Jalandhar, April 1
Apparently in a bid to get away with the crime, the murderer of a young woman first killed her and then set her ablaze in a vacant plot near Sheikhe village here early this morning.

The burning body of the woman was spotted at 7 am today by one Pritam Singh. The body had a burning rubber tyre kept atop owing to which the chest and abdomen area got badly charred. However, the shape of the forehead and face cut remained less affected which perhaps can help in her identification.

Pritam Singh immediately called the villagers and the police. Policemen from Maqsudan and Jandu Singha police post reached the spot and called the residents from surrounding areas to identify the woman.

Since no one from among villagers was able to identify the woman and no screams were heard by anyone, it is being suspected that the woman was killed elsewhere but her body was brought and burnt here by the murderers. Forensic experts too were called in to collect samples from the site.

ASI Sikander Singh from Jandu Singha said an alert was immediately sounded across the state after which quite a few people who have young women missing in their families reached the spot for identification. So far she had not been identified.

Jalandhar, April 1
Scores of patients and their attendants were put to a great hardship with the paramedical staff of the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) suspending work in protest against the non-payment of their salaries for the past over four months.

The paramedical staff suspended their work and lodged a protest by sitting on chairs in the main hall of PIMS early this morning.

Up in arms against the PIMS management, the employees have also warned to go on indefinite strike till their salaries were not released.

Facing finance crunch, the PIMS had also failed to pay salaries to the doctors and teaching faculty for the past five months, the protestors alleged.

Talking to The Tribune, the protesting staff complained that the management had been delaying their salaries for the past over two years and now they were not paid any salary from December, 2012, onwards.

The management has been making false promises every time. Moreover, they were not allowed to take up their problems with an inspecting team of Baba Farid University that visited PIMS recently, the protestors alleged.

Dr Kulbir Kaur, Director-cum-Principal, PIMS, ensured that the management would solve the problem very shortly.

Jalandhar, April 1
A bridge on the Bist Doab Canal connecting Basti Danishmandan with Nahlan village collapsed this morning while a tractor was passing through it, disrupting the link between the areas on the two sides.

Even as there are other connecting bridges on the canal, but these fall a few kilometres away from the site inconveniencing the lives of the people in the area. The site falls near Jhande Wala Gurdwara and connected the Basti area with the leather complex, a new upcoming treatment plant and several other villages in the vicinity.

A resident of the area, JS Gill, said the bridge was of much use as several school buses used to pick children. "We have been complaining about the dilapidated condition of the bridge for quite sometime as there were cracks in it and sidewalls had fallen off, making it extremely unsafe," he said. Since some slabs of the bridge are still intact, pedestrians continued to use it in the day unmindful of the risk.

Jalandhar, April 1
The district health authorities formally launched a campaign ‘Weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplementary’ (WIFS) to check anaemia among students of government and private schools. Medicines were distributed among students at Government Senior Secondary School (Girls), Adarsh Nagar, here today.

The campaign has been launched by the Health Department in collaboration with the Education Department under the School Health Programme of the Nation Rural Health Mission.

Jalandhar civil surgeon RL Bassan kicked off the campaign by administering folic acid tables to girl students. District education officer (Secondary) Neelam Kumari was among those present.

During the campaign, iron folic acid supplements will be provided to students of 10-19 years of age by health teams in schools and Anganwari workers will take care of those students who were not going to schools, said Dr Bassan.

He said as per a survey by the department, 50 per cent of the girls and 30 per cent of the boys were found anaemic.

All teenagers between the age of 11 to 19 years would be covered under the programme, said district health officer Ashwani Sondhi.

Jalandhar, April 1
As against the general craze for fancy numbers, the District Transport Office received a poor response during the auction of 78 numbers in PB-08-CE and CF series today.

Of the total numbers, 71 went in auction. Of these, 59 numbers had a single applicant and went on reserve price. While the total reserve price for all numbers was Rs 10.25 lakh, the total collection made was marginally up at Rs 11.80 lakh. The number 0001 went for Rs 1.75 lakh, Rs 1.25 lakh more than the reserve price of Rs 50,000, said District Transport Officer (DTO) Dalwinderjit Singh.

Jalandhar, April 1
India stands at the seventh place in filing patents in engineering while China is way ahead of US, Europe, Japan and Russia. This was stated by Dr AP Singh, Dean, Department of Research, Innovation and Consultancy (RIC) of Punjab Technical University (PTU).

Dr AP Singh was addressing a workshop on ‘Patenting in Engineering’ organised by the PTU for faculties of the PTU-affiliated colleges in an effort to update them regarding various aspects of patenting and to train them about the procedure for filing patents here today.

In India, most of the researchers are not aware of their Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and thus lacks knowledge for filing patents. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that researchers working in colleges, research institutes and universities must be aware of the IPR.

Dr Manish Rachchh, Principal SJ Thakkar College of Pharmacy, Rajkot, and a registered patent agent, gave an overview of the IPR saying that the IPR involves patent, copyright, trademark, design, trade secret, geographical Indication, semi-conductor circuit and sui-generic system to protect different types of innovations.

Dr Manish Gupta from the Department of Production and Industrial Engineering, JNV University, Jodhpur, said patentability was usually defined in the context of the body of law in the jurisdiction concerned.

To obtain a patent for an invention in a jurisdiction, it should meet the relevant legal conditions. Broadly three essential conditions were to be met and these were novelty, non-obvious and industrial utility, he added.

Jalandhar, April 1
Since the time Channel V discontinued its music programme last year and took to airing fiction programmes, one of the prime shows, which has identified the channel’s shift to youth-oriented series, has been The Buddy Project. As the show is starting with its season 2, the young and bright star cast of the programme came to the city to shed a bit of light on what happened when the "buddies" moved from school to college.

The campus show, which was earlier based in school, will now move - with the same characters - from a school campus to the Imperial College of Communication.The famed actors - Fahad Ali (KD), Bharti Kumar Shrestha (Kiya) and Nikhil Mehta (Piddhi)- interacted with the media today and shared about shared how they "grew up".

Fahad Ali

Fahad Ali, who had started off with Balika Vadhu (BV), had moved to theatre, films and writing in his quest to do something deeper, which he would enjoy. While he was missing thrill in many of the projects that came his way, he found it back with The Buddy Project.

“I found the role of KD very interesting. He is sharp but poor, speaks less and his father doesn’t support him much. The subtle conflicts the character demanded me to portray felt intriguing. At a time when I had almost thought of quitting TV, The Buddy Project brought me back to it.”

Speaking about films and future plans, Fahad says, “I am a great fan of Vishal Bhardwaj.I think Kaminey was a great film and a defining moment for the Indian cinema. Many future films took a cue from it.”

Bharti Kumar Srestha

Starting off with serials like Diseny’s "Ishaan", Bharti says she had no idea how the by audience would take the show, but she says now the team is overjoyed with its success.

“I had done two huge shows and did not have too much knowledge about the other side of TV. I never thought we would be noticed in such a big way and I’m enjoying every moment of this,” she says. “It is great experience and people call and congratulate us on our performances. It feels good,” she adds.

Her character in programme is of Kiya, a girl, who is overshadowed by her overbearing pop star sister, adored by their mother at the cost that Kiya feels misunderstood.

Nikhil Mehta

The funny Pidhi (Nikhil Mehta) had co-starred with Bharti for their previous programme "Ishaan". A son of a lawyer, he is known for his zany sense of humour and has had over 40 outings, including dairy milk and carbon mobile advertisements.

While he had thought of running away from the show after he was handed over a 2-4page script, which he had initially thought he wouldn’t be able to manage, the love and understanding of the TBP crew convinced him to take up to the project - a decision he hasn’t regretted.

A Punjabi at heart, he remembers his last outing to Punjab as a time when he had strolled in the city, in his father’s absence, and had got lost while finding his way back to his hotel.

He plays Pidhi, who is known for his improvisation, smile (a hit with the crowds). He says once he is free after The Buddy Project and he plans to do a Punjabi movie.

The three actors think the show has been the greatest launch pad into the world of TV fiction for them and say the "buddies" entry into college is sure to endear them to a wider amount of public adulation than they currently enjoy.

Jalandhar, April 1
The cast of upcoming Punjabi film "Bikkar Bai Sentimental" came calling to the city here today.

Singer-turned-actor Jassi Jasraj, who will be debuting with the film, and Preeti Jhangiani, flanked by the film's assistant producer Prabhjot Kaur Mahant, while addressing mediapersons here, said the film would be a Punjabi action flick like none other witnessed in the past.

Addressing mediapersons at an unusual venue of a swanky garment store, Jassi Jasraj made quite a style statement, sporting a chequered Punjabi turban (much like the traditional "parna" - sported by rustic elderly men in Punjabi villages) and classy shades to go with them.

He carried a heavy wooden "manji paawa" (wooden leg of a cot) and mouthed impromptu one liners in chaste Punjabi, much in keeping with his aggressive, chequered-turbaned, pawa-carrying poster avtar, in front of which he sat.

Releasing on April 19, the cast said the movie is about a man who takes it upon himself to fight it out when he witnesses the rot setting in the system.

The cast members said the film would be characterised by great action sequences as the producers had made sure that the action bits in the film were on par with Bollywood action flicks. A special team of action experts was called from Mumbai for the action of the film, the cast said.

Speaking on the occasion, Jasraj said, "The film continues with the image that the people in Punjab have of me based on songs like 'Zanjeer sone di", 'Tezaab 1984'. While commercial success is important, the film has been made based on the thought that the message matters the most. I believe anyone who watches the film will relate to Bikkar Bai."

Jhangiani who was much loved for her Bollywood outings in the films "Mohabbatein" and "Awara Pagal Deewana" said after her recent outing as a producer it was much easier to get back to the role of an actor. "A producer has a lot of pressures and issues to deal with. So it felt free playing an actor again. But indeed its fair share of hard work to play a typical Punjaban. I had to gain 7 to 8 kg for the film because I play a mother in the later part of the film."

While producer Prabhjot acknowledged the undying efforts of both the actors for the film, she said a lot of efforts made into the film where both the actors put in their bits to make it work. "There were times we did double shifts and the actors did not even get to take a break or sleep. Preeti was a big sport as there were times that she worked for 18 hours at a stretch without flinching."

The other actors who are a part of this film are Rana Ranbir, Shahbaz Khan, Sardar Sohi, Kanwalpreet and Bobby Sandhu.

Gautam Nagrath has directed the film, which has been produced by Sandeep Bansal, Kanwaljit Kaur and Probhjot Kaur Mahant.

The music has been given by JSL Singh and the soundtrack has playbacks by Jassi Jasraj, Diljit Dosanjh, JSL and Tarannum.

Lyrics have been penned by Jassi Jasraj, Ikka, Baljinder Singh Mahant and Deep Jagdeep.

Jalandhar, April 1
‘Unicorn’, a team of Oriental Institute of Science and Technology, Bhopal, clinched the title of the go-kart championship while KART Astrophe from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, and Screw Drivers of DP College of Engineering, Pune, were adjudged the first and the second runners-up in the competition held at Lovely Profession University (LPU).

Aimed at pushing students into innovative designing and fabrication in the automotive sector, the Mechanical Engineering Department of the LPU had organised the championship in which students from 20 educational institutions from across the country participated. Participants had to design and fabricate a go-kart with specified mechanical description. The go-garts were then tested on various parameters, including braking, acceleration, endurance, auto-cross and skid-pad test. It was then followed by a race of go-karts. Each phase of the event was judged by engineers and owners from prestigious units related to automobiles like Indian Oil, Solid Works, 3D Collection and others.

While awarding the trophy and cash prizes to the winning teams, LPU Chancellor Ashok Mittal said: “This event gave an opportunity to work hands on in the area of automotive sector. ”

He also gave away the cash prizes of Rs 30,000, Rs 20,000 and Rs 10,000 to the champion team and the first and the second runners up, respectively. — TNS