Jalandhar, March 20
Owing to a protest by farmers, hundreds of rail passengers going to Mumbai, Sirsa, Delhi, Haridwar and other destinations were a harassed lot as the trains that had started from Amritsar did not reach the Jalandhar station on time, delaying their journey ahead by two to four hours.

While Amritsar-Delhi Superfast starting from Amritsar at 6.25 am arrived in time at Jalandhar at 7:30 am, all other trains subsequently got delayed. All other trains following it including Jan Sewa, Jan Shatabdi, Kathar Express, Amritsar-Mumbai Deluxe and Dadar Express were late by three to four hours.

The most affected were the daily commuters from Amritsar who were on board these trains to reach their offices in Jalandhar before 9 am. Taranpreet Singh, working with a private medical firm in Jalandhar, said the normal one and a half hour journey stretched to as long as five hours testing his patience.

It was also a difficult time for the railway staff dealing with tremendous enquiries all through the day today. RK Behl, station superintendent, said that there was no problem at the Jalandhar station. “The Amritsar officials need to be contacted for the problem,” he added.

Jalandhar March 20
Burglars struck at a sanitary shop on Kapurthala road last night and decamped with cash and goods worth lakhs of rupees. Shop owner Arvinder Singh said he got to know about the burglary when his employees opened the shop this morning. They found the main shutter broken.

“The whole shop ransacked. The burglars took away sanitation goods worth more than Rs 1.5 lakh and some cash lying in the cash box,” he said.

Jalandhar, March 20
The second semester PSEB exams of the 10th standard started today. Today's exam was in the science subject. The cheaters' brigade of the 10th standard, too, was seen to be adopting much the same means and measures as their counterparts in the 12th standard.

The notorious schools, where sources say cheating has been going on since long, are observed to be maintaining a studied silence through the exams.

But things are said to be very different on the ground level.

Ashok Basra, member of a district flying squad team, while talking to The Tribune, said, "Students have either devised new ways to cheat or the network of informants in schools has grown much stronger. We did not witness any chit exchanges or rowdy classes or any other copying material being used. But there were a majority of centres where something was amiss. We knew things were wrong but because there were no cheaters or slips or copying material caught, we couldn't nail anyone."

"We cannot rule out some private controllers discreetly having their way at some centres. However, many government controllers have also been deputed to stop the practice," Basra added.

Another controller said it was commonly seen that exam centres on the second floor suddenly grew quiet the moment a flying squad entered a school premises. "They have secret indications for their students. From the massive change that has come in the way cheating now happens, it seems installation of CCTV cameras would have been a great idea to stop cheating. A flying squad can visit a centre for 20 minutes at the most. All through the rest of the paper children might have a field day."

Some sources didn't rule out bribery either. "Such discretion is only possible when the teachers are involved," they said.

Speaking on the issue, DEO Neelam Kumari said, "Our policy has been to heavily guard the notorious centres. We have had additional centres at many of these centres. In fact the problem of cheating hardly takes place at the regular centres. Mostly apprehensions are only about centres where students under the open school systems are seated. In the 10th standard exams so far, we haven't encountered any cheating case in the district."

Talking about sensitive centres, the DEO said, "There are no sensitive centres as such. But 25-30 centres fall under the open schooling system. We are keeping tabs on private schools which seat students of the open schools."

Barring these, the Shahkot Nakodar belt is also said to be abounding with sensitive schools even as the DEO says things have changed for the better there too. But the new discretion personified copy cats and their aides are indeed going to be tough nuts for the district education department to crack this exam season.

y 244 exam centres have been set up in the district for the exams. Like Class XII exams, number of observers and controllers deputed for the Class X exams are 41 and 61, respectively.

y The number of flying squads, however, has increased to a total of 12. While 3 are from the district, 9 teams are from Chandigarh.

Jalandhar, March 20
The Gandhian Studies Centre of the local Kanya Maha Vidyalaya organised a day long national level seminar on redefining Mahatma Gandhi: Issues and Challenges. The event was sponsored by UGC.

Professor Veena Sikri delivered the keynote address and said that the real need was to discover the ethical values of Mahatma Gandhi and redefining ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi had highlighted that only human beings had the ability to distinguish between the moral and material but the present world has forgotten such basics of humanity.

Jalandhar, March 20
Exploring the innocent mind of a child, a retired government school teacher has penned down a book in Punjabi titled 'Gurjral de geet, bacheya de meet', which is a collection of poetry and ghazals for children.

Harbans Lal Gurjal, who retired as vice principal of Government Elementary School, Lambra, recalled his 37-years long experience of teaching and dealing with students through poems.

The book, which was released recently, traverses through the blooming childhood, school life, thoughts, growing years, the dream world, good habits and even drug addiction. The book includes poems 'Sade baste kyu ne bhari', 'Rukh Lawo', 'Punjab', 'Maa', 'Kheda ne jaruri' and 'Nasheya to dur rehna'.

Laced with good morals for the children, the book is an attempt to highlight the present moral degradation of education. The poet had penned down 115 short poems for the children, a majority of which are rhythmic.

Talking to Jalandhar Tribune, Harbans Lal said, "Poetry always fascinated me. In fact, I was planning to write a book for a long time, but I was restrained due to lack of funds."

The poet said the poems have been written in simple Punjabi language, so that children find them easy to understand. "This book is a tribute to childhood, which is free from all societal hassles. As a teacher, I spent my entire life teaching and watching children closely", he added.

The poet is now looking forward to write a short stories book for children. "These stories will be based on interesting incidents of students, which I experienced as a teacher," he said.

Jalandhar, March 20
The final day of the migrant pulse polio drive ended with 34,822 children being administered polio drops here today. A total of 1,38,000 children across the district were given drops during the three-day drive.

While the department had set a target of 1,52,000 children, The health department left out major areas.

Staff crunch and a better understanding of various areas were required to make the drive more successful.

Dr Rita Jairath, district immunisation officer, said they could not meet the target as many people went home on Holi. She also said that migrant populations are always shifting their base which is another reason why they could not meet the target. “While we have to revisit 3,000 children, as many as 10,000 were not found at home.”

Civil Surgeon Dr Avtar Singh Jarewal said the remaining children will be administered polio drops in the coming days.

Doctors had to rely on little-read, minimally trained volunteers to carry out the drive as school children were busy writing examination.

Some of the volunteers used in the drive did not even pass high school or received any kind of training in a hospital. Sources also said volunteers left out certain areas during drive.

While carrying out such drives is a good initiative, the health department now needs to work on dealing with staff crunch.

Jalandhar, March 20
Following high court directions, the Municipal Corporation today started action against 44 dairies falling along the banks of Kala Sanghian Drain which have been throwing filthy, untreated water into it.

The three teams comprising officials of the O&M and health branches today went to the premises of these dairies and plugged the drains that had been throwing off water mixed with slush and cow dung into the Kala Sanghian Drain.

Three JCB machines remained in full action at Bulandpur village, Kalia Colony, Shaheed Babu Labh Singh Nagar, Rattan Nagar and surrounding areas.

The action follows the recent orders of the court in the case Seth Hukam Chand Colony v/s State of Punjab filed way back in 2005, said Chief Engineer (O&M) AS Dhaliwal. MC Commissioner BS Dhaliwal said, “We have asked the dairies to set up their own treatment plants before disposing off the sullage”.

Jalandhar March 20
A speeding Scorpio crushed a cyclist to death at Kishanpura chowk last night. The deceased was identified as Sachin of Santokhpura locality.

The deceased's brother-in-law, Pappu, who was riding a pillion, sustained injuries and was rushed to the nearby private hospital.

Police sources said that duo was heading to Santokhpur from Kishanpura chowk, when a black Scorpio hit them from behind.

A case has been registered in this regard.

Jalandhar, March 20
The Army recruiting office, Jalandhar Cantonment, will organise a recruitment rally for candidates belonging to Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr at Dogra Ground from April 3 to 5.

The recruitment will be held in the categories of soldier general duty and soldier technical trades. The candidates from Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr would be screened on April 3; Hoshiarpur on April 4. –– TNS