Illegal auto-rickshaws cut into CTU profits
Chandigarh, July 7
The Chandigarh Administration has failed to check the illegal plying of auto-rickshaws on city roads. Employees of the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking have alleged that this was resulting in financial losses worth lakhs of rupees to the CTU, besides causing air pollution, minor accidents and frequent traffic jams on some roads.
Who will challan this overloaded auto-rickshaw running on one of the city roads, though as per the Motor Vehicles Act, it can transport only three passengers. — A Tribune photograph

Sahay flays ‘BJP’s temple drama’
Chandigarh, July 7
Former Union Minister and All-India Congress Committee secretary Subodh Kant Sahay is launching a national initiative on July 10 from the city to prepare public opinion against corruption, communalism and casteism to counter what he termed as “the temple drama being enacted by the BJP and the Sangh Privar.”

PSHRC nod to Ranbaxy probe
Chandigarh, July 7
The Punjab State Human Rights Commission has given green light to the Punjab Government to resume its inquiries on the Ranbaxy fire tragedy which were stopped by it following a PSHRC stay order.

Remove temporary liquor shops: JD(U)
Chandigarh, July 7
The local unit of the Janata Dal (United) led by Union minister Sharad Yadav here today threatened to lay a siege to temporary liquor vends dotting the city in an uncouth manner.

Saini is Rotary Chandigarh Central president
Chandigarh, July 7
Rotarian D.S. Saini was installed as the new president of Rotary Chandigarh Central and Ms Rupinder Bal as president of the Inner Wheel of the club at a function of the Rotarians of district 3080 held here last night.

47 sweepers lose salary for being absent
Chandigarh, July 7
A day’s salary each of 47 sweepers was deducted today by the Medical Health Wing for being absent from duty between 6.40 am and 6.50 am today. The MOH, Dr G.C. Bansal caught 12 persons, including the area jamadar, absent. Four sweepers were found taking tea during duty hours.

FAUJI BEAT
Corruption crippling our military might?
Defence Minister George Fernandes’ statement, in an exclusive interview to The Tribune recently, that the Advanced Jet Trainers acquisition was likely to be delayed by another two to three years, has sent shock waves in the Air Force. 

Police station phone disconnected
SAS Nagar, July 7
Even as the fruitless requests by the police here to the Telephone Department continue over ‘revival’ of their central police station telephone, the department has gone ahead and disconnected the telephone in Phase I police station too for non-payment of bills.

PLATFORM: Save water
Water is necessary for life. Water is 100 per cent natural but 0 per cent replaceable. Earth has 97 per cent salt water found in the seas, 2 per cent water in the form of glaciers and only 1 per cent of it is fresh water. So, one can imagine the need to conserve water.

643 oustees to be rehabilitated
Chandigarh, July 7
Hopes of residents of 22 villages displaced between 1966 and 1970 to build Chandigarh to get rehabilitated got a boost with the Chandigarh Administration preparing the first list of 643 out of 5,000 of them for allotment of dwelling units in Sector 51, according to the Deputy Commissioner.

Cable operators get reprieve
Chandigarh, July 7
The break in the cable service being feared in the wake of the Municipal Corporation’s planned drive to remove their poles from tomorrow seems to have been put off till July 10.

Good Samaritan offers to return money
Chandigarh, July 7
Mr Devi Dyal, an employee of the Census of India Department here, claims that he got possession of about Rs 20,000 today when he tried to intervene in a scuffle among some rickshaw-pullers and a person. He said he saw that near the Tribune chowk some rickshaw-pullers were trying to snatch money from an old Sikh aged about 50 years.

Devinder Babla bereaved
Chandigarh, July 7
Expelled Chandigarh Vikas Manch leader Devinder Singh Babla and his councillor wife, Harpreet Kaur, were bereaved when Mr Babla's mother, Darshan Kaur, died of cancer yesterday.

Forged passport racket unearthed
Chandigarh, July 7
The Chandigarh police has unearthed an international racket involving persons who prepare forged passports of foreign countries and encash stolen travellers cheques in the country. The travellers cheques encashed by the gang members are stolen from other countries, reveal police investigations.

Residents help police nab burglars
Chandigarh, July 7
Alert residents of a locality in Sector 27 here spoiled the plans of a three-member gang of burglars to escape with the booty from a locked house early this morning. By the time a police party from the Sector 26 police station reached the spot, residents had caught one of the burglars, Udhay Raj, after a hot chase.

Firm charged with cheating
Chandigarh, July 7
The Chandigarh Police today registered a case of cheating and criminal conspiracy against a Delhi-based company, Media Ad Link — also having its branch office in Sector 35 here — which has allegedly duped several residents by promising their children a modelling career.

4 incidents of theft in city
Chandigarh, July 7
Goods worth lakhs of rupees were stolen in four separate incidents of theft in residential and commercial premises in the city today. Inquiries reveal that the burglars, suspected to be juvenile, sneaked in the shop, Agrani Switches, Sector 35, through a ventilator and searched for cash and gadgets. 

BUSINESS

Shopping scheme starts
Chandigarh, July 7
Ebony today launched its “Monsoon Hungama Shopping Extravaganza”. To continue till July 27, the scheme provides customers with an array lifestyle and household items, appearels and accessories at its outlets in Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Noida, Faridabad and Delhi at discounts of up to 30 per cent. This scheme also has a lucky draw that entitles the shopper to win an Opel Corsa on the purchase of a certain brand of shirts.

Top models for NIFD show
Chandigarh, July 7
The annual fashion bonanza of the National Institute of Fashion Design, in Sector 8 is about to begin. To prove that it gets better every time, the NIFD has put together the best models of India for the fashion show to be held on July 10 at Hotel North Park in Panchkula. Supporting the effort will be Aristocrat Premium.

Raipur varsity clarifies
Chandigarh, July 7
Mr Amitabh Saxena, Director (Academics), of Dr C.V Raman University of Science, Technology, Commerce and Management , Raipur, today clarified that the university had an efficient computer network for a good on-line distance education programme. He was reacting to a report " Varsity with 1 prof, 6 lecturers’’, which appeared in these columns on July 4.

Seats vacant in B.Sc (Hons) courses
Chandigarh, July 7
All general category seats for the Bachelor of Engineering courses in the University Institute of Engineering and Technology and the Department of Chemical Engineering at Panjab University were filled today, while a few seats are still vacant in some B.Sc (Honours School) courses.

Answerbook scam: CBSE official transferred
Chandigarh, July 7
A section officer posted at the regional office of the Central Board of Secondary Education here has been transferred in connection with an answerbook tempering scam which had been detected in the city in May.

SCHOOL WORLD
About Belize
LOCATED in Central America on the Caribbean Sea, Belize shares its borders with Mexico on the north and Guatemala on the west. Formerly known as the British Hondarus, it was the last British colony before it attained independence in September 1981.

School kids get books
Chandigarh, July 7
Canara Bank, Kalka, has distributed books to 50 primary students of Hindu Girls S. S. School, Kalka, on a need-cum-merit basis. The programme was held under the bank’s social action/image building activity.

Protest by research scholars
Chandigarh, July 7
Members of the Panjab University Research Scholars Association today protested against the university’s new hostel rules under which there are no provisions for hostel accommodation for those researchers who do not have any fellowship or project funding.

COURTS

Order reserved in Tribune case
Chandigarh, July 7
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today reserved order on a Contempt of Court case against “The Tribune”. The Court had earlier taken suo motu notice of a report published in the newspaper.

Isha Toor, new tennis force
Chandigarh, July 7
Isha Toor, a trainee at the Total Tennis Academy, Sector 11 here, is a new tennis force among women’s section in the city. This can be gauged from the fact that, in a majority of the tournaments — whether AITA junior talent, or AITA ranking, Chandigarh state — the titles have been bagged by this 15-year-old girl, a Class XI student of Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 16.