EDUCATION

Rodrigues asks medics to reach out to poor
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 21
The Punjab Governor, General S.F. Rodrigues, today asked medical professionals to reach out to the poor and in particular make available diagnostic and therapeutic facilities to the weaker sections of society.

Delivering his address at the annual convocation and prize distribution function of Christian Medical College and College of Nursing here today, he said the medical fraternity needed to go that extra mile to take the poor, the dispossessed and the ailing people along in order to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

“What is really required is better focus and consideration for the poor masses, who cannot afford expensive diagnostic tests and costly medical treatment of diseases. If no steps are taken to empower over 260 million ‘below poverty line’ people, the slogans of emerging India and resurgent Punjab sound hollow and meaningless.”

Stressing the need for concerted efforts by society and particularly the medical professionals to root out the social menace of female foeticide, General Rodrigues announced that the government would soon come out with a comprehensive plan to tackle the practice. “While prevailing upon the Medical Council of India to formulate some kind of self regulatory mechanism for medical fraternity, we shall evolve a system of information, reward and motivation to rid society of this evil.”

Commenting on the overall progress made by the country after Independence in 1947, he said whatever the nation had achieved, it was against heavy odds. After freedom from the British rule the country had no pattern, no guidelines, nothing to follow but with sheer grit, determination and untiring efforts, as a people, as a nation, India had come of age and the entire world had started taking note of the Indians. Making a special mention of the CMC, he said the struggle that its founder Edith Brown had to make was beyond comprehension. But she must have been extremely happy to see the institution flourishing, caring, sharing and reaching out to help the ailing humanity, when she passed on the baton to those who followed her at the helm of affairs.

In a word of advice to the fresh medical and nursing graduates, General Rodrigues observed that while entering their respective vocations, they must understand that they were no longer masters of their destiny. “You are virtually starting a new life in which you are in a position to give, and help people in distress.”

The function commenced with invocation by students, opening prayer by Reverend John Mull and welcome address by Dr Silas Charles. Principal of the CMC, Dr Mohan Verghese, administered the Hippocratic oath to the medical and nursing graduates and degrees were conferred upon 60 medical and 65 nursing graduates by Dr Verghese and Ms Penamma Ranadive, Principal of the nursing college, respectively.

Dr Manmohan Singh, president, Punjab Medical Council, who was the guest of honour, presented different academic and other awards and merit certificates to the students.

The alumni life time achievement award for the year was presented to Dr Molly Paul, presently heading the anatomy department. Ms Ankita Goyal received Dr Ajit Bhattacharya Memorial Gold Medal for securing highest marks in all professional MBBS examinations combined together. The outstanding student award was bagged by Naveen Thomas Mathew while the second Dr Jaswant Kaur Memorial Award went to Dr Surbhi Wig.

Delay in issuing date sheet resented
Shivani Bhakoo

Ludhiana, March 21
Uncertainty prevails among undergraduate students of various local colleges because of the delayed date sheet. Many of these Arts-stream students are finding difficulty in preparing for examinations and feel that the date sheet could have been issued at least a month in advance.

The B.A. III examinations are commencing from April 1 and would continue till May. Some of these students, having consecutive exams were finding difficulty in preparing for subjects, which had no holiday in-between. Ms Nidhi, a B.A. III student of Government College for Women, said exams of Functional English B, Elective English B and Psychology B were on April 26, 27 and 28, respectively. “English papers are easy and we can prepare it even if we are not given a break but at least a day should have been given for preparing the Psychology paper”, Nidhi says.

Jaskanwal, another third year student, said they came to know about exams just 15 days ago. Since colleges were going on, students came with their problems and queries. “But now we have stopped going to college and prepare for exams while sitting at home,” she added.

From Colleges
Students given warm send-off
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 21
Students of M.Com I of Postgraduate Department of Commerce, Arya College, gave a farewell to their seniors last night. The function was held in the college auditorium. Niti and Sarabjeet compered the show. Cultural items were presented by the students. Honey and Jaswinder choreographed one of the cultural items.

The Principal of the college, Dr S. M. Sharma, told the M.Com II students that they should aim high in life only then they could achieve their goals.

The Head of Postgraduate Department of Commerce, Prof H. R. Saini, congratulated the students for organising such a grand show.

Miss graceful, Dipti Pahwa; best allrounder, Priya Sharma; Mr popular, Ankush Bansal; Miss farewell runners-up, Harshimran Kaur; Miss farewell, Nidhi Takkar; and Mr farewell, Ankush Bansal, were honoured at the function. The evening ended with a giddha presented by the students.

PCTE felicitates students: Punjab College of Technical Education (PCTE) held a prize-distribution function on the college campus here recently to honour its meritorious students. More than 50 students were awarded certificates of merit and mementos for excelling in university examinations.

Congratulating the students, Dr K. N. S. Kang, Director, PCTE, said, “The PCTE students have bagged eight gold medals out of 11 declared so far in the university examinations since the inception of the college in 1999. There are 52 management institutes under Punjab Technical University. Eleven gold medals have been given by the university so far, out of which eight have been bagged by PCTE students.”

He said the students of the PCTE secured 11 first positions in examinations held in December, 2003, and May, 2004.

Shilpa Singhania, Pardeep and Munish Dhawan were felicitated for bagging first, second and third positions, respectively, in MBA (first semester), Abha Bajaj for securing first position in MBA (third semester), Maneet for bagging first position in MCA (first semester), Manpreet Makkar for getting second position in MCA (third semester), Gagandeep Singh for bagging second position in MCA (fifth semester), Depikai for first position in BBA (fifth semester), Sunny Bansal for first position in BCA (fifth semester), Gurjot Kaur for first position in BCA III and Shilpa for first position in BCA (first semester).

Wg.Cdr H. S. Gill, Chairman, Punjab Management Education Trust, inaugurated the function. He congratulated everybody and wished good luck to the students. 

300 students get degrees
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 21
The annual convocation of Gujranwala Guru Nanak Khalsa College was held here today in which about 300 students were awarded degrees in the faculties of arts, commerce and science. In his address, Dr L.S .Chawla, an old student of the college and founder Vice-Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences stressed the need for inculcating scientific temper.

He exhorted the students to strive for excellence. Dr Gurpreet Singh Wander, Chief Cardiologist, Hero DMC, was the guest of honour. Twelve students were awarded medals for their creditable achievements in academics. Principal Gurdip Singh read out the report in which he highlighted the multi-faceted achievements of the college.

KVM school to come up in Chandigarh
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 21
The trustees of Kundan Lal Trust, Ludhiana, along with a distinguished gathering performed ‘bhoomi poojan’ of their school in Sector 46, Chandigarh, today. The trust has been allotted 5.32 acre by the Chandigarh Administration for starting a high school.

The trust has been running Kundan Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School in Ludhiana for the past many years.

The Kundan Lal Trust was established in 1950 by the late Rai Sahib Kundan Lal, a prominent industrialist, educationist and philanthropist of Ludhiana. The president of the trust said in a press note that the school would be completed by December 2005.

Hamara School
Girls school aims at quality education

Late Ishwar Dass Ahluwalia and Mr Raghu Nath Dass Aggarwal under the aegis of Arya Samaj, Khanna, started Hindi Putri Pathshala on August 15, 1949, with one pupil and one teacher, Ms Leela Vati Bansal.

Ever since its inception, the school has climbed the ladder of progress and upgraded to senior secondary with 1,200 students and 48 teachers. The school has been running under the control of DAV College managing Committee, New Delhi, since 1983.

The school offers science, commerce and humanities streams. To benefit the students, home science, fine arts, drawing and painting, music and computer education has been introduced. To inculcate reading habits among students, the school has set up a good library with more than 10,000 books, journals, newspapers and audio-visual facilities.

Ms Saroj Kundra, a former Principal, is now the manager and adviser. She took the reins of the school in 1968.

Principalspeak
We involve students in every activity 

The officiating Principal, Ms Usha Verma, says the school aims at imparting quality education. She has 32 years of experience. Under her guidance volunteers have carried out many social projects such as pulse polio, road safety awareness, peace awareness and jan chetna marches. She says: “I involve students in every activity so as to uplift the standard of school in every field.”

The school has produced a good number of players of table tennis, badminton and gymnastics. With the help of parents it is doing its best to mould students into right thinking citizens.

COURTS

Tax lawyers discuss VAT
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, March 21
The Tax Lawyers Forum conducted a special meeting today to discuss implementation of the value added tax (VAT) from April 1. Mr Vijay Bajaj, member of the forum, said despite only 10 days left for the due date, the state government had not come out with the VAT Act. “This has caused tremendous confusion among lawyers and traders as they are not aware of the provisions in detail,” said Mr Bajaj.

The forum also pointed out that several traders were yet to be issued tax payers’ identification numbers (TIN).

“All vehicles carrying goods, passing through various barriers of the state, will have to disclose TIN number at the information collection centre from April 1 onwards,” said Mr Jatinder Khurana. He said several traders who were issued sales tax numbers a few months ago have not received TIN numbers despite having submitted fact sheets to the department. “Such traders would not be able to get new bill books printed which they would be required to do under the new provisions,” he said.

The forum members also said the government was yet to issue the proforma of the bill book under the VAT rules. They also demanded that the government should remove “discriminatory provisions against advocates”.