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Thursday,
November 14, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Sangh
Parivar leaders step in Leaflets
against Karmapa aides CM:
daily-wage earners to be regularised Patients
may lose mess facility 3 die as
car falls into gorge Woes of
Chail residents |
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Cops
clueless about prisoners 2
arrested for leading stir Electoral
rolls prepared Principal
divested of powers Renuka
fair to begin today
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Sangh Parivar leaders step in Shimla, November 13 Top functionaries of the Sangh Parivar held a secret meeting with state BJP leaders here today to sort out issues. The meeting was attended by Mr Ramesh Prakash, regional general secretary of the RSS and Mr O.P. Kohli, all-India secretary of the BJP, both of whom have specially come from Delhi, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, Chief Minister, Mr Jaikrishan Sharma, state BJP chief, and Mr Chet Ram, state RSS office-bearer. Significantly, Mr Shanta Kumar, Union Minister for Rural Development, who was also invited to the meeting, failed to turn up. The ostensible reason for this absence from the crucial meeting was stated to be his preoccupation with official engagements concerning his ministry in Delhi. Party sources, however, said that he was upset over the manner in which his supporters were being sidelined by the state leadership. Mr Shanta Kumar had openly expressed himself against the ongoing delimitation and sought the deferment of the exercise until the Assembly elections which were just three months away. Mr Jaikrishan Sharma, however, maintained that it was a routine meeting for coordination between the RSS and the BJP and one should not try to see motives behind the absence of Mr Shanta Kumar who had some other important meetings in Delhi. The delimitation proposals had caused the maximum turmoil in Kangra, the home district of Mr Shanta Kumar. The party has already suspended Mr Kamal Padha, general secretary of district party unit, and Mr Rakesh Chauhan, general secretary of the district Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, for maligning Mr Dhumal during the bandh to protest against the delimitation proposals. With the Sangh Parivar intervening the party is likely to soften its stand on the issue. With the elections approaching, the party cannot afford to take disciplinary action against a large number of party men who opposed delimitation and gave a call for the Kangra bandh. A day before the bandh Mr Kirpal Parmar, general secretary of the party, had warned that those supporting the bandh call would face disciplinary action. The party has now made subtle adjustment in the stand. The “bandh”, to quote Mr Jaikrishan Sharma, though undesirable, was not an act of indiscipline. The whip would be cracked only on those who dragged the name of the Chief Minister and alleged a government hand behind the delimitation exercise. The attempt of the leadership is to wriggle out of the “unpleasant” situation with minimum damage to the party fabric. It is concerned that the issue has, by coincidence or design, taken the shape of a tussle between the Shanta and Dhumal factions which could spell doom for the party in the electoral arena. |
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Leaflets
against Karmapa aides Dharamsala, November 13 When Karmapa escaped from Lhasa and reached Nepal in just three days, covering about 1,500 km, many questions were raised and it was even alleged that he had escaped with the help of Chinese officials and his aides were in the pay of Chinese. This was one reason that intelligence agencies and officials of the Home Ministry did not grant asylum to Karmapa for almost one year. The Karmapa is presently residing in the Gyuto Tantric University complex, near here, and the Union Home Ministry has put restrictions on his movement to nearby Sherabling Monastery, which is one of the important seats of the Kegyu Karma sect in Himachal Pradesh, and to Rumtek Monastery, which is the main seat of the sect in Sikkim. The new controversy may cause further scrutiny of the circumstances under which Karmapa fled Lhasa and also lad to an inquiry into the antecedents of those five persons who had come with him at that time and are considered to be close to him. His elder sister is also staying at the Gyuto University campus with him. However, the local police is unaware of the leaflets. |
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CM: daily-wage earners to be regularised Shimla, November 13 Addressing Irrigation and Public Health Department workers, affiliated to the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh here, he claimed that during the past four-and-hald year as many as 40,000 persons had been provided employment in the government sector alone. He said wages of daily wagers had been enhanced from Rs 45.75 to Rs 60 which benefited thousands of daily wagers throughout the state. The Chief Minister and the government had maintained cordial relations with employees and there had been no agitation by them during the past four-and-half years. He said employees’ role was vital to make Himachal a self-sufficient state. Prof Dhumal exhorted employees not to be swayed by designs of some vested interests. He assured workers that all their demands would be considered sympathetically.
UNI |
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Patients
may lose mess facility Kumarhatti, November 13 In the past also the mess contractor had served notices on the authorities for clearing the pending payments but continued running the mess after assurances from the authorities that he would get the payments soon. Recently he was paid Rs 1 lakh from the funds of the MDRTB Treatment Society — a society formed under the chairmanship of the Deputy Commissioner, Solan to provide financial assistants to the MDRTB cases. Mr B.D. Sharma, Medical Superintendent of the sanatorium, could not be contacted as he was on leave. However, well-placed sources in the District Health Services said the dilly-dallying approach of state government in releasing the annual budget of the sanatorium mess had led to the present situation. As against the annual budget of around Rs 15 lakh for the mess, till date only 30 per cent of the amount had received. |
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3 die as car falls into gorge Mandi, November 13 The persons, travelling in a new car, were killed when their car fell into a gorge near Thunag in the Chachiot Valley. The car was going from Janjehli to Mandi. Those killed have been identified as Manohar Lal,
Jitender, a lecturer, and Indira, all residents of Thunag. In another accident, a truck was burried under a landslide at Choki in Karsog Valley. The driver and the cleaner of the truck are feared to have been killed. |
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Woes of Chail residents Solan, November 13 Contending that a population of about 15,000 was being denied land rights in the present set-up despite having inhabited the area for decades now the residents in their representation have requested the President to redress, their grievances. While no committee was constituted to gauge public opinion from the seven panchayats of the Chail area and two panchayats of Shimla being affected by this notification, the government arbitrarily declared it as a wildlife sanctuary in 1999. Following this, no infrastructural development could take place in the area and people were facing problems even to avail basic facilities like fodder and firewood from the forest, lamented the residents. The fact that the area falls in a wildlife sanctuary has made the problem more complex and repeated petitioning of the case before the central government by various state governments has yielded no result. Having settled on the forest about a century ago on the “shahi farman” issued by the then ruler of Patiala, the residents were now being denied the permission to even repair their dwellings with the result that the majority of the houses were now in a dilapidated condition. The officials in the Wildlife Department informed that despite sending the case to the central government a number of times, no success could be achieved in getting the area denotified. Efforts made by successive governments in getting the land denotified have proved unsuccessful. The then BJP government headed by Mr Shanta Kumar had appointed a Cabinet subcommittee to look into the matter. However, the committee never met. The then Congress Government headed by Mr Virbhadra Singh, at its Cabinet meeting on December 4, 1994, decided to ask the Centre to denotify the forest area of 25 bighas on which the houses have been constructed. According to an official survey, 3,600 bighas were under encroachment at Chail, but denotification was being sought for only 25 bighas where people resided. Interestingly, a number of government departments are on the list of encroachers on forest land. These included the Forest Department, the HPTDC, the Defence Department, the PWD, the IPH, the Horticulture, the Health, the HPSEB, the Telecommunications and the Animal Husbandry Departments. The residents also plead that since the town had come into existence much before the enactment of the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, the government should not delay getting the area denotified. The area was first notified as a first class forest by the Pepsu government on January 4, 1953. A stretch of 25 bighas was gifted to the people for construction of houses and markets. Later in the year, the then government declared the forest as a reserve first class forest as per a gazette notification. Thereafter, five plots were openly auctioned by the Agriculture Department and leased to the locals. The government collected the lease amount from these plots till the year 1980. With the initiation of land settlement in 1982, about 56 cases were selected and about 108 deodar trees were marked which were located around the government buildings. |
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Cops clueless about prisoners Nahan, November 13 Police sources said the whole area was still cordoned off and nakas on roads were still in operation in search of the inmates. Messages had been flashed to police stations of neighbouring states. According to sources, a case has been registered in the local police station in this regard under Section 224 of the IPC. The prisoners — Ashok Kumar, a resident of Loharda under the Bhadurgarh police station in Jhajjar district of Haryana, who was undergoing an imprisonment of seven years, and Kanwaljeet Singh, a resident of Golpur under the Balachour police station in Nawanshahr district of Punjab who was undergoing an imprisonment of 24 years, managed to escape from the roof of the jail by making a rope of
bedsheets. |
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2 arrested for leading stir Dharamsala, November 13 According to information, the two have been accused of leading the agitation which had blocked traffic and gheraoed the Technical Education Minister, Mr Ravinder Singh Thakur, some time ago. |
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Electoral
rolls prepared Hamirpur, November 13 Ms Anuradha Thakur, District Electoral Officer, said here today that claims or objections should be lodged with the registration officer concerned before November 30, 2002. She said every claim or objection should be presented either by post or in person to the registration officer concerned. |
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Principal
divested of powers Dharamsala, November 13 Citing reasons for the decision, Mr Guleria said the Principal had been found reluctant in obeying orders issued by him. There had been allegations of financial and administrative irregularities against the Principal and recently another audit had been conducted and the report was awaited, Mr Guleria said. The administrator said there was no move to retrench any teacher or non-teaching employee of the college. He said the staff strength was in accordance with the norms laid by the university Grants Commission and as such there was no move to retrench anyone. However, he admitted that the Director, Education, had suggested retrenchment of some employees on the recommendations of the audit report some time back. |
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Renuka fair
to begin today Nahan, November 13 The state government has declared it a state-level fair. It will conclude on November 19 after “Purnima Sanan” in the holy lake. The palanquin of Lord Parshuram would be brought from Jammu village and alongwith palanquins of other deities, it would be taken in procession from Dadahu to Renuka. The Renuka Development Board Sirmaur, has made elaborate arrangements for the peaceful conduct of the fair. |
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8 walk
out of parishad meeting Bilaspur, November 13 The meeting had to be abandoned though a large number of district officers were present. There are a total of 14 members in the zila parishad here. |
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Doctors
withdraw call for strike
Shimla, November 13 The decision to withdraw the strike call was taken following negotiations among the RDA representatives and the Chief Minister, Mr P.K. Dhumal, here this evening. The spokesman for the RDA Dr
Sinesh, said the Chief Minister assured the RDA that its demands would be settled by November 30. The RDA had demanded an increase in the stipend of postgraduate students and advanced increments for postgraduate doctors.
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Study centre for disabled kids Shimla, November 13 This was stated here yesterday by Mrs Kamini
Mustafi, Coordinator of the Learning Centre. This course is a 3-month education programme by the distance mode. It aims to equip teachers with the necessary skills so that they can integrate children with various disabilities in their classrooms. Mrs Mustafi said the registration for the course had started from November 7 and would continue till November 20. The registration fee was Rs 100 and the cost of entire course was Rs 1500. |
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MCI team to visit Shimla college
Shimla, November 13 Announcing this while inaugurating a Rs 1.67 crore Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences here today, state Health Minister J.P. Nadda hoped the NCI would give its nod for increasing the seats to 100 which had been reduced to 65 in 1998. He said open heart surgery would be started in the college by the end of this year.
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