EDUCATION

Change Principal: students
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Aug 11 — The students of Goverment Institute of Textile Chemistry and Knitting Technology have given a call for indefinite strike and have demanded that the Principal be changed.

The All India Sikh Students’ Federation (Boparai) under the leadership of Mr Navpreet Singh, General Secretary of the federation, have also joined hands with the students and assured full cooperation.

According to a press note issued by Mr Navpreet, an 11-member committee has been formed with members from the federation as well as the students’ association of the institute which will meet the Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, and the Minister of Technical Education, Mr Jagdish Singh Garcha, on August 16 at Circuit House of Jalandhar. Mr Avtar Singh Boparai will be the President of the committee.

The students of the institute had earlier demanded that the Principal, Mr Darshan Singh Blasi, should apologise for the alleged defamatory remarks he had given to the third semester students of the institute when they had approached him for the exemption of fine which was imposed on them. Mr Blasi, however, has gone to Delhi on an official tour to attend a seminar.

PAUSA threatens to launch stir
From Our Correspondent

LUDHIANA, Aug 11 — The Punjab Agricultural University Students Association (PAUSA) has threatened to launch an agitation if its demands were not met by the state government.

In a press note issued here today, Mr Jagrup Singh Bal, spokesman, and Mr, Gurbaksh Singh, Vice-President of PAUSA said they would meet Mr Sukhdev Singh, a board member of the Teachers Post-implementation Committee, on August 14 and urge him to fulfil their demands.

They threatened to launch an agitation on August 16 and 17 if the dialogue did not yield the desired results.

The students are demanding that the vacant seats for the posts of Agriculture Development Officer (ADO), Horticulture Development Officer (HDO), and Soil Conservation Officer (SCO) be fulfilled at the earliest. They claimed that as many as 400 seats of ADO, 50 seats of HDO and 70 seats of SCO are still vacant.

They also demanded that agriculture should be introduced as a regular subject up to the +2 level. Mr Bal informed that the eligibility to fulfil the posts in the various constituent agencies of the Mandi Board (PUNSUP, MARKFED and BDPO) which were only limited to agriculture and now changed to general graduates, be reverted.

They are also demanding that the university posts of assistant professor which were abolished should be reintroduced. Because these demands were not fulfilled, they had boycotted the convocation in 1998.

They had also met the Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, and apprised him of their problems.