Schools closed on ABVP call
Dehradun August 18
Over 100 public and government schools in Dehradun remained closed in view of the bandh call given by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in support of Anna Hazare here today.

Haridwar, August 18
Flood-like situation in Gang Daspur village, which falls in Lakshar tehsil, has aggravated the woes of the people. The district has been witnessing heavy rainfall for the past three days. An embankment on the Ganga river has also started caving in.

The area is submerged. Villagers either spend the whole night on rooftops or make makeshift boats to move to some higher reaches.

Such is the situation in the region that the army has been called in to help in rescue operations while special district administrative teams are providing relief aid to the affected villagers.

The twin villages of Bada Gang Daspur and Chota Gang Daspur are almost cut off from the rest of the region, as only boats are the way to reach these villages.

A similar embankment is reportedly getting damaged at Maithana village falling on the Solani river posing a threat to nearby villages.

Former village head of Gang Daspur Sulekh Chand said they haven’t slept for the past three days as floodwaters played havoc. He thanked the nearby villagers, who come on tractors to provide food, cloth, fuel wood and cow dung as everything is wet due to rain and river water.

Political parties, social organisations, NGOs and nearby villagers have started distributing relief aids. While almost all household goods have been either swayed by floods or have been damaged. Farmers are aggravated due to non-availability of fodder and shelter for their animals.

Hectares of crop fields have got damaged due to floods and the villagers claim that they have not been paid proper compensation for the last year floods.

Haridwar District Magistrate R Meenakshi Sundaram said the rescue-cum-relief aid was being provided in the region. He added that due to fear of contagious diseases, special health teams also accompanied the relief teams and villagers were being given free-of-cost medicines in various temporary health camps.

Other flood-affected villages in the region are Sahaspur Bela, Maharajpur, Panditpur, Dumanpuri, Nandpur, Kalassia and Giddowali.

To tackle the alarming situation, the local administration approached the Bengal Engineering Group and the Centre for Rescue Assistance.

The Army today started the rescue operations by its team comprising two officers, four Junior Commissioned officers and 63 other ranks.

The situation was quite alarming till yesterday, whereas the water started receding today and the situation is under control, according to Army officers involved in the rescue operations.

A fully equipped army medical team visited various villages giving medical assistance and distributing medicines to patients and cautioning them against waterborne diseases. 

Dehradun August 18
Over 100 public and government schools in Dehradun remained closed in view of the bandh call given by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in support of Anna Hazare here today.

All educational institutions were closed on a call given by party workers in support of Anna Hazare’s movement against corruption. The decision to close the schools had been taken at a meeting held by members of the ABVP on Wednesday under the presidentship of Umed Singh Negi, state president, ABVP.

“With the ABVP giving a bandh call in the city and the reported incidents of forcible closure of commercial establishments in the past during such protests, we decided to close the school,” said the principal of a leading public school in the city. However, the party workers took out a motor cycle rally in the city under the leadership of Anshul Chawla, the president of the student council, DAV PG College.

They raised slogans favoring Anna Hazare and appealed to the people to cooperate with them in making their bandh a success. However, most of the schools in the city were closed. — TNS

Dehradun, August 18
It has now become a routine for thousands of vendors to encroach various roads of the city, especially during the evening. The roads that seem to be around 40 feet in the night turns to be just 14 feet in the late afternoon making the traffic to crawl. The data at the Dehradun Municipal Corporation (says that there are just 1500 legal rehris all over the city but the actual number is huge. The corporation has no control over these people. Despite the fact that the department many a times visits the places to remove the encroachers and confiscated their rehris but still there is no stopping for the same.

Sources maintain that many shopkeepers take money from these vendors in order to let them put their rehri in front of their shops. Moreover, the vendors pay a weekly amount (Hafta) to the police staff in order to put up their rehris.

Many hawkers admitted that they paid money to shopkeepers for putting up their rehris and also to the police who allows them. They also claimed that other than taking the money, the police also took the items they were selling.

According to Mayor Vinod Chamoli, they regularly seize these rehris but he also wants that the area police should take action after they remove the illegal vendors. “We have provided the licence to vendors so that they can move in the city and not to stand at a particular place. Moreover, the department has not issued new licences since January this year,” he told The Tribune. He added, “Whenever we remove the vendors, they come back within no time. For this, the area police should keep a vigil so that encroachers could be removed. As we are short of staff we can’t move all the time.”

“The officials have been asked to identify the place where these people can stand but I have not received any report as of now,” Mayor affirmed. While DMC Chief Executive Officer Sushil Kumar too stated that they were waiting for the report of land where these people could be asked to work. “As soon as we get the place, all the rehriwallas will be shifted there,” he mentioned. SP City Ajay Joshi about the same, he shifted the responsibility on the MC. “This is a continuous process and we can provide police force to the corporation whenever they want to go for a drive for removing encroachers as it is their work. The police can just act as a helping hand,” he said. 

Dehradun, August 18
The state government’s plan to demarcate a separate land at Parade Ground for sports has not seen the light of day.

Sports Minister Khazan Das had last month announced to start the demarcation work in 21 days. However, the work has not begun even after a month’s time and the parade ground, where the state’s budding players hone their skills, continue to present a sorry picture.

Cows and donkeys graze on the playground, where district and national-level competitions are held and players practice everyday. Some parts of ground are full of rainwater and mud along with waste material.

One can see “vikrams” and city buses parked in the ground, where players practice every morning and evening. After facing much criticism last month, the sports minister had visited the ground and announced to demarcate a separate part of the ground for sports activities after players and coaches requested him for the same.

However, the work has not started till date due to the lackadaisical attitude of the authorities.

Speaking to The Tribune today, the Sports Minister said the government had passed a fund of Rs 51 lakh for the job. “Though the demarcation work got a bit delayed due to technical reasons, but the work will be started soon,” he added.

Meanwhile, the sports officials said once the demarcation would be done, they would be able to hold 400m races.

“This will be the only playground in the capital city to have the facility of 400m race. Though there is one at Raipur on the premises of Maharana Pratap Sports College, that is very far from the city and players don’t prefer to go there,” the officials added. 

Dehradun August 18
The first day of the workshop on Talking Movies, organised by the School of Communication at Doon University, Dehradun, dealt with an introduction to the basic concepts of film appreciation here today.

Professor of film appreciation Suresh Chabria from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, started off with a brief history of the medium called cinema. His discussion ranged from the birth of cinema from the camera obscura principle during the time of the Renaissance to the works of Mitchell and Kenyon and even film-makers of today.

The Head of the Department of the School of Communication , Dr. Rajesh Kumar, concluded with expressing a few words on the workings of cinema and the session was then handed over to Professor Suresh Chabria. His discussion was supported by clips from the factory films of Mitchell and Kenyon, Once upon a time in West by Sergio Leone, The Leopard by Goffredo Lombardo and the session ended by a clip from Mani Ratnam’s Bombay.

Chabria discussed the various working range of film, the use of technology and how cinema dwells in the use of metaphors and other attributes of poetry.

He emphasised that films were made in terms of structure and that even cinema had a grammar of its own. Cinema was discussed as a medium that recorded reality and captured space and time. The workshop ended with the filming of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurais, which was screened in the afternoon.

Tomorrow, on the second day, the workshop will deal with the power of cinema or why films are influential and the different kinds of films and aspects of the Indian cinema. Rashi Mishra has designed the banner and poster for the workshop. 

Dehradun, August 18
After the last year’s resounding success, Ghummakkad Narain - The Travelling Children’s Literature Festival is back in Dehradun. This year, the festival will be held at Jaswant Modern School, Dehradun, on August 19 and 20.

The festival will include sessions with noted writer and critic Prayag Shukla and nature enthusiast Ranjit Lal, who has contributed numerous books on nature and animals.

The sessions will be conducted by Sanjana Kapur and Nimmy Chako from the Amar Chitra Katha media house.

Other sessions for children and documentary will be conducted by Samina Mishra, who will also read from her great grandfather and former President Dr Zakir Hussain’s translations of “The Magic Key Series”.

Besides, reading sessions supported by the National Book Trust along with the distribution of books will be conducted at Government Primary School in Ajabpur. Tributes will also be paid to Uncle Pai, who passed away this year.

The Travelling Children’s Literature Festival is a Nivesh and Himalayan Hub for Art, Culture and Heritage (HHACH) initiative organised in collaboration with the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

The festival is a two-month event to promote reading with activities like book reading, creative writing, illustration workshops and puppet shows by writers, illustrators and performers from India and abroad. The festival will culminate on September 29.

The festival will be organised in Dehradun, Delhi, Chandigarh and Nainital.

The festival was inaugurated at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Delhi, by Dr Shashi Tharoor, former minister of state for external affairs, on July 30. 

Dehradun, August 18
A retired lecturer of the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped (NIVH) has started a fast at Helen Keller Bhavan of the institute.

Former lecture of the NIVH, who retired two months ago, RS Chauhan created a flutter yesterday morning when without seeking permission from the authorities, he began a sit-in at Helen Keler Bhawan.

When enquiries were made at the behest of Director of the institute Anuradha Mohit, it was revealed that he was lending support to Anna Hazare as he was unhappy with his arrest. However, Chauhan had submitted no memorandum to the authorities.

Later he changed his stance and told mediapersons, “My application for the post of Principal, Model School, was turned down by the NIVH authorities,” said Chauhan.

However, Anuradha Mohit said Chauhan had applied twice for the post of Principal several years ago and he had failed to qualify on both occasions. “At that time, I was Director of the National Association of Blind and was member of the selection committee that interviewed him. He thinks that I am responsible for rejecting his candidature when this was not the case. My opinion, in any case, would not have mattered as four other members were also part of the committee. Since then, Chauhan has been harbouring a grudge against me,” said Mohit.

As a precautionary measure, the institute has also informed the police authorities who have now posted a constable near him. 

Dehradun, August 18
An inter-section Hindi debate competition in junior and senior sections was held at Rashtriya Indian Military College (RIMC) here today. The topic for juniors’ debate was, ‘Jeevon ke vilupt hone ke liye manushya zimmedar hai” and for seniors it was ‘Khelon mein rajnitikaran anuchit hein”.

Col Pankaj Kumaria, Commandant (RIMC) was the chief guest on the occasion, who gave away prizes to the winners. The judges were Dr Arvind Nabh Shukla, Vidhukesh Vimal and Guru Prasad Joshi.

Results in the juniors’ category

Individual positions:

Best speaker — Cadet Anushil Kumar, 2nd best speaker — Cadet Chetan Kumar, 3rd best speaker — Cadet Raghav Vaid.

Consolation — Cadet Siddhant Mishra

Section standings

1st — Shivaji section , 2nd — Chandragupta section, 3rd — Pratap section and 4th - Ranjit section.

Seniors’ category

Individual standings: Best speaker — Cadet Shivam Sharma, 2nd best speaker — Cadet Rishav Raj , 3rd best speaker — Cadet Ankit Arsh and Cadet Hemant Poonia.

Section standings

1st — Shivaji section, 2nd — Chandragupta section, 3rd —Pratap section and 4th — Ranjit section.

Overall standings

1st — Shivaji section, 2nd — Chandragupta section, 3rd —Pratap section and 4th — Ranjit section.

Lt-Col A Tiwary, Wg Cdr SK Thapliyal, KS Ahalawat, CS Vishwakarma, DN Thapliyal, PK Sharma and PN Naik were also present on the occasion.

The coordinators of the event were CS Vishwakarma and Khushi Ram.

Dehradun, August 18
After remaining closed for over six months since the first South Asian Federation (SAF) Winter Games concluded here, the state government has finally opened the ice-skating rink at Raipur.

The government after skipping several deadlines had officially declared to open it on August 16, but had to delay it for two more days, as the preparations for the ice-skating carnival were not made. Sports Minister Khazan Das inaugurated the rink for 
players today.

Starting from today, the training camp for players will be organised till September 15. “The event got delayed due to electricity and heavy rain,” the minister added.

“After September 15, we are contemplating to give the rink on the PPP mode. If that is not feasible, the state government will run the rink itself,” he added. “We aim to make it a hub of winter sports.

This is the only artificial ice-skating rink in the entire south Asia and we will put all our efforts to promote the sport here,” the Sports Minister said.

Earlier, students of Maharana Pratap Sports College, Raipur, practiced at the rink. Girl students of Union World School also learnt ice-skating here.