Dehradun, October 2
Property worth lakhs gutted in a fire that broke out at Indian Overseas Bank, Nehru Colony, early this morning. However, the cash could be saved as the fire did not reach the lockers, fire officials said.

As per the firemen, prima facie it seemed the fire broke out due to some electric fault. Two fire tenders were pressed into service and it took about one hour to the firemen to douse the flames at the bank.

According to Chief Fire Officer Chandan Singh Jina, the fire, it seemed, broke out last night and was noticed by the locals in the morning when they saw smoke emanating from the bank premises.

They then informed the fire staff at 6 am following which two fire tenders were pressed into service. The firemen broke the locks of the bank to gain entry inside to douse the fire after talking to managers.

It took about an hour time to completely control the fire. The fire erupted due to electric fault in a UPS. AC, UPS, Internet system and furniture were badly burnt in the mishap. Luckily the cash was safe in the lockers, the CFO added.

“We will have a talk with all banks to prevent such events. There was some carelessness on part of bank officials as well. This is a private property taken on a rent by the bank thus safety measurers are not that much,” he told The Tribune.

Dehradun, October 2
Piyaporn Pannak of Thailand and Soumyajit Ghosh of India claimed the junior singles title in the girls’ and boys’ categories, respectively, here today during the ONGC Indian Junior and Cadet Open-ITTF Premium Junior Circuit- 2011 that concluded at the Multi-Purpose Hall of Mahrana Partap Sports College, Raipur.

In the Junior Girls Singles final, Piyaporn Pannak (Tha) beat Ankita Das (Ind) by 4-1 (8-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-6, 14-12) and in the Junior Boys Singles final Soumyajit Ghosh (Ind) defeated his India partner Harmeet Desai by 4-3 (4-11, 11-5, 11-6, 14-16, 9-11, 11-3, 11-5).

Whereas in the Cadet Boys Singles final, Abhishek Yadav (Ind) got past Utkarsh Gupta (Ind) by 3-2 (6-11, 11-8, 11-8, 5-11, 11-6) and in the cadet girls singles final, Anuska Dutta (Ind) beat Ayhika Mukherjee (Ind) by 3-2 (9-11, 8-11, 12-10, 11-4) to win the event.

Other results:

Cadet Boys Singles (Semi Finals): Abhishek Yadav (Ind) bt Lalhunhlua X (Ind) by 3-0 (12-10, 14-12, 11-9); Utkarsh Gupta (Ind) bt Ayush Tayal (Ind) by 3-1 (2-11, 11-5, 11-5, 11-4)

Cadet Boys Consolation (Singles) Final: Liyange Kahawaththa (Sri) bt Islam Mozahidul (Ban) by 3-0 (11-4, 11-9, 11-8)

Cadet Girls Singles (Semi Finals): Ayhika Mukherjee (Ind) bt Spoorthy Karnam (Ind) by 3-1 (11-8, 13-11, 9-11, 11-3); Anuska Dutta (Ind) bt Naina (Ind) by 3-0 (11-9, 11-8, 13-11)

Cadet Girls Consolation (Singles) Final: Kanangara Ruvini (Sri) bt Uththamawadu Thedini (Sri) by 3-0 (11-5, 11-6, 11-9)

Junior Boys Consolation (Singles) Final: Sarayut Tancharoen (Tha) bt Lalhunhlua X (Ind) by 3-2 (9-11, 11-2, 9-11, 13-11, 12-10)

Meanwhile, players were given away prizes at the concluding prize distribution ceremony.

Dehradun, October 2
Foreign and Indian players played in front of empty stands during the ONGC Indian Junior and Cadet Open that concluded today at a multi-purpose hall of Maharana Partap Sports College as a little effort was made by the organisers to bring in people to watch the action.

Baring the final day today, which saw some students from Maharana Partap Sports College witnessing matches, there were no spectators or students to cheer the players in the remaining four days at the ITTF Junior Circuit.

Neither did the mega event was much publicised nor advertised by the Uttarakhand Table Tennis Association to attract spectators here. Also, the association did not make much effort to bring players, students and other groups to see the matches.

“It is understood there would not have been much spectators as the game does not enjoy as much popularity as the cricket or any other sport does in India but the organisers could have atleast made some effort by bringing children in groups from the city or far-off places,” quipped a local who came to the venue.

Another local added, “Six countries took part in the ranking tournament hosted by our nation but there was very thin presence of spectators. Had the event been organised somewhere else the scene could have been different.”

“It seems the organisers could not make full use of the spacious international-level multi-purpose hall,” a student said. Notably, same was the story with the south Asian TT championship, which was organised last year at the same hall.

However, Prince Vipon, Uttarakhand Table Tennis Association technical advisor and SAI coach, said everyday a good number of students from the local schools came to enjoy the matches. He added all schools were sent invitations for the matches and also a press conference was held to advertise the event.

Dehradun, October 2
The St. Joseph’s Academy (SJA) is this year’s Frank Anthony Memorial All-India Inter-School Debate champion.

The debate was conducted by the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations held at Bishop Cotton Boys School in Bangalore on September 25.

The SJA was one of the North zone finalists and after a gruelling debating session with participants of six other finalist schools, the SJA debating team emerged as a winner.

The team comprised Bhuvanyaa Vijay and Siddharth Priyadarshi Sharma. Bhuvanyaa was adjudged as the best speaker. The topic of the debate was “We live in interesting practice times when the power of information and the Internet has changed the world and the entire balance of power is now in the hands of young people”.

Despite tough competition by schools, including La Martiniere for boys (Kolkata), CMS Gomti Nagar (Lucknow), La Martiniere for boys (Lucknow), Bishop Cotton Boys School (Bangalore) and other schools from Mumbai and Jamshedpur, the SJA emerged victorious.

Dehradun, October 2
Dr Jaspal Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Punjabi University, stressed on the need to preserve the precious manuscripts and literature related to research work on Guru Granth Sahib which was kept in the library of Dr Balbir Singh Litterature Centre in the city.

Dr Singh who came to attend a religious function held on the 37th death anniversary of renowned Punjabi litterateur Dr Balbir Singh, at the centre today suggested for the digitisation of the works stacked in the library for the preservation.

He also talked of developing the place as a research and resource-based centre in the region. “We will make this place a research and resource centre to carry out extensive studies on Guru Granth Sahib. The centre is already doing amazing research work on each word written in the holy book alphabetically. It may take 10 to 15 years to complete it. Besides this, there is a lot of scope of delving deeper in other areas as well which can be researched on historical or musical aspect, on compilation or editing, so on and so forth,” he said.

He expressed satisfaction on the activities of the centre and said the centre should also hold more and more seminars and workshops in the same direction.

“I am going to constitute an advisory committee of a few scholars soon to advise the ways to enhance the activities at the centre.” He applauded the contributions of Dr Balbir Singh saying that he not only maintained but enriched also the Punjabi heritage and culture. “He gave us such a centre in this region that we can never be poor of our cultural treasure trove. We also need to pitch in by putting our combined efforts to strengthen the centre further by holding new programmes and activities here.”

He also expressed condolences on the death of Bibi Mohinder Kaur, the adopted daughter of Dr Balbir Singh, who passed away this year in the month of March saying she was administrating the affairs of the centre quite well.

Dr Harbhajan Singh, Project Director, also paid homage to the great litterateur and remembered his contributions. Many other socialites of the city also paid their tributes.

The programme was followed by Bhog Sri Akhand Path, Kirtan by Bhai Kanwarpal Singh, Shabad-vichar by Dr Harbhajan Singh, spiritual discourse by Dr Jodh Singh and Ardas.

Dehradun, October 2
Just like the other wards of the area Adhoiwala (North) too consists of posh colonies as well as slums. The posh areas of the ward includes Vikas Lok, Suman Puri, Bank Colony, Shakti Vihar, Param Vihar, Suman Nagar, Bank Colony No. 7, Kewal Vihar, Ragati Vihar and Mela Ram Colony while Anand Gram, Vijay Nagar and Shastri Nagar and Choon Bhatta comprise the slum area.

The major problem faced by the residents is insanitary conditions in their area. Though councillor Shakuntla Rathore claims that she had done a lot of work for the area and there is no problem as such.

Talking to The Tribune, Rathore, who is a BJP councillor, said she had got works worth Rs 78 lakh done in the ward. A number of roads and drains had been constructed. The estimates had been prepared for the remaining work that was expected to start soon. But, the basic problem they were facing was that the contractors were not coming forward for new tenders. “The prices of the construction material have skyrocketed and the corporation should understand it that contractors just can’t pay from their pockets,” she said.

Mukul said safai karamcharis never visited the area and if they did come they demanded money from the residents. “If we do not pay them they will leave garbage in front of our houses,” she claimed, adding “We have many a time complained to the supervisor as well as the councillor about the same but no action has been taken yet.”

Rajan Varma too grumbled about the lack of sanitation in his area. “The drains have been damaged and safai karamcharis hardly visit our ward due to which they remain choked most of the time, creating difficulty for us, especially during the rains,” he stated.

Ashok Chaudhry said they cleaned the small drains outside their houses themselves as the sanitation staff hardly paid a visit to this area. He also complained of non-functional streetlights. “Most of the switches are nonfunctional but none of the officials has bothered to get them repaired,” he said.

Varun Kapoor said safai karamcharis demand money from them. “We have complained to the supervisor, the councillor and the Additional Executive Engineer about nonchalance of safai karamcharis but no one has paid heed to this problem,” he added.

Haridwar, October 2
Now regular delays in checking your emails owing to slow Internet service and having a separate cable connection for the television set will be a thing of past in Haridwar. The hi-fi fibre service for residents is being tested in the city.

This service commonly, known as FTTH, will offer customers high-speed broadband approximately up to 100 mbps.

Deputy General Manager of the BSNL Arvind Kumar said the FTTH network was empowered with a gigabyte capable passive optical network that would help offer broadband services at a very quick speed to the customers.

That means the high-speed Internet aided with television network channels will lessen the twin cable connections that till date majority of consumers relies on.

Optical fibre is the vital component in this service, which will replace copper wires, and thus selected locations will be on the target initially in the city.

Also, a plethora of services based on Triple play (voice-video-data) services like IPTV, HDTV, 3DTV, video on demand, bandwidth on demand, video conferencing, interactive gaming, and several other VAS can be possible through FTTH.

The maximum benefit will be available to those consumers who live in a single locality as to such single group, a single connection will be sufficient to provide the high-speed Internet and digital quality picture and sound service.

Meant for high-end consumers, this service will be first launched on prototype model and then in coming months it will be available for consumers.

“I was waiting for this service since last year, but knowing that this is a costly service ranging from Rs 2000 onwards depending on the plan one takes, this scheme is out of the purview of common man” remarked ITC employee Umesh Dimri.

Haridwar, October 2
The 8th Youth State Basketball Tournament is under way at the state-of-the-art basketball court of Shiv Dale school, Jagjeetpur, here. Teams from all over the state are participating in this annual tournament.

The hosts Haridwar (girls’ team) lost to Haldwani 40-32 in the quarterfinal stage. The match between Mussoorie and Nainital witnessed a lopsided play as Musssoorie won by a whopping margin of 44 points (48-4).Pithoragarh too claimed a facile win against the Tehri girls at 23-8.

In the boys’ category, Haridwar won against Tehri Garhwal 16-6 while Mussoorie romped home against Pithoragarh (40-23). Haridwar (rural) easily defeated Mussoorie 45-15.

The maximum score in the matches played so far has been made by Dehradun team that defeated Pithoragarh 56-12.

To an extent, new Chief Minister BC Khanduri has been able to send the message home that things will improve with his return to the office of the Chief Minister. His posturing and performance over the first 20 days of being in office have sent across positive signals.

But at the same time, the people are now seeking immediate changes on the ground level in Kumaon. Having been disillusioned with Khanduri’s predecessor Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, who had failed to deliver on almost every front, the people are now making comparisons between the style of functioning of the two leaders.

For example, the fast pace of work being witnessed these days with regards to the repairs of the roads in the region, particularly the Bhawali-Almora road, which is the lifeline of the hill districts, has posed several questions coming from the people for the BJP leaders which the latter are finding it difficult to explain.

The people are questioning that how is it that the road is being repaired on priority these days while the Nishank government slept over the matter for more than a year. The same holds true for several other roads where repairs are on. Observers say that the people want to see things happening on the ground and this is what matters.

This perhaps will be a big challenge before Khanduri during the little time he has on his hands.

Politically speaking, Nishank’s departure has infused some life in the highly demoralised cadres of the BJP in this part of the state. From what was being seen as a hopeless situation a few days back, the BJP cadres are now talking of taking on the Congress and the other parties with confidence in the forthcoming polls.

However, the issue of corruption is not working for the BJP as of now. Whenever its leaders try to rake up the issue of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre being seeped in corruption, they are countered with the allegations of corruption that galore during Nishank’s tenure.

There is a very strong sentiment and undercurrent among the people and even the BJP workers that if Khanduri and the BJP want to take votes in the forthcoming polls on the issue of corruption, they need to take proactive action when it comes to the alleged corrupt deals that had dotted Nishank’s tenure.