EDUCATION

Inter-college festival at GNEC
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 1
Students from nearly 12 engineering colleges of North India participated in Fiesta-de-Athene-2001, an inter-college youth festival, organised at Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College here today.

Various competitions were categorised into formal events, informal events and cultural events. Informal events, contests for group discussion, case study, debate, quiz, website designing and paper presentation were held. Informal events included contests for pencil sketching, rangoli, cartooning, collage making, mono-acting, mehndi, face painting, story writing, flower arrangement and dumb charades. Cultural events comprised competitions for skit, play, group dance, groups song, Hindi solo, Punjabi solo, instrumental solo, choreography, and Mr and Miss Punjabi.

Nearly five colleges participated in group dance contest. A group of four boys from Chhota Ram College of Engineering, Murthal, gave a scintillating dance performance on the Pujabi number, ‘Ishk tera tadpave’. Boys and girls from the host college performed bhangra on the number, ‘Teri chardi jawani ne’.

In group song contest, while students from Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra, sang a patriotic song, ‘Zindagi maut na ban jaye’ and the students of the host song presented song, ‘Pyar hamien kis mor pe’ from the movie, Satte pe satta.

The five topics for debate included ‘Gujarat relief measures — a success or failure’, ‘Ban on FTV — Is it justified?’, ‘BJP government — a success or failure’, ‘Should Valentine’s Day be celebrated in India?’ and ‘Budget 2K1 — a boon or bane for India’. The topics for group discussion included ‘Beauty contests are derogatory’, ‘Has Vajpayee image suffered after defence scandal?’ and ‘Should the ban be imposed on holding of animal sports in Kila Raipur?’.

Results — Case study: Shreya Bhardwaj, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College (GNE), Ludhiana (1), Mohit Thakur, Shree Sukhmani Institute of Engineering and Technology (SSIET), Dera Bassi (2), and Sandeep Lakhanpal, GNE, Ludhiana.

Group Discussion: Siddharth, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Mohit Thakur (2), and Vikasdeep, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College of Engineering and Technology (SBSCET), Ferozepur (3).

Quiz: Manpreet Multani and Mandeep Singh, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Partha Nath and R. Srinivas Rao, Regional Engineering College (REC), Jalandhar (2), and Puneet Pal Cheema and Abhishek Bali; GNE, Ludhiana (3).

Paper presentation: Supreet and Jyoti, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Shweta and Sagar, SSIET, Dera Bassi (2) and Manoj Bandha and Rajan, LLRIET, Moga (3).

Web designing (on the spot): Gurpreet S. Khurana, GNE, Ludhiana (1); and Amandeep and Jasmeet Singh, GNE, Ludhiana.

Web designing (pre-defined): Gurpreet S. Khurana, GNE, Ludhiana (1) and Surinder and Jagmeet, Chhtoa Ram College of Engineering, Murthal (2).

Debate: Sagar, SSEIT, Dera Bassi (1), Kislaya Singh, GNE, Ludhiana (2); and Shweta, SSEIT, Dera Bassi (3).

Collage making: Sagar and Varun, SSIET, Dera Bassi (1), Amrinder and Poonam, GNE, Ludhiana (2); and Japinder and Pankaj, GNE, Ludhiana (3).

Just a minute: Shreya Bhardwaj, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Dinkar Bhardwaj and Himanshu Raheja, GNE, Ludhiana (2); and Munish Kakkar, SBSCET, Ferozepur (3).

Rangoli: Navnish and Harpreet, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Apinder and Poonam, GNE, Ludhiana (2); and Shubhlakhan and Gurkiran, GNE, Ludhiana (3).

Dumb Charades: Vikas, Simar and Manpreet, GNE, Ludhiana (1), and Brijesh, Gaurav and Jyoti, GNE, Ludhiana (2)

Pencil Sketching: Samrat Mandal, REC, Kurukshetra (1), Anil Dhiman, REC, Kursukshetra (2); and Swaraj Singh, GNE, Ludhiana (3).

Mime: SSIET, Dera Bassi (1), REC, Kurukshetra (2) and GNE, Ludhiana (3).

Skit: GNE, Ludhiana (1) and REC, Kurukshetra (2).

Western solo: REC, Kurukshetra (1) and GNE, Ludhiana (2).

Instrumental solo: Ruchika, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Manish Chhabra, GNE, Ludhiana (2); and Prabhat, SSIET, Dera Bassi (3).

Duet song: Manvinder and Sabhyasachi, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Abhishek and Anurag (2); and Ramandeep and Jasleen, SSEIT, Dera Bassi (3).

Punjabi solo: Lakhwinder, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Rohit Gupta, SBSCET, Ferozepur (2); and Amritpal, GNE, Ludhiana (3).

Hindi solo: Manish Sood, GNE, Ludhiana (1), Manvinder, GNE, Ludhiana (2) and Ramandeep, SSIET, Dera Bassi (3).

Group dance: Institute of Engineering and Technology, Ropar (1), GNE, Ludhiana, (2) and Chhota Ram Engineering College, Murthal (3).

Rohit Bardwaj and Pankaj Sharma, both final year students compered the show. Principal R.P. Singh gave away prizes to the winners.

PAU scientist for World Bank
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, April 1
An eminent soil scientist of Punjab Agricultural University, Dr Pal Singh Sidhu, has been appointed agricultural expert by the World Bank. He will take his new assignment tomorrow at New Delhi.

Dr Sidhu, an alumnus of PAU, had joined this varsity after obtaining a PhD degree from Australia. After becoming a Professor in the Department of Soils, Dr Sidhu was given the charge of Director, Students Welfare and Sports. He had also worked as Dean, Agricultural College, for three years.

With his appointment he has become the youngest scientist from this varsity to work for the World Bank. He was given a warm farewell by the students of the PAU here yesterday.

CULTURE

Passion for art still alive
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, April 1
Niranjan Parkash Dhanda (NP to friends) has been painting for over 70 years. He has won several prizes.

Dhanda started painting when he was 10 years old. When he decided to work under Munshi Mohammad Rafeek, who used to paint sets for theatres, NP had to face stiff opposition from his parents as artists neither commanded respect nor made enough for a living. He then moved to Lahore and trained under Ustad Ali Baksh and later learnt painting with water colours from Ms Collins.

At 81, Dhanda, has the satisfaction of having taught hundreds of students. He has been an art teacher for more than 50 years. He worked in various schools and colleges. After serving Government College for Men for 26 years, he retired.

Due to his proximity to Sobha Singh, he named his art school as Sobha Singh Art College. The school organises eponymous annual art and sale exhibitions in February. The textile exhibition is organised in November. Many of his students have set up their studios and others take orders for textile painting on linen, while many others have started their own hobby schools.

He was appointed adviser of the National Museum Advisory Committee, Shimla, along with Mr M. S. Randhawa. His job was to select, with the other members, paintings for the museum. Mr Dhanda organised northern India painting exhibitions from 1953 to 1978 every alternate year. They received more than 1,200 exhibits and also good wishes from the President and the Prime Minister of India.

He won gold medals for his paintings before Partition too. He won Art India Award 89. He was felicitated by the Ludhiana Art Society, Kalpana Fine Art Society and PAU.

He says, “My wife has been an art teacher and my daughter is teaching arts in a college. My son is a cinematographer and my granddaughter has completed M.A. in arts. She is assisting me in running of my art school. Married women have adopted painting as a profession. A good painting can sell for between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000. I feel great satisfaction when I see my students like Surendar Singh becoming director of films.”

He says the secret of his health is a disciplined life, yoga and a daily walk of 3 to 4 km. Mr Dhanda can still coach around 30 students a day and he executes paintings on orders.