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| Wednesday,
March 19, 2003, Chandigarh, India
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Pool raids: probe ordered against
ex-SHO Chandigarh, March 18 The inquiry — likely to be conducted by a DSP-rank official — was today marked by the IGP on the basis of a fact-finding report submitted by the Superintendent of Police, City, Mr Baldev Singh. The SP held the former SHO responsible for misconduct in handling the raid. It was pointed out that Mr Sharma should not have rounded up persons and kept them at the police station for a long period. However, in the official statement released by the Chandigarh police, there was no mention of the role of the former DSP, South, Mr S.C. Sagar. The DSP had recently been transferred to the central division in light of the pool controversy. Highly placed sources in the police ruled out the possibility of Mr Sagar being posted back as DSP, South. Yesterday, the SP, City, had submitted the inquiry report on the raids on various pool joints in the city. The report was submitted to the Senior Superintendent of Police, Mr Gaurav Yadav. The sources said that the SP had cross-examined at least 11 witnesses, including four pool owners or coaches. The UT Administrator, Lt-Gen J.F.R. Jacob, had directed the IGP to conduct an inquiry into the complaints of police highhandedness. On March 6 last, the IGP had asked the Superintendent of Police, City, Mr Baldev Singh, to find out the lapses and fix responsibility of the police officials concerned within five days. |
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No untoward incident on 1st
day Panchkula/Chandigarh, March 18 This followed a brawl at Bhainsa Tibba village yesterday where 20-year-old Jaswant was stabbed during Holi celebrations, and another incident in Azad Colony , where 18-year-old Laxman was hit by a lathi during Holi celebrations. Today, a 62-year-old woman, Krishna Devi, was hit by a scooter being driven by Holi revellers near Saket Hospital in Chandimandir and the scooter driver fled. The police, in order to avoid drunken brawls and law-and-order problems , decided to conduct a flag march today. Each DSP, along with the area Station House Officer and in charge of police post, went about various slum colonies. The Superintendent of Police, Mr Ranbir Singh Sharma, said as many as 450 cops were deployed for the purpose. He said elaborate security arrangements would also be made tomorrow and nakas had been set up at most entry and exit points in the district. In Chandigarh, the first of the Holi festivity remained a low-key affair as a majority of the revellers preferred to wait for tomorrow. A few charged revellers could be seen speeding on their roaring two-wheelers. The sale of Holi colours and "pichkaris" in different parts of the city did not pick up. For the police it was a peaceful day. No untoward incident was reported from the city. "There was no use in putting a strong police posse as the festivity was expected to be a low-key affair", said a police official, adding that the functioning in police stations suffered due to the heavy deployment of the force at sensitive locations. Around 800 cops were on duty to check hooligans on city roads. They would be on duty tomorrow also. The police feels that revellers would be active on the "geri route". The feild staff have been told by senior officials to keep a watch on speeding vehicles with their silencers removed. Special nakas will be set up outside hospitals, women institutes, and important junctions in the city. |
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Holi celebrations at Funcity Panchkula, March 18 Hundreds of people from all over the region, including people from Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, converged on the park to participate in the Holi celebrations. The entire 43-acre area of the park was swarming with Holi revelers, running around with the traditional ‘gulal’ and ‘pichkaris’ . This is for the fifth consecutive time that a Holi bash has been organised at the park. Water pools at the park had been filled with coloured water and children and couples were seen enjoying themselves in the true Holi spirit. A huge dance floor had been set up near the stage, where the invitees were seen jiving to Punjabi folk and pop music. A host of prizes — Best Dancing Couple, Best Male Dancer, Best Female Dancer etc. were also given to the invitees. The two-day bash ( it will also continue tomorrow) is being organised in association with Acme Events from 11. 30 am to 5 pm. Some of the top Punjabi pop singers including Sarabjeet Cheema, Raj Brar, Romey Gill, Bai
Amarjeet, Azzi Ash, Surjeet Khan, Sharen, Gurkirpal, Babbu Gill, Sunita Bhatti and Vicky
Bedi, along with their dance troupes enthralled the invitees throughout the day. |
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Punjab farmers end
dharna Chandigarh, March 18 The farmers lifted their dharna, after an agreement was signed between leaders of six farmer unions and the Punjab Finance Minister, Mr Lal Singh. Representatives of the Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta), the Kirti Kisan Union, the Democratic Farmers Sabha, the Hind Kirti Kisan Sabha, the Agricultural and Farmers Development Front and the Punjab Kisan Sabha were present at the meeting. The unions announced that they had decided to call off their stir temporarily after the assurance of the Finance Minister to make a formal announcement regarding their demands during the current Budget session. In case the government failed to make a formal announcement about the acceptance of these demands, said the leaders, they would again hold an indefinite dharna from March 31 on a large scale. Mr Surjit Singh Phul, state press secretary, Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta), claimed that the government had agreed to issue a white paper on the performance of the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) before taking any decision about the power tariff hike. The government also agreed to decrease the Rs 5,200 per HP security on tubewell connections by 40 per cent, besides restoring the connections of hundreds of government tubewells in the Kandi area. He said the minister had agreed that cooperative sugar mills would pay Rs 30 per quintal on sugarcane, the difference between the price announced by the government and the claimed market price, to farmers. Private mills would be asked to make the payment soon. The unions expressed satisfaction over the assurance that the government would clear the second instalment of Rs 10 per quintal as bonus on the paddy procured by state agencies as per the election manifesto of the Congress. The government had also agreed, said Mr Phul, to ask the electricity board to restore connections of the farmers who had not deposited their bills, by April 30. Mr Lal Singh assured the union leaders that the cases registered against farmer leaders during the agitation would be withdrawn soon. The police had reportedly registered 18 FIRs against the farmer union leaders and about 100 cases against union activists in different parts of the state. Mr Balwinder Singh, state executive member, Kirti Kisan Union, said, “We are satisfied that the government has agreed to withdraw the 4.4 per cent tax imposed on fertilisers and pesticides, besides allowing state
cooperative societies to purchase fertilisers and pesticides from the market at competitive rates. We have also been assured that the government would withdraw the Rs 1.50 per litre cess on diesel in the Budget.” The government also agreed that Sections 67-A and 63-C of the Cooperative Act would be amended, under which farmers had been arrested by the police for not repaying their loans in time. Mr Lal Singh also agreed that farmers would not be arrested in case of delay in payment of loans up to Rs 2 lakh for agricultural activities. One of the major demands of the farmers of the border areas, regarding compensation for the losses incurred due to laying of mines in their fields, was also accepted. The Finance Minister declared that the first instalment had been released and second would be released soon.
Chandigarh, March 18 He said, ‘‘The MC cannot be asked to make arrangements every time for drinking water and other public utilities. Further, the UT Administration has to arrange police, transport and fire tender services to deal with dharnas. Ideally, the Punjab Government should develop a dharna site near Sector 39 and the Haryana Government near the Dhillon Theatre.
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Shatabdi driver
identified Chandigarh, March 18 While the police is yet to take a statement from Vandana's husband, Maneel, about the incident, Vandana's in-laws as well as her brother, Rajiv, have clearly stated that they suspected no one and that she and Rohan had an accident while they were on their way to the railway station to catch a train to Delhi to meet him. In the information given by the driver to the Station Master, the former had just mentioned that woman had been run over by the train. Meanwhile, the body of the woman and the child were consigned to the flames at the Sector 25 cremation ground. |
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Petrol stations to get vacant
lands Chandigarh, March 18 The rates of lands adjoining each petrol station will vary as per the location and the sector, sources said while confirming that the UT Administrator, Lieut-Gen J.F.R. Jacob (retd), had cleared the project two days ago. This will change the way petrol stations in the city handle their business. The lands are to be allotted by the administration and as per the existing policy land for petrol station is given at a fixed rate which varies as per sector and location. The sites are leased to the oil companies which pay rentals on a monthly basis. A petrol station which started a few decades ago pays lesser rent that those started a few years ago. Allotment now will be on prevailing market rates, the sources added. Petrol station owners have been demanding for long that lands adjoining their units be allotted to them for establishing modern facilities. The possibility of such allotment for extension exists at almost all petrol stations excepting those which are located in crowded commercial areas like Sector 22. The petrol stations which have the provision of adjoining vacant lands have been identified. The demand was first raised about two years ago when business of petrol station owners was affected as a state-of-the-art Bharat Petroleum petrol station came up along the Dakshin Marg in Sector 21 with all modern facilities. Sources in the petroleum sector added that already there was a paucity of space at petrol stations. New fuels like those mixed with ethanol and CNG are coming in and this requires more space. A dealer said 20 years ago trucks used to be 25 feet in length, today the trailers were close to 45 feet in length and most old pumps did not have space where these trailers could even turn around. |
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US don all praise for Le Corbusier’s
design Chandigarh, March 18 Referring to Chandigarh, Professor Lerner said Le Corbusier’s design concepts were very powerful and the city was among the great architectural sites of the world. He added that depending upon one’s perspective, one was able to see a bit of Greek, Italian and European influence in Le Corbusier’s design. Professor Lerner shot into limelight after he won the design competition of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, in 1986, which was the biggest global architectural competition ever held in India. Along with some of his students, he is visiting three Indian cities, including Delhi and Fatehpur Sikri, on an educational tour. Speaking about the IGNCA project, the construction work of which began in the early 90s, he said the original estimate was to have the project completed in about 10 years. So far, just phase I of the four-phase project has been completed. “Architects don’t set the clock. I am very patient,” he commented. Professor Lerner said he had won the competition because, in his opinion, his plan focused upon bringing in an urban addition to the existing city surroundings rather than creating a self-centered
structure. The centre is coming up midway between Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate on Rajpath. The visiting professor said as the Indian cultural heritage embraced a wealth of building conventions and types, so the centre architecturally displayed a number of traditions within the structure of its unified spatial strategy. He added that his design had maintained a preference for simple geometries typical of Hindu, Mughal and classic traditions, which reiterated the role of the centre whose purpose was to encompass all arts across boundaries of time, religion and social groupings. Professor Lerner, who is also involved in projects conceptualising rebuilding the area around Ground Zero in New York, where the twin World Trade Center Towers once stood, expressed his unhappiness over the way things are taking shape. He said while the rubble had been cleared and the infrastructure, including roads, underground rail links, water pipes and sewerage systems, were back in place, it was yet to be decided what was to come up in the area. He said the first thing to come up should be a memorial and the rest of the township should come up around it, but the way things are progressing, it appeared to be the other way round. Professor Lerner also gave a lecture to students of the Chandigarh College of Architecture, highlighting several projects being undertaken by him, including the IGNCA and the layout of a university campus in Singapore. |
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NGOs to oppose draft Bill on domestic
violence Chandigarh, March 18 “We, along with many other human rights organisations, feel that this seriously flawed bill, if enacted in its present form, will prove counter-productive for the status of women in Indian society which is already deteriorating,” general secretary of Insaf International, Dr Vineeta Gupta, told a press conference here today. The draft Bill introduced in Parliament on December 22, 2002, by the Human Resource Development Ministry was discussed threadbare at a workshop held in Delhi in which 60 NGOs from 14 states participated on March 13 and 14 in Delhi. Ms Gupta was the workshop leader. Dr Vineeta was flanked by Ravinder Joshi, Legal Adviser of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists. Picking holes in the draft Bill, they said the definition of domestic violence in terms of “habitual assault” was nothing short of an affront on the women’s dignity, equality and existence. They said the “right of self-defence” given in the draft to the perpetrator of domestic violence was a mockery of the objectives the Bill proposed to fulfill. Dr Vineeta Gupta said India was duty-bound to check domestic violence under the international convention on the elimination of all types of discrimination against women and report to a committee explaining its compliance with the treaty provisions. She said the country had failed to take effective steps for the implementation of international standards relevant to domestic violence. They said the Bill had to cover women of all categories and consider children also victims of domestic violence. The definition of domestic violence must consider any conduct — physical, sexual, economic, psychological whether actual or threatened, that causes the victim to fear for personal safety, they added. |
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Hotel owners to cooperate with
MC Chandigarh, March 18 The MC served separate notices on 27 hotels of Sector 35 B and C yesterday, on charges of leakage of water leading to damage to roads and raising road berms. The hotels that had been served on notices included Rikhy’s International, Kapil, Sher-e-Punjab, Shangrila Plus, Maya Palace, Regency, Khyber, Piccadily-35, Monarch, GK International, Lorry, KC Residency, South End, Himmani, Smokin’s Joc’s , Metro-35, Classic, Café-Coffee Bar, Barista, Hot Million, Le Crown, Park Inn, Oven Fresh, The Eating Mall, Jasmine, and Heritage. At a meeting held with Mr V.K. Bhardwaj, Chief Engineer of the MC, here today, 20 hotel owners agreed to stop the leakage of water and cooperate with officials of the MC in removing the encroachments. The Chief Engineer has ordered to conduct an on-the-spot verification of such violations by the SDO of the Public Health and B and R wings, on coming Thursday. “Three-day time will be given to the hotel owners after the verification to remove the encroachments and stop leakage of water. Otherwise, MC will remove the encroachments using official machinery”, said Mr Bhardwaj. Meanwhile, the hotel owners present at the meeting were asked to convey the message to seven other hotel owners who did not turn up at the meeting. |
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Women workers seek security at hospital SAS Nagar, March 18 The staff members had brought the problem to the notice of the local MLA, Mr Bir Devinder Singh, at a meeting held at the hospital in September last year. The MLA had said that at that time he had asked the SSP Ropar to provide adequate security at the hospital. However, so far no security arrangements have been made for the staff members on night duty. The hospital does not have a permanent chowkidar or any security staff. Often many persons who may be accompanying a patient enter the building, creating problems for the hospital staff on duty. The pharmacists at the hospital are women. The problem occurs when a woman doctor is put on night duty. Sometime ago a man under the influence of liquor came to the hospital at night and sought the details of a medico-legal case. He was rude to the woman doctor and even snatched the register from her. Dr Manjit Singh Bains, SMO in charge of the hospital, however, said the security problem at night was not serious. The staff had been told to call the police in case of harassment by anyone. He said the man who had misbehaved with the woman doctor on night duty was later traced and that he had come and apologised. Dr Bains said if a police personnel was posted on the hospital premises on a regular basis, it would be of help in medicolegal cases. Doctors in such cases would not have to wait for the police to arrive and the personnel on duty could liaise between the police and the hospital authorities. |
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Probe tenants’ assets also: property
owners Chandigarh, March 18 “POWA members feel there must be so many skeletons in their cupboards as the rent is hard to conceal as compared to the underhand business turnover,” an association press note said asserting that the trader tenants were stooping low to blackmail political parties. The mandal said it would hold gate meetings and seminars in various markets of the city to bring awareness about the repercussions of the notification on the traders as well as on the consumers of the state. Flaying the allegations of any nexus between the property dealers and the Administration members, the POWA argued that as the notification was not issued against any such demand from any quarter of property owners, the allegation carried no substance. Various market associations, including Sectors 17 A and B, Traders Association of Sectors 7-C and Sector 32-D, welcomed the statement of the Chandigarh Beopar Mandal against the BJP. |
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Jacob serves langar at PGI Chandigarh, March 18 A philanthropist, Mr Jagdish Lal Ahuja, organising langar at the PGI for the last 15 years, said that he would now start it at the General Hospital and the Government Medical College and Hospital, without any financial help from the Administration. General Jacob assured Mr Ahuja, that the Administration would look into his proposal for allotting him land for setting up an old-age home in the periphery of the city. Mr Ahuja also offered help in running a night shelter for migrant labourers coming to the city. |
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ISKCON sankirtan Chandigarh, March 18 An 18-day nagar sankirtan, as part of the appearance day celebrations, which started on March 1 concluded here today. The programme was started with ‘mangla aarti’ at 4.30 a.m. followed by a nagar kirtan. Dancing and chanting ‘Hare Krishna Mahamantra’ to the tune of ‘kartal’ and ‘mridanga’, the devotees made a round of Sector 20 in a grand procession which concluded on the temple premises. |
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Ammunition, weapons seized
from house SAS Nagar, March 18 The police recovered a .22 bore gun, a double-barreled gun, a singles barreled gun and an airgun. About 450 live cartridges of .22 bore gun and 150 cartridges of .12 bore gun were also found in the house. The police raided the house of Mr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, who had been living as a tenant in the house for the past more than five years. However, when the raid was conducted, Mr Sandhu was not at home. The family members of Mr Sandhu told the police that all weapons were licensed. |
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2 cr heroin seized from city car Chandigarh, March 18 According to sources in the police the car was registered in the name of a Sector 21 resident. Two members of the gang, Amalok alias Baldev Singh, of Amritsar and Sukhbir Singh alias Titu of SAS Nagar, were arrested, while the third accomplice managed to escape in the Green coloured Tata Indica Car. The police suspects that fake currency worth Rs 2.80 lakh was lying in the Tata Indica Car. Though the Chandigarh Police had not been officially intimated about the involvement of the car in the crime, it could not be ascertained whether the Punjab Police had checked up with the Sector 21 owner of the car. The arrest of the smugglers was made after an encounter between the Ludhiana police and the smugglers. According to reports from Ludhiana, a cop, Bhupinder Singh, is injured in the encounter. The sources said the smugglers had links with the ISI. |
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Eloped couple held Panchkula, March 18 It is learnt that Bhupinder and Surinder Kaur of Barwala eloped in 1999. Both of them were married and reportedly had an affair for almost an year before they eloped. It was earlier last week only when Bhupinder approached the woman’s husband, Jasmer Singh through Amar Singh and Anil Kumar, on the pretext of reaching out a compromise. However, Jasmer Singh approached the police and a case was registered. A police party was sent to Raipur and the duo was arrested. |
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HDFC Fund buys Zurich company Chandigarh, March 18 Mr Sandy Leitch, Chief Executive Officer of Zurich Financial Services UKISA1 and Asia Pacific, said, “The decision to sell this business has been taken in the light of our recently announced strategy to allocate our capital to the core life and non-life insurance markets in order to generate sustained profitable growth”. “We are pleased that a business with the reputation and track record that the HDFC brings will now take on the management of the business and will provide continuity of the excellent service and fund performance that Zurich Asset Management Company unit holders have enjoyed.” The HDFC Mutual Fund’s Chairman, Mr Deepak Parekh, commented, “This acquisition is consistent with our strategy of continuing the momentum in the growth of the HDFC Mutual Fund’s business and adds to the proportion of Equity Funds Managed.” The HDFC Mutual Fund was recently awarded the CNBC Moody’s Investor Service award for best performing fund house in the one-year category. Zurich also received the best performing fund house award in the three-year category. The acquisition brings together two mutual funds with individual records of leading fund performance. |
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Palio Diesel launched Chandigarh, March 18 Mr Ashwini Anand, Managing Director, Anbros Motors Pvt Ltd, said the Palio Diesel ELX SP and Adventure Diesel would be available for Rs 4.73 lakh and Rs 6.99 lakh, respectively. |
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