Jalandhar, March 6
The district administration, it seems, is adopting a lax attitude over the issue of violations of the Model Code of Conduct in the city after the announcement of the Lok Sabha poll.

It has decided to forgo yesterday’s episodes of distribution of bicycles by SAD leader and District Planning Committee chairman Gurcharan Singh Channi and making of Blue Cards with pictures of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Food and Civil Supplies Minister Adesh Partap Singh Kairon by government employees at the Municipal Corporation office.

SDM-II-cum-ADC, Paramjit Singh, who is also heading the District Code Violation Committee, said it had been decided that any violations can be spared for the first five days keeping in view that anyone could come up with an excuse that he was not aware of the implementation of the code or the guidelines given in it. “We take it as the transition period,” he said, clearly showing his casual attitude.

Jalandhar March 6
A day after miscreants attempted to loot an ATM of Punjab National Bank at Kang Sabu village near Nakodar, another attempt was made to break open the ATM of ICICI Bank on Mithapur road.

The incident came to light when the ATM guard came to join duty this morning. He was stunned to see the broken ATM. He immediately informed senior bank officials about the incident.

Interestingly, the main CCTV camera put up inside the ATM room was not functional. Now, the police are depending on the footage of the camera, which is installed inside the ATM.

Harpal Singh, SHO, division No. 7 police station, said the police had sought the camera footage to identify the miscreants who made the attempt to loot the ATM. The miscreants had only managed to break open the front box of the ATM, but failed to break open the cash box.

The police have registered a case against unknown persons and efforts were on to nab the offenders.

In both Kang Sabu village and this incident, it has come to light that the bank had not deployed any night guard for security. Despite holding meetings with banks officials and directing them to deploy night guards, no bank, it seemed, had paid heed to the police advice.

Following the Kang Sabu village incident on Tuesday night, the city Commissionerate police had convened a meeting of all city bank officials and directed them to deploy night security guards at ATMs and banks.

Jalandhar, March 6
In a freak accident, an unidentified man slipped into a 6-foot-deep foundation, hit the wall of an under-construction building and died on the spot in the New Raj Nagar locality in the wee hours today.

The man, who appeared to be a migrant labourer, was found dead at the site this morning. The police and the building branch officials of the Municipal Corporation (MC) reached the site and inspected it to verify facts.

The building branch officials found that the shop was coming up without the sanction of plan. Municipal Town Planner Tejpreet Singh said Assistant Town Planner Sham Sunder had been sent to the spot who found that the owner had dug up the foundation, constructed a wall but was yet to fill it up. The MTP said that a notice had been issued today to the owner for going ahead with construction without the sanction of plan.

SI Jiwan Singh of Basti Bawa Khel said the foundation of the site falling near the canal had not been filled as the labourers were still plastering the walls.

The police are, meanwhile, working on two theories. The man could be drunk. He could even have come to steal iron rods lying there. His death seems to have occurred after slipping and hitting the wall in front. His neck had got twisted. But we cannot proceed with any theory before the postmortem. Since the body is yet to be identified, we will wait for 72 hours. We are going with insertions in newspapers for his identification. As of now, we are proceeding under Section 174 of the Cr PC," said the policemen. 

Jalandhar, March 6
After failing to sell any of its properties in the last 10 auctions, PUDA finally managed to earn Rs 2.33 crore with the sale of a shop-cum-shop and a booth at Chhoti Baradari Phase-II here today.

PUDA had today held auction for three commercial chunks, four shop-cum-shops and three booths. There were four bidders for the 148.62 sq m shop-cum-shops, one of which went for Rs 2.08 crore. While the reserve price for the site was Rs 1,20,427 per sq m, it saw only little appreciation at Rs 1,40,300 per sq m.

A booth in an area of 18.96 sq m went for Rs 25,02,720, up from its reserve price of Rs 18,72,414. The other three shop-cum-shops and two booths could not be sold.

There also was no response for three commercial chunks, including two in the same locality. One chunk, measuring 2.97 acres, has been earmarked for group housing. Falling between Cambridge International School and Reliance Multiplex site, its reserve price has been fixed at Rs 32,851 per sq m. The total reserve price of the site comes to Rs 39.48 crore.

The second chunk falls in front of PIMS, which currently is a garbage collection site. The site, measuring 0.55 acres, has been earmarked for a hotel. The reserve price of the chunk is Rs 14.62 crore.

The third chunk for which there is no response coming for the past many years is a 686.77 sq m commercial site on the 120-foot road in Basti Sheikh. The reserve price of the site is Rs 26,311 per sq m.

Earlier, there were aspersions being cast on whether PUDA could proceed with the auction, but Chief Administrator Jaskiran had clarified that since the auction had been planned a month ago and there was no political involvement in the event, it would go ahead with the programme. PUDA officials expressed relief that the sale had helped the department recover a bit from its financial problems. 

Jalandhar, mARCH 6
To relinquish your taste buds with the traditionally cooked ‘Chicken Changezi ‘ and Lahori kabab and to flaunt your sophisticated dressing style with the world famous ‘Pakistani Lawn’, the Indo-Pak expo has finally kicked off with much fanfare on Thursday at the Desh Bhagat Yaadgaar hall. Apart from the appetising eating delicacies and the conventional Pakistani apparels exhibiting exquisite designs and colours, many stalls of wooden articles, handicrafts, marble work, dry fruits and toys from Pakistan and India were also displayed at the venue. The exhibition is being organised annually by the Punjab Chapter of the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

“People are coming here mostly to buy world renowned ‘Pakistani lawn’, a cloth famous for its softness and quality. Pakistan in fact grows the best quality of cotton in the world and hence we are one of the biggest exporters of cotton in the world. No other cotton can match our quality and the colour style. We actually receive very good response here in Punjab and hence we come here every year,” said Mavra Ziad, a fabric designer from Lahore.

The exhibition was inaugurated by Sunil Jyoti, Mayor of Jalandhar. The first day of the exhibition witnessed a huge crowd anxious to buy the best designs on the ‘first come- first get’ basis. Ladies could be seen blissfully appreciating and buying the famous cut suits, Karachi work, Croatia work and the designer dupattas with Pakistani Phulkaari work. “Infact the truth is that we actually lagged behind while competing with the Phulkaari work of Pakistan. Their hand work still depicts the traditional essence and the customary designs. We have mostly transformed our work to machines,” said Manoj Kumar displaying suits with Pakistani Phulkari work. He also informed that most of his designs matche with the style of ‘Laila’ the Pakistani designer who is world famous for her traditional phulkaari work. “We are trying to preserve the actual phulkaari work by following some traditional Pakistani designs and so we are displaying some of our best designs,” said Kumar.

Apart from apparals, many other items like marble work, wooden work, leather products, Punjabi Jutis, Dry fruits from Kabul etc were also put on display for the public. Other major attraction is the food court displaying the famous Pakistani dishes with the age-old traditional masalas. “We are offering ‘Chicken Changezi’ that is cooked on tawa with traditional Pakistani masalas. The other attraction is ‘Chicken Nahari’ that is cooked with dry fruits. Our another delicacy ‘Sindhi Dum Chicken Biryani is also attracting lot of visitors,” said Nasir Iqbal of Waarsi Foods, Karachi.

To attract more crowd most of the traders are also offering discounts from 20 to 30 per cent. The exhibition is also offering fresh designs for summer wear. The trade fair will be on till March 10. 

Jalandhar, March 6
A two-day seminar on "Emerging Trends in Basic and Applied Sciences" started today with the inaugural address by Dr RK Kohli, Vice-Chancellor, DAV University.

He exhorted to students to join research, be annovative and contribute to the development of society. The keynote address was delivered by Dr AK Sood, alumnus of this college as pre-engineering students in the year 1967-68. He is presently professor in physics at Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore and Padmashree awardee. He is also the secretary general of ‘The World Academy of Sciences'. During his address he introduced the subject of nanoscience and delved on his research work related to nanotubes, grapheme and physics of soft matter and their applications. He has published more than 328 research papers and holds 2 United States patents and 4 Indian patents. The first technical session was held at two venues. At the first venue, first session was chaired by Dr GS Chuhan, Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla. The first lecture was delivered by Dr Anil Kumar, Head, Department of Chemistry, IIT Roorkee, whereas the second lecture was delivered by Dr Mahavir Singh, Department of Physics, Himachal Pradesh University Shimla.

At the second venue, the first lecture was delivered by Dr U G Banerjee, Head, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, NIPER, Mohali.The second lecture was delivered by Dr Sucheta Sharma, Professor of Biochemistry, PAU, Ludhiana. These speakers elaborated about their research fields.

The second technical session was also held at two venues. At the first venue, the lectures were delivered by Dr BR Mehta from IIT, Delhi, Dr Manoj Kumar from GNDU, Amritsar and Dr RK Seth from Sri Sai University, Palampur. At the second venue the lectures were delivered by Dr Daizy Batish from PU Chandigarh, Dr Sharda Potukuchi from SMVDU, Jammu and Dr Jagbir Singh, Punjabi University, Patiala. In the last session 172 posters were displayed by different participants and evaluated by Dr R K Seth (physics), Dr Daizy Batish (botany), Dr Sharada (zoology and biotechnology) and Dr Girish Kumar (chemistry). Earlier, the delegates and resource persons were welcomed by Principal Dr BB Sharma. As many as 373 delegates participated in today's conference. Dr Hemant Kumar conducted the stage. Prof P K Kapoor, Head, Department of chemistry, Prof T D Saini, Prof P K Sharma, Prof S S Behl, Prof Satish Sharma, Prof Atul Bhalla, Dr Navjeet Sharma were also present. Dr Rajeev Kumar Sharma organising secretary of the conference thanked all the resource persons.

Jalandhar, March 6
The city police have failed to gather any vital clue about the robbers who had looted SUV of the BSP leader at gun point three days ago. On Monday late night, some unidentified miscreants had looted SUV of a local BSP leader Amrik Bagri near Tower Enclave locality.

Incident had occurred in front of the office of Bagri when he was about to leave for home.

Assistant Commissioner of Police, Manpreet Singh had claimed that police teams were working to solve the case and soon the accused would be behind the bar but police have failed to nab the robbers so far.

Bagri, who was former convener of state youth wing of the BSP, is also into a property dealing business. Sukhwinder Kotli, BSP spokesman said incident had occurred at about 9.30 pm when Bagri, after closing his property dealer’s office located in the Tower Enclave, had just sat in his Fortuner car. Armed robbers suddenly pounced on him. The moment he was about to start his SUV, about four unknown armed miscreants arrived and forcibly snatched his SUV at gun point.

International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day will be celebrated at Apeejay College of Fine Arts, to salute the achievements of women achievers who have made a laudable contribution in different fields. This day will be dedicated to the achievements of Sushma Paul Berlia, the only child of late Stya Paul, founder of Apeejay Education Society.

Berlia, holds many high profile offices. She is the Co-promoter and president of Apeejay Stya and Svran group. She is the president of Apeejay Education Society which manages numerous institutions of higher learning and schools. She is the Co-founder and Chancellor of Apeejay Stya University located in Sohana, Haryana. It is under her tutelage that Apeejay has emerged as a leader in every field.

Banking and financial literacy week

With a view to disseminate knowledge of banking system to the students of government school of Bhote Saprai and Rurka Kalla, MBA students of CT Group of Institutions celebrated ''Banking and Financial Literacy Week”. They went to educate the school students on the premises of respective schools.

This awareness drive aimed at making the students know about various banking terminologies, filling of various forms related to banking like account opening form, withdrawal form, pay in slip, writing a cheque, demand draft, request form. The students and the faculty members of the Management Department took the initiative to train the school students.

As many as 700 students were guided for all such banking finance-related issues. They educated the school students about the role of the banks in day-to-day life. For this MBA students delivered interactive lectures and did the role playing so that school students could understand the content of the programme.

Feeling delighted Subash, student of Government Secondary School said: “It is a fruitful programme for us. When we visit the banks, we have to deal with all such matters. The lack of knowledge makes us feel nervous.

But now we have been trained and given knowledge about these things. I hope that we will not face any hurdle in future pertaining to the bank-related activity.

Charanjit Singh Channi, Chairman, CT Group of Institutions said, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Education stands for the all-round development of the students. The blending of theory and practical strengthen the spirit of knowledge. At CT Group of Institutions we put in the efforts to shape the young minds in this direction. Being the education provider we also realise the need to guide the students of the schools about the emerging trends of the day.

Lamp lightening

A lamp lightening and oath taking ceremony was organised here today at Sant Baba Bhag Nursing Institute. The function was formally inaugurated by lightening a lamp by chairman of the Institution, Sant Malkit Singh. Students of the BSc Nursing (first year) pledged to take an oath to conduct their professional life according to the medical ethics.

Later on, a cultural function was also organised. Bhangra, Giddha, Sufi songs and Hymachali dance were displayed by the students. Principal Santosh Sharma welcomed the new comers in her speech. The Director of the Institution JS Dhillon (Retd Lt General VSM), Joint secretary Kewal Singh Dhillon, Secretory Gurdev Singh and Registrar Dr Tejwant Singh were also present at the occasion.

MA Sanskrit result

The students of first semester of MA Sanskrit brought home laurels. Om Parkash, who scored 323 out of 400 stood first in university, Shweta, scored 319 and stood the second while Neha who scored 295 stood third in university.

Principal, Dr BB Sharma congratulated the students and faculty members of the Sanskrit Department.

Flora festival

Post Graduates of the Botanical sciences of Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyala today celebrated Flora Festival to welcome the spring season. More than 200 students participated in the variety show.

A plant variety show was organised in which different varieties of plants namely ornamental, exotic, medicinal and cactus were displayed. Prof RK Kohli, Vice- Chancellor of DAV University was the chief guest on this occasion.