R E G I O N A L   B R I E F S

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

• He drowned while saving a friend

• An exemplary college

• School-time injuries

AMRITSAR
CASE REGISTERED: The police has booked two persons for making an attempt to encash a stolen cheque for Rs 5 lakh with forged signatures from the Bank of Punjab, Court Road branch, recently. The accused have been identified as Pawan Kumar and Arun Kumar.

NRI SEATS: Guru Nanak Dev University has extended the date of admission for the vacant and NRI seats on the campus here and its regional campuses at Jalandhar and Gurdaspur with a late fee of Rs 1000 up to September 16.

RECRUITMENT RALLY: The unit headquarters quota recruitment rally for sons and real brothers of servicemen, ex-servicemen, widows and war-widows of artillery regiments from Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh will be held from October 19 to 27 at Amritsar Cantonment. A pre-recruitment training for candidates will be conducted from September 16 to October 12. More details can be had from the nearest BRO, ZRO, station headquarters.

EDITOR GETS BAIL: The Editor of Punjab Monitor, a quarterly magazine, who was arrested on August 29 was released on bail here on Tuesday. The editor was arrested following written complaints to the police by the All India Hindu Shiv Sena president, Mr Surinder Kumar Billa.

FOILED: The local police on Wednesday arrested Makhan Singh, a servant working in a building materials shop at Nangali Naushra, who was allegedly trying to defraud its owner, Sukhminder Kaur Dr S.K. Kalia, SP (City-II), said Makhan Singh told Sukhminder that two scooter-borne person had looted Rs 45,000, which the owner had given for depositing in the bank, after throwing the chilly powder in his eyes. A case has been registered in this regard.

CRUSHED TO DEATH: Raghubir Singh of Govind Avenue was crushed to death by a speeding Roadways bus here on Tuesday.

HOSHIARPUR
SEIZED: The Tanda police on Wednesday interrupted a car (PB-10J-1440) and seized 1,50,000 ML illicit liquor from its occupants Lakhwinder Singh, Rakesh Kumar, both of Dina Nagar and Veena, wife of late Vijay Kumar, a resident of the local Basti Sansian. The Dasuya police arrested Babu of Balmik Mohalla, Tanda, and seized 30,000 ml of illicit liquor from him. Cases under the Excise Act has been registered against them.

DHARNA: The Sarav Sanjha Employees Manch, Hoshiarpur, organised a protest march in the main bazar of city and staged the dharna in front of the district court here on Wednesday in protest against the anti-employees policy of the Punjab Government. Addressing the rally various leaders strongly criticised Capt. Amarinder Singh government for adopting anti-employees attitude.

PATHANKOT
NON-POLITICAL FRONT: The PWD Field and Workshop Workers Union, Punjab, is in the final stage of making a broadbase, non-political front to oppose the anti-employees policies of the Congress government. The dharna was addressed by Mr Romesh Chand, district president, Mr Rajinder Kumar, local president, Mr Satish Sharma, general secretary of the union, and others.

PATIALA
BIO-TREATMENT PLANT: The Deputy Commissioner, Mr Tejveer Singh, on Wednesday announced that a bio-treatment plant would soon be set up in the district. Addressing a meeting of private clinic doctors, he said keeping in view the dangers associated with bio-medical wastes, the doctors should ascertain that it is not dumped in the open. He said as the treatment plant at Rajindra Hospital is not working, the hospitals in the district should make requisite arrangements for the transportation of the same to the bio-medical treatment plant in Ludhiana.

KISAN MELA: “Animals in Punjab produce 90 lakh tons dung daily which is capable of producing 40 lakh cubic meter of bio-gas. By using bio-gas on a large scale, air pollution can be prevented and usage of chemical fertilisers would also decrease,” said Dr Kirpal Singh Aulakh, Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University, while addressing a gathering of farmers at the Kisan Mela organised by the PAU at its Krishi Vigyan Kendra in Rauni, near here. The Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development), Patiala, Mr Jagwant Singh Brar, urged the farmers to follow the recommendations of agricultural scientists regarding the use of various fertilisers instead of depending on the advice of insecticide dealers. The Chief Organiser of the mela and Director, Extension Education, Dr Jaspinder Singh Kolar, stressed that in order to meet the current challenges with regard to the agricultural scenario in Punjab, there was a need for constant interaction between the farmers and the scientists.

HARYANA

MODEL VILLAGE: Ujhana in Narwana subdivision would be developed as model village of the district. This was stated here on Wednesday by Mr Rajiv Sharma, Deputy Commissioner, Jind. He said Rs 1.26 crore would be spent on the development of the village.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

BILASPUR
CONG DEMONSTRATION: Led by the district President Hoshiar Singh Thakur, a large number of Congress activists took out a march in the town on Tuesday. They staged an hour-long dharna at the office of Deputy Commissioner and later presented him a memorandum demanding an inquiry into the allotment of plots in New Bilaspur township to the RSS and the Vyas Society near the bus stand and also exclusion of hundreds of Bhakra Dam oustees from the list.

DEMAND FOR BDO: The Panchayat Parishad of Bilaspur Sadar area has sought a regular block development officer here within four days failing which the parishad would start an agitation. The Parishad has sought the IRDP list prepared 18 months ago and funds under the SGRY scheme to panchayats.

NURPUR
CAMP: The local police has started a month-long martial art camp for the girl students of Government College, Dehri, near here. As many as 160 students have been trained by the police. This was stated by Mr Sanjiv Gandhi, sub divisional police officer, Nurpur, while presiding over the concluding day function of the camp on Tuesday.

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

He drowned while saving a friend

IT was on August 29, 2000 that 19-year-old Sandeep Arora, a student of Bachelor of Engineering at Rohtak Engineering College, made the supreme sacrifice to save his friend from drowning.

Finding that his friend and name sake, Sandeep Hooda, was drowning in Jawahar Lal Nehru canal, near Rohtak, Sandeep Arora, ignorant about swimming, jumped into the canal and rescued his friend but met his own watery grave in the canal.

In recognition of his supreme sacrifice, he was awarded “Jeewan Rakshak” medal by the President of India posthumously. The medal was presented to his mother by the Governor of Haryana.

And on his second death anniversary on August 29, rich tributes were paid to him not only by his relatives and friends but a lot others who acknowledged his supreme sacrifice.

An exemplary college

Manohar Memorial College, Fatehabad, started in the 1970-71 as a small educational centre, has now taken the shape of one of the best educational institutes in the region. The college was set up in the memory of Manohar Lal Batra, son of a local philanthropist Khem Raj Batra, who had died at a young age.

The institution, which till recently had been imparting education in arts and commerce till graduation, has now started catering to the technical education needs of the town. The college management has started a new institute named Manohar Memorial Institute of Management and Technology and has already started MCA classes at this institute. The college already has the provision for the BCA classes and O level classes for computer education. While Dr K.K. Arora is principal of the college, Dr A.P. Madan, an ex-principal, heads the institute as director.

The institute has been approved by the All-India Council of Technical Education and the state government and is affiliated to Kurukshetra University. The college as well as the institute has several eminent persons including The Tribune editor, former Haryana Ministers, Mani Ram Godara and Leela Krishan, and Rajesh K. Gupta, proprietor of four newspapers of Canada.

The institute director, Dr A.P. Madan, told this correspondent that the new institute has started getting a good response. The management has provided a very good infrastructure for the new institute set up at a cost of Rs 1.5 crore. A computer lab has been established in which 40 new Pentium-4 computers have been installed.

Dr Madan said the Manohar Memorial College is the first and the only college in Haryana to have got assistance from the Centre under the employment generation scheme for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe students. The college has already received initial assistance of Rs 15 lakh while another Rs 30 lakh would be provided to the institute in due course.

Dr Madan has been serving the institution on a honorary basis. Instead of getting a salary from the institute, he has been making a donation of Rs 11,000 per annum to the institution from his pocket. Once the institute was established, the management planned to start other courses like MBA and MBE. The management also planned to start B Pharm classes in the institute at a later stage.

School-time injuries

Medical emergencies like nose-bleeding, cuts, sprain injury and wounds cause a lot of anxiety to teachers and the managements of schools. In the absence of parents the class teacher has to act as a parent and give medical aid to the child. When a teacher brings a hurt child to the doctor, anxiety is writ large on his/her face.

Keeping these factors in mind Adlakha Hospital, Amritsar, has decided to impart short lecture-cum-demonstration courses for teachers in order to apprise them about the steps to be taken in case of school-time emergencies. A panel of renowned specialists comprising the following will give lectures and demonstrations: Dr A.L. Adlakha, MS (ENT), Dr A.K. Ohri, MS (General Surgery) and Dr Praveen Gill, MD (Paediatrics).

Schools interested in imparting training to their teachers can send two teachers who mind attending to a sick or injured child and can stand the sight of blood and injury. The training workshop will be held on September 7. Contact person is Sahil Adlakha.

Contributed by Prabhjot Singh, Sushil Manav and TNS.