Fortified salt in mid-day meals to check anaemia among students
Dehradun, March 6
In a bid to ensure elementary school students receive iron as part of their daily diet, the Department of School Education has begun using fortified salt in the mid-day meals prepared for elementary schoolchildren.

Dehradun March 6
A list of slum colonies and schools in the nearby locations of such colonies is not yet ready.

A month ago, the District Magistrate (DM) had asked City Magistrate Harak Singh Rawat to prepare a list in a week's time to facilitate the admission of the slum children under the provision of the Right To Education (RTE) Act. Harak Singh Rawat has now directed tehsildars to do the job.

RTE in charge of Dehradun Tripta Sharma had to earn the DM's wrath for not facilitating the admission of poor children to good reputed schools and had been warned to be removed this year, if she did not perform.

She has claimed to provide admissions to 89 children only out of 202 seats reserved under the RTE till now. She said, "I am hopeful of achieving cent per cent target this year, which will be unprecedented. Usually, we used to start this process in March, but as per the strictness shown by the DM in this regard, we have begun intensive efforts from February." Some 16 children will be given admission to SGRR School at Patel Nagar and 11 in a school at Khurbura.

She said she had deputed Anganwadi workers and other coordinators under her project to spread the word and arrange admission for the deserving children.

She said she was fully engaged in identifying such children. Sharma said she would soon meet the city magistrate to gather information about the list of such children, so that she could complete the formalities with regard to documentation pertaining to their admission. She said as it had been made mandatory for all schools to put a notice with regard to reservation of admission under the RTE, schools were doing only for the formality sake.

The font size of letters is deliberately kept small and the print dull. Not only this the RTE notice is pasted among a horde of other notices, owing to which it does not catch the attention of those parents, who might like to avail this opportunity.

However there are exceptions too. She said Bala Hisar School contacted her as they had provided admission to four children but they lacked the necessary documents such as ration card or BPL card. She said she would meet the DM in this direction.

Refuting the allegations that she had preferred admission of children under the RTE to mediocre school rather than the reputed or well established, she said, "Poor people cannot afford auto charges for long distance schools and themselves demand those schools which are situated close to their homes. They do not know about reputed or mediocre schools. Moreoever, as per the RTE Act, the schools should be within the radius of 1-3 km of the child's house and in the same ward. So these intricacies have been taken into account, before finalising for schools."

Dehradun, March 6
Shops in Paltan Bazaar were closed and tempers ran high after the owner of a shoe shop, Chander Shekhar Kohli, died of heart attack in his shop in this afternoon. The ambulance of the 108 emergency service called in to shift Kohli to hospital could not reach there in time. The shopkeepers have called for a bazaar bandh tomorrow and a city bandh on Friday.

The shopkeepers accused the police of preventing the ambulance from entering the market that allegedly resulted in Kohli’s death, as he could not be provided timely medical care. The anger of the traders at the ban on the entry of vehicles in the market was visible in their fiery speeches. Administrative officer Harak Singh Rawat said the traders were politicising the sensitive issue to serve their own purpose to seek the resumption of the movement of two-wheelers in the market.

The furious shopkeepers also manhandled policemen and tore the uniform of Station House Officer of Kotwali when he tried to pacify them.

A traffic jam, which lasted for three hours, created chaos on the busy crossing at Ghanta Ghar leading to Rajpur Road and Chakrata Road.

All senior police and administration officers reached the protest site. Police vehicles and fire tenders too were stationed there. The shopkeepers after closing their shops gathered at Clock Tower. Leaders of various traders’ associations delivered fiery speeches, thus further igniting anger. BJP leaders, including Punit Mittal and Neelam Sehgal, also addressed the protesters and expressed solidarity with them.

Kohli had a heart attack in his shop around 3.30 pm today. The emergency 108 ambulance was called in but it took time to reach the place. Meanwhile, Kohli was seated in an auto-rickhsaw to shift him to hospital. The ambulance too reached there in the meantime. According to the traders, Kohli died within half an hour of the heart attack before he could be taken to hospital.

On the other hand, SSP Kewal Khurana said Kohli died because the ambulance reached his shop late. He added, “It is wrong to say that the ambulance was stopped at the barrier. There is no ban on the movement of vehicles on emergency service. A police vehicle could have been used to shift Kohli to hospital. Had the movement of two-wheelers not been banned, the ambulance could have never reached the shop in the marketplace.”

The SSP said there was no link between the incident and the ban on the movement of two-wheelers in the market. He added the ban on two-wheelers had helped in curbing incidents of eve-teasing and thefts in the market.

Anand Swaroop Gupta, a traders’ leader, said, “We will not allow the ban on the entry and parking of two-wheelers in Paltan Bazaar to continue anymore. I myself will drive my two-wheeler into the market tomorrow. Let the police arrest me.”

President of the Doon Traders Association Vipin Nagliya said the shopkeepers might have been divided earlier but this time they stood united. Amarjeet Singh, another trader, called upon fellow shopkeepers to maintain peace and not to get into a scuffle with the police. 

Dehradun, March 06
A five-member delegation of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) met Chief Secretary Alok Kumar Jain here today.This Japanese agency will work on a non-timber fire project in the hill and forest areas of the state .

Dehradun, March 6
In a bid to ensure elementary school students receive iron as part of their daily diet, the Department of School Education has begun using fortified salt in the mid-day meals prepared for elementary schoolchildren.

Worried at the rising number of anaemic cases among schoolchildren, the Department of School Education has looked at various options to arrest this deficiency among children.

There were efforts to introduce fortified micro-nutrients wheat flour but after the third evaluation found it marginally better than the non-fortified wheat flour, the proposal was rejected after carrying out a pilot study.

“It could not be implemented further in schools as it was pointed out that the food being prepared for the children under mid-day meal using local cereals was already fortified.

But in order to address the issue of iron deficiency, we decided to use fortified salt,” said Mantri Prasad Naithani, Uttarakhand Minister for School Education.

For now, the salt which is costlier than the iodized salt is being used in cooking meals in schools where the number of children are more.

“Issues such as less iron content among children can be addressed by providing proper nutrition and the government has the duty to arrest the problem. Under the school health programme, regular check-ups for anaemia is also under way. Once the fortified salt is introduced in the meals, we will be able to monitor the iron content in school going children,” said Mantri Prasad Naithani.

To the credit of the Department of School Education, a lot of variety is being brought about on the menu for the mid-day meals so that children enjoy their meals. Uttarakhand is perhaps the only state that has a separate recipe book for cooking meals under mid-day meals.

Further, the Uttarakhand School Education Department will receive Rs 3.75 crore as compensation for reimbursing the cooking gas amount after the Central Government had put a cap on the subsidised cylinders.

“After the reimbursement, the Central Governement will make separate fund allocation for bearing out cost of cooking gas,” said Naithani.

Haridwar, March 6
Anukrati Gusain, the lone contestant from Uttarakhand in the Miss India-2013 beauty pageant being held in Mumbai, has urged people in her home state to cast votes via short message service (SMS) and electronic mail in her favour. Anukrati told The Tribune from Kochi that at present she was participating in the talent round at Carnoustie Beach Resort after returning from Canada where various other rounds were held.

Anukrati, who hails from Lansdowne in Pauri Garhwal, is quite upbeat about her making to the top three contestants on the basis of her talent and skill, but is a bit worried about the SMS and email voting procedures. “I am putting my 100 per cent in every round and am working hard to win the event. But besides nine judges, the public is the 10th judge which can vote via SMS and emails. As I hail from a hill state where population is not dense and technological advancement is limited, my overall score may get affected. I urge the people of Uttarakhand as well as the people in other states to vote using these options in my favour,” said Anukriti, who won her first title during school days in Kotdwar. She has also been adjudged Miss Glowing Skin and PCJ Femina Miss Time Less Beauty too.

Meanwhile, as part of a promotional event, Anukriti’s parents campaigned in Haridwar and Roorkee today. They urged the media and local residents to pitch in for her by sending SMS to 58888 and register their clicks for Anukrati at feminamissindia.indiatimes.co.

Her father Uttam Gusain and mother Namrata Gusain along with relative Harendra Rautela said public votes would play a pivotal role in deciding the eventual winner. The people of the state need to cast in large numbers to ensure Anukriti’s victory. Namrata, a teacher at Government Girls Intermediate College, Lansdowne, said though avenues for activities like modelling and fashion designing were non-existent in their hill town, Anukriti by dent of her hard work, self confidence and talent had made it to the top 10 of the national pageant.

Mussoorie, March 6
The Mussoorie police is still clueless about the identity of the persons who attacked an elderly couple in Mussoorie two days ago, resulting in the death of the woman.

Meera Devi, 65, was killed while her husband Ram Singh, 85, was grievously injured when they were attacked at a house, near Jharipani, on the Mussoorie-Dehradun Road yesterday.

Ram Singh was critically injured in the attack and is fighting for life at the Community Hospital. “He is not in a position to give a statement about the incident,” said the police. The SSP, Dehradun, Kewal Khurana, also reached the crime site and enquired about the progress in the case. He also directed police officials to speed up investigation in the case and nab the assailants.

Investigating Officer BS Rawat said they had handed over Meera’s body to her family members after a post-mortem. According to the post-mortem report, Meera was attacked with a sharp-edged weapon and she suffered severe injuries to her uterus and on other parts of the body. Rawat said several persons had been questioned to determine the identity of the assailants but without any success. The residents of the town are in panic after the incident and want the police to solve the case at the earliest. They said the deteriorating law and order situation in the town was a cause for concern and demanded additional security for senior citizens. — OC

Dehradun, March 6
Mutilated dead bodies of one young boy and girl early in the morning on railway track of Mohkampur railway line shook the police and waiting passengers. After the police called out from the mobile phone lying close to the boy, it was found out that they were Priyanka and Pankaj, residents of Tejpur village of Saharanpur. They had been absconding from their homes for the last two days.

Both Priyanka, 17 and Pankaj, 19, belonged to same caste and clan and lived close to each other. The family was against their liaison.

Police said both of them talked to their family members from phones where they tried to persuade them to come back home and assured them of resolving the matter amicably.

Both of them had brought a blanket and bedsheet with them and had chosen a place near the railway track from where it was difficult to spot them. They are understood to have committed suicide in between 10 to 3 at night. — TNS

Dehradun, March 6
Five Kanwariyas were killed while seven sustained serious injuries when they were hit by a heavy vehicle at Rorivelvala in Haridwar district today.

According to Disaster Mitigation and Management sources, a heavy vehicle, on the way to Haridwar from Dehradun, hit five Kanwariyas killing them on the spot at Rorivelvala around 2.30 am. Seven other Kanwariyas also sustained serious injuries.

The injured were taken to the Haridwar District Hospital in the EMRI 108 ambulance.

A case has been registered in this regard and further investigations are on into the matter.

Meanwhile, both Uttarakhand Governor Dr Aziz Qureshi and Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna have expressed grief over the mishap. They have prayed for the peace of the departed souls and also for speedy recovery of those injured in the mishap.