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Wednesday,
August 21, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Unhappy with Dhumal, MPs ‘come together’ Move on districts to continue: govt Autonomy for IGMC soon SFI makes impressive comeback Black-badge protest by lecturers |
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Unhappy
with Dhumal, MPs ‘come together’ Shimla, August 20 It was for the first time since Prof P.K. Dhumal took over as the Chief Minister that Mr Shanta Kumar, the Union Minister for Rural Development, and the other two MPs, Mr Maheshwar Singh and Mr Suresh Chandel, have shown such solidarity to stall a proposal initiated by Mr Dhumal. The “joining of hands” by three important party leaders, all former presidents of the party, is no coincidence. The three leaders, who have been unhappy with the state leadership over the raw deal being meted out to them both in the party and the government, have come together with the specific objective. They will also be seen together, sharing platform at public functions, to send the “obvious” signals to the rank and file regarding changing equations with in the party. The first such occasion where the three-some will be appear together at a public function will be the ceremony to unveil the statue of Hirda Ram, a great freedom fighter, at Mandi on August 21. The supporters of Prof Dhumal have been quick to take notice of the development and they have ensured that their leader was also present at the function to which initially only Mr Shanta Kumar had been invited. The game plan is obvious — to put pressure on the state leadership and the high command to set the house in order before it is too late. Until now all issues raised by the partymen concerning the party and the government invariably assumed the dimensions of Dhumal-Shanta tussle as a result of which no corrective steps were taken. However, with all the three MPs joining hands and deciding to take common stand on important issues, the high command and the state leadership will have to act in the right direction. While the tussle between Mr Shanta Kumar and Mr Dhumal was a known phenomenon, of the late the other two MPs have also been sore over the indifferent attitude of the state leadership and the government towards them. In fact, Mr Maheswar Singh resigned from the chairmanship of the party disciplinary committee only recently after serious difference cropped up in the party in his home district of Kulu. Mr Suresh Chandel has also been unhappy over the manner in which the affairs of the party and the government are being run, completely ignoring the MPs. There has been no unity in the party and it remained a divided house ever since the “infamous” Jwalamukhi episode of 1997 when the rival faction came to blows. Senior leaders and old party workers maintain that the root cause of the problem was the coterie, comprising of two ministers and some other leaders, which held sway over the Mr Dhumal. These ministers they point out, had a vested interest in fuelling factional fight. Unless the Chief Minister comes out of their influence, the troubles of the party will never be over. The party men, however, have high hopes from Mr Arun Jaitely, the newly appointed general secretary and in charge of party affairs in the state, who has passed an acid test by preventing a showdown in the party on the vexed issue of creation of districts. He has a Herculean task to keep the party intact on the eve of Assembly elections. |
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Move on districts to continue: govt Shimla, August 20 An official spokesman said the two committees set up for the purpose would continue to work upon the mandate given to them but the final boundaries of the districts proposed to be carved out would be decided after the delimitation was over. This would provide an opportunity to sort out the problems of people in some constituencies on account of geographical factors and help remove many prevailing anomalies in such constituencies to ensure greater administrative convenience. The spokesman said while deliberations by the officers committee were initiated, a letter dated August 19 had been received from the Delimitation Commission, set up by the Government of India under the Delimitation Act. The letter addressed to the Chief Secretaries of the states says that under the said Act, administrative or development units are the basic units for carving out the constituencies. Therefore, any changes made in the administrative or development units in the state when the delimitation work is on progress will not only hamper the time-schedule of the commission but also cause a lot of confusion. It is, therefore, imperative that the existing administrative boundaries remain unaltered while the delimitation exercise is being undertaken. |
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Autonomy
for IGMC soon Shimla, August 20 Addressing the convocation of the college here, the Chief Minister, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, said with autonomous status the college would become an independent centre for learning research and development in the field of medical science. Thereafter the government could even consider to accord it the status of a deemed university. He said the interests of employees of Indira Gandhi Medical College would be safeguarded and they would remain government employees for all purposes and benefits. He said the functioning of the college would be autonomous and all its activities would be as per prevailing practice. Mr Dhumal said that the Regional Engineering College, Hamirpur, had attained the status of a deemed university and it was now known as National Institute of Technology (NIT) and was one of the 14 NITs selected by the Government of India. He said the Regional Engineering College had emerged a pioneer institute in engineering education. The Chief Minister announced Rs 5 lakh for starting a revolving fund at the Indira Gandhi Medical College to start research and development projects in the field of medical sciences. He said that the Rogi Kalyan Samiti would also be contributing Rs 5 lakh towards the fund. He said there was a dire need to start research work in medical sciences so that it could meet new challenges. He said with the creation of the revolving fund more and more research scholars would be encouraged to undertake research project. He decried the system of capitation fee in professional institutions, which tended to commercialise not only the medical education but also the practice in medicine. He said it was an issue to ponder over and find ways and rid the system of such malpractices. In the modern day world it was impractical to even think of giving free medical education but something had to be done in this regard. He also expressed concern over the misuse of medical science, particularly with regard to sex determination tests. Dr Harbans Kapoor, Principal of the college, presented the annual report of the college. He said 2042 students had graduated and 344 had done postgraduation till March, 2002 from the college. He said postgraduate courses in radiation, oncology and dermatology were likely to be started from the next academic session.
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SFI makes impressive comeback Shimla, August 20 The SFI panel comprising Mr Kuldeep Bhardwaj (president), Mr Trilok (vice-president), Mr Sudhir Dutta (general secretary) and Mr Vishwa Bhusan (joint secretary) defeated their nearest ABVP rivals with comfortable margins to re-establish its dominance on the university campus. The results from about 50 colleges available so far indicate that the NSUI, which did not fare quite well last year, had made impressive gains in Kangra, the biggest district, to post a serious challenge to the other two contenders. While the NSUI did well in Chamba and Kangra districts, the ABVP got better of its rivals in Hamirpur. The SFI maintained its hold in Shimla where HIMSU played the spoilsport for the NSUI. In Shimla district HIMSU made a clean sweep at the Seema college and won three seats each in Subhathu, Jubbal and Rampur. The SFI won three seats each in Sanjauli, Kotkhai and RKMV College. The SFI and the ABVP won two seats each in Kotshera college and Banjar. The ABVP made a clean sweep of all four seats in the colleges at Hamirpur, Sujanpur, Banikhet, Ghumarwin, Bhoranj, Una, Sundernagar, Mandi, Nalagarh, Kulu, whereas the NSUI won all seats in colleges at Baijnath, Indora, Daulatpur Chowk, Naina Devi, Jawalamukhi, Chawari and won three seats each at Nurpur, Kharot and Rajpur. The SFI made a clean sweep at Nerwa and bagged three seats each in Karsog, Nahan and Arki. On the Himachal Pradesh University campus the SFI won 18 posts of departmental representative, followed by eight of the ABVP. At the PG Centre, Dharamsala the ABVP won three seats, while one was bagged by the ACS. At the Dharamsala degree college the ACS made a clean sweep. KANGRA: The National Students Union of India sweeped the student union poll in the ninth consecutive year in the local MCM DAV college here on Tuesday defeating the ABVP and bagging all four posts of the office-bearers. Ahsootosha of the NSUI polled 614 votes and defeated Akhil Kholi of the ABVP for the post of president by a margin of 210 votes. The Vice-President post was won by Sandeep Kumar of the NSUI who polled 467 votes defeating Mohit Mahajan of the ABVP. The general secretary post was also won by NSUI candidate Rajeev Kapoor who polled 702 votes defeating Rahul of the ABVP by a big margin of 470 votes. The joint secretary post was also bagged by NSUI candidate Arjun Singh who polled 603 votes defeating ABVP candidate Sachin alias Chachu, by a margin of 300 votes. KUMARHATTI: The Himachal Students Union (HIMSU) candidates, Mr Virender Kumar, Mr Chitra Bahadur and Ms Usha Devi were declared elected for vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary seats who defeated ABVP candidates with a vote margin of 35, 18 and 21 respectively, at Goswami Ganesh Dutt Sanatan Dharam College, Subathu. The Students Central Association election has witnessed healthy polling of 87.31 per cent at this college. Interestingly Mr Bhupinder Kumar of the ABVP who has been declared president unopposed here following the rejection of nomination of HIMSU candidates, Mr Dheeraj Pal Chaudhary today took part in voting. An official of the college has said the rumours of his alleged kidnapping had been put to rest. Meanwhile, at Government College Solan, the SFI failed to repeat the past performance as it could manage to win the President seat only. The rest of the seats have been won by ABVP candidates. KULU: The ABVP swept the elections to the local government postgraduate college here. All four seats of president, vice-president, secretary and joint secretary were captured by the ruling party student wing. Gaurav Bhardwaj of the ABVP got 1024 votes by defeating his nearest rival of Azad Party for the post of president vice-president Vishal Singh got 761 secretary Shailendra Mohan of the ABVP polled 681 votes against Azad Party nominee who got 592 and for the post of joint secretary Nitesh Singh got 736 votes against Azad Party candidate who secured 652 votes. The Congress supported NSUI trailed behind the ABVP, the Azad Party and the SFI and HVC combine. SOLAN: The ABVP captured eight out of a total of 16 seats in the Students Central Association of four colleges of this district. The SFI and the HIMSU (Himachal Students Union) each captured four seats. The once powerful NSUI and the newly formed HVSU the students wing of Sukh Ram’s Himachal Vikas Congress failed to open their account. ABVP candidates made a clean sweep in the Government Degree College, Nalagarh, and won three out of the four seats at the local Government Postgraduate College. It also managed to captured one seat at the Government College, Arki. The results are: Government College, Solan: President — Vikas Thakur (SFI); vice-president — Amit Aucta (ABVP); general secretary — Joginder Negi (ABVP) and joint secretary — Rohit Kumar; Government College, Nalagarh: president — Manoj Kumar; vice-president — Deepak Sharma; general secretary — Brij Lal and joint secretary — Ruchi Bittu (all of ABVP) Government College, Arki: president — Gagan Sharma (SFI); vice-president — Parwati (SFI); general secretary Shyam Singh (ABVP) and Bhupinder Singh (SFI). |
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Black-badge protest by lecturers Kangra, August 20 Dr Shiv Kumar Sharma, general secretary of the local unit of the HP Non-Govt College Lecturers Association, alleged that an attempt was made by vested interests to debar regular lecturers of this college from filing nomination papers for elections to the executive council, the highest decision-making teachers’ representative organisation in HP University which is scheduled to go to the polls next month. Dr Sharma said the college management on August 17 received the notification regarding the filing of nomination papers this year with the last date of filing of the nomination as August 19. He alleged that they were not informed about the notification till the last date thus depriving them of their fundamental right. Meanwhile, Mr S.K. Sharma, Principal, DAV College, denying the allegation said as the college administration was busy with the students union elections the circulation of the notification got delayed. He said the matter was taken up with the Registrar of the university who allowed the filing of the nomination papers through fax. Dr Ashith Kumar Misra, the only candidate who filed his nomination papers through fax, expressed his apprehension that his nomination papers through fax would not be accepted and he would be deprived of his right to contest the poll. He said that he would approach the Governor and the Chancellor of HP University Dr Suraj Bhan today in this connection. |
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