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Policemen thrash teachers
Govt let us down: Jobless players
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Punjab MP addresses UN Security Council
Central university
Turban issue: Capt Amarinder Singh lashes out at Akalis
Hoax bomb call triggers panic
Unregistered travel agents to face action
Attack on Bhaniarawala
Doctors promising assured treatment warned
businessman Murder case
Drastic fall in air pollution level on Diwali this year
Banks of Jharmel drain
to be strengthened
Son kills father
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Policemen thrash teachers
Bathinda, October 30 Around 300 teachers from every district of Punjab blocked the main flyover of the city on the Mansa road. As many as 70 male teachers were rounded up and 32 were arrested while women were let off. The teachers gathered near the Civil Hospital and started a protest march towards the Mansa road where they sat on the top of the flyover. The teachers were demanding that their school should be included in the category of Punjab School Education Board schools so that they could also get salaries from the state exchequer and become employees of the state government. Presently, the ETT teachers are getting their salaries from grant provided by the World Bank and the Central Government. “We feel insecure as the grants could be discontinued anytime,” said Gurmukh Singh, an ETT teacher. He alleged that the teachers were sitting peacefully when the police arrived and starting using abusive language and resorting to cane charge. The teachers alleged that SAD leaders, including Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, had promised to fulfill their demands during the previous assembly elections. But once they came to power, they even refused to listen to our problems, the teachers added. “Today, we were demanding that a meeting of our leaders be fixed with the CM or the Deputy CM, but the policemen rained lathis on us,” Gurmukh Singh said. Bathinda Avtar Singh Makkar, tehsildar, who rushed to the spot, however, alleged that the teachers disrupted the traffic for more than two hours which led to chaos in the city. “The flyover is the entrance to the city from Dabwali and Mansa and they had blocked the road. They did not even allow a patient to cross the flyover despite repeated requests,” he said.
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Govt let us down: Jobless players
Bathinda, October 30 Power lifter Parminder Singh, who won gold and silver at the All-India Inter-University in 2008 and 2009 as well as a bronze in the senior national event, said Kabaddi World Cup was just another way of strengthening the vote bank in Punjab. “As per the Olympic rules, world sporting events are hosted after a period of four years and not every year. Crores are being spent on one day while players of other games are jobless and dying of hunger,” said an irate Parminder, who has no job and foresees a
bleak future. Two months ago, he was among nine players called at the office of the director, sports, Punjabi University, Patiala, for trials. Along with others, he appeared for the trials, his original certificates were taken for scrutiny and till today he is yet to hear a word from the department. “We were assured of government jobs in the electricity department. Whenever we ask the status of our appointments or for our certificates, we are simply shooed away,” he lamented. Similarly, netball and basketball player Jaganandan, who has played at The national level and attended India camp, earns a meager Rs 2,000 per month. Jaganandan is a national-level gold medallist in netback and has won
bronze medals during tournaments in Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Academically strong, he was Punjab Education Board (PSEB) class XII topper in Bathinda with 87 per cent marks. “I have stopped even thinking of a government job. The sport has become a dream gone sour,” he said. Power lifter in 67 kg category Rupinder Kaur, who brought laurels to the district in 2002 by winning a bronze at the Junior World Cup, now works as a physical education teacher at a college in Kotkapura. She is the winner of gold for three consecutive times at all-India inter-university events. Another power lifter, Babita Rani had won bronze in one such event. She said, “The then SAD government had promised us the posts of ASI in the Punjab police. The taste of success was momentous. Dinners were thrown in our honour and every politician and bureaucrat was suddenly proud of us. But within a few weeks, we were forgotten and none of the promises was kept”. Similarly, power lifter Sunita Rani also bagged laurels at the Junior World Cup in 2003. Sunita had been working as a teacher at a local school till eight months ago before shifting to Mumbai with her husband, while Babita is married and living in Ludhiana. None of these players have got any government job and have been battling odds in life.
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Kabaddi World Cup: 14 teams to vie for trophy
Pool formation and fixtures of team for the cup have also been finalised with exciting competition expected between the 14 participating teams from various corners of the globe. Pargat Singh, director, sports, and organising secretary, said seven countries each had been enlisted in pool A and pool B. For women kabaddi, four countries, India, US, UK and Turkmenistan, were set to clash for the first-ever Kabaddi World Cup for women. According to the fixtures finalised today, the
second Kabaddi World Cup would have the inaugural session at Bathinda on November 1.
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Amarinder’s blue-eyed boy faces wrath of opponents
Gurdaspur, October 30 Manepur, who is considered to be an outsider, did not react but sources revealed that this development has been conveyed to Capt Amarinder Singh. Nearly 40 of Manepur’s hoardings were blackened by his rivals, who say that he “is not welcome because he neither has any clout among the masses nor does he visit the town regularly to listen to people’s problems.” This development, which has come just eight days before Amarinder’s ‘Punjab Bachao Yatra’ enters this district, proves how badly the party is fractured. Gurdaspur Congress Committee chief Sukhjinder Randhawa termed the incident as unfortunate and added that he would be writing to the PPCC chief about the sordid occurrence. The Congressmen are tight-lipped about the development while Randhawa says a committee will be constituted to pinpoint the group which undertook the defacement drive. “Action will be taken accordingly,” the District Congress chief said. Meanwhile, all the ticket aspirants, including Pritam Singh Bhinder, husband of former Union Minister Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder, Raman Bahl, a PPCC member and considered to be the Hindu face of the Congress, former minister SS Chottepur and senior Congressman Gurmeet Singh Pahra, have started organising public meetings. All these bigwigs are making their presence felt at almost all functions, be it a bhog or any other social gathering being held in the town. Earlier, these politicians made optimum use of the paddy procurement season by visiting grain markets in an endeavour to “strengthen their rural vote bank.” Many of them are eyeing the Vidhan Sabha ticket from more than one assembly segment. SS Chottepur is nursing both Qadian, the stronghold of his bete noire Gurdaspur MP Partap Singh Bajwa, and the Gurdaspur town seats. Like other Congressmen, Chottepur, too, has charted out an elaborate programme for holding public meetings. However, sources disclosed that the dream of Chottepur might well remain a dream as Partap Singh Bajwa might not forego his claim on Qadian seat. The MP is seeking the party ticket for either his wife Charanjit Kaur or brother Fatehjung Singh from
Qadian.
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Punjab MP addresses UN Security Council
Chandigarh, October 30 Representing India at the 66th UN General Assembly session, Santosh Chaowdhary, who spoke on “Women Peace and Securtity” yesterday, said the issue of women and peace and security had several cross-cutting as well as multi-dimensional implications. Accompanied by India’s Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Manjeev Puri, the MP in her address held that gender equality and the empowerment of women remain the key focus areas of social development and distributive justice globally. Empowering women politically, economically, educationally and legally has also been India’s major objective. India gave women equal voting rights more than 60 years ago at the time of our Independence. In 1992, India amended its Constitution and reserved 33 per cent of the seats for women in local and district-level governance institutions and bodies. This was subsequently raised to 50 per cent in 2009. “Currently, we have more than 1.5 million elected women representatives in local bodies. This is the biggest mobilisation of women worldwide in politics at the local government level and in rural and district-levels,” she added. Santosh Chowdhary, who had earlier headed the All-India Safai Karamchari body, comes from a political family. Her father was an MP and her husband represented the Congress in the previous Punjab Vidhan Sabha. She held that women’s empowerment was essential to promote overall sustainable development. This was also true in conflict situations. “We believe that participation of women in all stages of the peace process - conflict prevention, peace negotiations, peacekeeping and post-conflict reconstruction - is essential for lasting peace and security. Key aspects of post-conflict reconstruction such as economic recovery, social cohesion and political legitimacy all require active engagement of women,” she said. She said though the number of women in senior decision making levels as well as the participation of women in the mission planning, peacekeeping operations and peace-building efforts had increased, yet the number still remained very low. She said India was the first country to deploy a full female peacekeeping unit of 100 personnel in Liberia in 2007. The promotion and protection of the human rights of women and girls in armed conflict continues to pose a pressing challenge. All cases of gender-based violence in an armed conflict, whether perpetrated by parties to armed conflicts, peacekeeping personnel or humanitarian actors, must be promptly investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted. The international community must take all necessary steps to ensure security of women and children, she added.
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Central university
Chandigarh,October 30 Official sources said some sites for the proposed university were identified near the holy city. These sites were visited by the site selection committee of the Central Government. However, the state government has not conveyed that which of the sites has been selected. The Prime Minister has been urged to direct the authorities to convey the state government that which site is acceptable for setting up the university. The other central university is to be set up near Bathinda. The state government has acquired 554 acres for this university near Kudha village, at a short distance from Badal, the native place of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. However, the state government has conveyed its concern to the Centre for not starting construction work at the proposed site of the central university near Bathinda. However, the central university has started functioning from a temporary campus in Bathinda city. A part of the premises of a spinning mill there has been converted into campus for the central university. Meanwhile, the state government has urged the Centre to allocate funds for the upgradation of the all government medical colleges in the state with the central assistance. A provision in this regard should be made in the 12th Five Year Plan. There is a issue of the medical specialists, who are not easily available for teaching purpose in medical colleges. The Centre should address this problem. A majority of the specialists prefer to work in private hospitals or run their own clinics instead of doing teaching job in medical colleges. The government has been urged to increase the seats for postgraduate courses in medical colleges.
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Turban issue: Capt Amarinder Singh lashes out at Akalis
Chandigarh, October 30 Reacting to the malicious campaign launched by the Akali leadership, including Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal, blaming him and the Union Government on the issue, Capt Amarinder said the matter would be taken up at the highest level by the External Affairs Ministry. Taking a dig at the Akalis’ ignorance, he said, “In the long-held obsession of blaming the Congress-led government at the Centre for all their ills, they forgot to realise the difference that the same argument will not apply here”. He suggested to the Akali jathedars to set up a morcha, outside the residence of French President in Paris to protest the ban rather than blaming the Congress.
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Hoax bomb call triggers panic
Ferozepur, October 30 Railway sources said the Railway Protection Force (RPF) sleuths, who were patrolling the platform, from which the train had to depart, overheard a person talking about a bomb in the train. The RPF personnel immediately took the person into custody and carried out anti-sabotage operation for which even BSF sniffer dogs were pressed into service. Ram Gopal, Company Commander, RPF, said the moment RPF jawans heard the person talking about the bomb in the train, they sounded the GRP officials and the civil police to help in anti- sabotage operations. He said the entire drill took over two hours after which the train was allowed to depart. Meanwhile, the person taken into custody was identified as Avtar Singh, son of Milkha Singh, resident of Basti Amarpura, Bathinda. During interrogation, Avtar told the GRP officials that he had come from Jalandhar and had to go to Bathinda by Punjab Mail. Avtar revealed that another person, whom he had met at an eating joint opposite the station, had told him about the bomb in the train. The RPF officials said a case under Section 145 of the Railway Act was registered against the erring passenger.
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Unregistered travel agents to face action
Patiala, October 30 According to the communiqué, with a subject line reading action against the unregistered agents, ADGP (Crime) Punjab has asked all district police chiefs to “educate the general public about the role of dubious agents and a mechanism should be evolved to accredit these agents under intimation to this office.” The letter by the ADGP, which is in possession of The Tribune, further highlights a list of travel agents operating in this regard from Punjab and has asked the police officials to locate and take action against them. Of the total 17 travel agents identified from the entire country, one agent is suspected to be operating from Punjab namely Jagannadh Dandanavale. “Majority of these agents are believed to be operating earlier from Andhra Pradesh and the investigating agencies suspect high chances of their shifting to Punjab following the fact that Punjab is a big market,” said a senior officer earlier probing such cases. The travel agents had promised these youths that they would work in American army camps in Baghdad for a handsome salary or would be taken to Dubai for better living. Instead, these youths were taken to Najaf and Kurdistan where they were sold to a factory owner as bonded labourers. Sources said both the Central and the Punjab Government were trying to verify the antecedents of these travel agents and their contacts in Iraq. This is not the first time that youths from the northern states, particularly Punjab, have been duped by the travel agents. This has been happening for years but neither the youths nor the authorities seem to have learnt from the past experience. “However, now the state police has asked its officers to book these agents following the Central Government’s assurance of strict action in this regard in the Lok Sabha,” said a senior officer.
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Attack on Bhaniarawala
Ludhiana, October 30 "The children had committed a mistake. They are paying the price for it. We do not want that the issue to be given a political colour and the trio should not be projected as heroes," said Gurdeep Singh, father of Harvinder Singh, one of the attackers. Sources said since the incident, the families of the accused had been getting messages and phone calls, congratulating them on their sons' effort. "I fear that the Sikh radicals might try to exploit the situation and try to project the trio for instigating other innocent youths. It would be better for their future if they stay away from this messy affair," said a close relative of an accused. The reaction came a day after SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar pitched in favour of the three youths. "We are humbled by the offer of the SGPC president, but we do not need any support from any organisation. We would fight the case on our own and expect that our sons would be released soon and lead a normal life," said Gurdeep Singh. Harvinder Singh (24) of Rauni village, Gurvinder Singh (26) of Rajewal village and Dharminder Singh (26) of Fatehgarh district are in police remand till October 31.
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Poorly maintained buses drive PRTC into losses
Budhlada/Bathinda, October 30 The poorly maintained buses have been facing frequent breakdowns due to which passengers have to face hardships. As a result, a majority of the passengers now prefer private buses. Admitting problems, PRTC officials at Budhlada and Bathinda depots blamed a steep rise in the prices of spare parts, including tyres, dwindling revenue, unhealthy competition and wrong policies of the state government. A visit to Budhlada depot reveals that there are 68 buses, but a number of them have been lying unused for a long time due to worn-out tyres. Similar is the condition of Bathinda depot where nearly 75 buses, out of around 120, are being run without batteries. PRTC officials, bus drivers and conductors said they were unable to start buses properly and at times had to drop passengers midway. “With winter season approaching, batteries and headlights are a must for every bus,” said a driver at Bathinda depot. Employees at Budhlada depot said there were many buses which were not
being run for the want of new tyres. MS Hundal, Bathinda depot GM, said he was on leave, Budhlada GM Rajinder Joshi, admitting problems, said many of the unused buses had got tyres and now four or five buses had been left which too would be repaired in the next few days. Preetam Singh, state president of the PRTC workers union, said the PRTC had been facing financial problems for the past few years due to dwindling revenue. “Since most of the market has been captured by influential private transporters, PRTC buses are left to ferry passengers having free bus passes,” Preetam said. Besides tyres and batteries, buses fail to get other spare parts on time which leads to further losses, he said.
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Doctors promising assured treatment warned
Chandigarh, October 30 Arunesh Shakir, Medical Education & Research Minister, today issued directions to initiate action against the doctors who were advertising through various media, including print, broadcast and outdoor media. Shakir took a meeting of various heads of councils and boards working under the department and directed them to start a campaign to stop advertisements by registered medical practitioners (RMP), as it was in violation of guidelines of the Medical Council of India and other affiliating bodies. Shakir said it was unfortunate that some of the leading medical practitioners were putting hoardings in different parts of the state, claiming total rejuvenation, especially in the matter of sexual problems, assuring the birth of a male child. He said these advertisements were against the provisions of various acts. He said it was unethical for a doctor to advertise and any doctor issuing advertisements would be issued a show-cause notice by the affiliating body and proceedings would be launched for the cancellation of his
licence.
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businessman Murder case
Ferozepur, October 30 The sources further said the police had already rounded up few suspects who could be involved in the heinous crime. Mittal was found dead in his office yesterday by his son, who had gone to search for him as he (Mittal) was not responding to his mobile phone. SSP Surjit Singh said as per initial reports, Mittal had died due to asphyxia as suggested by the circumstantial evidence gathered from the spot. He said there was also a possibility of some monetary dispute behind the incident and he would be able to give specific details once the police completes its investigations which were at conclusive stage. When asked, the SSP said involvement of any insider could not be ruled out. As per the post- mortem examination, which was conducted today, multiple ligature marks were found on his neck. Dr Pradeep Aggarwal, who conducted the post-mortem examination, said it was apparent from the marks found on chin and neck that the victim was strangled to death.
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Drastic fall in air pollution level on Diwali this year
Patiala, October 30 Attributing the success of the initiative taken by the Board to make the masses aware about the ill effects of bursting of crackers to the environment and health, an elated PPCB chairman KS Pannu, said, "The encouraging response which the Board has got to its eco-Diwali campaign clearly implies that people in Punjab are getting conscious about the degradation caused on account of bursting of crackers." Replying to a query that air pollution in the state on Diwali was alarming, Pannu said, "We have never said that there would be no pollution on Diwali. What we are doing is to make the people aware to prevent the environmental degradation as crackers adversely affect the environment and health. This initiative cannot be implemented overnight. It is a gradual process and in coming years, you would see that there would be a steep decline in the number of the people bursting crackers." Pannu further said, "In our campaign, from NGOs to school students, everyone cooperated with us and also took out processions on roads to convince the masses to celebrate eco-Diwali." He thanking the SGPC for showing the exemplary way of environmental protection by reducing the time of ‘atashbazi’ at the Golden Temple Complex on Diwali. After critically examining the pollution data tabulated after the Diwali, Pannu said this year's Diwali was much better in terms of concentration level of the Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM), suplhur dioxide and oxide of nitrogen.
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Banks of Jharmel drain
to be strengthened
Patiala, October 30 Inquiries made by The Tribune revealed that the Jharmel drain is a seasonal rivulet but during the recent past, some of the industrial units have started discharging their effluents into it which would not only pollute the underground water but could also lead to serious health complications. Giving details, PPCB Environmental Engineer Joginder Singh said, "The Jharmel drain passes through the above-mentioned villages and many of the farmers have to cross it bare foot to enter into their respective farms, because of which they are falling prey to the skin ailments." He further said many of the affected villagers were suffering from chronic foot diseases and other skin ailments. "As of now, on the directions of the Board chairman, we have made an arrangement at the Chondheri village to pump out the stagnant water from the Jharmal drain to a far-off place to ensure that humans do not have to suffer any health problem", he said. Giving information about the project, senior PPCB functionaries stated that requisite funds for the project would come through NREGA and subsequently other drains flowing in the area around Dera Bassi would also be covered under the project. "Each discharge into the drain will be plugged with small bundhs to identify the culprit units discharging their effluent during odd hours, so that the erring industrial units could be brought to book. One such unit - Rama Industries Ltd, Chondheri village, engaged in the manufacturing of gelatin, using bone chips as raw material, has been found discharging its effluents through its inter-connected channel into Jharmel drain. The Board has collected the effluent samples and they have been sent for analysis", the Board officials added.
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Son kills father
Nabha, October 30 According to sources, Jeet Singh, a resident of Ekta Colony, had illicit relations with a woman of Bagrian village. This was a reason for frequent fights amongst him and his seven children. On the Diwali night, Sukhwinder Singh, his elder son, who is employed at Sonepat, reached home for celebrating the festival with his family. Again, the fight started over the same issue and in a fit of rage, Sukhwinder hit Jeet Singh on the head with an iron rod and he died on the spot. To save
Sukhwinder, his family members spread the rumour that some unidentified persons had killed their father
and threw his body at their house. After investigating the matter, the police found that it was Sukhwinder who killed his father. He was arrested and a case under Section 302 of the IPC was registered.
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Bathinda, October 30
While Kabaddi World Cup is all set to steal the show for the second consecutive year, the shone of glittering event has not gone down well with national and international players from other sports who accused the Punjab Government of having apathetic attitude.
Bathinda, October 30