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| Saturday,
November 25, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Suraj Bhan sworn in HP
Governor Staff against closure of plasma
centre HC notice to HPSEB
chairperson Residents oppose MC’s retention
policy |
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2 students held,
bailed out Zila parishad poll: BJP releases
list Incentives to zila
parishads Ensure jobs for all,
says minorities panel Office-bearers of
federation elected
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Suraj Bhan sworn in HP
Governor SHIMLA, Nov 24 — Dr Suraj Bhan was sworn in as the 20th Governor of Himachal Pradesh in a largely attended ceremony here today. The Chief Justice of the High Court, Mr
C. K.Thakkar, administered the oath of office to him. The Chief Secretary, Mr
A. K. Goswami, read the warrant of appointment of Dr Suraj Bhan as the Governor. The Chief Minister, Mr
P. K. Dhumal, the Speaker, Thakur Gulab Singh, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Virbhadra Singh, the HVC chief, Mr Sukh Ram, ministers, judges of the high court and senior officers were among those present. Mr Suraj Bhan, his wife, Mrs Chameli Devi, and other relatives were accorded a warm reception at Raj Bhavan where they reached shortly before the swearing-in ceremony in the afternoon. A large number of his relatives and friends from Haryana came for the ceremony. Talking to newsmen after the swearing-in ceremony, Mr Suraj Bhan said a misunderstanding had been created that when he was the Governor of Uttar Pradesh he was only looking after the problems of Dalits and had now come to Himachal Pradesh with the same agenda. He said he had been looking into the problems of Dalits in his capacity as a member of the Governors Committee which had been constituted for the purpose. The former Governor of Himachal Pradesh, Mrs Rama Devi, who has been shifted to Karnataka, had informed the committee at its first meeting at Mumbai about an ordinance about stringent action against those committing atrocities on Dalits in Karnataka, he added. Mr Suraj Bhan described Himachal as the “dev bhoomi” and said that the state was small, but clean in all respects. Replying to a question whether he would introduce the Lucknow type code of conduct in the universities of Himachal Pradesh in his capacity as Chancellor, Mr Suraj Bhan said that there appeared no such need
here. Whatever he did in Uttar Pradesh was through the Chief Minister and not directly “myself”. Soon after the swearing-in ceremony, Dr Suraj Bhan inspected a guard of honour. Dr Suraj Bhan (72) was born on October 1, 1928, in village Mehalanwali village in Yamunanagar district of Haryana and received higher education in the Punjab and Kurukshetra
universities. He was conferred honorary degree of D. Lit. by SOKA University, Japan. He has been taking a keen interest in progress of Dalits and was the founder president of the Punjab Scheduled Caste Students Federation from 1947 to 1949. He was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Ambala constituency thrice in 1967, 1977 and 1996 when he was Union Agriculture Minister for two weeks. Thereafter, he was elected Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha. He was also a minister in Haryana. |
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Staff against closure of plasma
centre KULU, Nov 24 — The Himachal Pradesh State Animal Husbandry Employees Federation expressed its concern over the proposed closure of the only Germ Plasma centre and Ram Breeding Centre in Himachal Pradesh at Nagwain, 18 km from here, on the Kulu-Mandi National Highway. Mr Pritam Singh Bodh, state general secretary, said that there are only four such centres in the country. One each at Sikkim, Darjiling, Narwain and Pithoragarh in Uttar Pradesh. He said the decision to close the centre would give a setback to the farmers engaged in the sheep and angora rabbit rearing. Mr Bodh condemned the decision and demanded that the government should reconsider its decision keeping in view the main occupation of the people of the area who are basically farmers and depend on the sheep and rabbit breeding and rearing. Mr Bodh said that Rs 8 crore had been sanctioned by the union government to establish a modern laboratory at Narwain, out of which Rs 38 lakh had already been spent. Dr Lakhanpal, Assistant Director at the Ram Centre, Narwain, said that he had no information about the proposed closure of the Ram Centre. However, he did confirm that the land occupied by the centre was got measured by National Hydro-Power Corporation (NHPC) authorities. He said the centre was granted Rs 8.75 lakh by the Central Wool Board for angora development project. Dr Lakhanpal added that the Ram centre provided natural cross breeding to the tribes men of the state who carry their stocks to the higher reaches of the mountain during summers every year. About 2,500 sheep of tribes men are crossbred every month. He said the closure of the centre was not possible and if at all closed, that would affect the economy of the area as well as of the farmers of Himachal Pradesh. |
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HC notice to HPSEB
chairperson SHIMLA, Nov 24 — A single Bench of the HP High Court consisting of Ms Justice Kamlesh Sharma today issued a contempt notice to the Chairperson of HP State Electricity Board (HPSEB), Ms Asha Swaroop and the Secretary of the board Mr Nand Lal Sharma, on a petition (contempt) filed by the HP Diploma Engineers Association. In the petition the association alleged that these officers were liable for disobedience of the HP High Court orders passed on December 13, 1994, regarding the time-bound scale. The HPSEB had introduced a scheme to allow time-bound benefits of promotional scales to its employees after completion of nine and 16 years of service, respectively, as per office order dated January 31, 1991. The diploma holder engineers were given benefits of this order with effect from January 1, 1986, as the scheme applicable with retrospective effect from the said date. After that an amendment was made to the scheme and as a result of this amendment the diploma holders became ineligible to the benefits of time-bound promotional scheme. This order was challenged in the HP High Court on various grounds. The petition was filed mainly on two
grounds. The first was that the amendment be given retrospective effect and the benefits already granted to the diploma holders could not be withdrawn and the second was that the amendment was liable to be struck down since it was arbitrary and discriminating. The high court accepted both the contentions raised by the petitioners and on December 13, 1994, the high court quashed the office orders. The petitioners contended in their present petition that from a perusal of the judgement it was clear that the high court had clearly held that with regard to the implementation of the scheme, no discrimination could be made between graduate engineers and diploma engineers. But the board had failed to honour the judgement in letter and spirit. Mr Deepak Gupta, counsel for the petitioner, contended that there had been disobedience of the judgement of this high court which was passed on December 13, 1994 and complete disregard to the same amount to contempt with in the meaning of contempt of courts act, 1971. |
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Residents oppose MC’s retention
policy SHIMLA, Nov 24 — Residents of the areas merged in the Shimla Municipal Corporation are up in arms against the retention policy to regularise all constructions and the decision of the authorities to disconnect the water and power supply of those houses which do not abide by the policy. Various organisations have urged the Chief Minister, Mr
P. K. Dhumal, to regularise these constructions without any conditions. Water and electricity connections were not being provided in some of the areas, they alleged. Meanwhile, Mr Manoj Kumar, a former Mayor and councillor of the municipal corporation, has alleged that some vested elements were misleading the residents of the newly merged areas. The money collected under the retention policy would be spent for development of the same area. He said about Rs 2 crore had been spent on laying the water supply pipeline in the area and the claim that nothing had been done for development of these areas eversince these were merged with the municipal corporation, were false. Meanwhile, the Commissioner of the municipal corporation, Mr
H. N. Kashyap, has said that a meagre fee ranging between Rs 2500 to Rs 6000 was being charged for compounding those constructions for which no encroachment has been done on government or private land. |
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2 students held,
bailed out SOLAN, Nov 24 — The local police today arrested Sayyad Mubashir, a student of B.Sc. III and Ayush Gupta, a student of B.Sc. II on charges of rioting, causing hurt and damaging public property during yesterday’s clashes between rival student groups on the main campus of Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry. Both were later released on bail by Judicial Magistrate P.S. Chauhan after they furnished personal bonds of Rs 5,000 each along with a surety. Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Murthy, said he had deputed two magistrates on the campus while adequate number of police personnel were deputed immediately on request from the university. Meanwhile, Mr Ramesh Rana and Hardev Negi, president and general secretary respectively of the university’s Central Students Association, have alleged that the main cause behind the clash was the holding of R.S.S. “Shakhas” by some employees of the university, including a hostel warden. These leaders had been coercing students into attending “Shakhas”. Repeated requests for not permitting “Shakhas” on the campus had gone unheeded. |
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Zila parishad poll: BJP releases
list HAMIRPUR, Nov 24 — The BJP would contest the Zila Parishad, Hamirpur Nagar Parishad and other nagar panchayat elections in this district, the home district of the Chief Minister, Prof Prem Kumar Dhumal. However, the election would not be contested on party symbol, according to Mr Baldev Sharma, MLA and the district BJP chief. Talking to mediapersons here last night, he said that the party had finalised the names of 12 out of 18 candidates for the zila parishad elections in the district. No sitting member had been given ticket this time as wards of most of them had been reserved, either for women or the Scheduled Castes. A decision to finalise names of the candidates was taken at a day-long meeting held here yesterday under the chairmanship of Mr Baldev Sharma. Mr Babu Ram Mandyal, MLA and Mr Rasil Singh Malkotia, general secretary of the party, were also present. He said at the meeting it was decided to expel all persons from the party in future who would violate the party directives and oppose the official party nominees. He said that the party would also field its candidates for the election to Hamirpur Nagar Parishad and three nagar panchayats of Nadaun, Bhota and Sujanpurtira. The names of candidates would be announced later. |
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Incentives to zila
parishads SHIMLA, Nov 24 — The government will reward such panchayati raj institutions which elect their ‘pradhans’ and other office-bearers unanimously. The elections to these bodies will be held next month. A spokesman of the government said here yesterday that an incentive of Rs 15 lakh would be given to each zila parishad, Rs 5 lakh to panchayat samiti and Rs 1 lakh each to the gram panchayat for electing their office-bearers unanimously. These financial awards would be utilised for development of the respective panchayat areas or zila parishads. |
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Ensure jobs for all,
says minorities panel SHIMLA, Nov 24 — The Himachal Pradesh Minorities and Social Welfare Parishad has urged the state government to introduce a comprehensive legislation under Article 37 of the Directive Principles for the effective implementation of the provisions of Article 39. Legal measures to ensure livelihood for all had become essential in the wake of liberalisation and globalisation which would hurt the poor and the deprived most, Mr Rajeswar Negi, president of the parished, said at a press conference here today. He said a small state like Himachal had over nine lakh unemployed which constituted a significant 15 per cent of the population. He said 43 per cent of the state’s population comprised landless and small farmers and thousands were engaged in odd jobs in the unorganised sector. The situation could be remedied by distributing government land up to 10 bighas among the rural landless and
unemployed. |
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Office-bearers of
federation elected HAMIRPUR, Nov 24 — Mr Prem Chand Verma and Mr Prem Singh Bharmauria have been re-elected as the president and general secretary, respectively, of the district unit of the Himachal Pradesh Non-Gazetted Services Federation for which elections were held yesterday. The results were announced yesterday. The entire panel put up by Mr Verma swept the poll of the district body with thumping majority. Mr Verma was re-elected as the district president of the federation defeating Mr Nirmal Singh Kanwar by 1,814 votes. Mr Krishan Singh was also re-elected as the senior vice-president of the federation. Mr Pyarchand and Mr Dalip Bhatia were also elected as the vice-presidents of the federation. The winners held a massive rally after the results. |
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