Bathinda, May 2
The authorities of the Bathinda Zila Parishad (ZP) received an award from the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj at a function held at New Delhi recently.

The award was given to the Bathinda ZP as it was adjudged the Best District Panchayat for the year 2011-12 under the Panchayat Empowerment and Accountability Incentive Scheme (PEAIS) in the state of Punjab, based on the parameters of accountability and efficient and transparent functioning.

Talking to this reporter here today, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bathinda ZP, Rajinder Singh Batra, said the award had been handed over to the chairperson of the Bathinda ZP, Rajwinder Kaur and him by the two Union Ministers, Rural Development Minister, Jairam Ramesh and the Panchayati Raj Minister, Kishore Chandra Deo.

The Deputy CEO further added that earlier, the incentive grant for the ZP was `25 lakh for being adjudged the Best District Panchayat in the state, but it had now been increased to `30 lakh.

He further said the grant would be utilised for undertaking development activities within its jurisdiction for which the modalities would be chalked out soon.

The superintendent of the ZP, Ved Parkash Sharma, also accompanied them to receive the award as his role in this achievement could not be ignored, Batra said.

On the occasion, the Sarpanch of the Aklia Kalan village, Surjit Singh also received an award as the Gram Panchayat of the Aklian Kalan village of Bathinda district had been adjudged as one of the best Panchayats of the state for the year 2011-12.

Bathinda, May 2
Niranjan Singh (65), a resident of Romana Jeet Singh village, near Bajakhana in Faridkot district, who had been suffering from esophageal cancer (cancer of the food pipe) for the past 15 months, is at present a cured person.

This was stated by the doctors of the Max Super Speciality Hospital here today, who have treated him by adopting radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgical methods.

The Max Hospital management here today organised an interaction for the media persons with the patient Niranjan Singh and the doctors, who treated him, including cancer surgeon and head of the surgery at Max Hospital, Dr VP Kalra.

Niranjan Singh said about 15 months back he started facing problems while eating even a single bite of a ‘chapati’ and later was restricted to only liquid diet due to esophageal cancer.

He said initially, he underwent treatment in Goniana Mandi and later from a private doctor in Bathinda, but the treatments were not fruitful.

In December last year, he decided to get himself examined at the Max Hospital in Bathinda. After radiotherapy and chemotherapy, he underwent surgery and was discharged from the hospital on April 5, he added.

Niranjan Singh, who along with his wife Jaswinder Kaur and son Jagsir Singh, today came to the hospital for his medical examination, said he was now feeling fine and had started eating everything.

To prove his point, he even ate rice in front of the mediapersons. His son, Jagsir Singh, also expressed satisfaction over the treatment, saying his father was now a cured person.

Dr VP Kalra said when Niranjan Singh had come to them, his disease was in its second stage. After conducting tests on him, they initially treated him with radiotherapy and chemotherapy and later, conducted a surgery on him.

He further added that it was the first case of such a type of surgery in this region. The surgery had been performed over six hours and had proved to be successfull. At present, Niranjan Singh was fully cured, he added.

Dr Rajesh Vashishta, head, Radiation Oncologist, Max Hospital, Bathinda, said in the cured cancer cases there were 50 per cent chances of reoccurrence of the disease while in the second year, the chances of reoccurrence minimized.

Answering a question regarding expenditure on the treatment of Niranjan Singh, Dr Vashishta said in his case a total of four to five lakh rupees had been spent by the family on his treatment.

Dr Maheshinder Singh, Regional Director, Max Healthcare, said the successful surgery of Niranjan Singh was a historical medical event in the Bathinda region as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery had been done under one roof.

He also appealed to the suspected cancer patients to get themselves examined at an early stage as there were higher chances of the disease being cured, if the treatment started at an early stage.

Dr Manjinder Singh, Radiation Oncologist, and Dr Gagan Pal Singh, Anesthetist, Max Hospital, were also present on the occasion.

Bathinda, May 2
In an attempt to bring down the increasing number of cases of students cheating during school and other examinations, the Director General School Education has announced that the students studying in the schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan will now be administered an oath daily during the morning assembly.

During the oath, the students will pledge not to tell lies, not to cheat, to keep away from addiction, serve and protect the environment, to respect their elders, live in co-operation with their schoolmates and to follow the traffic rules.

The schools have been directed to follow the instructions at the earliest. The school heads have also been asked to make sure that the students take the oath everyday and the importance of the oath is explained to them.

Hailing the direction to administer oath to the students everyday during the morning assembly, the head of a government school in the city said, “The pledge is quite pertinent to the social evils that are plaguing our young generation. In a state like Punjab, where even school students are victims of substance abuse and alcoholism, making them aware of the bad effects of addiction and asking them to keep away from such substances is important.”

“Cheating is also found to be quite rampant during any and every kind of examination. The recent hue and cry over cheating during the AIEEE examination is just a case in point. If a child cheats during his school life, he/she will grow up to be a corrupt person. Education Minister of Punjab, Sikander Singh Maluka, has also been regularly talking about shunning unfair means to pass through schools and colleges and get degrees. In view of these, this oath will hopefully take students towards the right path. The idea is a noble one,” she added.

Bathinda, May 2
The court of Bathinda additional sessions judge, Dilbagh Singh Johal, today awarded three years imprisonment and a fine of `3,000 to a doctor in a corruption case.

On July 13, 2009, the Vigilance Bureau, Bathinda, had nabbed Dr Manvinder Singh Ahluwalia, posted at primary health care centre, Bhagta Bhaika, while he was accepting bribe.

In a press statement issued here today, SSP (Vigilance) Khushi Mohammad stated that 
the accused, Dr Ahluwalia had demanded `10,000 from Pragat Singh, a resident of village Jangirana in a medico-legal case.

The accused, Dr Ahluwalia, had demanded the money for offering good health services and for adding serious sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which would have attracted severe punishment under the law.

However, the matter was settled at `5,000. The Vigilance Bureau officials caught Dr Ahluwalia red-handed and `5,000 were recovered from him.

He was booked under the sections 7, 13 (2) 88 of the Prevention of Corruption Act by the Vigilance Bureau.

Bathinda, May 2
State programme officer for Integrated Diseases Surveillance Project (IDSP) and the Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) Dr Deepak Bhatia has asked the authorities concerned to expedite the work for making the District NCD Clinic for Elderly, being set up at the Civil Hospital here, operational as soon as possible.

Dr Bhatia along with the state finance officer of the NCD Jatinder Sharma visited the premises of the District NCD Clinic here recently to take stock of the ongoing work.

The NCD Clinic is being established by renovating the old Emergency block of the Civil Hospital.

On the occasion, District Immunisation Officer Dr Manpreet Kaur Rupal and district finance officer for the NCD project, Sachin, accompanied Dr Bhatia and briefed him about the on-going construction and renovation work.

According to an official of the local NCD project, Dr Bhatia has instructed them to initiate steps for renovating the building as early as possible so that the District NCD Clinic could be made functional in the coming few weeks as the completion of the renovation was already delayed due to one reason or the other.

He said the beds and trolleys for patients had already reached them here while the the physiotherapy unit, a part of the NCD Clinic, was already functioning in the new OPD block here.

When contacted, Dr Deepak Bhatia said he had come here to assess the progress of the work for getting the NCD Clinic started at the earliest.

He said as the renovation work was already getting delayed, he had asked the authorities to expedite the work.

He said the establishment of the cardiac care unit (CCU) was already in progress.

However, Dr Bhatia expressed the hope that the NCD Clinic would be ready for functioning by the end of this month.

Dr Bhatia said initially, at the health sub-centres, the patients would be identified. From there, they would be referred to the community health centres (CHCs) for treatment. After that, the CHC, if required, would refer the patients to the District NCD Clinic.

The District NCD Clinic is being set up under two national programmes: National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardio Vascular Diseases and Stroke and the National Programme for Health Care of Elderly.

Bathinda, May 2
A resident of Kotshamir village has been booked under Sections 363 and 366 of the IPC for eloping with a class IX girl student.

In a complaint to the police, the father of the girl said that his daughter was studying in Kararwala village. She went to the school on April 25 and while on her way back, she was intercepted by the accused, identified as Amrik Singh of Kotshamir village, and eloped with her.

The girl’s father alleged that the accused lured his daughter into marrying her.

Bathinda, May 2
International Astronomy Day was celebrated at the Government Secondary School, Maiserkhana in Bathinda on Wednesday.

The Eco Club in-charge of the school coordinated the different activities organised on the occasion.

Students and teachers were made aware about the scientific study of celestrial bodies like planets, comets, stars and galaxies, how during Renaissance, Nicolus Copernicus proposed the Heliocentric model of solar system and how his work was expanded and corrected by Galileo and Johann Kepler.

Quiz, painting and essay competitions were organised on the occasion.

Students Gurdeep Kaur (class IX), Harmandeep Kaur (class VII), Sukhpreet Kaur (class X), Rashpinder Kaur (class X) and Manoj Sharma (class IX) were rewarded for winning the first second and third positions in the contests.

Bathinda, May 2
One of the leading two-wheeler manufacturing companies, TVS, is holding traffic awareness seminars at the schools of the city.

These camps, being organised in association with the traffic police, aim to make children conscious about following traffic rules and help in minimising the number of accidents that take place on the city roads.

In the first phase of this traffic awareness drive, seminars were organised at the Arya Girls School and SSD Women's College here today.

The seminars were held under the guidance of the Traffic Police instructor, Sukhraj Singh.

During the seminar, the students were made aware about the various traffic rules and how flouting the rules is a punishable offence. The instructors also shared precautionary measures with the students to avoid road accidents and ensure safety.

In an attempt to make the seminar interesting to students, an audio-visual medium was used to impart the knowledge about the traffic rules, following precautionary measures and other interesting information.

Talking to Bathinda Tribune, Sukhraj Singh of the Bathinda traffic police said, “I updated the students on the meaning of traffic lights and the benefits of using helmets and seatbelts. Considering a large number of youngsters drive two-wheelers in this city, as they are also known to be rash drivers, I explained to them the right way of overtaking, lane driving and road sense. The students were also told about why driving within the speed limit was becoming more and more important in view of the increasing traffic on the city roads.”

“I shared with them data on how many people die in road accidents and how many of these deaths are caused due to head injuries in the absence of head safety gear, due to the lack of concentration as the driver may be talking on a mobile phone or may be driving in the wrong lane,” he added.

Bathinda, May 2
A job fair was organised at the Guru Ram Dass Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lehra Bega, on Tuesday.

Chairman Prof Harbhajan Singh said the job fair was being considered as an appreciable development in the wake of growing unemployment.

The director of the college, Prof Daljit Singh, said more than 25 companies took part in the campus placement drive. More than 1,000 graduates had participated in the job fair.

Principal Dr HS Sandhu, vice-chairman Chinderpal, MD Satpal Singh and Navjit Singh, all members of the staff, congratulated the students on their excellent performance in the job fair.

Bathinda, May 2
Thirty students of Guru Gobind Singh Polytechnic College, Talwandi Sabo, got placements in the job fair held at the SUS Group of Institutions, Tangori.

Almost 30 companies from different fields of technology visited the job fair. Students of GGSPC made their position secure in almost 15 companies like HFCL, Mind Max, Mature Heights, Components Synergies, Jet King and others.

Amit Tuteja, principal, GGSPC, congratulated the students and the staff members. Davinder Singh Joshi, Paramjeet Sidhu and Baljeet Kaur accompanied and guided the students at the job fair.

Dr DS Hira, vice-chancellor of Guru Kashi University, assured the students that personality development lectures by experts would be started to develop corporate and professional attitude among the students for a better future.

Bathinda, May 2
The Millennium Schools had won the award for the ‘Best Innovative K12 Schools in India’ at the Indian Education Awards 2012.

The award was announced on April 28, at a ceremony near Delhi.

The award seeks to acknowledge and facilitate the school that has most effectively introduced technology and new concepts for a better future, with a focus on humane growth of students along with academic enlightenment.

Bathinda, May 2
The Punjabi University, Patiala, has declared the result of B.Sc. (CSM) first semester in which the students of Baba Farid College have not only cleared with first division but have also bagged top positions in the merit list.

Priyanka Rani bagged the first position in the university with 86.8 per cent marks.

Mahek Rani got the fourth position with 85.6 per cent marks. Gurjit Kaur, Shifali Garg and Rajwinder Kaur got 83.8 per cent, 83.6 per cent and 80.6 per cent marks, respectively.

Pardeep Kaura, Deputy Director, Academics, congratulated the students on their achievement and offered them all assistance.

Gurmeet Singh Dhaliwal, chairman, Baba Farid Group of Institutions, expressed his happiness.