Bathinda, June 12
The Bathinda Municipal Corporation today demolished illegal structures near Clock Tower on Bibiwala road. Four shops were razed to ground after the owners of land lost the case in court.

Raising a hue and cry on the spot, the shopkeepers alleged that the corporation did not give them any prior notification.

The MC team, including police force, first razed the Hanu Medicos and was about to return when the owner of Hanu Medicos, Jassi, created a scene. He accused the MC officials of being biased saying he was singled out while other shops in the neighbourhood were spared.

Accompanying him, other shopkeepers raised slogans against the corporation officials. Thereafter, the MC team razed three more shops, namely Chandigarh Medical Store, Virk Medical Store and Bholi Karyana shop. The belongings of all the shops were moved out on the spot.

The MC team included XEN Tirath Ram, XEN PK Goyal, JE Jagan Nath, Gurpreet Singh and others. The team was given police cover to avoid any untoward incidence. Around 20 feet area has been vacated by razing these shops. The area would now be included in Bibiwala Road, thereby widening it.

Bathinda, June 12
For the first time, four National Social Service (NSS) volunteers and one NSS programme officer from the Bathinda district will take part in a 10-day Summer Adventure Camp, to be organised by the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports from June 14 to June 23 at Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering, Patnitop, a hilltop tourist location in Udhampur district of Jammu and Kashmir.

All the four NSS volunteers (girls) are from Mata Sundri Girls Senior Secondary School, Dhade (near Rampura Phul).

The girls who will be a part of this trip are Lovepreet Kaur from Lehra Mohabbat village, Rajwinder Kaur from Rajgarh Kube village, Jasbir Kaur from Kutiwal Kalan village and Kuldeep Kaur from Kotfatta village.

All these NSS volunteers are students of Class XII. However, the programme officer (in charge of the NSS activity in the school) Rajpal Kaur is from village Chughe Kalan.

All the five NSS persons are from the rural area, who have been provided the opportunity to attend the adventure camp. They have been selected by the Assistant Director, Youth Services, Bathinda Dr Kamaljit Singh Sidhu.

The contingent of four NSS volunteers and one programme officer will leave Bathinda for Jammu tomorrow evening to join the camp. At Jammu, they will be received by the camp organisers to take them to the camp site.

While talking to Tribune News Service, assistant director Dr Kamaljit Singh Sidhu said during the adventure camp, these volunteers would take part in 18-km-long trekking daily, besides taking part in other adventure activities, like rock climbing and jungle walk. He said the entire expenditure would be borne by Government of India’s NSS Department.

He said the participating NSS volunteers and the contingent leader would be provided with a track suit, water bottle, a pair of trekking/sports shoes and socks by the government. However, due to shortage of time the volunteers had been asked to buy track suit, water bottle, shoes and socks from the market, for which the department would reimburse `1,400 each to them, he added.

Dr Sidhu said the main aim of the adventure camp is to inculcate the spirit of adventure and promote the national integration among the participants.

He said the central government had been organising such camps for the past four-five years.

This year, the National Social Service camps are being organised at Manali, Patnitop, Uttarkashi, Darjeeling and Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh), in which as many as 1,050 NSS volunteers and programme officers would take part, he added.

Bathinda, June 12
If books are known to be a man’s best friend, a library is a place where these friends are found in abundance. And if the library subscribes to a large number of national and international journals, e-journals and bibliographical databases, it must be a one of its kind library.

And that’s what the library at the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda campus is. In fact, the University has taken the standards several notches higher by making it a super hi-tech library. TNS takes you on a trip through the library:

Books and journals

The fully air-conditioned library boasts a mammoth collection of as many as 11,000 books on various subjects and topics. A database has been created which helps the students and faculty members search for a book according to topics, subjects, title or author’s name.

The machine used for the Self-circulation System. The system aids the library members in the issuing and returning of books on their own. Tribune Photo: Pawan Sharma

The library subscribes to more than 37 international journals and as many as 12 national journals. It is also subscribing to scientific bibliographical databases like Science Direct and Scopus for online access to other 238 e-journals.

After signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) Centre, Ahmedabad in May this year, the University has managed to secure access to almost 4,000 more e-journals for the library.

These journals help the students and the faculty members gain access to the latest developments and discoveries in the field of cancer, human genetics, biochemical sciences, immunology, cell biology, DNA, epidemics, pathology and pharmaceuticals among many others.

Going hi-tech

The CUP library leads by example when it comes to using the latest techniques available for shelving, counting, issuing and returning of books by the students, faculty members and the library staff. The library uses both the Radio Frequency Identification (RFI) and Electromagnetic Security (EM) systems to curb the theft of precious books.

Every single book at the library has been bar-coded with sensors pasted to any one of its pages, hidden quite intelligently so as not to be detected easily by anyone using the book. No one is allowed to carry the book outside the library without getting it issued in his/her name.

If a person attempts to take the book across the metal detector installed near the entrance/exit door, the detector reads, with the help of this sensor, whether the book has been registered as “issued” in the library database or not. If it is not, an alarm goes off instantly.

Self-sufficient

The library can indeed put the old libraries to shame where a librarian was required to be present at the counter at all hours to issue and return books to the readers.

The CUP library has the self-circulation system which essentially means that the students or faculty members can issue the books in their names on their own. The system also helps the borrower to return the books on his/
her own.

Every member of the library has been assigned a unique user code and password. All one needs to do is to keep the selected book at the designated place on the machine, feed in the code and password and issue the book. The same procedure is to be followed while returning the book.

The library uses the Digital Library Assistance (DLA) system to help the library staff in shelving and counting of books for regular updating of the database.

Membership rules

All the students and members of the teaching and non-teaching staff of the university are members of the library for no extra cost. Institutional membership for industrial, business and commercial units is also available with a refundable library security of Rs 10,000 and annual membership fee of Rs 2,500. On the recommendation of the vice-chancellor, academicians, researchers and NGOs can also be enrolled as a member of the library for a limited period.

Bathinda, June 12
District Legal Services Authority today observed ‘World Day Against Child Labour’ at the Government Senior Secondary School (Girls) here. The programme was presided over by Assistant District Attorney (Legal Services), Surinder Sachdeva.

Sachdeva said due to non-implementation of laws against child labour, the menace of child labour could not be eliminated from society. Besides, poverty was also a big hurdle in eliminating child labour.

He called upon the people to raise their voice against child labour.

He said District Legal Services Authority was also initiating efforts to create awareness among the masses against child labour.

Among others present on the occasion were heads of various city-based NGOs. They expressed their views against child labour and assured the gathering that they would make sincere efforts towards ending this social evil.

The District Legal Services Authority also distributed printed material to create awareness among the masses against child labour.

Bathinda, June 12
A new twist was added in the ongoing saga of SSA-RMSA CSS Teachers' Union with the faction claiming to be the “original and official” union organising a conference in Bathinda today to voice its demands and express anger against the state government.

The appearance of two factions of the union has added more drama to the June 8 incident of the police using lathicharge against the protesting SSA-RMSA and CSS teachers' union.

According to Ram Bhajan, one of the three state convenors of the “original” union, it was the members of the “original” union who were taking out a protest march when they were lathicharged.

“Dirar Singh, who was earlier the president of the union, was removed from the post because of some official reasons and his faction took away some 200-300 members of the union which comprises as many as 14,090 members. He is lying through his nose while claiming that it was members of his faction who were lathicharged at Kotha Guru,” says Ram Bhajan.

The union, rather the faction, headed by Dirar Singh is the one which announced yesterday that it would hold a rally outside Mini-secretariat on June 14.

“He added the names of various organisations without permission. He also used the name of district president Beant Singh Phulewala without his permission,” added Ram Bhajan.

The members alleged that while the state government had got the 700 posts of primary teachers and 2,600 posts of upper primary teachers sanctioned by the state government and is receiving the pay for the teachers on these posts, not a single teacher has been appointed as yet.

The union also protested against the Punjab Education Minister’s statement that the struggle of the SSA-RMSA teachers' Union was illegal. “The state government is getting rid of the issue by denying that the regularisation of our jobs and fixing of pay-scale is its responsibility.” “The truth is that while 65 per cent of the salaries of the teachers recruited under the SSA and RMSA is paid by the Centre, the remaining 35 per cent is the state government's share. The Punjab government is not contributing its share in our pay, owing to which we have not got proper pay for the past three years,” Ram Bhajan alleged.

At the conference, it was decided that the members of the “original and official” union would hold a rally outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office on June 16 if the state government fails to heed their demands which include the unconditional release of the 59 arrested teachers (including 21 women) and regularisation of their jobs.

Bathinda, June 12
Members of various city-based NGOs came together to hold a rally in the city to spread awareness about ways of curbing dengue and malaria.

Volunteers of Shaheed Jarnail Singh Memorial Society, Sathi Welfare Society, Aasra Welfare Society and Shiv Shakti Welfare Society participated in the rally. Young students also took part in the rally.

The rally was flagged off at the Shaheed Jarnail Singh Chowk and went through various areas of ward number 25.

Volunteers went door-to-door and told the residents about the precautionary measures that could be taken to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes that spread diseases like dengue and malaria. 

Bathinda, June 12
The declaration of the All India Engineering Entrance Exam (AIEEE) had brought good news to the students of the city who had appeared for the exam.

Many students from the Harbhajan's Institute of Competition, Bathinda, also managed to crack the exam. Arshdeep Singh and Abhijeet Singh, both students of the institute, shone bright as they secured the 102 and 106 ranks, respectively.

Many other students like Sanmati (rank 218), Himanshu (rank 292), Nitin Gupta (rank 333), Manpreet (rank 361), Pawan Mittal (rank 414), Priyanka Gupta (rank 446), Komaldeep (rank 452), Harpreet Singh (rank 516), Navpreet (rank 631), Suruti Jain (rank 646), Parul Jindal (rank 756), Naval Mittal (rank 784) and Aizaldeep (rank 910) also secured good ranks in the examination.

Archit Garg of St. Kabir Convent Senior Secondary School secured Archit Garg secured a state rank of 28.

He had secured rank 957 in IIT. Another student of the school, Karan Singla, grabbed the 44 state rank in AIEEE. Mohit Gupta and Navneet Kaur Pahwa secured state 96th and 417th ranks in the examination, respectively.

Bathinda, June 12
A two-day colloquium on research methodology was organised by the ISTE chapter of Guru Kashi University.

Dr BS Dhaliwal (Dean, Academics) welcomed the resource persons, research scholars and other dignitaries in the colloqium.

Dr DS Hira, vice-chancellor, GKU, delivered the keynote address.

Dr Narinder Singh (Director) and Dr AK Kansal (Dean, Students' Welfare) were also present to guide the research scholars. 

Bathinda, June 12
Canal police arrested one person with four grams of smack today. The accused, Krishan Kumar, a resident of Surkhpreer Road, was arrested near Pokhar Mal Canteen in the Railway Colony with the smack.

15 kg poppy husk confiscated

The Sadar Rampura police arrested a man and confiscated 15 kg of poppy husk from his possession.

The accused Darshan Singh from Jethuke village was arrested near Jeond village. Police booked him under various sections of NDPS Act.