The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Contests mark PAU Youth Festival
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 7
Contests for quiz, rangoli, one act play, mimicry and mime marked the second day of the three-day inter-college Youth Festival being organised on the Punjab Agricultural University campus here. A quiz competition was organised this morning in Jacob Hall in which teams from all the five colleges participated. Ten rounds were held based on questions relating to sport, science, flora and fauna, audio-visuals, history, politics and current affairs.

The team of Ashish K. Pillay, Neha Jain and Charanmeet Singh from the College of Basic Sciences and Humanities won the first prize.

In the rangoli contest, over 20 students from different colleges participated. Mimicry and one act play had five participating teams, while four teams participated in the contest for mime. In mimicry, the students of the College of Basic Sciences presented an item “Aaj ki Draupadi” in which they revealed the changes in the dressing style of the girls. A team from the same college presented a play “Bhedan” in which they showed politicians managing control like shepherds and forcing people to act like sheep.

The contests for solo light vocal music, Indian group song, western solo song and western group song were held last evening. The chief guest of the day was Mr Yurinder Singh, SSP, Mansa, and an old student of the university.

Mr R.S. Grewal, organiser of the festival, said that it was decided to invite only the old students of the university as chief guests who have now excelled in different fields. While yesterday Mr Gursharan Singh Sandhu, SP (city), was the chief guest, Mr Raminder Singh, IAS officer, and Mr Gurpreet Singh, SP (D), Sangrur, would be the guests of honour.

Annual day of PAU Kisan Club
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 7
Farmers should fully understand the world scenario of agriculture under the WTO regime to achieve success in agriculture, said Dr Kirpal Singh Aulakh, Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University, while addressing the annual function of farmers of the Punjab Kisan Club held today at PAU.

Dr Aulakh said that for competing in international market, it was necessary to reduce the cost of cultivation and to increase the quality of produce. The WTO is both a challenge and an opportunity for farmers and Punjab farmers should not lag behind in accepting new challenges. He laid stress on developing necessary infrastructure for storage and processing of agriculture produce which was in the interest of both producer and consumer. Dr Aulakh laid emphasis on providing marketing intelligence services to the farmers for competing in international market.

Dr Jaspinder Singh Kolar, Director, Extension Education, said that farmers should adopt diversification of cropping to overcome the emerging problem of ground water depletion and deterioration of soil health. There was need to shift 1/3 area under rice to other crops. He advised farmers to take up marketing and agriculture processing on a cooperative basis. He advised the farm women to provide balanced diet to the growing children for their proper development. Rural youth should be discouraged to use drugs, he further said.

Dr G.S. Momi, Head, Department of Extension Education, said that the club had completed 34 years of its existence. The farmers and farm women who are life members of the club serve an important link between the university and other farmers and help in the dissemination of the latest farm technologies as well as providing feedback to the university.

Mr Avtar Singh Rataul, president of the Punjab Kisan Club, proposed a vote of thanks. He said that at present the club has 3000 members, out of which 500 are women members. He said that the members held a meeting every month with farm scientists of PAU and also visited the farms of other members every month for the exchange of new farm technology.

Many farmers who had won awards and prizes in different agriculture competitions were honoured on the occasion.