The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Thursday, August 28, 2003, Chandigarh, India

THE TRIBUNE SPECIALS

50 YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS

R E G I O N A L B R I E F S

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

Long wait for mini secretariat
In aid of the poor
Rajiv’s birth anniversary
Man with a mission

PUNJAB

FATEHGARH SAHIB
DRIVING LICENCES: Driving licenses in the district would be issued only after taking proper driving test, so that only genuine drivers could get the license to drive, said Mr S.K. Ahluwalia, Deputy Commissioner, while addressing the gathering after inaugurating a learning driving licence camp organised by the District Transport Office in collaboration with citizen’s Welfare Club, Bassi Pathana, on Wednesday. Addressing the gathering, Mr Raghbir Kaur Khera DTO, said as per the directions of the government, learning driving licence camps were being organised at the block levels so that the people might not waste their money to get them issued.

HOSHIARPUR
SGPC VOTERS LISTS: Mr Kirandeep Singh Bhullar, District Election Officer, here, said on Tuesday that dates for preparing voter lists of SGPC polls had been changed. Preliminary publication of voters lists would be done on September 15, 2003. Claims and objections could be presented up to October 20 to the Revising Authorities, which would be disposed of up to November 24.

KURALI
AWARDED: Mr A.K. Kaushal, Director, International Public School, Kurali, has been awarded with the Rashtriya Rattan Award by the Global Economic Council of India. He received this prestigious award on August 24 at the India International Centre, New Delhi. Rashtriya Rattan Award is given “For outstanding individual achievements & distinguished services to the nation”. Mr Kaushal received the award for his contribution and achievements in the field of education.

LUDHIANA
SAPLINGS PLANTED: Students of Government Senior Secondary School, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), on Wednesday planted saplings of various ornamental, aromatic and medicinal plants on the school campus on the occasion of vanmahotsav. The saplings were supplied by the Forest Department through the efforts of Mr Jagjit Singh Sahai, Deputy Director, Youth Services, Ludhiana. The Head of the Department of Floriculture and Landscape, PAU, Mr Ramesh Kumar, was the chief guest. Ms Gurdit Kaur, Principal of the school, was present on the occasion.

WELCOME PARTY: A freshers’ welcome party was organised by the Commerce Association of the Arya College for Boys on the campus on Tuesday. A cultural programme was presented by the students. Prof H. R. Saini, Head of the Postgraduate Department of Commerce, and Dr S. M. Sharma, Principal, were present on the occasion. Ankush Bansal and Harsimran Kaur were chosen Mr and Ms Fresher, respectively.

APPOINTED: Mr Surinder Kumar Panmai has been appointed district president of the Valmiki Sabha’s youth wing. This was stated in a press note issued here on Wednesday by Mr Babu Ram Nahar, president, District Valmiki Sabha.

MANSA
ORDER ON MEDICINES: Mr Raj Kamal Chowdhary, District Magistrate, on Wednesday issued orders barring chemists from selling 34 medicines without prescription from a registered medical practitioner. The orders will remain effective till October 24.

NAWANSHAHR
MEDICAL CAMP: The Guru Nanak Mission Medical and Educational Trust, Dhahan Kaleran (Nawanshahr) organised a medical camp at Garhi Bharti village near Rahon (Nawanshahr) on Tuesday. As many as 820 patients belonging to 50 villages near the Rahon area were examined by a team of doctors . Free medicines were also given.

OFFICE-BEARERS: The following have been elected office-bearers of the district unit of the DYFI: president — Mr Gurnam Singh Khandupur; vice-president — Mr Varinder Lucky; secretary — Mr Narinder Gosal; assistant secretary — Mr Davinder Heon and treasurer — Mr Dilbagh Singh.

PATIALA
ELECTED: Mr. S.P Singh Sidhu, Mr Randip Singh, Mr T.S Bajaj and Mr. Jasbir Singh, Mr. P.K Goel have been elected as president, vice-president, general secretary, joint secretary and finance secretary, respectively, of the Welfare Association Urban Estate here on Wednesday.

SAPLINGS PLANTED: The State Bank of Patiala in association with the Health and Environment Society organised a sapling plantation function at the Government College of Physical Education here on Wednesday. Around 500 saplings of decorative, ornamental and medicinal plants were planted on the occasion. The ADC, Mr Patiala Shiv Dular Singh Dhillon, was the chief guest at the function.

‘DAAIRE’: The Haryana State Minister of Education, Mr Bahadar Singh, will be chief guest at the 39th performance of “Daaire”, an anti-foeticide Punjabi musical play written by Satish Verma and directed by Pran Sabharwal and Sunita Sabharwal at S.D. College, Ambala Cantonment, on Saturday at 2 p.m. Mr Anil Vij, MLA, will preside over the function. The play will also be staged at the Dev Samaj College for Girls, Ambala city, under the patronage of Mr S. Kumar, Chairman, Dev Samaj Educational Institutions. After giving 38 performances of the play in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh, the National Theatre Arts Society (NTAS), Patiala, will now enter Haryana to give two shows of ‘Daaire’ in collaboration of the National Commission on Population to activate people against foeticide.

PHAGWARA
WARNED: Mr Malkiat Singh Ragbotra, President, local Nagar Council, on Tuesday warned those defacing green belt on the GT Road by putting/pasting posters of advertisements. Mr Ragbotra sought public cooperation for greening, cleaning and beautifying the city.

CHANDIGARH

GURMAT SAMAGAM: The 13th annual Gurmat Samagam at Ratwara Sahib gurdwara, Ratwara village, near here will begin on October 30. The four-day samagam is organised in the memory of Sant Waryam Singh, founder of Vishav Gurmat Roohani Mission Charitable Trust (VGRMCT). This was stated by Mr Mahinder Singh Gill, Chairman, VGRMCT, in a press release. Like the previous years, the organisers are expecting a large turnout of devotees from foreign countries at the samagam.

SEMINAR: “Before you begin your study, mark the important things. This will give you a focused approach,” remarked communication consultant P. K. Khurana at a memory training seminar organised by Sri Guru Harkrishan Model School in Sector 38. “He advised the students to follow a scientific approach for excelling in education, rather than just slogging through the books. He further stated, that there was nothing as good or bad memory, it was only trained memory or untrained memory’’. He said with the time, the mind developed memory.

PANCHKULA
INTERACTION: Renowned neurolinguistic programmer and inspirational speaker H.G. Ley interacted with the students of DAV Senior Public School, Surajpur. Explaining about neurolinguistic programming, he said it was the excellence-based on the practical skills which are used to obtain excellent results. He presented a show of learning with magic-fun learning that gives students creative thinking habit , which helps to stimulate imagination psychologically and inspire them for conceptional thinking. Mr Ley said teachers would experiment with narrative style by using gestures, body language, facial expressions and other factors. Educators have to develop a close rapport with their students for effective learning, he insisted.

DISTRIBUTED: The Women and Child Development Department distributed money to 133 persons in the Pinjore block, as part of the Apni Beti Apna Dhan scheme. The Deputy Commissioner, Ms Satwanti Ahlawat, said under this scheme 61 women from Scheduled Castes, 70 from Backward Classes and two from general category were the beneficiaries. Other than this, the departmebnt got 20 operations of vasectomy done in the past month as part of its family planning department.

LICENCE FEE: The Excise and Taxation Department has earned Rs 9. 19 crore as licence fee, excise duty and as fines imposed on liquor smugglers. An official press release said Rs 7.37 crore had been recovered in the corresponding period last year. During the month of July alone, Rs 1.94 crore had been recovered, as compared to 1.52 crore in the corresponding period last year.

AWARENESS CAMP: Sri Shiv Mandir Nav Durga Charitable Trust, Mahadevpur, is organising a consumer awareness camp on the temple premises on August 31. A team from Consumer Forum, Chandigarh will come to educate the public about their rights described in the Consumer Protection Act. Ms Seema Chaudhary, president, of municipal council, will be the chief guest.

HARYANA

AMBALA
INFORMATION CENTRE: Employment information centres are being established in 11 villages in Ambala district. These centres are being set up to tackle the unemployment problem. These centres will provide the latest information regarding vacancies, admission, self-employment schemes and it will be run with the help of local gram panchayats and NGOs. A ‘rozgar darbar’ is going to be organised in the Divisional Employment Exchange, Ambala Cantonment on September 4, a release said. The centres are going to be established at Kesari, Durana, Saha, Babyal, Shahzadpur, Bhurewala, Amli, Holi, Ugala, Jodhpur and Saunda.

STUDENTS’ MEET: The first meeting of old students of Gandhi Memorial National College, Ambala Cantonment, was held on Tuesday. Nostalgic moments was shared by the students. The college Principal, Dr R.R. Malik, is the patron of the old students association. Coordinator Dr Inderjit Kumar reminded the students of the “good old college days”. A number of suggestions were made regarding the functioning of the association. The suggestions include every member should bring at least one new member next time, the need to raise funds for the association and advertisement of the association.

MEETING: The HVP chief and former Chief Minister, Mr Bansi Lal, said he would not repeat the previous blunder of ‘prohibition’ if he came in power. Talking to mediapersons after addressing a public meeting at Mulana, he said now he felt that it was not a right decision. He said he would reduce the rates of electricity in the state if he would come in power. He repeated his promise to give unemployment allowance to unemployed youths in the state. He said the HVP would not make any alliance with the BJP or any other political parties in the Lok Sabha as well in Assembly elections. He said his party would contest all 10 seats of Lok Sabha in the state.

FATEHABAD
IDENTITY CARDS: The District Election Office has issued a schedule for taking photographs of the voters who have not yet received their identity cards. The Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer, Dr R.B. Langyan, told mediapersons here on Wednesday that the work for taking the photographs would start on August 28 and continue till September 8.

COTTON CROP: The Agriculture Department has laid 224 demonstration plots of cotton crop in the subdivision in its endeavour to improve its quality. The district Plant Protection Officer, Mr Partap Singh Poonia, said this while talking to mediapersons here on Wednesday. Mr Poonia said the state government had been providing 50 per cent subsidy on manually operated sprays and 25 per cent subsidy on light trap sprays. The government, he said, was also giving benefits to the farmers under the Integrated Pest Management of the cotton.

HISAR
ROAD MISHAP: A woman was killed and seven others, including three women, were injured seriously in a road accident here on Tuesday. The injured were admitted to the local Civil Hospital. The police said the mishap occurred when the jeep they were travelling in overturned after the driver tried to save a motorcyclist. Sunita Devi, a local resident, succumbed to her injuries on the way to hospital. The sadar police has registered a case.

PINJORE
CEREMONY: The investiture ceremony of St Vivekanand Mellennium School, HMT, Pinjore, was held on Tuesday in the school assembly ground. Kamla Rai, founder member of the Punj Education Society, was the chief guest of the occasion. The chief guest awarded badges and rank to the students, who were elected head boy and head girl on August 2. Following have been sworn in an office-bearers, head boy-Edmund Erie (class XII), head girl — Jyoti Tiwari (Class XII), and sports captain — Tanwar (Class XII).

SENIOR CITIZENS BODY: Senior Citizens Association of Pinjore, organised a meeting at Durga Mandir here on Tuesday. Rajesh Duggal DSP of Kalka, was the chief guest. More than 40 members of the association, including office-bearers, attended the meeting. The general secretary read out the annual report. The senior citizens demanded a separate counter for deposition telephone bills. The DSP while addressing the senior citizens said they could avail the facility of ambulance during an emergency.

YAMUNANAGAR
MUTATION DAY: The district administration here has decided to observe August 30 as Mutation Day. Deputy Commissioner Vijayender Kumar stated here on Tuesday that the Mutation Day would be observed at tehsil and sub-tehsil headquarters, under which purchase and mortgage of land and other land related matter should be conducted. Tehsildars, Naib-tehsildars, Kanoongos and Patwaris would remain present at their respective tehsil and sub-tehsil offices on that day.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

KULU
PAC MEETING: The Public Accounts Committee of Himachal Vidhan Sabha, met here on Tuesday at Bachat Bhawan and decided to redress grievances of different departments. The other members of the PAC present at the meeting were Mr Ramesh Chand, Mr Jagjiwan Pal, Surender Pal, Raghubir Singh and PAC Secretary S.C. Guleri.

NURPUR
ATTACK CONDEMNED: The Panchayat Pradhans Association, Nurpur Development Block, has criticised the attack on Mr Ramesh Kalia, Pradhan of Sadwan Gram Panchayat by a member of Zila Parishad and his family members. Mr Kartar Singh, president of the association, on Monday demanded action against the accused and also sought sack of the Zila Parishad member.

KISAN CREDIT CARDS: The Punjab National Bank Branch of Raja Ka Talab near here distributed kisan credit cards among 60 farmers on Monday. Mr B.P. Arora, regional manager of the bank apprised farmers of loan schemes of the bank.

PARWANOO
ASSOCIATION: A special meeting of the Retired Employees Association was held here on Tuesday under the presidentship of Mr G.P. Sharma, the members of the association experts their concern about the non-implementation of pension scheme announced by the Himachal Pradesh Government in 1999 for the employees of the corporate sector of the state. Members said the retired employees were facing lot of problems due to non-implementation of the pension scheme. The members also passed a resolution and urged the Chief Minister to take immediate steps to implement the scheme because all formalities in this regard have been completed.

REGIONAL POTPOURRI

Long wait for mini secretariat

The foundation stone of a mini secretariat laid at Nurpur in Himachal seven years ago by the then Chief Minister, Mr Virbhadra Singh, has been lying as such. It was on August 13, 1996, when he had laid the foundation stone on the premises of the old civil hospital with great fanfare. The much-awaited building of the mini secretariat has failed to come up.

Interestingly, the foundation stone was laid in haste with any eye on the ensuing byelections to the Nurpur Assembly. No administrative approval was granted, nor budget provision made by the then government.

But now after becoming a Cabinet Minister again in the Virbhadra Singh government, Mr Sat Mahajan, has revived the hopes of the residents. The construction of the mini secretriat is one of its priorities. Significantly, Mr Mahajan had also presided over the foundation-laying ceremony seven years ago. Now the residents hope to see the building completed.

In aid of the poor

In a bid to fetch financial help for hundreds of those poor patients hailing from the northern part of the country, who could not afford heart treatment even at reduced prices, the Baba Budha Sahib Charitable Heart Care (BBC Heart Care Centre) in Jalandhar has decided to approach the cash-rich national and international NGOs, NRIs and business houses who are in a position to adopt such patients and bear their treatment charges.

The BBC Heart Centre had already announced a major cut in its charges—between 35 to 40 per cent— from June 22 for two months for all heart patients belonging to northern part of the country. The centre, according to its Managing Director Dr Charanjit Singh Pruthi, observed during free heart care camps organised by it in rural and urban areas during this discount period of two months that there were still hundreds of heart patients who could not afford to pay even reduced charges but who at the same time were in dire need of treatment. “To cope with the problem, we have decided to form a trust, comprising eminent people from all walks of life. Our centre will refer the cases of such poor patients to the trust and the latter would further contact national and international NGOs for facilitating financial help for treatment of such patients. The financial help would be extended to patients according to their need and in cases of very poor people the entire cost would be borne by the trust. On our part, we will just charge cost of disposables and medicine. We are very enthusiastic as the response of people we contacted in India and abroad was great and they were ready to come out to extend financial help to those in distress,” said Dr Pruthi.

Rajiv’s birth anniversary

A former Forest, Irrigation and Power Minister, Dr Devender Sharma, celebrated the 59th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister, the late Rajiv Gandhi, by planting a rare species of ‘rudraksh’ sapling on the premises of the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, on August 20, 2003.

According to Dr Sharma, the rare species was fetched from Haldwani in Uttar Pradesh.

Talking about the environmental protection programme, Dr Sharma alleged that the present Haryana Government was not-sincere towards framing and implementing environmental protection programmes in Haryana as the plans and schemes remained only on paper for gaining publicity and political mileage whereas during the regime of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, this problem had received top priority.

The plants like ‘chandan’, ‘bahera’, ‘harar’, ‘anwala’ as well as ‘rudraksh’ could very well be developed in our area by using them as commercial crops by the agriculturists, Dr Sharma asserted.

Man with a mission

Teachers’ Day has a special significance for this Ludhiana-based 71-year-old retired teacher. To mark this day, Mr Yash Paul Ghai, who retired from the Punjab Education Department after putting in 36 years of service, has sent a draft for Rs 1,000 to the Prime Minister for the National Foundation for Teachers Welfare , a fund set up by the Central Government for the welfare of teachers. He has been celebrating this day in his own way by donating a part of his salary or pension to the fund for the past 39 years.

During his service, Mr Ghai worked for the allround development of Government Senior Secondary School, Jandali, Ludhiana. At the time of his retirement, he donated Rs 10,000 to the school to promote the cause of education.

Now he has been actively associated with the Government Pensioners Association and the Public Cause, a social organisation. He has contributed Rs 20,000 to these bodies for social welfare activities. He is man with a mission of selfless service.

Contributed by Rajiv Mahajan, Varinder Singh, D.R. Vij and Vishal Gulati.