FARMERS’ WOES
Moneylenders, too, disappear
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 1
Even as the monsoon remains elusive adding to the woes of farmers, moneylenders and commission agents have gone in hiding owing to repeated requests of farmers for money.

As the scenario in the agriculture sector remains grim, thanks to the weather gods, farmers need more and more money to purchase generators in order to irrigate the crops.

But foreseeing the future of the crop, the commission agents, too, have either gone in hiding or have refused to lend money to the farmers.

As the farmers have already spent a lot on their crop, the long-power cuts and lack of rains are forcing them to buy more and more diesel to run motors. To add to their troubles is the lowering of water table.

While most of the farmers are not ready to admit openly the fact that even the moneylenders have left them alone, the commission agents are saying that they have no other option but to refuse money to them. They say that they are well aware of the fact that the farmers have already spent a lot on the inputs in the fields and this would definitely exceed the returns.

Mr Jagdish Lal, a Pakhowal-based commission agent, said he was well aware that the farmers were spending a lot of money on diesel and this way their cost of production would be much more and they wont be able to return the borrowed money. “Even the small farmers have spent thousands of rupees on every acre of cultivated land. How will they save money in the end. The money we lend now would become a ‘bad debt’. I am already worried about my money that I have already lent them. It is not going to come back,” he said.

Some farmers, requesting anonymity, said their counterparts were being told by the commission agents to pledge their land to get the money. Ironically, certain small farmers had even done the same to save the crop.

Dr Devinder Ashok, an Akali leader based at Pakhowal, said in the village the power was supplied for not more than four hours during the day and six hours during the night. He said the Pakhowal feeder was earlier considered as an urban feeder as many small industries of the village were dependent on it. But suddenly the board had converted it into a rural feeder. Many small industries were on the verge of closure due to power shortage.

Imposter’s remand extended
Our Correspondent

Khanna, August 1
The police remand of a fake income tax officer was extended for two days by the court of the local additional civil judge, Mr G.S. Dhillon, after listening the arguments of the public prosecutor.

The accused Bhushan Thapar, was arrested by Khanna police on July 27 for collecting Rs 20,000 from a local transporter by posing as an income tax officer. The accused also confessed during investigation that he had cheated a Patiala-based gold ornaments dealer for which a case at Patiala had been registered against him. Earlier, he was remanded for five days by this court. The accused will be produced in the court on August 3.

Budding poetess with love for nature
Asha Ahuja

Ludhiana, August 1

Woman
light of the future
forced to sulk in the dark.
She is a mother
apostle of sacrifice.
She is a wife
who reads her husband
like a book.

This is one of the poems of Jaskanwal Sohi, a promising young budding poetess depicting her freshness and simplicity of her deep emotional feelings revolving around nature.

A student of BA (I) in a local college, Jaskanwal started jotting down her feelings when she was a student of Class VI. Till date she has a collection of 43 poems. She has come out with a book ‘Ode on the Beauty of Nature’ that has been published by Writers Workshop, Kolkata. She has also illustrated her poems in the book.

Born to the academician parents, Dr Prithi Pal Singh Sohi and Prof Harinder Kaur Sohi, her commitment to poetry, especially on the beauty of nature, is sure to take her a long way. Stating that she inherited the talent from her mother, who is a Punjabi poetess, Jaskanwal says that she has always cherished the maturity in the writings of her mother.

“I love nature. I can find its beauty everywhere, in its creatures, in countryside and in the hills. I have been asking my parents to take me to a hill station every year so that I can enjoy the nature at its best in the hills. They have always been a guiding light for me and helped in translating all my plans into action”, she says.

A winner of various awards in poetry recitation at school and college level, Jaskanwal wants to become a poetess. “I want to do work that is not monotonous. I want to do something very creative. And I think poetry is one vocation that can help me in expressing myself”. Her father says that in spite of her urbanisation, she has retained her rural moorings and rural ethos. Prof Varinder Parihar, a professor of English at Government College, who has helped her in arrangement of the poems says: “Her poems have a lot of emotional force though she has to master training in form, literary devices and measures. She has an exuberance in her poems and if she is groomed well she can be a force to reckon with in the future”.

Jaskanwal has already started working on the second book.