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Within 3 days, Pangura gets another girl child
Registration of ultrasound centre suspended |
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Heritage property to be demolished for a five-star hotel
Amritsar, September 2 The SAD-BJP alliance government is all set to change the character of the British-era posh residential area near the cantonment into state-of-the-art commercial markets. The transformation will not only change the topography of this part of the city but will forever erase the residential architecture of the British period. Besides, much to the annoyance of environmentalists and citizens, hundreds of old trees would also be axed. At last, pre-paid taxis roll out in holy city
Deported man, fake travel agent arrested
Lack of security makes rly stn vulnerable to terror attacks
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Within 3 days, Pangura gets another girl child
Majority of girl children received in the Pangura scheme seems to be of well-off or upper middle class families if their appearances are anything to go by.
Since its launch in January, 2008, the total number of children received in the Pangura has reached 43 till date, out of which 40 are girls. All these children have been handed over to registered trust and adoption centres. The initiative of the District Red Cross Society to discourage female foeticide and incidents of unwanted children being abandoned at public places has proved quite helpful. However, the deplorable female foeticide figures still act as an indication to the state government that a lot remains to be done. “All of the girls have been adopted by economically and socially sound families in various parts of the state. The society gives the children only after thoroughly checking the credential of the adopting families, besides keeping a regular check on them. The society investigates into the economic conditions, social status and marriage criteria, etc,” claimed Dr K.S. Bhalla, secretary of the Red Cross Society. Some of the girls had been given to NRI families for adpoption by the adoption centres after verifying their antecedents from the authorities concerned, he added. Before this, the abandoned children were kept for at least 40 days with the adoption centre so that if the family, which had left the child in the cradle, could take its child back if it wished to do so, said Randhir Thakur, assistant secretary of the society. What sociologists say:
Dr Balwinder Arora, a retired professor of sociology of Guru Nanak Dev University, who has conducted a research on female foeticide and infanticide, pointed out that the increase in the abandonment of infant girls was due to the ban on conducting pre-natal determination test (PNDT), besides various other steps taken by the government, including registry of pregnancies through ANMs at the grass-roots level. “Therefore, the families instead of aborting the foetus are abandoning these girls after the delivery,” said
Dr Arora. Though not very fond of the scheme, Dr Inderjit Kaur, Director, All-India Pingalwara Society, said, “This has been encouraging the people to throw the girl child after birth. The government should instead devise some other ways to change the mindset of the people and encourage the society to accept the girls. More and more awareness should be spread in this regard. It is very unfortunate that five girls have been abandoned in the last three weeks.” About pangura
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Registration of ultrasound centre suspended
Amritsar, September 2 The team, led by District Family Welfare Officer Dr OP Gupta, also sealed four ultrasound machines at the centre. The team found the centre guilty of not filling “Form F” and concealing the facts of the scan in its report. The “Form F” pertains to pregnant women’s previous pregnancy history and signed declaration that she would not ask the
centre about the sex of the conceived child after the scan. The raid was carried out following a complaint from a pregnant woman belonging to Paringarhi village in Tarn Taran district, who had got her ultrasound done at the centre on March 20. In its scan report, the centre had reported “ruptured uterus”, but concealed that there was also a 14-week-old foetus. However, on March 21, she got a recheck done at PIMS in Jalandhar, whose report revealed the presence of foetus in her womb along with the “ruptured uterus”. Later, when the doctors at PIMS removed the foetus they disclosed that it was a female foetus. Further investigations revealed that an untrained midwife at Patti subdivision in Tarn Taran had tried to abort the foetus, but in the process ruptured her uterus. As per the inquiry report, the woman had got child’s sex determined from a centre in Ferozepur district. Civil Surgeon Avtar Singh Jarewal said the action against the ultrasound scan centre had been taken under Section 29 of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques On the other hand, Atul Kapoor, owner of Advanced Diagnostics, said, “We have done no wrong and the Civil Surgeon office has vested interests in digging up a six-month-old case.” He added that the filling of the “Form F” was not required as the patient in the case was not pregnant. He said he was contemplating to take legal action against the Civil Surgeon office for tarnishing his reputation.
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Heritage property to be demolished for a five-star hotel
Amritsar, September 2 A five-star hotel with a commercial complex, five separate commercial complexes and an underground parking lot would be set up on the land belonging to the Irrigation department. The Irrigation Department has 16 British-era kothis spread over an area of about 31 acres. Of these, four are occupied by officials of Irrigation Department, while four others have been recently vacated by its officials, four have been allotted to Judges, three others to Punjab Police officials and one is with an officer of PWD, building and roads. Executive Engineer, PUDA, Swinder Pal said that except five kothis, including four with the judges and one where apartments have been build to house all local employees of the Irrigation Department, the rest would be utilised for a five-star hotel site, five separate commercial complexes and an underground parking lot. The transformation is taking place under the government’s policy of Optimum Utilisation of Government Land (OUGL). As per the plan, a government department’s abandoned and surplus land would be put to development, but with a rider that it could not be sold. The six-acre hotel site is with the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB), which has invited global bidding with the last date being September 13. The PIDB would lease the site to a private company for a period of 50 years.The rest of the land has been handed over to PUDA for development. It would turn over a century-old residential buildings into plots and then hand them over to private concerns to set up five private commercial complexes. Enter apartments,
exit bungalows
Even as the state government mounted pressure on the Irrigation Department, Punjab Police and B&R to vacate 14 kothis spread on acres of prime land near the Cantonment, the former ade it clear that the premises would be vacated only after the newly built apartments are fitted with modern amenities. Executive Engineer in the Irrigation Department, Rashpal Singh, said that a communiqué had been forwarded to the government through the Department’s Chief Engineer for shifting to the new apartments only after all the civic amenities were made available there. He claimed that sanitary and electrical fittings had not been installed in the apartments, while many of the doors were yet to be installed. He added that even the approach road was yet to be constructed to connect the apartments to the outer road. When contacted, the PUDA Executive Engineer Swinder Pal said that work on the approach road had begun and it would be laid within a fortnight. He added that underground cables for supplying electricity had been laid while two transformers had been installed. Besides, a bore had been made to supply water directly. He stated that sanitary, electrical fittings and glass window were deliberately not installed as the area was unguarded. He added since these objects were costly there was always chances of these being stolen. He informed that in all 64 units, including 53 for Class III and IV employees, and two parks had been raised on 2.8 acres of land out of nearly 31 acres.
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At last, pre-paid taxis roll out in holy city
Amritsar, September 2 Out of the two, one booking counter located at the gate of Guru Ram Dass Sarai was opened this afternoon. The one at the Dharam Singh Market complex would be operational in days to come, said the officials. With the introduction of this service, the tourists, from the shrine, can reach the railway station, the bus stand or the Durgiana Mandir in an air-conditioned vehicle for Rs 20 per seat (on sharing basis) and Rs 100 (for independent ride). An auto-rickshaw driver charges Rs 15 (on sharing basis). Though this service would be open at all times, for Attari-Wagah, the timings would be from 4 pm to 8 pm. (for watching the Beating the Retreat Ceremony). For Attari-Wagah, the per seat expense would be Rs 80 per seat (to and fro) from the Shrine point and an independent vehicle would cost from Rs 800 to Rs 1300 (depending upon the make of the vehicle). This will be inclusive of waiting charges, toll charges and parking charges. It is to mention that earlier the taxi operators used to charge between Rs 100 and Rs 120 per seat for Attari-Wagah journey and that too for a non air-conditioned vehicle. It has been learnt that due to their monopoly, no uniform fare list was ever followed. Consequently, the outsiders, especially foreign tourists were being fleeced by these taxi operators. The Deputy Commisioner Rajat Aggarwal said that this service has been launched only to give the tourists relief from falling pray to these taxi operators. “Our idea was to open an option wherein the tourists should be given a safe, competitive and comfortable ride to their destinations. Naturally, the prevailing taxi operators too would be forced to offer better services to compete in the market. At the end of the day, it would be the passengers only who would be in a win-win situation”, he said. Satwant Singh, one of the partners of the transport firm which has been engaged for the service, said that at present 25 vehicles have been pressed into service and more would be added as per the demand. “Within a span of two hours, 10 vehicles were hired for different destinations. We have been allotted reserve parking for two vehicles, at a time near the booking counter,” he said.
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Deported man, fake travel agent arrested
Amritsar, September 2 Jugraj Singh, a resident of Nangal Panua village, was deported by the Italy Embassy. He reached here late last night. He was handed over to the police immigration authorities and a case under Sections 420 and 120-B of the IPC has been registered against Jugraj and Hardip Singh, the alleged fake travel agent, on the statement of Daljit Singh, Immigration Officer, Guru Ram Dass International Airport. Both of them have been arrested by the police, said Neeraj Kumar, SHO, airport police station. They were presented in the court, which had remanded them in one-day police custody. Preliminary investigations revealed that the Italy Embassy deported Jugraj as the information given by him did not match with what was submitted with the documents for procuring the visa. During investigations, he revealed the name of Hardip Singh, who was known to the family. Hardip has some relatives living in Italy, who had assured them to provide all the necessary documents for the visa. Further, investigations were under progress, the SHO said.
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Lack of security makes rly stn vulnerable to terror attacks
Amritsar, September 2 One of the four CCTV cameras has been non-functional for the past many weeks and even though the authorities have taken up the matter for its repair, but nothing has been done so far. According to information, the railway officials have also urged the authorities for installing more CCTV cameras to keep a tab on the anti-social elements, but they are yet to receive any response from them. The station remains vulnerable to threats from anti-social elements in the absence of any proper security arrangements. During recent visits to the station, this correspondent found that hardly any security personnel manned the main entry gates, though some of these remained seated on a bench on the platform. Hardly any frisking was done to check bag and baggage of the passengers at the station. The station lacks even a scanning machine to check baggage of passengers. Two police constables remain posted outside the platform area and there is no proper checking due to lack of proper infrastructure. The station, having four entry points, including one from the Gol Bagh side, had thousands of passengers, including daily commuters, visiting it everyday. As the station area is open, there are chances of unscrupulous elements entering it easily. One of the passengers Arjun Kumar, a resident of Bihar, said he was waiting at the platform to board the Amritsar-Darbhanga train. He said even though the policemen were making rounds of the platform, but no one checked his bags and other belongings. Station Superintendent Kuldeep Singh Teji said they had urged the higher authorities to install more CCTV cameras at the platforms. Kuljit Singh, SHO, Government Railway Police, said 45 members of the staff were keeping round the clock vigil at the station. Some of the constables were also being deputed in mufti in the area to thwart any attempt by subversive forces. They were closely monitoring activities inside and outside the station through four CCTV cameras. There were five platforms at the station, so they required another 15-20 CCTV cameras to monitor the railway station and for this they had already taken up the matter with the higher authorities. The railway protection force had also taken up the issue of CCTV cameras and they were in the process of getting the same.
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The addition of yet another girl child in the Pangura (cradle), installed by the Red Cross Society, within a span of three days, is testimony to the fact that girl children are still unwanted ones in the society.
A team of doctors from the Civil Surgeon Office today conducted a raid on Advanced Diagnostics, a local ultrasound scan centre, and suspended its registration.
Amritsar, September 2
mritsar, September 2
Nevertheless, the scheme launched by the society has managed to save many precious lives, who otherwise were used to be thrown into garbage dumps or in empty plots by the immediate family members only to be killed by stray dogs or becomes victim of vagaries of nature. Many similar incidents have been reported in the past.
