PAU to show ways to deal with stubble
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, October 22
Spurred by the large scale environmental pollution caused by the burning of paddy stubble by farmers across the state, the PAU will show ways to deal with stubble which has to be disposed before the rabi sowing begins.

In this context, the Department of Farm Power and Machinery is organising a field day tomorrow to acquaint the farmers, farm machinery manufacturers, extension engineers and other field staff with latest developments. Currently, burning of the stubble is damaging the environment and affecting soil health.

Mr I. K. Garg, head of the department, said “Farmers are in a fix on how to get rid of the stubble and then prepare the field at a minimum cost. The department has done pioneering work in this direction and new machines have been developed to reduce costs. Equipment for sowing wheat under minimum tillage and no-tillage saves substantial cost in comparison to traditional methods. Demonstration of these machines will be given on the occasion,” he added.

He said experts would give demonstration of the newly developed paddy straw chopper. “The chopper disperses the stubble evenly across the field following which the field can be ploughed, watered and the straw left to decompose till the sowing time. This will help in maintaining the essential nutrients of the soil besides curbing the pollution caused by burning.”

Cheques disbursed
Our Correspondent

Amloh, October 22
To improve the standard of education in primary schools in the state, all vacant posts of teacher will be filled and the government will provide funds for the necessary infrastructure, said Mr Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, MLA, Amloh, at a function organised in the local primary school today.

Under the Sarb Sikhiya Abhiyan, the MLA distributed cheques for Rs 35,000 among nine schools and Rs 7,500 among 75 schools of the Amloh block. Five schools in the Sirhind block-1 were given Rs 35,000 each and in the Sirhind Block-2, Rs 3.15 lakh was distributed among four schools. Mr Baldev Singh Mianpur, president, BKU, and Mr Baljeet Singh, a panch of Annian village, also addressed the gathering.

Ms Mahinder Kaur Mander, District Education Officer (Primary), the ADC (Development) Fatehgarh Sahib, Mr Amarjeet Singh Shahi, the SDM Amloh, Mr Satish Kumar, were also present.

38 cases settled at Lok Adalat
Our Correspondent

Amloh, October 22
The aim of Lok Adalat is to provide a statutory forum to people to resolve disputes amicably, speedily and without having to go to the courts repeatedly said, Mr Sarbjit Paul Singh Panesar, Additional Civil Judge Senior Division, Amloh at Lok Adalat held at Amloh on Saturday.

Mr Panesar said free legal aid is provided to women, children, the scheduled caste, factory workers physically challenged and custodial persons. As many as 49 cases were taken up at the Lok Adalat out of which 38 cases were settled. 

An avant-garde poet

THE yearly feature of holding a literary seminar, a poetical symposium and a rendering of folk songs and folk dances on the occasion of Prof Mohan Singh’s birth anniversary on October 20 has now gained historic significance.

The credit ofcourse goes to the Prof Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation that came into being at the initiative of Jagdev Singh Jassowal. Now, besides him, Pargat Singh Grewal, Gurbhajan Gill and Kulwant Jagraon are keeping aloft the torch that was alighted 24 years ago.

Prof Mohan Singh was an avant-garde lyrical poet, deeply imbued with the spirit of folk songs and folk melody. It was the meticulous choice of the right word that converted his poetic creation into a thing of rare beauty. He, however, never compromised with his ideological concepts for sonorous effects. He had a unique trait in his personality as a poet. He could recite his poems in poetical symposia with the same eclat as the professional poets of his age did. Still, essentially he was a learned poet and his poetic creations were of great interest for the emerging class of intellectual readers. He was wedded to a particular political creed and adhered to it all through his life.

Ludhiana remembers Mahir (nom de plume of Mohan Singh, which he later discarded) as it remembers Sahir. These two poets have given to this commercial city the honour of being on the literary map of India. Prof Mohan Singh was a poet of exuberant feelings. His spontaneity of expression could transcend the present and connect him to the cultural heritage of this land of five rivers. At times he was attuned to the Sufi tradition of Bulle Shah who said, “Tere ishq nachaya kar thhayya thhayya”. His personal grief, with a passage of time, lost its entity in universal sorrow and he exclaimed, “Nijji pyar de thheke utte ruh meri nashiandi na” (No more my soul feels inebriated at the tavern of my intimate craving).

Prof Mohan Singh was born in 1905 at Mardaan, now in Pakistan. He spent the early years of his life at Dhamial (Rawalpindi), his ancestral village. Later, he lived in cities like Amritsar, Lahore, Jalandhar, Patiala and Ludhiana. In this way he had in his personality both the traits of Punjabi life, rural as well as urban. Likewise, in his poetry he combines his love for the countryside with his liking for modern sensibilities. Folk motifs dominate his poems, whereas his ghazals depict the sophistication of the Urdu ghazal. He won many laurels during his lifetime but he is getting acclaim in no less degree even after his death on May 3, 1978 in Ludhiana.

N.S. Tasneem