The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, August 3, 2000,
Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

R E G I O N A L B R I E F S

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

PUNJAB

BATALA
MURDERED: Sunil Kumar (23) of Achli Gate, here was allegedly murdered by Shashi Kumar and Surinder Kaur on Tuesday night. Both parties had an altercation following which Sunil was hit by sticks. A case under Sections 304 and 34 of the IPC has been registered.

HOSHIARPUR
JAILED: The police on Monday arrested Pushpa, wife of Mulakh Raj, of Chautala village, at a naka at the bypass and seized 18.25 kg of poppy husk from her. She was produced before the Duty Magistrate on Tuesday who sent her to jail.

JALANDHAR
MURDERED: Rajdev, a Bihari, working at the farm of Mr Amrik Singh, was found murdered with a sharp-edged weapon on the outskirts of Kala Balan village in Noormahal on Tuesday. The police said he was murdered because of a property dispute with his brothers in Bihar.

PHAGWARA
INJURED: Dr Rita Bawa, Principal, Kamla Nehru College for Women, was injured when her car was hit by a tractor on the GT Road while she was going to GND Varsity, Amritsar, on Tuesday. Her left arm was fractured in the mishap.

ROPAR
SANGAT DARSHAN: The Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, will hold a sangat darshan to listen to the problems of the people of the area at Chamkaur Sahib in Ropar on August 4. Disclosing this, the Deputy Commissioner, Ropar, said the sangat darshan would be held at Anaj Mandi at 10 a.m.

TARN TARAN
1 KILLED: Kuldeep Singh (30), a resident of Malchak village, was killed and his relative Pinder Kaur was injured on Monday when their moped was hit by a tonga near Rasulpur village. A case under Sections 304A, 279, and 427, of the IPC has been registered against the tongawala, Baldev Singh. In another case, Manwinder Singh and Malkiat Singh, both residents of Bagarian village, were injured when their scooter was hit by a canter near the bypass on Monday.

CHANDIGARH

TROLLEYS DONATED: The Punjab State Red Cross Society presented 10 patient’s trolleys to PGI here on Wednesday. Dr K.N. Ahuja, Secretary of the Punjab State Red Cross branch, handed over these trolleys to the Medical Superintendent, Dr A.K. Gupta. The donations for these trolleys were collected by a social worker Ms Amarjit Kaur Dhillon.

ELECTED: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Sanatan Dharam Sabha, Sector 23-B: President — Mr Om Parkash Malhotra; Chief Patron — Mr Roshan Lal Sud; Senior Vice-President — Mr Divaker Pathak; Vice-President — Mr Sardari Lal Goswami; General Secretary — Mr Ramesh Chander; and Finance Secretary — Mr Narinder Prabhakar.

SAS NAGAR
SALE OF OPIUM DENIED: Mr Baldev Singh, panch of the Tangori Gram Panchayat, denied that he had said the opium and poppy husk was being sold at the road side near the village here on Tuesday. He said the land on which the dhaba had come up was under dispute and certain persons in the village were unnecessarily raking up the issue.

COMPETITION ORGANISED: The local Environment Protection Society organised a two-day essay and painting competition at Government Senior Secondary School, Phase III B1, which concluded here on Monday. The contests were organised by the society as part of its national environment awareness campaign. As many as 2335 students from 11 different local schools participated in the contests based on environmental awareness. The participants were divided into three groups. The results of the contests would be declared later, said a spokesperson of the society.

TREE PLANTATION DRIVE: The House Owners Welfare Society organised a tree plantation drive at Dharana Bhavan in Phase 5 here on Monday. The tree saplings were planted by executive members of the society led by its General Secretary, Mr A.S. Shyam. A spokesperson of the society said it had also been decided to plant trees on the campus of Government Primary School in Phase 5. The society also resolved to oppose the shifting of the bus stand from Phase 8 to its new site in Phase 6.

WORKSHOP ORGANISED (RMU): A five-day workshop on communication skills organised by the Regional Management Unit in collaboration with the local branch of the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), here on Monday. The workshop was conducted by Dr G.S. Chahal, Additional Project Director, State AIDS Control Society, Punjab. The workshop was being organised for the field staff of Healthy Highway Project being run in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Chandigarh. — TNS

PANCHKULA
ELECTED: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Jankalyan Co-op House Building Society Limited, Saketri: President — Mr V.K. Bector; Vice-President — Mr S.P. Negi; Secretary — Mr I.C. Dharmani; and Treasurer — Mr Sukhdev Sharma.

HARYANA

KAITHAL
PLOTS ALLOTTED: Eighteen families of “bagri luhar” community were allotted plots at a function organised by the Lions Club (Grace) here on Monday. Dr Mahavir Singh, DC, said that it was a novel project of the club.

KARNAL
GANG BUSTED: The Karnal police on Monday busted a gang of liquor smugglers by seizing a truck carrying 400 pouches and 700 bottles of country as well as Indianmade foreign liquor. The police arrested the driver while his accomplices escaped. An FIR has been registered.

KURUKSHETRA
POWER THEFT: During a special campaign launched last month to check the theft of electricity in operation circle, Kurukshetra, the Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, inspected 4,215 connections in Kurukshetra and Kaithal districts. Mr A.P. Gupta, Superintending Engineer of the nigam, said of the total connections checked, 235 theft cases were detected and Rs 17.331 lakh was imposed as penalty. An amount of Rs 8.14 lakh was recovered on the spot.

SONEPAT
JEEP OVERTURNS: Seven passengers were injured when a jeep in which they were travelling overturned near Khandrai village, about 45 km from here, on Tuesday. The jeep was on its way from Safidon to Gohana town in the district. All injured were immediately hospitalised and stated to be out of danger.

RESNTMENT: Resentment prevails among residents here against the letting off of some students, allegedly involved in bicycle thefts, by the police under “political pressure”. They alleged that the police had recovered 15 bicycles from the students. They demanded a high-level probe into the complaints and stern action against the guilty police officials.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

NAHAN
MEETING ON PDS: The Additional District Magistrate, Sirmour, Mr Vikas Labroo, has said essential commodities worth Rs 3 crore were distributed to 75,000 card-holders through 28 fair price shops during the past three months. He stated this while presiding over a meeting of officers on the public distribution system.

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

A relic of the Raj on its last legs

THE regional employment office building in Himachal’s capital, Shimla, is in shambles. Once considered to be an architectural marvel, this 75-year-old three-storeyed building majestically stood against the landscape of Mashobra and Jakhoo hills.

Built of wood and orange coloured bricks in equal, proportion, was the cynosure of all eyes because of its conspicuous architecture. But since Independence, due to administrative apathy and lack of aesthetic sensitivity of the rulers of the day, it remained in utter neglect. So much so that now it is on the verge of collapse and has become extremely hazardous to the life of scores of workers at the employment office.

The sprawling lawns and flower-beds at the entrance have all disappeared with the passage of time and have seen the wild growth of bushes and shrubs all around. Hundreds of bricks are falling off the walls and iron nails on the wooden floors sticking out. The building is creaking at several spots because of the loosening grip of wooden frames and planks on the bricks and plaster.

Environmentalists and old residents are highly critical of successive regimes in the state leading to the plight of this heritage building. Keeping in view the highly dilapidated state of this building, it is need of the hour to immediately shift the employment office staff out to another building.

Besides, hordes of unemployed youth and others visit this office to make queries and file job applications. According to the updated record in the office, many unemployed persons falling in different categories are registered with the regional employment office. Most of the people in Shimla want to let this architectural beauty be a relic of a bygone era like many other edifices, as there seems to be no way out but to demolish this building for no repairs can be done on this tottering structure.

‘Paradise regained’ for two

It was virtually “paradise regained” for Mr Fateh Singh (51) and Mrs Rajinder Kaur (50) when they were able to see the world following a cornea transplant at Mahavir Dal Hospital, Bathinda. They feel that today they are the happiest persons in the world, thanks to the late Ichha Devi of Barnala city whose family had donated her eyes.

Expressing their gratitude of Ichha Devi, the two recipients said they had given up all hope of getting their eyesight back again. However, by a quirk of fate they were informed by the hospital that corneas had been arranged for them.

Mr Fateh Singh and Mrs Baljinder Kaur had turned blind 22 and 12 years ago, respectively. They said they had earlier been feeling that they were a burden on their relatives.

The operations were performed by Dr J.K. Gupta, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Ashok Sharma and Dr J.S. Sara. It was the 27th operation of the team. Dr Gupta, who led the team, said the operations were performed free of cost.

The Seva Bharti, a welfare organisation, motivated members of the family of Ichha Devi to donate her eyes after her death.

Haryana Akademi starved of funds

Lack of funds with the Haryana Sahitya Akademi is causing concern among Hindi poets who feel neglected.

Dr Madan Lal Verma (60) is one such poet who has written a number of articles, poems and stories for various books and magazines. He could not attend the world conference of Sanskrit scholars as the Akademi and the Union Ministry of Human Resources could not provide adequate funds to him to visit the venue.

Dr Verma, with a high academic record, retired about nine years back as the Head of the Sanskrit and Hindi Departments of M.D. University, Rohtak. Since then he has been spending writing for various magazines. He regretted that while the Haryana Government sanctioned sufficient funds to the Urdu and Punjabi Academies, the Haryana institute was being ignored.

He is of the view that the propagation of Hindi literature would be adversely affected if the government did not take remedial measures in time.

Contributed by Som Kirti, Harjeet Singh and Sameer Sabharwal.