Tribuneindia...Regional Briefs

	REGIONAL BRIEFS	Thursday, September 24, 1998
weather n spotlight today's calendar

KHARAR

Water bills
The local Municipal Committee has asked defaulters to clear their water and sewerage bills within a week, otherwise their connections will be disconnected, Mr Lachman Singh, Executive Officer, said here on Tuesday. He said the committee had started a survey to locate unauthorised water supply and sewerage connections.

MOGA

Kisan Congress
A convention of the Punjab Kisan Congress was held here on Monday. Mr Satnam Singh Sandeshi, state president, urged the Punjab Government grant a compensation of Rs 5,000 per acre to farmers of this district who had suffered losses due to rain.

NAWANSHAHR

Competitions
The Punjab School Education Board has organised tehsil-level educational competitions, dedicated to the tricentenary celebrations of the Khalsa Panth, here at JSFH Khalsa High School. Students of various age groups participated in the competitions. The host school bagged maximum prizes.

PHAGWARA

Body found
A decomposed body was found from a well at Pandwa village on Monday. The body has not been identified.

ROPAR

Medical camp
A three-day medical camp for ex-servicemen and their families of the district will be held from Thursday at the local Sainik Rest House by the Western Command, Chandi Mandir. According to Mr Rajdip Singh Kamboj, Deputy Director, Sainik Welfare, here, the patients would be examined by experts, including lady doctors.
Meeting
The district unit of the National Students Union of India has held a meeting here and protested against the anti-students' policies of the State Government. The NSUI will also take part in a dharna to be held in front of the residence of the Punjab Chief Minister on September 30.

SANGRUR

Blood donation
A blood donation camp was organised by the local Citizens Welfare Society on the premises of the District Jail here on Monday. Mr Inderjit Singh Zira, State Minister for Health and Jails, Punjab, was the chief guest. During the camp as many as 50 inmates donated blood.

Office-bearers
The following have been elected office-bearers of the Municipal Corporation B and R Engineers' Association: president- Mr Maninder Singh; senior vice-president - Mr Ravinder Sharma; vice president - Mr Ram Pal Bains; general secretary - Mr Raj Kumar Verma; joint general secretary - Mr Ajay Garg, finance secretary - Mr Harkiran Kumar and secretary - Mr ML Gupta.
Valmiki Mahasabha
The following have been elected office-bearers of the Chandigarh Valmiki Mahasabha; chief patron — Mr R.L. Sabharwal; patron — Mr A.N. Sarhadi; president — Mr Om Parkash; senior vice-president — Mr Jagdish; vice-president — Mr R.L. Shastri and Mr Parkash Gogi; and general secretary — Mr M.L. Bhohat.
Environment front
The following have been elected office-bearers of the Chandigarh Environment and Anti-Pollution Front: patron — Dr Sudhir; president — Mr Rajinder Sharma; vice-president — Mr Jatinder Kumar; general secretary — Mr H.P.S. Kochhar; and treasurer — Mr Mashwinder Singh.

PANCHKULA

Urged
The local Maharaja Agarsain Yuva Sabha has urged the Aggarwal Sabha to exempt rental charges of the Aggarwal Bhavan in Sector 16 here. The president of the Yuva Sabha, Mr S.N. Gupta, has also sought the reduction in the life membership fee from Rs 1,100 to Rs 100

SAS NAGAR

Association
The following have been elected office-bearers of the JCT Electronics Employees Welfare Association: vice-president — Mr Gurdip Singh, Mr Chaman Lal and Ms Kamal Jit Kaur; and secretaries — Ms Saroj Kumari and Mr Vinod Modgil.
Press Club
The following have been made office-bearers of the local Press Club: president — Mr Gurpreet Singh Niamia; senior vice-president — Mr Sarvmit; general secretary — Mr Dharam Pal Upasak; joint secretary — Mr Tejinder Sehgal; cashier — Mr Ram Kumar; and office secretary — Mr Narinder Mohan.

AMBALA

Awarded
Dr Rattan Singh Dhillon, Lecturer in Punjabi, S.D. College, Cantonment, here and Mr Ramesh Kumar Madan, Lecturer in Political Science, S.D. College, have been awarded Dr Ambedkar fellowship for 1998 by the Bharatiya Dalit Sahitya Akademi.
Flayed
The president of the Canal Patwari Association, Mr Bal Bahadur Yadav, said here on Tuesday that the government should end discrimination in the pay scales of canal patwaris and revenue patwaris. He said the canal patwaris had not been granted the pay scale of Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000 which had created resentment among them.

GURGAON

Craft fair
A craft fair opened at the local Government Senior Secondary School on Tuesday. The fair has been organised by the Development Commissioner, Handicrafts. Mr Alok Ranjan Chaudhary, Director Northern region, said more such fairs would be organised in the country.

SHAHABAD

Aggarsain jayanti
The local Aggarwal Sabha organised the Aggarsain jayanti function here on Monday and paid tributes to Maharaja Aggarsain, the founder of the sect. Prizes were given to students and mementos presented to social workers.

SONEPAT

Protest
Residents of Garhi Ujala Khan village blocked the traffic on the Gohana-Panipat road for several hours on Monday in protest against the killing of three cows in a mishap. The blockade was lifted on the assurance of the SDM.
Three killed
Three persons were killed on the spot when a vehicle rammed into another vehicle parked on the GT Road near Kundli village on Monday. The police has registered a case.
Four arrested
The Rai police claims to have arrested four persons and foiled their attempt to loot a petrol station on the G T Road on Tuesday. The police recovered a country-made pistol, two cartridges and a knife from them. The police has registered a case.
Function
Shri Sanatan Dharam Sabha will organise its annual function from September 26 to September 30 at Nandwani Nagar in this city.
Monkey menace
The Residents Welfare Association on Monday expressed concern over the menace of monkeys in the city and urged the district administration to take immediate steps for trapping the monkeys.
Urged
Representatives of various farmers organisations on Monday demanded a probe into the alleged misuse of public funds by officials of the Construction Divisions in the Irrigation Department.

YAMUNANAGAR

Adhyapak Sangh
The following have been elected office-bearers of the Haryana Rajkiya Adhyapak Sangh, Yamunanagar district: president — Mr Mohan Lal Bhardwaj; Senior Vice-President — Mr Sabba Dass Shashtri; Vice-President — Ms Usha Sood and Ms Krishna Devi; and treasurer — Mr Gurmit Singh.

NAHAN

Federation
The following have been elected office-bearers of the HP Government Colleges Laboratory Staff Federation: president — Mr Rajesh Mohindru (Nahan); senior vice-president — Mr Kundan Lal (Bilaspur); vice-president — Mr Sunil Datta (Dharamsala); and general secretary — Mr Rajesh Kumar (Paonta Sahib).

SHIMLA

Appointed
Mr Brij Behari Lal Butail has been appointed president of the Kangra District Congress Committee. He replaces Mr Mela Ram Saver.

Rego

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

The moving force behind 'Kudratnama'

After doing B. Tech from the Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, he settled in Faridabad to pursue his engineering career. But fate willed otherwise. What he adopted as hobby — theatre and films — ultimately took him up the ladder of success.

He is Anjali Rai Mehta, a Faridabad-based engineer, who has now turned to film making instead of pursuing his avocation. He started working for TV films as a diversion, producing ad films and documentaries.

Eventually he ended up as a successful presenter and producer of an immensely popular science serial, "Kudratnama" being shown at present on Star Plus on week-ends (Photo of serial in progress). The 27-episode serial has been produced by him on behalf of the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC).

Mr Mehta points out: "The myth that given a choice television viewers won't watch a science programme has been shattered by the success of Kudratnama. In the Indian context it will not be misplaced to claim that to a large extent Indian cinema has been eclipsed by television.

Barring the stress on current affairs programmes, most of the time has been usurped by parodies of Hindi cinema. There have been very few programmes which impart information. And still fewer which successfully blend information with entertainment. So when Kudratnama was conceived we had the task cut out — blending information with entertainment", he observes.

Kudratnama treats science as a civilisational quest which was reflected expressively in the design of the sets.

Drawing on the Egyptian pyramids, Greek Acropolis, and the Sun Temple of Konarak, manifesting the cosmic riddles, Barry John, the eminent theatre personality, has designed the magnificent sets, which transcend science, surpassing the specifics of geophysical confines. "Science is invoked not as a hard and cold logic, but as a Homeric epic of a human Odyssey".

The programme has been divided into four rounds with eloquent and suggestive names, 'Kahani', 'Karnamey', 'Koshish', and 'Kartoos'. Original in concept and immaculate in execution, "Kudratnama" is attracting a large number of students.

Devoted to yoga

G.D. Sharma is a yoga teacher par excellence. While teaching yoga at Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, he wants to inspire every citizen to practise yoga.

Yoga is in his family. His father used to meditate and chant Sanskrit shlokas, some of which he learnt. In 1978, he attended a yoga camp organised by the doyen of yoga in Himachal Pradesh, R.C. Gupta, who started a yoga course at the HPU Post-Graduate Centre.

Sharmaji, as he is popularly known, joined the yoga course in the 1981-82 session and obtained a gold medal. Later he completely switched over towards the practice of yoga. He not only made yoga a daily routine but also read many books about its philosophy.

Adopting yoga as a way of life, completely changed him. He remembers that as a child he was very feeble and frail: it was only after practising yoga that he attained strength and confidence.

While asans improved his memory and self-confidence, books gave him deep knowledge about richness of Indian culture and philosophy. This shaped him to adopt yoga as a full-time profession. He joined the Yoga Department of H.P.U. as Assistant Professor.

He has many achievements to his credit in yoga. He has been awarded title of "Yogacharya" by the President of India. He has also been conferred a doctorate by the World Spiritual Development Organisation, besides winning the best performance trophy at the national yoga championship in 1983.

Sharmaji, who has worked at the Indian Embassy in Jakarta, has taught yoga to many foreign dignitaries, besides delivering TV and radio lectures.

He claims to have cured patients of diseases where surgery is not required. These include serious health problems like asthma, acidity, hypertension, gout and disorders related to gynaecological problems.

On being asked that how can yoga be helpful for a common man? He says that yoga brings discipline in life and helps build a daily routine, leading to a healthy life. He does yoga five hours daily.

Painter to settle in Ludhiana

Ludhiana is about to have an addition to its list of eminent citizens. Surinder Bhardwaj (60), a national award-winning painter of the region, is thinking of settling down in this megacity after retiring as an arts teacher from a college at Bhiwani.

Described as a painter with a mission, Bhardwaj was born in Lahore. He lost his father at the age of two and was brought up by his maternal grandfather at Mandi Dabwali in Haryana. Pursuing his natural talent for painting, he obtained a diploma in drawing and painting from the Punjab School of Arts, Shimla, in 1960.

After a short stint at Jammu University at the invitation of Dr Karan Singh, a scion of the royal family in Jammu & Kashmir, he finally settled down to teaching art at a Bhiwani college. During this period, he took part in numerous exhibitions and staged several one-man shows at Delhi, Chandigarh, Bombay, Amritsar, Srinagar, Patna, Bangalore, Manali, Gwalior, Naggar (Kulu), Allahabad and Jalandhar.

During the period, he won a number of awards including first prize from Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi (1989), Haryana State Arts (1971), National Award from the Lalit Kala Akademi (1988), and All-India Drawing Exhibition Award, Chandigarh (1995).

Surinder Bhardwaj specialises in cityscapes. The houses and the cities in which he has lived since childhood find vivid expression in his paintings (see photo). He chooses his subjects from nature and life so that his work is comprehensible.

( Contributed by D.N. Chaturvedi, Dharam Prakash and A.S. Prashar. )