Shahkot (Jalandhar), November 22
Two youths were killed when the motorcycle (PB 67 C 6075) they were riding was involved in a collision with a truck (PB 29 R 9792) near the truck union in Shahkot on the Jalandhar-Moga highway early this morning.

Ravi and (below) Baldev, who died in the accident on Saturday. File photos

After the collision, one of the bike-borne youths was charred to death as the bike caught fire, while the other died in the Jalandhar Civil Hospital.

The accident was so severe that one of the motorcyclists got completely burnt on the spot after the truck dragged him for 200m. Both victims were on their way to join work at their respective places.

The deceased were identified as Ravi Kumar (30), son of Gurmel, a resident of Dhandowal village, and Baldev Singh (45), a resident of Tut Sher Singh village. Both Ravi and Baldev were working as drivers with farmers.

According to information, Ravi had called up Baldev in the morning and asked him to drop him at his workplace in Malsian. Baldev picked Ravi from Dhandowal village and when they reached near the truck union, Baldev stopped the motorcycle and started listening to a call on his mobile phone.

“The moment Baldev stopped listening to the call, he suddenly turned the bike back towards Shahkot unaware of the speeding truck coming from the opposite side which hit them. Ravi, who was riding pillion, fell on the road, while the truck dragged Baldev for about 200m on the road. Suddenly, the bike caught fire which also took Baldev in its wake, eye witnesses said. Baldev was completely charred to death on the spot.

Ravi, who sustained serious head injuries, died at the Jalandhar Civil Hospital.

Ravi is survived by his wife, a daughter and a son, while Baldev is survived by three sons and a wife.

Noted comedian, satirist and film producer Jaspal Bhatti had also died in a mishap close to the same spot on October 25, 2012, when his speeding car crashed into a tree near the truck union in Shahkot.

Jalandhar, November 22
Even as the Civil Surgeon yesterday declared that the government has made special tie ups with laboratories to provide free diagnostics and subsidised medicines to patients of hepatitis B and C in the coming few months. At the ground level, the state of hepatitis patients in the district hints that the government might be aiming in the dark.

Jalandhar, November 22
Member of Parliament and former Lok Sabha Speaker Purno Agitok Sangma inaugurated a two-day pharmacy conference at Lovely Professional University today.

This is the 29th annual conference of Indian Pharmacy Graduates’ Association in collaboration with the LPU.

The theme of the conference is “Emerging Opportunities in Pharmacy Profession”. During six scientific sessions of the conference, eminent national researchers in the field presented their illustrious research papers for the benefit of global society.

Chief Guest PA Sangma praised university set up and conference arrangements open heartedly. “Under the great vision of this university, students have great opportunities to grab. India has growth in many sectors including pharmaceutical, hospitality, tourism, IT sectors and more. However, we need to identify sectors which are to grow,” he said.

While interacting with the students, he said mismatch between job-market and education has to be connected. Meanwhile, Sangma also met around 150 North-East students and inquired about their well being.

Jalandhar, November 22
After the implementation of the first phase of the solid waste management project in the city, the Municipal Corporation (MC) has now focused its attention on its much-awaited “City Beautiful” mission.

To begin with, it has planned to give a mural look to the walls and buildings adjoining major roads in the city. It has also decided to be more stringent with the companies which have adopted various roundabouts under the corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme, but instead of maintaining these, use the place just to put hoardings and banners of their corporate houses.

Gurpreet Singh Khehra, Municipal Commissioner, MC, is initially planning to rope in students of a Fine arts College in the city to draw murals on the wall adjoining the road from the PAP intersection to the BSF road.

Initially, the city’s mast-head will get a facelift. People while entering the city from the PAP intersection either from Chaugitti or Rama Mandi side should get a nice feel of a clean and well maintained city. We will approach the BSF and other authorities concerned’ with the proposal to draw murals on their wall, said Khehra.

Dr Sucharita Sharma, principal, Apeejay College of Fine Arts, while welcoming the move, confirmed that if approached, the college would give its full support in the beautification process of the city. We would love to extend our full support involving the revamping of the city, said Dr Sharma.

The MC is also planning to tighten its noose around those institutes which are enjoying free publicity on the roundabouts they have adopted under the CSR programme. They will have to maintain the roundabouts and the surrounding area they have adopted or else will be asked to pull up their hoardings and banners after paying the amount for advertising on an MC property all these years, said Khehra, who is planning to call a meeting of such corporates in a few days from now.

While the MC seems to be getting serious with the “City Beautiful” programme, it would prove to be quite a challenging mission for the cash-strapped MC.

Jalandhar, November 22
National SC Commission Vice-Chairman Raj Kumar Verka today said that officials who were not paying heed to the directions of commission would now face the heat. Verka said this while listening to the complaints of Dalit community pertaining to various issues at Circuit House on Saturday.

Verka, who is a Congress MLA from Amritsar, indirectly termed the bureaucracy as puppet of ruling party due to which they are not paying heed to the directions of Commission pertaining to the cases of atrocities on Dalits.

“I have come across several cases, in which officials had not paid heed to the directions of SC Commission. Now onwards, I will suspend officials whosoever will not act on the directions of the Commission,” said Verka.

When asked whether officials were not paying heed because he belongs to Congress party, he initially agreed but later said that this problem persisted at local level only.

On drugs, he took on Punjab police and said; more than 80 per cent of inmates caught under the NDPS Act were drug addicts not drug smugglers. He said, the police have put them behind bars just to develop positive image before public.

He also took on Vijay Sampla, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, as properties of Dalits were being confiscated in Hoshiarpur.

Verka also listened to the complaints pertaining to SC Scholarship scheme in some colleges were not issuing roll numbers to students.

When asked about the statement of BJP leader Navjot Sidhu in which he set satire on the ruling party of the state, Verka said, although the BJP leaders were giving statement against SAD, but, both the parties in alliance were sailing on the same boat. If SAD was looting Punjab, BJP must be taking their due share from the former.

Jalandhar, November 22
Coming to the aid of a poor family which had lost its sole bread-earner in a roof collapse incident at Lasoori Mohalla in Basti Danishmandan here on September 5 night, the Congress councillor of the area has got her house reconstructed.

A small-time singer and a follower of Padma Shri recipient Hans Raj Hans, Roshan Lal (45) had got crushed under the beam of the roof after he went to sleep at 11 pm. His wife Suman and two teenage daughters, Simran and Shilpa, too, were lying asleep and had got buried under the debris, but were safely rescued due to the timely intervention of their neighbours.

Councillor Rinku said he and some well-wishers of the family had collected money for the construction work.

Jalandhar, November 22
While 34 child labourers were rescued during the “Week against child labour” which just ended in the district, the Labour Department has, interestingly, handed over most of the children to their parents and guardians like the previous times the drives were held in the district.

As per the High Court ruling regarding the district task force committees, ideally the children should be presented before the Child Welfare Committee by the Labour Department. However, this important step was skipped by the department with the rescued labourers only being handed over to Child Development Project Officers (CDPOs).

Labour inspector Kunwar Dabar said all the rehabilitation measures of the rescued children were available only with the CDPOs. So the Labour Department was not in the know about what happened to the children.

Meanwhile, Child Development Project Officer (East) Amrik Singh said all four children rescued from his areas or jurisdiction had been handed over to the parents/guardians (with one of them being handed over to a relative (uncle) of the child, while the rest to the parents).

The CDPO said all guardians proofs were checked prior to the children being handed over.

Notably, like previous years, the Labour Department notoriously takes to handing over most rescued labourers to parents (allegations of handing children over to anyone posing as a guardian also abound).

However, both the Labour Department and the CDPO sources said the scrutiny of guardians’ proofs were made before handing them over.

Meanwhile, in the entire discourse over the children’s rehabilitation, the role of the CWC conspicuously stayed unmentioned by the Labour Department which said they had no information about what the CWC did because they handed children over to the CDPOs.

The BBA activists, who had not been allowed to accompany the Labour Department for drives this year, had also alleged that the Labour Department deliberately keeps activists out of the drives to maintain secrecy over the outcomes of the drives.

Meanwhile, Kanchan Chawla, chairperson of the District Child Welfare Committee, was clueless about the number of children whose cases had been taken up for rehabilitation in the district this year, “Such information lies at our office. Right now, I cannot comment on the number of children rehabilitated this year but we do take up such cases whenever they come to us.”

When asked whether any such case for the rehabilitation of a child labour had been taken up in the “Week against child labour”, she said she did not have the information.

Jalandhar, November 22
A daily wage labourer, Surinder Pal, working in Jalandhar needs immediate financial held for the treatment of his daughter Heena. He has been running from pillar to post for the past 13 months for her treatment.

Dedicated to the well being of his daughter, Pal is the sole bread winner of his family of four which includes him, Heena, his wife Manjit and his younger daughter Manisha (2). Originally from Hoshiarpur, Pal stays at the Santokhpura locality in Jalandhar.

Five-year-old Heena, suffering from blood cancer is being treated at PGI, Chandigarh. While Surinder Pal (30) earns Rs 5,000 to 7,000 per month (sometimes lesser depending upon the work he gets), the daily wage labourer has already shelled out lakhs on the treatment of his daughter.

Talking to The Tribune Pal said, "While we got the initial Rs 1.5 lakh through the CM Cancer Relief Fund, for the subsequent money I borrowed from my brother and many contractors. All the little gold we had in the family has been sold off. We even sold cylinders and household things of use to pay for the treatment of my daughter. She has received many chemo courses and doctors say 12 chemo courses are still left. The prices of all the injections and treatment as well as medicines etc. is very costly and while I'm already under debt, managing lakhs of additional money for me is very difficult. While the doctors had given me an estimate of Rs 3 lakh for three years, I have already spent over 3 lakh in the first year itself because chemo comes with deterioration of her health at times following which we have to rush her to the hospital. All we want is that we may raise enough money to manage the treatment of our daughter."

While Heena is in the first stage of cancer, Pal says her chemo sessions were often accompanied with fever, vomiting and indigestion.

While a tearful Pal said the doctors had already told him only to agree for treatment of could manage money immediately, he has to have the money to save his daughter's life. He says, "Doctors always tell us the injections and we have to get them at that very moment because our daughter's life depends on it. Due to the unpredictability of how Heena responds to the treatment, we have already shelled out over 3 lakh. We immediately need more to keep her treatment running and afford the costs of medicines."

Jalandhar, November 22
Youth Football Club Rurka Kalan (YFC), a community-based grassroots organisation working for the development of underprivileged children through the medium of football and education in Punjab, organised a week-long coaching workshop for the coaches and youth mentors of Punjab in association with Coaches Across Continents (CAC), a US-based organisation, that concluded today.

Earl Strassberger, Sophie Legros and William Hawkey, representing Coaches Across Continents, selected Gurpratap Singh from Delhi through its Community Impact Programme to give him an opportunity to share his learnings and experience with the YFC coaches and staff members.

YFC joined hands with CAC for three years to implement 'hat-trick' initiative that focuses on local social issues such as: female empowerment, including gender equity; conflict resolution including, social inclusion; health and wellness, including HIV behaviour change; and other life skills.

The joint initiative would be implemented in the villages of Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar of Punjab. It will focus on 3000 underprivileged children through its structured curriculum which would be implemented by the coaches and youth mentors of YFC.

The seven days program had over 80 participants from various villages across Punjab. These participants were between the age of 16-40 years. The felicitators showed coaches and community leaders how to teach students important life lessons with the help of football. Through this camp, participants were encouraged to learn sports for development skills and were taught how sports can be used for creating social impact in our society. With the help from CAC, YFC would now prepare a 24-week coaching curriculum for the development of football in Punjab and increasing the impact of the game in tackling the developmental issues that hinder the growth of deprived villages and the children.—TNS