The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, September 14, 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

BATHINDA
CONTACT PROGRAMME: Punjab National Bank organised a customer-contact programme on Tuesday in which representatives of different small-scale industries participated and registered their complaints.

GARHSHANKAR
OFFICE-BEARERS: The following have been elected office-bearers of the local Rotary Club: president — Mr Major Singh Mauji; vice-president — Mr R.K. Ram; secretary — Mr Ram Kumar Joshi; and treasurer — Mr Amandeep Bains.

JALANDHAR
WORKSHOP: The local Official Language Implementation Committee and the State Bank of Patiala, organised a Hindi workshop here on Tuesday. Joint Commissioner (Income Tax), Mr S.K. Anand, presided.

ARMY SEMINAR: The Army will organise a seminar-cum-exposition on ‘‘Army-industry partnership in the new millennium’’ at Chandimandir on Thursday, according to an Army press note.

LUDHIANA
MUSIC ALBUM: Amit Verma, director, indo British Cultural Society has done a choreography for a musical album, which was shot in an old fort of Kangra. The Album, ‘Teri Yaad Mein’ has been sung by famous singer Mohammad Aziz. Amit, who recently returned from Kangra said, “Arvind, the director of the album had seen me at Jalandhar Doordarshan and I was selected with my dance troupe. I have played the role of a pathan. The album would be released within a month”.

SEMINAR: More than 900 make-up artists, hair stylists and beauticians from all over Maharashtra will be attending a seminar conducted by a beauty therapist from Ludhiana, Mrs Indra Ahluwalia. The seminar will be held on Monday at St Andrews auditorium Bandra, Mumbai. Mrs Ahluwalia, who is the director of Grace Beauty Clinic and Institute will be teaching the latest techniques in make-up, hair styles and special bridal make-up.

HAILED: The Ludhiana Citizen’s Council has welcomed Kapil Dev’s decision to quit as coach of the Indian cricket team even though, it felt, “it is a belated decision”. In a statement issued here on Wednesday, Mr Darshan Arora, chairman and Mr Ramesh Banda, general secretary of the council, said that it was in the fitness of things that anybody who had been accused of match fixing should have voluntarily resigned till his name was cleared by the CBI.

LECTURE: Mr P. Khurana, an astrologer, psychotherapist, vastu consultant and a Columnist will deliver a lecture on ‘Role of astrology the daily life,’ in Pal Auditorium of Punjab Agricultural University on Tuesday, at 2.30 p.m. Dr Kirpal Singh Aulakh, Vice-Chancellor, will be the chief guest.

CAMP: A free eye operation camp was organised by Lions Club Vishal, on Tuesday at Bhagwan Ram Charitable Hospital, Daresi, which was inaugurated by Dr S.K. Kakkar. Dr G.S. Mangat, eye surgeon, examined 435 patients and 43 patients were short listed for operation of cataract. Free medicines and food was provided to the patients and arrangements regarding stay for the attendants of the patients were made by the club members. In the wake of the International Eye Donation Fortnight, a brochure giving tips for voluntary eye donation was released on the occasion. Club president, Mr V.K. Gupta and secretary Mr I.S. Khanna informed that patients would be allowed transplantation of intra ocular lenses. Another free eye operation camp will be organised in the month of October.

WEB SITE: e-indiamart.com is making waves in Bay Area-California, Southall and Toronto as the emerging e-commerce leader for providing efficient services for NRIs in spending gifts to Punjab and Delhi online. One can now send gifts anywhere in Punjab, Delhi and around from anywhere in the world by just clicking the mouse and using a credit card. The site was inaugurated by Dr Livtar Singh Chawla, Vice-Chancellor of Baba Farid University, Faridkot. This site provide exquisite range of gift items to be delivered anywhere in Punjab and Delhi in approximately 24-48 hours.

MALERKOTLA
ELECTED: Mr Bharpoor Singh was elected president of the Truck Operators Union here on Sunday. The election of the union was held under the supervision of the tehsildar, Mr G.L. Garg, and the DSP, Mr Surinder Singh Saini.

VACANT POST: The post of vice-president of the municipal council here has been lying vacant for the past nine months. Mr Bimal Pahuja, president of the local Welfare Association, has demanded that the vacancy be filled.

PATHANKOT
ELECTED: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Pathankot Electrical Traders Association: president — Mr Sudarshan Verma; vice-president — Mr J.P. Verma; general secretary — Mr Avinash Saggi; and treasurer — Mr Arvind Kumar.

EYE CAMP: A free eye-operation camp will be organised by the Chamunda Samaj Samiti on September 17 at Mahajan Hall here, according to Mr Adesh Rana, general secretary of the samiti.

THEFT: A bag containing Rs 1 lakh and other valuable articles belonging to Mr Harish Pathania, former president of the Bar Association here, was stolen from the court complex on Monday. Members of the association observed strike on Tuesday in protest against the non-cooperative attitude of the police in providing adequate security in the complex.

PHAGWARA
CAR STOLEN: A white Maruti car (CH01-A 8212) belonging to Mr Jatinder Singh of Dhanipind village was stolen from a private hospital here on Monday night. A case has been registered.

RALLY: The Punjab State General Categories Welfare Federation and the All-India Samanta Manch will hold a rally at Chandigarh on Thursday in protest against the reservation and for the implementation of the Janjua Commission report. This was stated here on Monday by Mr Narinder Sharma, general secretary of the federation.

DIGITAL SERVICES: Users of hi-tech ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), led by Mr Ashwani Kohli, senior vice-president, Punjab Chamber of Small Exporters, met Union Telecommunications Minister Ram Bilas Paswan here on Sunday and complained of poor digital services due to lack of synchronisation between the VSNL and DoT. According to a press note issued by Mr Kohli on Monday, the minister directed Mr S.C. Chaudhary, Chief General Manager, Telecom, to remove the grievances.

ROPAR
LINK ROADS: The Punjab Government will spend Rs 585 crore on link roads in rural areas of the state. This was stated by the Minister of State for PWD (Bridges and Roads), Mr Ajaib Singh.

SAMRALA
ADMISSION: Despite a green signal from the All-India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) to the states for admission to the additional seats in the technical colleges, the Punjab Government has still not given permission to the colleges in the state for admission to the additional seats. Parents of certain admission-seeking students said here on Wednesday that they had gone to different technical colleges but the principals told them that their wards could not be admitted because the Punjab Government had not granted them sanction for admission to the additional seats. They demanded that the state government should immediately grant the necessary permission to the colleges.

SAS NAGAR
WORKSHOP: A two-day training programme-cum-workshop on “ecological refrigeration” under the Human and Institutional Development in Ecological Refrigeration (HIDECOR) project is being held by the local Hightech Training Institute in coordination with Godrej-GE Appliances here from September 29. Around 40 participants from the various ITIs in Punjab and experts on the theme of the workshop are expected to attend the programmee. Mr N.S. Kalsi, Director of Technical Education, Punjab, said the purpose of the programme was to enable micro and small enterprises in the refrigeration servicing to cope with the new specifications agreed to under the Montreal Protocol.

CEDTI: Mr Sanjay P. Sood, a biomedical engineer with the local Centre for Electronics Design and Technology of India (CEDTI), who is part of a team working on the telemedicine project of the Union Ministry of Health, has been invited to speak at the third Nordic Telemedicine Congress at Copenhagen, Denmark. The telemedicine congress began on Wednesday. Mr Sood would present a study titled “Telemedicine in India: a swot analysis” conducted by him and the Director of the local branch of the CEDTI, Mr R.S. Khandpur.

TARN TARAN
MEETING: The local cooperative sugar mills have organised meetings in different villages to inspire farmers to grow more sugarcane. Mr Pargat Singh Sidhu, Managing Director of the mills, in a press statement issued here on Monday said the farmers of Mammanke, Kot Mohammad Khan, Naushehra Pannuan, Rooriwala, Sabhra, Gandiwind Munda Pind and other villages were advised to grow sugarcane to earn more profits.

CHANDIGARH

PRESERVE SAPLINGS: The Haryana Governor, Babu Parmanand, has directed the Forest Department to safeguard and preserve the saplings planted in course of the tree plantation campaigns during the rainy season. while planting saplings of the neem tree on the Raj Bhavan premises here, Babu Parmanand also asked the Forest Department for improving the survival rate of trees in the state. Ms Sudesh Kumari, wife of the Governor, also planted a neem sapling on the occasion.

REPRESENTATION: The Chandigarh District Congress Committee (I) Rural, has given a representation to Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Minister for Communication, against the irregularities of the department officials. In the representation, Mr B.M. Khanna, Senior Vice-President of the committee, had allegedly that the department is harassing the sub-scribers by giving them telephone bills just a day before the date of payment.

ELECTED: Mr. R.S Yadav was elected President of the Non-Teaching Employees Union of the DAV College. Other office-bearers of the union are:-Vice-President — Mr Ram Asre; General Secretary — Mr R.N. Bairwa; Secretary — Mr Nareta Ram; and Cashier — Mr Som Nath.

PROTEST: A protest rally will be held tomorrow in Sector 17 against the 86th and 88th Amendments to the Constitution by the Central Government General Employees Association Chandigarh. The convener of the association said in a press note that the rally would be against giving extended benefits to the reserved communities, clearing the backlog of recruitment in the government jobs and also relaxing standards and lowering qualifying marks for them in the jobs and also in the promotions.

JOINT RALLIES: Joint gate rallies were held at the Sector 16 General Hospital by the employees of the UT Building Maintenance, Electricity and General Hospital and Public Health. The rallies were organised by the Chandigarh Subordinate Services Federation and Federation of UT Employees and Workers, Chandigarh. The rallies were held to mobilise the employees and workers for their participation in the dharna to be held in the last week of the month to demand the release of bonus of the last three years and against the privatisation of electricity, transport, etc.

AWARENESS DAY: The National Service Scheme volunteers of the Guru Gobind Singh College for Women, Sector 26, observed Awareness Day, here on Wednesday. Dr C.L Narang, Coordinator NSS, Panjab University, interacted with the group of 200 volunteers. Problems like population and gender bias, and resorts for low status of women in society were discussed. The importance of literacy programmes was emphasised to change the outlook of the general public with the social problems like dowry deaths. He elaborated upon the role of NSS volunteers in having healthy society, awareness about maternal and child health, hygiene, and vaccination.

ELECTED: The following have been elected office-bearers of the EWS Houses, Sector 38-C: President — Mr Ram Lal; General Secretary — Mr Om Prakash; Cashier — Mr Shukh Ram; Chairman — Mr Prakash Chand; Senior Vice President — Mr Dhan Singh Aswal; Secretary — Mr Balwinder Singh; Advisor — Mr Darshan Singh; Vice President — Mr Desh Raj.

CRASH COURSE: The Chandigarh branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India will be organising a week-long crash course classes for CA — Intermediate and final students from Friday at GGDSD College, Sector 32. The classes would be taken by the faculty of the Board of Studies of the institute. The object of this crash course is to make the students understand the difficult and important topics of the subjects and clear various doubts.

ELECTED: The following have been elected office-bearers of the Shree Visavakarma Ramlila and Dramatic Club for 2000: Chairman — Mr Banarsi Dass; Vice-Chairman — Mr Ram Lal, Mr Mohan Lal Mehra; President — Mr Satish Kumar Kainth; Vice Presidents — Mr Mohd. Irfan, Mr Krishan Lal and Raj Kishore Verma; General Secretary — Mr Sunder Lal Bansal; and Advisor — Mr R.T Bansal.

MEETING HELD: A meeting of the Nav-Chetna Balmiki Forum was held at Nehru Colony, Kajheri, under the Presidentship of Mr Shri Ram, here Wednesday. At the meeting the problems like shortage of drinking water, poor drainage system etc, faced by the residents were discussed. The participants decided that they would solve the problems with the patronage of Ms Manjit Kaur, a social worker.

REPORT: Regional Passport Office, Chandigarh, has processed all those passport applications, which were found complete in all respects and submitted till June 9, 2000. This was stated in a press note here. The RPO has given this information in its weekly report on the status of passports for the week ending September 8, 2000.

TRAINING: The newly elected office-bearers of the Panchayat Samiti would be given training to make them aware of the working system of the Panchayati Raj at the HIPA Training Centre in Sector 6 here on Thursday. Mr Rajesh Jogpal, District Development and Panchayat Officer, has appealed to all the office-bearers and members of the Panchayat Samiti to attend the training programme so that they might not have to face difficulties in the official work.

HARYANA

AMBALA
FAST: The relay fast by the telecom officials continued for the second day on Wednesday. The telecom engineering officers from different areas of Haryana have been on relay fast since Tuesday in front of the CGMT office, Ambala cantonment, to press for their demands. Besides the JTOs, senior telecom officials are also participating in the relay fast to impress upon the authorities concerned for early acceptance of their demands. Among others, the DGM Ambala, Mr P.C. Chauhan, and the ADT, Bahadurgarh, Mr M.S. Yadav, participated in the relay fast. The demands by the senior Indian Telecom Service officers include White Paper on the issue of financial viability, continuation of the ITS cadre as it is in the BSNL and the MTNL and no lateral entry, cadre review of the ITS which is pending for more than two years, upgradation of the posts of the CGMs to advisor level and making the MTNL, VSNL, TCIL, ITI and HTL as subsidiary corporations of the BSNL for the sake of synergy as stipulated in the NTP 1999.

RALLY: The local rickshawpullers took out a rally to press for the acceptance of their demands on Wednesday. The rally by the rickshawpullers proceeded through the streets of Ambala sadar area and they submitted a memorandum to the Executive Officer of Ambala sadar and to the CEO of Ambala cantonment. Their demands include construction and maintenance of roads, setting up of rickshaw stands, arrangement for drinking water, the BPL cards for rickshawpullers, permission to use municipal council licence in the cantonment area and reduction of the licence fee.

FATEHABAD
DEVELOPMENT WORKS: The Irrigation Department has spent Rs 70.89 lakh on various development works in the district during the past year. This was stated by the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Anil Malik, on Tuesday.

HISAR
SENTENCED: The Judicial Magistrate, Mr N.K. Singhal, has sentenced Jaswant Singh of Tohana to two years’ imprisonment on the charge of possessing unlicenced arms. He was arrested at Semain village with a .12-bore pistol and two live cartridges last year.

ELECTED: Dr D.N. Garg, Dean, College of Veterinary Sciences, Haryana Agricultural University, has been elected president of the Indian Association of Mycoplasmologists for 2000-2001.

KAITHAL
SCRIBE BEREAVED: Dr Charanjeet Lal Malhotra (78), father of journalist Naveen Malhotra, died here on Tuesday morning. Former Haryana minister Surinder Madan was among those who attended the funeral.

YAMUNANAGAR
OPEN DARBAR: An open darbar was organised at the mini-secretariat here on Monday. Mr Rajeev Sharma, Deputy Commissioner, presided. About 45 complaints from residents of the district were put up before him.

LOANS DISBURSED: The Haryana Government has given loans through the Haryana Scheduled Castes Finance and Development Corporation to 125 persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes during the current financial year. This was stated by Mr Rajeev Sharma, Deputy Commissioner.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

BILASPUR
CREMATION GROUND: The town will have a new cremation ground on the bank of the Sutlej. Mr Gopal Krishan Sharma, president of the nagar parishad, said on Wednesday that the parishad had spent about Rs 10 lakh on the cremation ground.

KULU
CHARAS SEIZED: The police has arrested Harmesh Chand of Shilinga village and Kamlu Devi and seized 2 kg charas from their possession. A case under Section 20 of the NDPS Act has been registered, Mr N. Venugopal, SP, said on Monday.

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

A good Samaritan to boy’s rescue

IN the materialistic world of today where everyone is busy in pursuit of self-advancement, there are few whose heart bleed for the sufferings of others and who act.

Mrs Kanchan Munjal, Principal of Fatehabad’s Springbells Foundation School, is one such person who has been working relentlessly to generate funds for the treatment of a boy suffering from thalassemia.

Sumit Grover (9), a student of her school, has been suffering from this disease for long. The only treatment possible for the disease is bone marrow transplantation. This surgery is performed at the Christian Medical College Hospital in Vellore. The boy had to undergo two operations in which bone marrow taken from the donor’s body is transplanted into his body. The operation involved high costs and the parents of the boy could not afford it.

Mrs Munjal came forward and resolved that she would manage the resources required for the operation through donation and asked the boy’s parents to go ahead with their plans. Since then she has been going to every possible donor to collect funds. Many philanthropists have given substantial donations while others contributed their bit to the cause. Some even ridiculed her but undeterred, Mrs Munjal carried on and finally managed to send the boy to Vellore.

Sumit Grover has since undergone two surgical operations for bone marrow transplantation. His elder brother, Kunal (16), was the donor. The first surgical operation was conducted on August 11, 1999 and the second one on May 24. Both these operations were held at the Vellore hospital.

The operations were painful for both brothers during which bone marrow was taken from the lower vertebrae of Kunal with a thick needle and planted in Sumit’s body.

The doctors attending to Sumit are still not sure whether his body has responded positively to the transplant or not. For that they will have to match DNA tests of both brothers. But the DNA test is not possible in Sumit’s case at the moment as his leucocyte (white blood cells) count is too low. The doctors say that they would conduct DNA tests on Sumit once his leucocytes count reaches at least 3,000. Till then all those involved are keeping their fingers crossed.

Sumit, who was in Vellore after his second operation, has since been allowed by doctors to shift to another place for a change in atmosphere. The boy is now in Delhi with a relative and would have to return to Vellore for a check-up. Over Rs 12 lakh has been spent on his treatment till now. More will be needed in future.

Among the major donors are the chief of the Namdhari sect, who contributed Rs 75,000 for this cause and has promised to give more.

Mrs Munjal has proved a godsend for the boy’s parents who could never have thought of Sumit’s treatment and the two operations but for her timely support.

Punjab’s success in small savings

The Punjab Government has set a target for securing Rs 3,000 crore of deposits in the current fiscal year against an achievement of Rs 2454 crore in 1999-2000.

This was announced by Mr S.S. Sekhwan, Revenue Minister, while speaking at a function of the Directorate of Small Savings held in Pathankot in connection with the 15th lucky coupon scheme prize distribution and the draw of the next scheme.

Mr Sekhwan stated that a unique feature of small savings in Punjab was professional marketing strategy for encouraging investors and agents. Without employing any additional manpower, the state government is motivating its 18,000 agents and many more investors. The dramatic success of the small savings movement was the result of enterprise displayed by agents and depositors coupled with a strong back-up from the district administration and the postal authorities. Every district is striving to exceed the targets fixed for this year. From this year onwards, 80 per cent of the net deposits would come back to the state government as soft loan for development.

Mr B. Vikram, Deputy Commissioner of Gurdaspur, described the role of small savings in the uplift of the public. He made a special mention about lucky coupon schemes which had worked as a great motivator for investors, agents and promoters.

Mr V.K. Bhalla, Director of Small Savings, while releasing the department report stated that the department had great success in the mobilisation of small savings last year. A net collection of Rs 685 crore had been made up to July as against Rs 629 crore collected during the corresponding period in the previous financial year.

The minister also distributed prizes of Maruti A.C. cars, Kisan Vikas Patras of Rs 2.50 lakh and 2.10 lakh and 500 gram of gold to the winners of the lucky coupon scheme, which had ended on March 31.

Honour for writer at world meeting

The Millennium Hindi roll of Honour would be conferred on Puran Mudgil of Sirsa at the Millennium World Hindi Conference to be held at Delhi from September 14 to 23. Mr Mudgil has been selected for this honour for his contribution to Hindi language and literature.

Puran Mudgil is the founder-secretary of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan and after the formation of the Haryana Pradeshik Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, he became district organiser.

He is also president of the Haryana Progressive Writers Association, Sirsa unit, and Haryana Gyan-Vigyan Samiti.

Mudgil edits a fortnightly ‘Akasher Pigam’ for the Sirsa Literacy Mission.

Committed to the cause of literacy, Mudgil strongly believes that beside the three Rs, language is a powerful vehicle for social resurgence and uplift. He has written poems and short stories that are progressive and humanistic.

Contributed by Sushil Manav, Bharat Bhushan Dogra and Bhupinder Dharmani