R E G I O N A L   B R I E F S

PUNJAB

Abohar
INJURED: Two motorcyclists and a rickshaw-puller were injured when a car hit their vehicles on the college road here on Wednesday night. The injured included Ranbir Singh of Nai Abadi, Vijay Kumar of Subhash Nagar and Deepak of Ramdev Nagar. They alleged that the driver of the car was rashly driving. A case has been registered.

Amritsar
ARRESTED: The local police has arrested Rajpal, alias Bunty, a resident of Bharat Nagar and seized 1,100 pirated CDs, including pornographic CDs and a duplicate CD machine. This was stated by Mr R.P.S. Brar, SSP, on Wednesday. A case has been registered.

URGED: Members of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have urged the residents of the holy city to celebrate festival season by shunning non-vegetarian food. They have engaged Bollywood star, Mahima Chaudhary, for their campaign.

Barnala
THEFT: Unidentified persons burgled a house of Mr Surinder Singh situated at 22 acre scheme here on Monday. They took away one revolver, 80 grams of gold and two cameras. A case has been registered.

Gurdaspur
ARRESTED: The Sujanpur police has arrested Dharminder Singh, a shopkeeper, on the charges of smuggling of charas. It seized 250 gm of charas from his possession at a naka when he was trying to smuggle it from Damtal area in Himachal Pradesh. A case under the NDPS Act has been registered.

Jalandhar
YOUTH FESTIVAL: As many as 75 girls and boys from various colleges of the city will take part in the 10th National Youth Festival to be held at Hyderabad from January 12 next year. The festival is being organised by the Department of Youth Services and Sports.

ARRESTED: The local police arrested Madan Lal (60) for allegedly killing his wife, Shindo (54) at Kot Satik village on Wednesday. Matrimonial dispute is said to be the cause of the incident. A case has been registered.

Nawanshahr
DESTROYED: Mr Paramjit Singh Saroa, DIG, Jalandhar range, burnt the 58.52 quintals of poppy husk, which was recovered by various police stations, at CIA police premises here on Wednesday. Mr Gurdev Singh, Mr Amarjit Singh, both SPs, Mr Navjot Singh Mahil, DSP and Mr Surinder Pal Singh, SHO, were present on the occasion.

ARRESTED: The local police has arrested three persons—Sukhwinder Singh of Bheen, Jallaudin Khan of Bhootan and Jasbir Kumar of Kariha village and recovered a stolen motor cycle from their possession here at a naka. This was stated by DSP, Mr Navjot Singh Mahil.

PATIALA
AWARD: Dr Rajesh Kumar Bawa of the Department of Computer Science, Punjabi University, received the best paper award for his research paper “A parallel computational method for self-adjoint singular perturbation problems”. The Paper was presented by him at the Asia-Pacific Conference at the Vellore Institute of Technology, Tamil Nadu. He co-authored the paper with D.S. Natesan of the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.

INVITED: Dr Neelam Verma, a reader at the Department of Biotechnology, Punjabi University, Patiala, has been invited for oral presentation of paper on packed bad reactor for continuous monitoring and bio-scavenging of nickel at Pittcon Conference-2005, Orlando (Florida), to be held between February 27 and March 4, 2005. Ms Simmi Goel, SRF (CSIR), New Delhi is the co-author of the paper.

SEMINAR: The Patiala study circle, of the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Samithi and the National Theatre Arts Society (NTAS) organised seminar on “Art for art sake or art for human service” at Sai Dham here. According to Dr Mahesh Gautam, convener of the seminar, prominent scholars and art lovers, including Dr S.S. Joshi, Dr H.C. Rajpal, Dr R.N. Trikha and Mr Mahesh Patialvi, addressed the participants. In the afternoon session, Sri Sathya Sai Seva Samithi, Patiala, honoured the chief guest, Mr Vijay Kumar Chopra, Editor-in-Chief Hind of the Samachar Group of newspapers.

DISTRIBUTED: Aid for suffering humanity, a voluntary organisation of the Government Bikram College of Commerce, distributed blankets to poor people here. Manjot Singh Dullat ,vice-president, Amarjot Dhaliwal, secretary and Prof P.S. Rekhi distributed the blankets on behalf of the organisation. 

Phagwara
PROGRAMME: A two-day safety training programme in textile and general engineering industries concluded under the guidance of Mr Som Parkash, Labour Commissioner-cum-Director of Factories, Punjab, here on Wednesday. The training programme was conducted on the premises of JCT Limited. About 75 participants from various factories attended it. Mr J.C. Sodhi, General Manager, (L&R), JCT Limited, was the chief guest at the valedictory function.

INJURED: Ten persons were injured in an accident on the G.T. Road near Jamalpur village on the Phagwara-Ludhiana section on Wednesday night. Because of poor visibility due to fog several vehicles hit each other. The local police and highway patrolling police reach the spot and restored the traffic. Injured were given first aid.

Samana
ARRESTED: Mr G.S. Bedi, Deputy Superintendent of Police, has arrested B.S. Dhillon, Manager, Agricultural Development Bank, Patran branch, while taking a bribe of Rs 2,500 from a farmer of Sagra village in lieu of sanctioning him a loan of Rs 1,12,000 for the purchase of buffaloes.

SEIZED: The local CIA staff seized 86 bags of poppy husk from a truck at a naka near Rattanheri village, Mr Jaspreet Singh, Deputy Superintendent of Police, said here on Thursday. The driver of the truck, Sukhwinder Singh and cleaner, Jagtar Singh has been arrested in this connection.

Sangrur
PASSED: Five students of the local General Gurnam Singh Public School have cleared a state-level National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) which was conducted by the National Council of Education Research and Training. This was stated by Ms Raveen Pandey, Principal of the school, here on Wednesday.

HARYANA

Hisar
FUNCTION: The Vedic Parivarik Satsang Sabha here organised a two-day annual function, which was preceded by a three-day-long Vedic discourse session. This was stated by Mr Umesh Yadav, a spokesperson for the sabha, here on Wednesday.

AUTHORISED: As many as 73 colonies of Hisar, Hansi, Barwala and Narnaund are among the 1,054 colonies which have been authorised by the Haryana Government. According to an official press note issued here on Wednesday, the newly authorised colonies include 32 in Hisar, 28 in Hansi, five in Barwala and eight in Narnaund.

Karnal
WORKSHOP: Government Postgraduate College is organising a five-day literary workshop from Sunday on the college premises. The workshop is being sponsored by Kurukshetra University. Dr R.S. Sharma, Principal of the college in a press release said, Dr A.K. Chawla, Vice-Chancellor, KU, will inaugurate the workshop while Mr V.N. Rai, IGP, Haryana Armed Police will preside over the function and Dr Anoop Lather, Director, Youth and Cultural Affairs, KU, will be the guest of honour.

Rewari
CARNIVAL: As many as 600 children participated in the Christmas carnival held at Buniyad playway school here on Sunday. The Union Minister of State for External Affairs, Rao Inderjit Singh, who was the chief guest, distributed prizes among children while noted educationist Ram Lal Sachdeva presided over the function.

Sonepat
KILLED: One person was killed when a vehicle hit him on the Kharkhauda-Khanda road, about 25 km from here, on Wednesday night. The victim was identified as Balu Mehtab (30), a resident of Chhoti Rani, Bihar. A case has been registered.

ARRESTED: The local police has arrested two shopkeepers, Gagan Dhingra of Geeta Colony and Ravinder Gupta of Gur Mandi, on the charge of selling fake goods at their shops in Ashok Nagar.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

Bilaspur
URGED: The Elder Citizens’ Association, a social organisation of retired officers and employees, has urged the Himachal Government to set up a regular machinery for settling various difficulties being faced by this category by forming a state-level “Pensioners’ Coordination and Advisery Committee” under the chairmanship of Chief Minister so that its meeting is held regularly and problems are solved at the highest level.

NOTIFICATION: The District Magistrate-cum-Deputy Commissioner, has issued a notification ordering all persons who have come from outside Bilaspur district to earn their livelihood, to get themselves registered at the nearest police station.

Hamirpur
DEMONSTRATION: Employees of the Life Insurance Corporation posted here held at demonstration and raised slogans in support of their various demands. They have been demanding wage revision, which has become over due. They decided to hold the demonstration on December 29 and January, 3, 2005, if their demands were not met the then, according to Harnam Singh Verma, a spokesman for the employees.