• Shops demolished
• Bill condemned
• Seminar held
• New Principal

Addressing a party rally here today, Ms Swaraj said the party would contest the 10 Lok Sabha seats on its own and charged Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala with humiliating BJP workers and implicating them in false cases.

Ms Swaraj said though the Centre had provided funds for developmental activities in Haryana, Mr Chautala was taking the credit and criticising the BJP. There would be no alliance with any party for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, she added.

Criticising the recent two-day road show of Congress President Sonia Gandhi in Haryana as a “flop show”, Ms Swaraj said Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani was undertaking the Bharat uday yatra to unite the people.

She said the NDA would form the next government at the Centre as it was confident of winning the poll.

Union Labour Minister Sahib Singh Verma said Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had done a lot for farmers and labourers.

Rajasthan’s Industries Minister Narpat Singh said the Congress lost in the recent Assembly elections in the neighbouring state because of corruption and inefficiency.

Party general secretary Surender Singh will contest from the Bhiwani parliamentary constituency, while Parliamentary Board chairman Kanwar Singh will contest from Hisar and Jitender Singh Khurbadan from Kurukshetra.

Chandigarh, March 9
The Haryana Youth Congress has created a record of sorts. The unit has been reconstituted with as many as 24 Vice-Presidents, 45 General Secretaries and 48 Secretaries. This is perhaps the largest body of office-bearers for a political organisation in the state. The body is also perhaps larger than the parent organisation, the Haryana Congress.

Mr Satvinder Singh Sandhu, President of the Haryana Youth Congress, who released the list of office-bearers here today, said it had been approved by the all-India Youth Congress chief, Mr Randeep Singh Surjewala, and Mr Mukul Vasnik, AICC General Secretary in charge of the party.

The Vice-Presidents are Chetan Chauhan, Surender Nehra, Brij Lal, Rahul Tayal, Vivek Dutta, Vinay Nalwa, Kamal Singh, Bhupinder Phogat, Anand Sagar, Samsher Malik, Jai Prakash Redu, Tej Pal Sharma, Sudesh Sharma, Brahmpal Rana, Anil Rana, Bhim Singh Yadav, Manoj Kumar Jairampur, Sanjay Jaildar, Joginder Singh, Ranbir Singh Panihar, Surinder Singh Ranjha, Tareef Namberdar, Parvesh Kumari Rana and Hari Ram Sabha.

The General Secretaries are Chenna Ram Saini, Satbir Neemwala, Darshan Kanoda, Rajender Singh Pummy, Raju Mann, Pawan Ror, Naresh Sandhu, Rohtash Deshwal, Sushir Sindhu alias Neeta, Ashok Jaildar, Suresh Balmiki Satroop Singh Dangra, Baljeet A. Punia, Dr S.S. Mann, Mandeep Singh Toor, Tejbir Singh, Bhupinder Nehra, Manjeet Singh, Devender Kaushik, Sanjit Malik, Jaswant Lamba, Vijay Kuladia, Lakhjeet Singh, Ravinder Kataria, Shyam Bhardwaj, Hardeep Singh, Ajit Singh alias Sandeep Rana, Mahesh Yadav, Jasbir Rana, Vivek Bhardwaj, Dalip Sharma, Satish Tejli, Sanjay Sharma, Nasim Khan, Balbir Kapoor, Balvinder Singh Ravinder Pal Singh Roxy, Subey singh, Subhash Nayak, Ravi Mehamia, Rakesh Bidhuri, Kuldeep Singh Gardana, Rajender Yadav, Gopal Krishan and Ranbir Thakur.

Kurukshetra, March 9
Former Thanesar city Congress president Dina Nath Arora and Thanesar block Congress president Budhi Prakash Verma have requested the AICC president, Ms Sonia Gandhi, that the candidate for the Kurukshetra parliamentary constituency should be from within the constituency.

Rohtak, March 9
The Rashtriya Lok Dal (Ajit) today declared that Mr Bharpur Singh Jakhar will contest the Rohtak Lok Sabha seat as the party nominee.

The announcement was made after a meeting of the Parliamentary Board of the Haryana unit of the party here.

Addressing mediapersons the board chairman, Mr Balbir Singh, and the party general secretary, Mr Jagdish Rai Kaushik, said the board had approved his nomination at today’s meeting. They said both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Lok Dal were “anti-people” parties. The BJP could not escape responsibility for the misdeeds of the Chautala government merely because it had parted ways with the INLD just before the Lok Sabha poll.

Kaithal, March 9
The state INLD treasurer, Mr Ashok Jain, has resigned from the post and primary membership of the party. Addressing a press conference here today, Mr Jain said he had resigned due to personal and family reasons. He pointed out that he was feeling neglected and suffocated in the party.

Mr Jain alleged that sycophants were being promoted while loyal and dedicated party workers were being ignored. He said it was a pity that a person from Uttar Pardesh was nominated and elected as Rajya Sabha member from Haryana, ignoring party workers. He also expressed his resentment over the appointment of certain persons without any substantial following on key posts in the government. Mr Jain regretted that he devoted 20 precious years of his life to the party, which failed to come up to his expectations. When asked about his future plans, Mr Jain said he would join a party whose leader had good intention and policy.

Karnal, March 9
The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has allegedly taken possession of a piece of land, measuring two bigas and one biswa, illegally from its owners without having got issued a notification from the Revenue Department. The owners of the land have served a legal notice on HUDA in this regard.

The owners of the land, Mr Surinder Kumar and Mr Ashok Kumar, both residents of Karnal, had alleged that their land, mentioned in Khewat No. 350/357 and Khatoni No. 552, situated in Sector-12 (Part-II) of the Urban Estate, was in the illegal possession of HUDA.

Investigations revealed that HUDA had taken possession of the land illegally along with the adjoining land whose notification for acquisition was issued on February 2, 1990. However, the revenue authorities issued no notification for acquisition of the said land. It has also been alleged that without any legal right to take possession of the land, HUDA illegally manipulated with the local authorities and got entered the ‘girdawaris’ in its favour.

The fraud came to light a couple of months back when the owners planned to start a construction. Officials of HUDA and the District Town Planner stopped the construction work claiming that HUDA had already taken possession of the land.

“When we visited the office of the Revenue Department and inquired about the ownership of the land we were surprised to know that HUDA had taken possession of our land on March 22, 1991”, alleged the complainants.

The owners further alleged that HUDA had neither given any compensation nor it had vacated the land.

An official of HUDA said the District Estate Officer has asked the Land Acquisition Officer to get the notification issued from the authorities concerned of the Revenue Department so that the land could be acquired legally and adequate compensation be awarded to the owners of the land.

Hisar, March 9
The local zila parishad today constituted two committees to probe the purchasing of sewing machines by parishad officials and sub-standard construction material used in development works undertaken by the parishad.

At a bimonthly meeting of the parishad held here today, parishad members alleged that parishad officials had purchased more than 5,000 sewing machines at a rate of Rs 950 per machine last year. The parishad had received a Central grant of Rs 40 lakh for providing sewing machines to poor families in the district. The officials had purchased these machines at very high rates on their own and no purchase committee was formed in this regard. The members also alleged though they had recommended names of poor women from their respective wards but the officials ignored most of the names while distributing these machines. The House formed a five-member committee of zila parishad members to probe the matter. The members of the committee are: vice-chairman Anita Malik, Mr Dilbag Singh Sihag, Ms Sushila Balsmand, Mr Shamsher Singh and Ms Kaushlya Sehrawat.

Panipat, March 9
The suspension of an executive engineer at Tau Devi Lal Thermal Power Station (TDLTPS) for his alleged negligence, that led to power failure for about eight hours, has evoked resentment among the engineers here. To mark their protest, the engineers have decided to return one-day salary award that was announced by the Chief Minister after the thermal station had achieved highest power production recently.

Engineers staged a protest at the residence of the Chief Engineer, Mr M.M. Bindlish. The power production remained suspended for eight hours at the station having generating capacity of 860 MW on March 4 due to technical fault in the grids.

The engineers’ body alleged that suspended executive engineer I.S. Gupta has no role to play when the six units of the TDLTPS were tripped. The units were switched off as these did not get power supply from the Bhakra-Beas Management Board.

They said the breakdown in the four very old units of 110 MW capacity each had become a routine affair due to technical faults. And many instruments are required to be replaced in these units.

Kurukshetra, March 9
Prof Graham M. Chapman, Director, International Department, and Professor of Computer Lesz Zarzycki of De Montford University, Leicester, UK, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kurukshetra University to jointly conduct educational and research programmes. This was disclosed by the Kurukshetra University Vice-Chancellor, Dr A.K. Chawla, at a press conference held here last evening.

According to the MoU, students of post-graduate classes will study for one year in Kurukshetra University and one year in De Montford University. A joint degree will be awarded after the completion of the course. A postgraduate diploma in Indian Culture will also be introduced for NRI students in Kurukshetra University from the next academic session. Staff exchange programme will be another salient feature of the MoU.

Pronouncing the orders, the Judge also modified the conditions before ruling that the petitioner would not leave the state of Haryana without court’s prior permission. He would also ensure attendance during the hearing of criminal case against him. Nain would also report to Superintendent of Police concerned every month to inform about his monthly activities.

The Judge added that the petitioner would also be at liberty to attend public gatherings or meetings. This would be subject to the condition that he would ensure that neither he nor his workers would disrupt public peace or cause any law and order problem.

Rohtak, March 9
The All-India Federation of University and College Teachers’ Organisations (AIFUCTO) has asked the Prime Minister to fulfil his promise of allocating 2 per cent of the GDP to higher education, research and development.

Dr Vazir Singh Nehra, President of the Maharshi Dayanand University Teachers Association (MDUTA) said here yesterday that the AIFUCTO had estimated that the country would need 1.5 lakh crore over the next 10 years to achieve total literacy and proper schooling. Dr Nehra was a member of AIFUCTO delegation which called on the Prime Minister on Friday.

He said the delegation pointed out that the rules under the career advancement schemes for university and college teachers were not uniform. The University Grants Commission and the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development had worked out modalities for implementing the same but later the scheme was withdrawn at the college level. The delegation demanded its restoration.

Hisar, March 9
Guru Jambheshwar University today announced that the Common Engineering Entrance Test (CEET) in the state for the session-2004 for Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra, and other engineering colleges in Haryana would be held on June 13.

The test would be held in Delhi, Chandigarh, Ambala, Bhiwani, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Hisar, Panchkula, Rewari, Rohtak, Sirsa, Murthal and Yamuna Nagar, a university spokesperson said.

Fatehabad, March 9
Mr P.K. Das, Commissioner, Hisar Division, today said the purpose of education was not merely the development of individual but the development of society. Mr Das was delivering convocation address at the local Manohar Memorial College. Mr Subhash Sharma, Principal of Dayanand College, Hisar, Mr Dev Raj Batra, president of the college management committee, and several other dignitories of the area were present on this occasion.

Mr Das said the sense of community that was pervasive among the students of a college permeates society. He expressed the hope that the students of the college would take with them a sense of community, traditions and values that learnt at the college.

Rohtak, March 9
An 80- year old man was killed when he was allegedly hit with a lathi by a 75-year-old by a fellow villager at Pakasma village under Sampla police jurisdiction in Rohtak district, about 20 km from here, yesterday, the police said today.

The deceased has been identified as Pale Ram.

Pale Ram had an altercation with the assailant over a trivial issue involving children from their families, the police said .

Karnal, March 9
Two brothers died in a road accident late last night near Gharaunda, 20 km from here.

Police sources said the brothers — Vikram and Rajendra — were on a motor cycle when a tractor- trailer hit them. They died on the spot.

The post-morterm was conducted at the Civil Hospital here today. Later, the bodies were handed over to family members of the deceased.