Dehradun, March 10
Agitated members of the Ashaskiya Asahayak Manyata Prapt Vidhyalaya Sangathan (private recognised unaided schools) took out a rally and laid a siege to the Secretariat here today. The protesters raised slogans and were carrying banners to press for their demand for implementing the grant list by the state government.

Led by president of the association Vinod Prasad Gargi, the protesters first gathered at the Gandhi Park and then moved towards the Secretariat where they were resisted by the police.

Addressing the gathering at the Secretariat, Gargi said: “Our demands have been ignored by the authorities. Despite the fact that this agitation was initiated five years ago, the administration has not fulfilled our demands yet.

“Most of the schools in remote areas of the Kumaon and Garhwal regions are in a dilapidated state, while others are on the verge of closure due to discontent among the staff working there. Many of our working staff is nearing the age of retirement. If the state government still keeps mum over our demands, the sangathan will initiate a fast-unto-death in front of the Vidhan Sabha,” he added.

The sangathan has also announced that it will lay siege to Uttarakhand Chief Minister’s residence on March 12.

Dehradun, March 10
To sort out the matter of paying house tax, office-bearers located in a complex at PLS Plaza on the Gandhi Road approached Dehradun Mayor Vinod Chamoli here today.

They apprised the Mayor that they had bought the office from one of the builders in 2005, but he had never provided them its ownership. They had applied for the mutation in the corporation, but to no avail.

However, the builder had now given them the notice sent by the corporation for depositing the house tax and said if they failed to do so, their shops would be seized.

They further affirmed that the builder had never mentioned about the tax to them and also the notation by the corporation was on his name and not theirs. “We are ready to pay the tax without any objection if the builder transfers the place to our name,” they echoed.

The corporation recently sent the notice at various buildings to deposit the house tax and PLS Plaza was one of them. It had been asked to pay Rs 8,000 to Rs 22,000 depending up on the size of the shops and offices.

The Mayor assured them that he would sort out the matter as soon as possible. He also asked them to apply for the mutation again and told them that he would see that the process regarding it saw the light of the day soon. Advocate Manoj Kumar Malhotra, BR Arora, DS Kohli and Ashwini Arora visited the Mayor.

Dehradun, March 10
The Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) will start charging for picking up garbage from all the commercial complexes located in the city soon. They will be charged Rs 300 per month according to the norms.

The bigger complexes, including wedding points need to pay Rs 1,000 as users charges in advance. Other than this, any person, organising a function outside the party complex, will have to pay Rs 800 in advance so that the corporation could clean the site by next day.

The DMC has also issued a letter to the city-based multiplex asking them to pay Rs 72,000 in advance for a year after which they would be paying Rs 6,000 per month to the corporation for carrying away all the waste.

The corporation still to give the licence to open food court of the newly opened City Junction Mall, as neither had they paid the fee to the corporation, nor had they managed of their own.

The corporation has also started charging owners of the meat shops. They are charging Rs 10 per day for picking up the waste up to 10 kg and would charge Rs 1 for extra per kg.

Talking to The Tribune, senior health officer Kailash Joshi said to make the city clean they were starting the solid waste management process and all the commercial as well as residential areas would be covered under this. “We will be able to maintain cleanliness only if people pay us,” he said.

Dehradun, March 10
Director-General of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) AK Bansal has favoured the orientation of the scientific fraternity within the ICFRE institutions in order to achieve the goal of “science for people”.

In an interaction with The Tribune, Bansal, who yesterday attended his first public workshop at the Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun, since he assumed office, said he had a firm belief that the research must reach to people. “Apart from being a leader in research, we must ensure that the researches reach people and benefit them. Science must contribute to the wellbeing of people and the scientific processes must reach them. And for this, the orientation of the scientific fraternity was promptly needed,” Bansal said. He said the stakeholders had an important role to play in the dissemination of researches.

He said the ICFRE was now contemplating making its eight institutions theme based. He was focusing to ensure that there was no overlapping of researches and duplicity was checked. “There should be synergy as overlapping leads to loss of both time and energy and also affects the efficiency,” Bansal said.

Welcoming the deliberations of wood science at the FRI, he suggested frequent staging of such interactions, as such an interaction provided the most ideal platform for scientists, industry and other stakeholders to deliberate on the pertinent wood science issues. He said in the present-day context, a wood use policy was needed urgently in the country. Moreover, the demand for wood was growing fast.

Referring to the Green India Mission, which recently got the nod from the Prime Minister, Bansal said the task was certainly challenging, but added that the ICFRE institutions were well prepared to contribute their bit to this mega project.

Responding to a query, he ruled out any shortage of scientists at the ICFRE institutions. “The vacancies are getting filled gradually and there is no drastic shortage of scientists as of now,” he said.

On the climate change issue, Bansal said the council had played a prominent role in a debate on forest climate about reducing emissions from deforestation, and had successfully influenced international negotiations with its reasonable, scientific and equitable stand in favour of forest conservation.

Mussoorie, March 10
Rajpur MLA Ganesh Joshi visited Hakmans compound today and heard the woes of the tenants facing eviction from the premises.

Original owner of the Hakmans Hotel Yusuf had won the judicial case and the court had directed him to take the possession of the said property. The owner of one section of the compound Girish Dhaundiyal also arrived on the scene and said he was ready to provide land to the affected families free of cost to construct their 
own houses.

He further said the affected families would have to negotiate with Mussoorie MLA Jot Singh Gunsola for this arrangement. Joshi, on hearing this, said he was bewildered at this statement of Dhanudiyal and the role of the local MLA was puzzling in this issue.

Joshi also directed the Mussoorie SDM to look into the matter and talk to all the parties involved in the issue, so that some amicable solution could be taken.

Mussoorie BJP president Roop Singh Kathait and others were present on 
the occasion.

Nainital, March 10
A spell-binding solo performance “Aisa Hi Hota Hai” by Alok Chatterjee took theatre lovers of the Lake City by the storm. The mesmerising performance was about his journey in the world of theatre.

Alok was a senior of Nirmal Pande, whose first death anniversary is being marked with the presentation of a series of plays at the National School of Drama (NSD). He has been teaching at the NSD, Anupam Kher’s acting institute in Mumbai and also at the Film and Television Institute (FTII) at Pune. His students have been making a name for themselves in various disciplines related to the making of films. But for him, the theatre remains his passion.

Through his performance that lasted close to one-and-a-half hours, Alok took the audience through the journey of his own life, the life of a theatre artiste right from the time when he had decided to take up theatre as a career option. Through his performance the audience got to know the different facets of the lives of great personalities like BB Karanth and famous poet Agyeya. One also got a peep into the life of NSD students, what they study, what kind of atmosphere is prevalent there and how that institution widens the horizons of its students.

The performance was well interspersed with Alok performing portions of the performances he had given, the poems he had recited during interviews and what all he had gone through. He performed a sequence from well-known play “Andhayug” that was penned by Dharamvir Bharati in which he had played the role of Aswathama. He also came up with the rendition of a speech that was at the core of the well-known tragedy “Oedipus”. He also narrated the poems penned by Nirala and Agyeya.

His performance also presented the most difficult aspect of an actor’s life when he performed on the stage, forgetting his own miseries and sorrows. He related how he had come back to Delhi from Srinagar in a couple of days after collecting his father’s ashes from the cremation grounds to perform a play penned by famous Russian writer Maxim Gorky.

A strong message emerging from Alok’s life and its philosophy that was presented beautifully was that anything done with conviction does bring desired results.

He got a standing ovation from the audience and his batch mate from Nainital Idris Malik best described his performance by termed it as the most honest performance he had ever seen.

The other performances for the day included poetry recital by B Sahil, solo performance by Madan Mehra “Badke Da” and performance of Mohan Rakesh’s play “Lehron ke Rajhans” by local artistes. 

Pithoragarh, March 10
Thousands of villagers of Aincholi village today blocked the National Highway 125, which connects the border areas of Pithoragarh district with the Tanakpur plains, to press for the immediate arrest of the killers of a youth whose body was found near his house on February 25.

“Despite the villagers having lodged an FIR on February 26, the police has failed to arrest the culprits till date,” said Devki Devi, grandmother of the deceased.

Thousands of vehicles had lined up on both the sides of the highway for a long time. “The blockade was lifted only after the police and administrative officials assured the villagers that an appropriate action would be taken soon,” said Ram Dutt Paliwal, SDM of Pithoragarh.

“In the investigation report, the police did not find any signs of murder. Moreover, the postmortem report also indicates the death of the youth due to hanging,” said Nilesh Anand Bharane, SP of Pithoragarh. “We have also sent the mobile phone of the deceased and that of the girl, with whom he had talked before his death, to Chandigarh for a forensic test,” said the SP.

Ramnagar, March 10
An exhibition depicting legendary Jim Corbett’s life is one of the key attractions being offered by the Forest Department as part of the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Jim Corbett National Park.

The prized pictures and documents narrating the history of the park have been displayed adjacent to the library at Dhikala. They will remain open for public viewing for a period of one year. The exhibition was formally inaugurated at a small, but impressive ceremony by world-renowned conservationist George Schellar today.

Dr Schellar had a lot to say on the present scenario with regards to the tiger for which the Corbett Park is well known. “This place has a good population of tigers and the other parts of India should learn from it. The number of tigers is going down across the world. Only a few days ago there was the news of the last tiger in Cambodia dying. The number is very less in Vietnam and North Korea, while in China there are only 15 tigers,” he pointed out.

The conservationist in him related that there were about 3,000 tigers living in the wild across the globe and almost half of them were in India. At the same time the matter of concern was that nearly 17,00 of them were in captivity across the world.

Dr Schellar said the government needed to have the will to conserve the “beautiful animal” and the effort to protect it had to begin right from the local level. He underlined the need for the interventions at the highest level, framing of right policies and the introduction of right legislations. “Science can help, but conservation is a public effort,” the expert asserted, while pointing out that the tiger was the symbol of the forest which provided livelihood and things like medicinal plants to human beings.

Talking to The Tribune, he warned: “If forests are destroyed, the fallout will be poverty”. Dr Schellar made it clear that forests had to be conserved at all costs.

The exhibits at the exhibition are a delight for everyone who is even a bit familiar with Jim Corbett and his contribution to wildlife conservation.

On display are the original covers of the six books penned by the legendary hunter-turned-conservationist, the stamps released to mark various landmarks in the journey of the park, including Corbett’s birth centenary. There are exhibits on Corbett’s close association with Governor General and Viceroy during the British rule, Lord Linlithlow and government notifications related to the formation of the park, etc. On display are the draft rules and conditions for a permit. There are also on display the details about the relocation of various villages while the park was being established.

An interesting exhibit is the obituary of the legendary conservationist that had appeared in The Times on April 22, 1955. Besides there are exhibits on how the tiger census is conducted that immediately captures a wildlife enthusiast’s fancy.

Chief Wildlife Warden Srikant Chandola, while talking to The Tribune, said: “It is a good idea to replicate this exhibition elsewhere like at the museum at Corbett’s house in Chhoti Haldwani. We will see what can be done about this”.

Haridwar, March 10
One of the seniormost, visionary and Union Cabinet portfolio-holder Congress leader late Arjun Singh’s ashes were immersed in the holy Ganga today amidst rituals. With moist eyes family members of the deceased performed the rites at holy Brahamkund, Har-ki-Pauri, as per the directions of teerth purohits. Arjun Singh had been adjudged Best Parliamentarian a decade back.

Though Singh sons’ Abhimanyu and Ajay Singh were not present, Shivendra Singh and Ram Lal Singh, family members of the royal clan, had brought the ashes to Haridwar. They reached the pilgrim city at 1:30 by train and headed to the Kankhal-situated Swami Avdeshanand Maharaj’s ashram. There they spent some time with the religious guru and then went to Brahamkund.

Informing The Tribune about the rites performed teerth purohits of Pandit Jassella Ji Gotre, they said as per Hindu rituals and traditions the ashes had been immersed.

Arjun Singh, aged 81 years, had died owing to a prolonged illness on March 4 at AIIMS, New Delhi.

“Singh’s family belongs to the royal clan at Churhat Jagir village in Madhya Pradesh. Probably Arjun Singh’s son couldn’t come as they had headed towards Allahabad, but we made sure that the immersion of the ashes took place in Haridwar,” said Pt Shekhar Raj who was one of the four teerth pundits who helped in the rites.

The other three, namely Pandit Shivendra, Narendra Kumar and Praveen Kumar, said the family relatives left the city at 15:30 hrs, heading towards New Delhi by train.

Haridwar, March 10
Just a few hours after the police busted an inter-state robbery gang yesterday, another heist took place at the Rawasain Forest Corporation checkpost in which a forest guard got killed while braving the robbers.

The assailants shot dead forest guard Ramesh Chandra (48) while he was trying to foil the robbery. Overpowering the forest employees, the assailants took away Rs 4.15 lakh from the locker of the forest corporation checkpost, while injuring the other guards.

According to the injured, the incident occurred around 11.30-12 late last night when around seven to eight persons aided with ammunition, sticks and rods suddenly attacked the forest employees at the forest beat post.

“Before we could understand, they attacked us and fired at Ramesh. They also threatened to kill us if we resisted. Then they unlocked the almirah and took away the cash,” said one of the injured guards.

Learning of the incident, the forest corporation higher authorities rushed to the site. MD of the forest corporation Anil Dutta, RM SP Subuddhi and DNM NK Raturi have asked for an inter-departmental inquiry into the matter. Dutta assured the victims of full cooperation and a job from the departmental side to the deceased person’s family.

Meanwhile, the Van Vikas Nigam Karamchari Sangh closed all the checkposts in the Garhwal circle and demanded provision of adequate ammunition and security measures for the employees.

Head of the VVNKS JP Bahukhandi said hapless forest employees were put in these checkposts to battle odd working conditions apart from threat to their life.