R E G I O N A L   B R I E F S

PUNJAB

Abohar
INAUGURATED: Mr Gian Parkash Chopra, president, DAV Managing Committee, inaugurated the Charan Dass Ahuja Memorial Postgraduate Block at DAV College here on Thursday. The block, built at a cost of Rs 35 lakh, has six classrooms, four rooms for heads of the department, a spacious seminar hall and faculty rooms. Mr Rajneesh Ahuja, president of the Alumni Association, had contributed Rs 10 lakh for the construction of the block.

Amritsar
URGED: The Citizen’s Welfare Association urged the government that the Punjab Police Service (PPS) officers should be given the right to be selected as Senior Superintendents of Police keeping in view the sacrifices made by them during militancy in Punjab. Mr Bharat Bhushan Sharma, president of the association, said this would keep their morale high.

DECLARED: Canada had declared September 1 as a day of homage to the Montreal Sikh community on the occasion of the quadricentennial celebrations of Guru Granth Sahib. Mr Michel Bissonet, President National Assembly, Quebec, Mr Gerald Tremblay, Montreal Mayor, and Mr Pierre Bourque, leader of the Opposition, Montreal, had recognised the contribution of the Sikhs in Quebac, stated a press release of the SGPC here on Friday.

Barnala
OPEN HOUSE SESSION: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), organised an open house session in the telephone exchange here, on Friday. It was presided over by Mr Labh Singh, GMT, Sangrur. He highlighted various facilities offered by the BSNL to subscribers.

Bathinda
PROTEST: Anganwari workers and helpers of various blocks of the district held a rally in front of the office of the Deputy Commissioner here on Friday in protest against the non-implementation of their demands by the state government. Ms Hargobind Kaur, president of the Anganwari Employees’ Union, addressed the rally.

ORGANISED: A farmers’ meet was organised by the State Bank of India (SBI), Kot Shamir branch, Kaile Bandar village, here on Friday. Mr Gurbachan Singh, field officer of the bank, advised the farmers to cultivate more productive crops for which the bank would provide finance at normal rates of interest. Mr R.R. Chappa, Branch Manager, said the farmers should maintain good track of repayments of their loans to increase their credit worthiness.

YOGA LESSONS: Celebrated yoga guru Swami Ram Dev on Saturday taught different yoga asanas to students of the local Mahant Gurbanta Dass School of Deaf and Dumb to help them develop hearing capacities. Swami Ram Dev, who was accompanied by Deputy Commissioner K.A.P. Sinha, made the students perform asanas in front of him.

PLAN TO GHERAO UMA: The Shiromani Akali Dal (A) workers would gherao Ms Uma Bharti, former Chief Minister, Madhya Pradesh, when she entered Punjab during her "Tiranga" yatra. This was stated in a pressnote issued here on Saturday by Mr Birinder Singh Mann and Mr Gursewak Singh Jawaharke, presidents of Bathinda and Mansa district units of the party.

DERA BASSI
BLOOD CAMP: More than 70 persons donated blood at the 14th blood camp organised by the Dera Bassi unit of the Bharat Vikas Parishad at Pt Kesho Ram Vyas Bharat Vikas Parishad Bhavan, here today.

Hoshiarpur
ARRESTED: The Hariana police has registered a case under Section 306 of the IPC against Lakhwinder Kaur and Harmit Singh of Lambe village and Dalip Singh and Daljeet Kaur of Harsipind village, on the complaint of Jeeto, who had allegedly accused them of forcing her son Ram Singh to commit suicide. According to police sources, Lakhwinder Kaur, wife of Ram Singh, had illicit relations with Harmit Singh and was living with her parents. When Ram Singh went to bring her back, the accused beat him up due to which he committed suicide by consuming poison, the sources said.

CASE REGISTERED: The police has registered two cases against colonisers, Hari Chand, son of Chandu Ram of Hoshiarpur, and Inderpal Kaur, Satpal Singh and Jagdeep of Hardo Khanpur, under Section 36 of the Punjab Apartment and Property Regulation Act 1995 on the complaint of the Additional Administrator of PUDA, who had alleged that the accused constructed unauthorised colonies.

FAKE CERTIFICATE: The police has registered a case under Section 420 of the IPC against Charan Dass, son of Ganga Ram of Phuglana village, for allegedly producing fake matriculation certificate before the District Collector, Hoshiarpur. The accused was appointed as village Nambardar in September, 2002 and he presented a fake certificate of Panjab University, Chandigarh, at the time of his appointment.

INAUGURATED: Deputy Commissioner Kirandeep Singh Bhullar inaugurated a branch of ICICI bank here on Friday. The branch will offer an entire range of ICICI bank products and its technology-oriented services, including phone banking and net banking, to its customers in the city. With this launch, ICICI bank has 16 branches and extension counters in Punjab.

MURDERED: Ajit Singh, son of Ramesh Lal of Gahlowal village, was allegedly murdered by his brother-in-law, Subhash Lal of Mansoorpur, on Friday. Subhash, who came to meet Ajit took him to Datarpur road where he killed him with a sickle. The police has recovered the sickle and arrested the accused.

SUSPENDED: A special team, constituted to check female foeticide, raided ultrasound scan centres of Mukerian on Friday and suspended registration of Dogra Scan Centre for 15 days. According to Mr Subhash Kalia, district mass media and information officer, the owner of the centre failed to produce his qualification degree to the members of the team.

Ludhiana
Honoured: Mr Manjit Rai Bhardwaj, who covered the entire country on foot spreading the message of brotherhood, peace, national integration, was honoured at a small function at Hotel Aakarshit in Ludhiana. Mr Rattan Lal Pambi, general secretary, All-India Senior Citizens Society, Mohammed Naseem Ansari, Nirdosh Bhardwaj, Monika Mittal also attended the function.

Lecture: The BBA Department of Khalsa College for Women organised a lecture by Dr Dev Raj Vij, former Principal of Government College, Jalandhar, on “Towards a Glorious Future”. Prizes were distributed for the intra-department college competition. The results : Manpreet Grewal(IT revolution) 1, Ashima and Vidushi (business topguns)2, Neha Sharma (India’s highest paid executives).

Aquaguard models: Eureka Forbes has launched new models of Aquaguard. The new models are based on e-boiling technique and are certified by the Indian Medical Association. This was informed by Mr Satish Raina, divisional sales manager, Dholewal, thorough a press note on Saturday.

Nawanshahr
PROTEST: Students under the aegis of the Sanjha Vidhyarthi Front (SVF) organised rallies and burnt the effigies of Transport Minister Mohinder Singh Kaypee at ITI and Government College, Pojewal, here on Friday in protest against the alleged callous attitude of private bus operators towards the student community. Karam Singh and Rupinder Laddi, state executive members of the Punjab Students Union, among others addressed the rallies.

ORGANISED: The local D.A.N. College of Education organised a poster making and slogan writing competition to mark a World Literacy Day on the college campus on Thursday. Dr Dev Ichha Shekhar, Principal, presided over. Anukampa, Swati and Supinder Kaur bagged the first three positions, respectively, in the poster making competition. In the slogan writing competition, Jiwan and Paramjit stood first, Seema Tiwari and Jaspreet Kaur bagged the second prize while Parminder Kaur won the third prize.

Pathankot
MEDICAL CAMP: A three-day free eye camp concluded here on Saturday. Mr Prem Mastana, Chairman of the Manav Kalyan Samiti, said more than 100 operations of cataract were performed at the camp. Medicines, food and spectacles were given free of cost to patients.

SAPLINGS PLANTED: A sapling plantation function was organised by the Lions Club (greater) at Kuthair village on Saturday. Mr Balbir Mahajan, project chairman, said 75 saplings were planted.

CHANDIGARH

SENIOR CITIZENS: A cultural event was organised by Chandigarh Senior Citizens Association to celebrate the Senior Citizens Day, October 1, 2004. It was held at an auditorium of Art Gallery, Sector 10 today. Skits, ghazals, songs and poetry were part of the cultural programme. 71 year old Arjan Singh, a vocalist and instrumentalist commenced the programme.

Mohali
TEACHERS DAY: The Lions Club here celebrated teachers day at the Saint Soldiers International Convent School here on Friday. Ten teachers from various school were honoured on the occasion. Three teachers, Mr Baljit Singh, Mrs Anjali Sharma and Ms Bhavna Pandit from the host school were also honoured.

BLOOD CAMP: A blood donation camp would be organised on Sunday by the Sant Nirankari Mandal, Mohali, at the Sant Nirankari Satsang Bhawan, Phase VI.

CONSUMERS DEMAND: The Consumers Protection Forum here has demanded the scrapping of the rule on biding at the minimum sanctioned power load.

Forum president, P.S. Virdi, said that the consumers had been facing power cuts for more than three months. They could not take benefit of the sanctioned load but were required to pay the minimum charges. This amounted to injustice to consumers. He added the residents had been facing an acute shortage of water for months. The department concerned expressed inability to ensure a better supply due to power cuts. He demanded power supply “hot line” for the water supply network.

Panchkula
WOMAN BITTEN BY SNAKE: A 19-year-old pregnant woman, Manju, was bitten by a snake at her residence in Ramgarh, while she was asleep. She saw the snake in her room, and called her family members for help. She was taken to General Hospital, here and is stated to be out of danger.

BOOKED: The police has booked four residents of Khatauli village for harassing Ms Neeraj Sharma for bringing insufficient dowry. The police has booked the husband of the complainant, Mukesh Kumar, his father Dharam Pal, mother Santosh and brother Rajesh Kumar.

FOUR ARRESTED: The police has arrested four persons in two separate incidents on charges of consuming liquor at a public place. While Bachna Ram and Rambir were arrested from Rampur Seroi village while Amrik Singh and Jagir Singh were arrested from the Nadda Sahib bus stand.

ONE ARRESTED: The police arrested Ranjit Singh from near Municipal Committee building in Kalka on charges of speculation and recovered Rs 570 from him.

HARYANA

AMBALA
FIVE STUDENTS TOP: Students of Hartorn Works Station, Ambala City won top five positions in the PGDCA examination of Kurukshetra University. A function was organised in the Works Station to honour the students. Director of the Naveta topped in the university securing 492/600 marks and Jiyotsna stood second, Geshu achieved third position, Neelam remained fourth and Savita got fifth position in the university. In the B.Sc. (Hardware) examination the students of this institution secured three top positions.

Hisar
PROTEST: Students of the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) took out a protest march and submitted a memorandum in support of their demands, which included regular bus service to the ITI, to the General Manager of the Haryana Roadways.

Jhajjar
RESOLVED: Eight out of total 11 complaints were resolved in the monthly meeting of the District Public Relations and the Grievances Committee held here on Saturday. The Deputy Commissioner, Mr Mohinder Kumar, presided over the meeting. The Deputy Commissioner said the special drive launched for the recovery of house tax arrears in Bahadurgarh had been successful as Rs 85.66 lakh had been recovered.

Jind
CONG MEETING: Mr Bhupinder Singh Hooda, former chief of the Haryana Pradesh Congress and Member of Parliament, said here on Saturday the Chautala government had committed excesses on farmers in Jind district. Therefore, the Congress had started its election campaign from the district by organising a public meeting at Nagura village here. he said while Mr Chautala failed to fulfil poll promises made earlier he was making more of them with an eye on the forthcoming Assembly elections.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

Chamba
OPPOSED: The Himachal Government Teachers Union (HGTU) has opposed the proposed move of the state government to appoint officers of the Himachal Administrative Services (HAS) on the posts of Director of Education and Joint Director. In a press release issued here on Friday, Mr Ramesh Sharma, district president of the association, urged the government to fill these posts through promotions of the teachers.

CONDEMNED: The Himachal Government Teachers Union has condemned the proposed move of the state government to appoint officers of the HAS on the posts of Director of Education and Joint Director. It has urged the government to fill these posts through promotions from the school cadre of the Education Department as usual.

Dharamsala
MEETING: The Welfare Committee of Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha will arrive at Dharamsala on a two-day tour of Kangra district from September 18. During its stay, the committee will meet district-level officers and discuss welfare schemes being implemented by various departments.

APPLICATION FORMS: The Rashtriya Indian Military College, Dehra Dun, has extended its date of submission of forms till September 30. An All-India Entrance Examination will be conducted at scheduled centres on December 1 and 2, a spokesman of the college said.

Kulu
FREE CAMP HELD: A three-day-long free medical camp for physically challenged persons was inaugurated by Additional Deputy Commissioner H.R. Chauhan at Gurdwara Shri Singh Sabha, Akahara Bazar, here, on Friday. The camp was organised by the Bharat Vikas Parishad under the aegis of the Regional Centre for the Rehabilitation of Handicapped and Awareness institute, Sundernagar and with the cooperation of the District Red Cross Society, departments of social welfare and health here.

Kumarhatti
RECOVERED: The Dharampur police has recovered low-tension power cables and aluminium wire worth Rs 40,000 from a Swaraj Mazda Canter on the Kalka-Shimla national highway here on Thursday. The material appeared to be stolen from the HP Electricity Board office somewhere around Shimla, the police said. The driver, Hassan Ali, has been arrested.

Nahan
BODY FOUND: The Paonta police has recovered a body near the Chibru Dam from Tons river. The deceased has been identified as Mithan Singh, son of Michu of Ram Dara village. According to a report, he fell into the river while collecting fodder.

Sundernagar
SENTENCED: Mr J.L. Gupta, Sessions Judge, Mandi Division, has convicted Krishan Kumar of Barnota, Kotli, for possessing 400 gm of charas and sentenced him to rigorous imprisonment for three years and imposed a fine of Rs 30,000 under Section 20 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.