EDUCATION

Students urged to care for environment
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA, July 15 — Vanamahotsava Day was celebrated today at St. Vivekanand Millennium School, HMT, Pinjore, to motivate the students to take active part in environmental improvement programme in their school. Later, a community lunch was also arranged by the students.

Students actively participated in various activities such as tree plantation and painting and slogan-writing competition. The Executive Director of HMT, Mr C. N. Dhar, SDM (Kalka), Mr M. K. Ahuja and Mr Succha Ram Chaudhry, Sarpanch of Bitna Suri were guests of honour. Flying Officer Piyush Punj, manager of the school, distributed prizes to the students.

Mr Dhar said the vanamahotsava had been started by Mr K.M. Munshi 50 years back and the school was continuing to educate the children on the necessity of taking an initiative for plantation of trees. He added that the students could educate their neighbourhood on the issue of environmental degradation and mobilise them to plant saplings. Appreciating the efforts of the students, he said they were taking practical steps to meet the challenge of deteriorating environment

Addressing the students, Flying officer Punj said that the school had been organising various programme and activities and vanamahotsava was basically held to bring the students close to nature. Mr Jatinder Vijh, Manager, HMT, also spoke.

The Principal, Ms Jatinder Sandhu, stated that the activity was primarily aimed to spread awareness among our children regarding the environment and to motivate them for adopting eco-friendly activities .

An eco club was launched at the function. The purpose of this club is to generate awareness among the school children through participation in environmental improvement programmes and dissemination of information through observation of Earth Day, Environment Day and Pollution Day. 

Ritika, Kshitij win declamation contest
Tribune News Service

PANCHKULA, July 15 — Students’ Zone, a group launched by Manoj Gupta, Harsh Taneja and Nishant Garg, students of engineering and residents of the city, organised an inter-school declamation contest at Little Flower Convent School, Sector 14, here today.

Attended by participants of nine schools from the city, the topics included cyberspace, caging of animals, women empowerment among others. The judges for the contest included Mr Amar Chandel, Deputy Editor of The Tribune, Prof Lata Kumar, Head of Department of Paediatrics, PGI, Mrs Jolly Ahluwalia, a designer.

The results are as follows:

Category A (Class VIII to X): Ritika Malhotra-Little Flower Convent School (1) Chetan Sharma DAV 8 (2) Category B (Class VI and VII): Kshitij Sharma-St Xavier’s (1), Yogit rana-Little Flower Convent (2).

The organisers said that the contests would be organised during vacations all through the year and the idea was to provide a platform for all-round development of the students. 

COURTS

Fourth lok adalat settles 3200 cases
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 15 — A total of 3,200 summary cases were decided today in the special lok adalat held at the district courts complex and a sum of Rs 2 lakh was collected as fine. Almost all pending cases under the Shop and Commercial Establishments Act, 1958, were settled and many under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, disposed of.

Nine lok adalats were constituted by the District Legal Services Authority under the aegis of the State Legal Services Authority, UT, for the purpose of settlement of summary cases. Nine judicial officers took up cases in their sittings held from 10 am. The officers who held the adalats were Mr H.S. Madaan, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Mr Sant Parkash, Chief Judicial Magistrate, and Judicial Magistrates Ms Dimple B.J. Sharma, Mr Naval Kumar, Mr Baljinder Singh, Mr K.K.Goyal, Mr Mahender Singh, Ms Gurvinder Kaur and Mr Ajay Singal.

Today’s lok adalat was the fourth in the series of such adalats but the first devoted particularly to summary matters. The State Legal Services Authority also arranged a road safety exhibition in association with UT Traffic Police. Apart from this, it also opened an information-cum- legal education counter to disseminate legal awareness.

Mr H.S. Bhalla, District and Sessions Judge, inaugurated the special lok adalat. Mr Justice N.K. Sodhi, executive chairman, State Legal Services Authority, UT, later took a round of all lok adalats and also visited the road safety and legal awareness counter where he lauded the role of the traffic police in bringing about awareness regarding traffic rules.

Three reception-cum-enquiry counters were also set up for guiding the litigants. Maximum rush was witnessed in the lok adalat of Mr Sant Parkash, CJM, who settled 1396 cases.

CULTURE

Making waves in Indi-pop music
By Kanchan Vasdev
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 15 — The “Mehndi” fame singer Vibha was in the city today. Born and brought up in the UK, the young girl of Indian origin is all set to make a name for herself in the Indi- pop music.

A first prize in a singing competition in London prompted this girl to go to Pt Ajay Pohankar and Ms Geeta Prem, Indian classical vocal singers. Since then there was no looking back for her. Sheer luck made her come across Annu Malik, Indian music director, in a London studio and she got a break to work in Indian film music industry. She sang the title-track “ishq hua, kaise hua” of Hindi movie Ishq, featuring Aamir Khan, Juhi Chawla, Ajay Devagan and Kajol.

She continued film music with “Vaishnav jan to” in Kamal Hassan’s “Hey Ram” and “Teri meri ik jind” in Anil Kapoor starrer “Bulandi”. Both these songs were being recorded when Vibha was putting in her best for her debut album “Mehndi”, which was released six weeks ago.

She went ahead with another hit song “Mujhe tumse hai kuch kehna” in “Had kardi aapne”, besides two Tamil songs for Kartik Raja’s movie “Naam Iruve Naam Kirve”.

The success of “Mehndi”, her first music video, has proved that she has been able to carve a niche for herself and the music pandits believe that she is going to stay in the music world. Vibha was also chosen by MTV as their “ubharta sitara” for the month of June.

Born to a Punjabi father and a Kashmiri mother, the pretty singer opted for English literature at college level. She loves reading English classics, watching a lot of TV and of course, listening to music. She can make anybody hang around her for hours if she starts with a discussion on spirituality. She feels that a good piece of music can stir anybody’s spirit.

She knows four languages Hindi, Punjabi, English and Spanish. She, however, does not plan to sing a Punjabi song . She feels music has a language of its own and it carries its message across, irrespective of the boundaries or barriers of any kind.

“Classical music is the basis of all types of music. I have not been able to practise it as much as I wanted due to obvious reasons. I am concentrating on light music only.” says she.

She doesn’t like to compare the soft music of yore with today’s thundering music.” It is as beautiful as yester years. Today, songs are fabulous, these are more popular and this speaks volumes for the quality as well as the success of this music.” she says.

“For the coming generations my message is — Keep pursuing your goals. Patience is one thing that really matters if you want to make a success. Today I’m very happy as I have been able to reach my goal as I was sticking to make my dream a reality.” she adds.

She does’nt have a role model although she likes listening to many big names in the field.” I just let every emotion flow freely when I sing and don’t have anything else on my head. I believe your personality reflects in your music and for this you dont need to emulate any one.” says Vibha.

“I will be concentrating on my music videos. One feels elated when one can perform two forms of art at the same time — acting as well as singing. This brings me enough satisfaction to look forward to.”

She is on a trip to India for two months and has already enthralled her fans in Lucknow, Delhi, Hyderabad and looks forward to perform in a number of other cities. She had an informal interaction with her young fans at Music World here today, who were getting her autographs.

Tapping local talent
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, July 15 — The city’s vast budding talent which is ever on the lookout for creative channels which provide an outlet to their energies now has something to rejoice over. With the Siti Cable launching an exclusive programme for those who excel in some field or the other, the city’s cultural future is going to be a little different.

With five episodes of the Siti Young Buzz already off the air, producer of the programme, Aparna is looking quite hopeful about garnering more viewer support, and she has all the reason to be hopeful with real talented youngsters from the city coming forward to participate in this programme, which offers an outlet to anyone who is good at academics, sports or other extra-curricular activities.

The episodes which have gone by featured Divya Ohri, the eight-year-old dancing sensation of the city who has won many awards, Manav Khullar, CBSE Class X topper, Abhinav Bindra, world record holder shooting champion, Charul Malik, the city girl who is now with Sahara TV and model Candy Brar.

Now about the woman behind the show. Aparna has had a long tryst with television, being a casual news reader with the Siti Channel. Apart from her inclination towards the tele media, she is also a good academician. She has been teaching English at the local Government College for Men, and now looks forward to tapping as much local talent as possible.

But what has inspired her into this venture? “I was interested in promoting the young talent which must be given a platform. Also the selection for this programme is not random. It is strictly based on merit.”

Anyone who wants to be a part of this programme can contact numbers — 779658 and 709346.