of the trial court in this case.

On January 8, 2007, the state government moved an application in the high court, seeking a stay on the trial proceedings of the case in Faridkot courts. The state government contended that as there were two separate FIRs in one incident and the police had already produced challan in one of the cases, there were procedural difficulties in completing a police inquiry in the second case. The state government, therefore, demanded that proceedings in both cases be stayed for the completion of inquiry and presenting the challan. The second FIR was registered on the complaint of Ajay Verma, a Chandigarh-based photo journalist.

The high court had summoned both Sukhbir and Verma for recording their objections, but none of them appeared before the court. The high court then stayed proceedings in both the criminal cases, pending in Faridkot courts. Meanwhile, talking to The Tribune, Sehgal claimed that during the past 10 years, he had been attacked several times. Besides, an attempt was also made to kidnap him by some police personnel in uniform. No FIRs were being registered on his complaints, he said.

He has sought a CBI probe into the matter and has also appealed recently to the Supreme Court to transfer the investigation of this case.

Chandigarh, November 26
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld the decision to lease out Qila Mubarak at Nabha in Patiala district for 66 years to the Nabha Foundation.

Raj Kumar and another petitioner had moved the High Court challenging the proceedings of April 17, 2007, whereby it was decided to lease out Qila Mubarak to the foundation.

Qila Mubarak is spread over 95 kanals 10 marlas in the heart of Nabha city. The Bench of Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Ajay Tewari observed the “building was lying vacant and there was no office or institute functioning. But, in the outside premises and within its boundary wall, there exist Sanskrit Vidhyalya, government primary school, post office, art and craft institute, judicial courts complex and some other offices along with certain quarters for the employees of the Punjab Police Department”.

The Bench also observed that at a meeting held on April 17, 2007, the Patiala Deputy Commissioner decided all public and private institutions in
the area of the Qila be handed over to the foundation. It was further averred all the institutions were being forced to be shifted to some other places thereby causinginconvenience not only to the public but also to the institutions themselves as no proper alternative arrangements had been made.

On the other hand, the state and other respondents stated the Nabha Foundation was “a public charitable trust working on several good projects in the region, including the fields of organic farming, philanthropic projects in the field of education, and help for the people of Nabha”.

“It is further averred shifting of institutions is an internal matter of the state government and alternative suitable sites are being provided to the said institutions…. We are satisfied there is no infirmity in the impugned action and consequently dispose of the writ petition in view of the safeguards.

However, it shall be open to the petitioners or indeed any other citizen to approach the court again, in case it is found that foundation is misusing the concession in any manner or not adhering to the terms and conditions of the agreement or is trying to get commercial gains from the property leased out to it”.