Crime file
2 city bus drivers held for stealing diesel
Jalandhar, July 27
Two city bus drivers were today arrested by the Kartarpur police for allegedly stealing 670 litres of diesel from six city buses, regularly halting at the Kartarpur bus stand.

Shailender Pal in Kartarpur police net. A Tribune photograph

Youth gets 10-year jail for rape
Jalandhar, July 27
A 21-year-old youth of Dharamkot in Moga has been sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for raping a newlywed woman of Rajewal village in Shahkot. The court of Additional Sessions Judge HK Randhawa today pronounced the conviction of Baldev Singh under Section 376 (2)(g) of the IPC with a 10-year imprisonment and Rs 30,000 fine, one-year sentence under Section 323 of the IPC and one-year sentence under Section 506 of the IPC.

229 water samples of schools fail test in Kapurthala district
Kapurthala, July 27
Additional Deputy Commissioner (D) Mohammad Iqbal Singh Bhatti today found that water samples from 505 of 1,149 schools of the district had been taken, of which an alarming number of as many as 229 samples had failed.

Faulty sewerage makes life difficult
Jalandhar, July 27
The residents of Hirapur village, near Maqusdan in Jalandhar, are a harried lot this monsoon season. Thanks to the defective sewerage system laid in the village a few years back. The sewage water, daily overflows from the sewer drains, and enters the houses of villagers living in the low-lying areas.

Sewage accumulates on a road at Hirapur village in Jalandhar. A Tribune Photograph

MLU DAV College observes Sankalp Diwas
Phagwara, July 27
A Sankalp Diwas was observed at DAV College, Phagwara, in the memory of Late Sudarshan Kumar Uppal, the founder of the college, here today. The event started with a havan yajna in which vedic mantras were performed in the presence of chairperson Promila Uppal and officiating principal Suman Tandon along with staff members and students.

Staff perform a ritual at DAV College in Phagwara on Saturday. A Tribune photograph

Students to benefit from English language project
Jalandhar, July 27
Keeping in mind the need for better English education among government schoolchildren, simplified lessons in the language and given the humble backgrounds from which most of the government schoolchildren come from, a simplified English project has been launched in middle schools across the district, to arm students with better comprehensibility in the language.

Remembering Martyrs: Jawans pay tributes to martyrs on the 74th Raising Day celebrations of the CRPF at Sarai Khas village, near Jalandhar, on Saturday. Photo: Sarabjit Singh

From schools & colleges
Kanya Maha Vidyalaya students bag merit positions
Jalandhar, July 27
Students of KMV, Jalandhar, have shown good results in BCom-III results declared by Guru Nanak Dev University. Riya Kohli of B.Com-III (Hons) bagged first position in the university merit list, followed by Priya and Kavita, who stood second and Amandeep, who was placed third in the university. Neha and Sonam also of BCom-III (Hons) got second and third positions, respectively, in the university.

Youths snatch chain from woman journo
Jalandhar, July 27
Two motorcycle-borne youth snatched a gold chain of a woman journalist at Basti Danishmandan this afternoon. Showing much courage, the journalist Usha Pawar, resisted the attempt and followed the snatchers till some distance, but they pointed a pistol at her and fled toward Nahlan village. She said she had immediately called up control room from the spot but to no avail. The matter has been reported at Police Station Division No 5. Interestingly top police officials, including DCP Jaspreet Singh, ADCP-II Parminder Singh and ACP RPS Sandhu, held a police-public interaction yesterday in the area to instill confidence among the residents about better policing measures. — TNS

Crime file
2 city bus drivers held for stealing diesel
Rachna Khaira

The police has recovered 80 litres of the stolen diesel from them. “We examined the phone record of all of the eight drivers. One of them was awake the whole night and was repeatedly calling on a few numbers. After tracing these numbers, we arrested the two drivers,” Jasvir Singh Rai, DSP, Kartarpur, said.

Youth arrested for making obscene calls

A 24-year-old youth, Shailender Pal, resident of Ambgarh, has been arrested by the Kartarpur police for calling and harassing women over phone for the last six months. The police has also recovered four sim cards and three mobile phones from him.

He was arrested on a complaint filed by Kapil Dev, who runs a mobile repair shop at Mustafapur village. Kapil Dev was repeatedly arrested and harassed by the police of various states for selling one of the sim used by Shailender Pal. Kapil was later released on bail.

“I sold sim No 9803237872 three years back to one Hariya Devi from Bihar, who was working as a labourer in Kartarpur. Later, this youth bought the sim from her when she went back. Since it was not on his name, he started calling unknown numbers for fun,” revealed Kapil Dev. He added that since then he had been facing harassment by officials of various police stations for selling the sim. He also revealed that once he was picked up by the Sangrur police as Kapil had called the wife of a very senior police officer.

The police also received two complaints from the Kartarpur area two months back that someone was making obscene calls to women. He repeatedly called up women and tell lewd jokes to them. The police took help of the cyber crime wing and started its investigation. “We first tracked the IMED number of the phone in which these sim cards were being used. One of the sim was bought on his brother’s name. We tracked and caught him at his home with the sim cards by which he used to call the two complainants,” revealed Inspector Shamsher Singh, investigating officer, Kartarpur police station.

Shailender has only studied till Class VI and works as a carpenter.

Youth gets 10-year jail for rape
Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 27
A 21-year-old youth of Dharamkot in Moga has been sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment for raping a newlywed woman of Rajewal village in Shahkot. The court of Additional Sessions Judge HK Randhawa today pronounced the conviction of Baldev Singh under Section 376 (2)(g) of the IPC with a 10-year imprisonment and Rs 30,000 fine, one-year sentence under Section 323 of the IPC and one-year sentence under Section 506 of the IPC.

While the rural police had also named brother of the convict Harmesh Singh in the case, no challan has been produced against him. The complainant had alleged that she was coming from her parents' place and had alighted at the Shahkot bus stand on September 11, 2012, at 7.30 pm to go to her in-laws' village when Baldev and Harmesh coming on a motorcycle said they would drop her to the village.

Trusting them as boys from the same village, she said she took lift from them, who instead took her to some fields along the Sutlej. The twosome raped her till the next morning, subject her to injuries on her chest and back and left her at a bundh the next morning. She said owing to threats from the two, she remained tight-lipped, but finally disclosed the matter to her family three days later, who then reported it to the police. She had then taken treatment and got her medical examination done at the Civil Hospital, Nakodar.

Man gets life term for killing wife

The court of District and Sessions Judge JS Klar has sentenced a West Bengal-based man to life imprisonment for burning his wife to death at her residence in Wariana village here.

The convict, Hamid, had a minor altercation with his wife Hema on the morning of February 10, 2012, after which he poured kerosene on her and set her on fire. After the act, he himself doused the flames. He told her that he was going to get an auto-rickshaw for her to take her to hospital, but did not return.

Her neighbour Rosina Khatoon heard her shrieks, came to her help and took her to hospital. The court relied on the evidences, including the dying declaration and the statements of the neighbour, before passing the judgment.

229 water samples of schools fail test in Kapurthala district
Tribune News Service

Kapurthala, July 27
Additional Deputy Commissioner (D) Mohammad Iqbal Singh Bhatti today found that water samples from 505 of 1,149 schools of the district had been taken, of which an alarming number of as many as 229 samples had failed. He has urged the departments concerned to immediately check the causes and assure supply of potable water to schools.

The ADC said committees were being set up for conducting minute checking of mid-day meal in all schools of the district. He suggested that all schools must have boards with the names of meal-preparing staff and their contact numbers printed on it. He asked the officials to send one such list to him for use during daily checking. He said the members of the checking committees must themselves taste the food.

12 samples of schools fail test again in Jalandhar

Out of the 18 water samples taken by the Health Department from schools, 12 samples have failed test, while only six samples have been found fit for drinking.

While the Civil Hospital authorities are still unwilling to disclose the result of the reports, sources said out of the 18 water samples taken from nine government schools, only six samples were found fit for drinking.

The results of three of the samples are said to be positive while the rest have failed partially.

Schools whose water samples have failed test include both the schools at Gandhi Vanita and all three schools at Adarsh Nagar (the aided school and both the unaided schools).

While reports of the 11 samples later revealed by The Tribune included one failed from the DC office, samples taken from the Mayor's office has reportedly passed the test.

Civil Surgeon Dr RL Bassan has refused to confirm the reports so far.

While the MC authorities have reportedly taken samples from nine schools, there has been no re-sampling of water from other schools, whose first samples had failed the test. While the MC authorities allege that the Civil Surgeon hasn't given them both reports of school samples, the Civil Surgeon retorts that he has provided all the details.

Notably, while the MC authorities can easily access school names, which are at Nakodar Chowk, Model Town, Kirti Nagar, Preet Nagar, Babu Labh Singh Nagar, Purian Mohalla, from reports in dailies, the reluctance in leaving out some schools and including some is not understandable.

Also, teams haven't yet started taking samples from the sites, from where 11 additional water samples had been taken and they failed test.

Faulty sewerage makes life difficult
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 27
The residents of Hirapur village, near Maqusdan in Jalandhar, are a harried lot this monsoon season. Thanks to the defective sewerage system laid in the village a few years back. The sewage water, daily overflows from the sewer drains, and enters the houses of villagers living in the low-lying areas. The worst hit are the children, who have to daily wade through knee-deep stinking and contaminated water, while going to school every morning.

According to the residents, a village pond gets filled up during monsoons resulting in dirty water flowing back to drains, thus making their lives miserable. Surjit Singh Aujla, a village resident, said: “The stagnant water has become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. It is difficult for us to move around as there are swarms of mosquitoes all around throughout the day. We apprehend an outbreak of a severe epidemic in our village.”

The villagers said they had brought their woes to the notice of the authorities concerned in the recent past through a memorandum, but nothing had been done. They said as the new panchayat was yet to take oath, there is no one to redress their problem this season.

The villagers said their problems have multiplied due to the Army restrictions in the area. Hirapur is one of the Army notified areas where fresh constructions are not allowed within the 1,200 yards of the Army Ammunition Depot, Suranussi. Raj Atwal, a resident, rued: “Most of the old, dingy houses in the village are in the danger of collapsing during rainy season. A major tragedy can happen in the village at any moment because even minor repairs are not allowed by the Army authorities.”

Gurdarshan Singh, Block Development and Panchayat Officer (West), said the village sewage pond was spread in one acre land but there was some encroachment near it owing to which the problem had partly arisen. He said a case on the issue was being dealt with in the court of District Development and Panchayat Officer. “There is a plan to de-silt the pond for which we need to drain out the pond water. We are waiting for the rainy season to be over after which we will get the work done under MNREGA scheme,” said Gurdarshan.

MLU DAV College observes Sankalp Diwas
Our Correspondent

DAV College, Phagwara, is running under the aegis of the DAV College Managing Committee, New Delhi, which runs more than 780 institutions in India and abroad. The college also emphasises the need to inculcate the moral values among the students along with the quality education.

Tree plantation drive

The NSS Department of the MLU DAV College, Phagwara, organised a tree plantation camp on Sankalp Diwas, in which saplings of different trees were planted by the students to keep the college campus green and pollution free.

The college principal appreciated the efforts made by the NSS, staff members and students to make Sankalp Diwas memorable by paying tributes to the college founder Sudarshan Kumar Uppal.

Principal of Sr Sec School, Nangal Majja, Roop Lal Saroha, Om Uppal, Shiv Rattan Uppal, Tara Chand Chumber, Subodh Sobti, Gurdial Singh, Malkiat Singh Ragbotra, Desh Bandhu Chopra were also present on the occasion.

Students to benefit from English language project
Simplified English paras, letters and application prints improve comprehensibility
Aparna Banerji
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 27
Keeping in mind the need for better English education among government schoolchildren, simplified lessons in the language and given the humble backgrounds from which most of the government schoolchildren come from, a simplified English project has been launched in middle schools across the district, to arm students with better comprehensibility in the language.

Started initially as a pilot project in December last year, the venture began as an exercise to train children in the language they knew little about.

Jalandhar is the first district in the state to start this project so far. Currently, 50,000 students across the district, in 178 middle schools, are benefiting from this mission.

Before this session, it had been started in a few schools. After seeing the success of the pilot project and heightened interest among students as well as teachers, for material, the project was then expanded to Classes 6th to 8th across the high, middle and senior secondary schools in the district from May this year.

District English co-ordinator Chandrashekhar said: “Simplified paragraphs, stories, letters and applications are being sent to all the schools in the district every month from the monthly syllabi. The material is sent for Classes 6th to 8th. These are prepared by subject teachers who have worked as BRPs/EMTs. During their visits to schools, they found out that many teachers find it difficult to cater to slow learners.”

“Weaker students were finding it difficult to write the same material which is being written by good learners. To ease the pressure felt by them and to remove the phobia, I decided to help the teachers and especially those students who were facing problems. With this vision I gave the simplified material in some schools as a pilot project. Good feedback and the consent of the DEO (secondary) and support from the Assistant State Project Director, English, Ginni Duggal, encouraged us to provide this material to all the schools in the district every month,” he added.

The teachers who prepare this material are Mandeep Kaur (English mistress), Puja Mehta (English mistress), Nischal Kumari (English mistress), Anju Bhagat (English Mistress) and Sharanjit Singh (English master).

One of the teachers, while talking to The Tribune, said: “One could easily say that in government schools, till date, in a class of 30 students, as many as 20 can’t even copy English from the board properly, leave alone reading, comprehending or writing. The project was greatly needed to rescue students from the predicament.”

Pooja Mehta, one of the formulators of the simplified matter, said: “It had always been seen that students in the sixth standard are suddenly burdened with a whole lot of English when neither their family background nor the school environment has facilitated a good knowledge of the English language so far. But it is a pleasure when students, who until a few days ago were not able to recognise words, are taking interest in understanding them. Print outs of simplified English curriculum are sent to schools, where teachers teach them. The basic exercise is to reduce sentences, remove heavy words and go for shorter, pithier sentences with lesser, simpler words, which would be easily understandable by students. It has worked well and we expect good results in the future as well,” she said.

DEO Neelam Kumari, whose consent got the project started, lauded the effort and said the project was showing good results in improving English comprehensibility among government school students in the district.

From schools & colleges
Kanya Maha Vidyalaya students bag merit positions
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 27
Students of KMV, Jalandhar, have shown good results in BCom-III results declared by Guru Nanak Dev University. Riya Kohli of B.Com-III (Hons) bagged first position in the university merit list, followed by Priya and Kavita, who stood second and Amandeep, who was placed third in the university. Neha and Sonam also of BCom-III (Hons) got second and third positions, respectively, in the university.

Orientation programme at Nehru College

Kamla Nehru College of Education for Women, Phagwara, commenced the session for 2013-14 with an orientation programme. Dr Harvinder Kaur, principal of the college, formally introduced all the staff members. He gave information about college traditions, achievements and future vistas to the students. The students were introduced to the college campus by making them personally visit each and every corner along with the staff members. Moreover, all the students introduced themselves by reflecting the areas of their interest. The programme ended with guiding notes and blessings showered by principal and staff members upon the students.

MSc (IANS)-IInd semester results

Students of Kanya Maha Vidyalaya’s secured merit positions in the university’s MSc (IANS) - second semester exam. Navneet Kaur got first position in the university by securing 404/500 marks, Ramandeep Kaur got second position with 389/500 marks, Anchal Jalota got third position with 388/500 marks, Priya Sharma got fourth position with 381/500 marks, Rajveer Kaur got fifth position with 377/500 marks and Daljit Kaur got sixth position with 367/ 500 Marks.

Vijay Divas celebrations at Lyallpur Khalsa College

Vijay Divas, commemorating the Kargil War of 1998, was celebrated at the Lyallpur Khalsa College, wherein tributes were paid to martyrs of the war. Speaking on the occasion, principal of the college GS Samra said educational institutions could play an effective supportive role in emergencies like Kargil War through its NCC and NSS wings. He told the students present that three martyr soldiers of Kargil War were the alumni of the college.