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Forest Dept objects to Nayagaon NAC
Mohali, November 11 Highly placed sources in the Forest Department today said the objections to the proposed NAC were submitted following the notification issued by the Department of Local Bodies inviting objections to the formation of the said NAC. Sources added since these were Central Government Acts, it would be virtually impossible for the state to circumvent these and go ahead with the formation of the NAC without inviting serious administrative and legal problems. The government proposes to include land of Karoran (Choti and Baddi Karoran), Nadha village and Kansal villages in the civic body under Section 4 Punjab Municipal Act, 1911. The objections sent by the District Forest Officer, Ropar, to the Department of Local Bodies state while Nadha and Nayagaon villages fall within the area notified under these Acts, Kansal village is free of these restrictions. “Despite the fact that the land is owned privately, no forest land can be diverted for non-forestry purpose without prior approval of the Government of India,” state the objections. Quoting a judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the Forest Hill Resort case, dated October 12, 2004, that the land notified under the Punjab Land Preservation Act, 1900, attracts provisions of the Indian Forest Conservation Act, 1980, amended in 1988, the DFO added that the department should take requisite permission for the formation of the NAC from the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. The DFO also mentioned that the decision of the Punjab and High Court had been strongly reiterated by the Supreme Court in its judgment dated December 12, 1996, in CWP 202, 1995. Sources said the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Punjab, Mr A.S. Dogra, had also recently, in an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court, repeated these objections. The PCCF had been asked to file a reply in the apex court following a special leave petition by owners of the Forest Hill Resort against the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgment. While the Principal Secretary, Local Government, Mr B.R. Bajaj, could not be contacted despite repeated attempts, sources in the department put up a brave face stating they were working out means to set straight various bottlenecks involved in the declaration of the NAC. Admitting that the process of the formation of the NAC had been delayed, if not derailed, completely, the sources said the department was thinking of writing to the Ministry of Environment asking for “exemption” from these Acts or going ahead with “partial” declaration of the NAC, including only those portions of the land that were not locked under these Acts.
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Death came on hitched ride
Lalru, November 11 The driver of the mini bus, Kulwant Singh of Jastan village in Patiala, also sustained serious injuries in the mishap as both his legs were broken in the accident. He was later shifted to the PGI in Chandigarh. The police has registered a case of causing death due to rash and negligent driving against the bus driver. According to eyewitnesses, the accident took place at around 4:25 am near the J.C. Coach Factory when the vehicles collided headon while overtaking another vehicle. The impact was so powerful that the Qualis (HR-02-C-3136) was completely crushed. It was after a lot of efforts that the rescue teams managed to extract bodies out of the mangled remains of the jeep. Police sources said that the jeep was coming from Delhi and was on its way to Mohali. The jeep was loaded with decoration glass sheets in the rear, to be supplied to a temple in Mohali. Due to the impact the glass sheets caused serious damage to Qualis passengers especially those at the back as the big shards of glass ripped through the seats and pierced the bodies of the victims. The police later shifted the bodies to the Civil Hospital in Rajpura. The police said the victims were identified as Pritishpal Singh (20) of Rohni, Bhim Sen (40) of Karol Bagh and Rajesh Kumar (31) of Shalimar Bagh, all hailing from Delhi and Yogesh Kumar of Rewari in Haryana. Pritishpal Singh, a fifth semester student of computer engineering at the college, had reportedly hitched a lift from the Qualis occupants near Delhi bypass. As soon as the news of his death reached the college, the chairman of the college, Mr Satnam Singh Sandhu, closed the college for the day to mourn the untimely death of their student. Pritishpal was identified through the missed calls on his mobile phone. When the police called on those numbers his friends talked to the police and also informed his parents. Quoting his parents, the police sources said Pritishpal had been visiting his parents and were on a tour with them. They came back to Delhi only last night. As Pritishpal had his examination at Landran he did not go to their residence in Delhi, but hitched a lift from near Delhi bypass from the Qualis. In a condolence meeting held in the college, Dr G. D. Bansal, Principal, said Pritishpal Singh was a brilliant student. Destiny had cut short the promising carrier of young student. The management, staff and students of the college prayed for the peace to the departed soul and strength to the bereaved family to bear this unbearable loss.
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Panchayat locks ‘teacherless’ school
Panchkula, November 11 Villagers are now taking an agitational recourse over the unavailability of teachers in schools. Aggrieved that their demand for filling vacancies of teachers in Government Middle School, Bhoj Palasra in Morni block, being not met, the village panchayat yesterday locked the school saying there was no need for a school without teachers. For the past one month, the only teacher deployed at the school had been on election duty and no classes were being held. Irked over lack of any positive response from the Education Department, the village panchayat decided to lock the school. Education officials today rushed to the spot and deputed two teachers on temporary basis. Senior officials of the Education Department said rationalisation of staff was being done all over the state by the department. “Till new staff members are deputed for this school, we will run it with the staff on deputation,” they said. The vacancies include 33 posts of science teacher, 15 posts of DPE, 14 posts each of Sanskrit and social science teachers and 10 posts of Sanskrit teachers, among others, in government high and middle schools. Thirtyeight posts of lecturer in government senior secondary schools of the district are lying vacant, with six posts each in history and political science; five in economics and four each in geography and chemistry. The authorities say the shortage of teachers and lecturers in various government schools in the district and the inability to rationalise teaching staff is responsible for the dismal performance of students in the examinations conducted by the Board of School Education, Haryana. The pass percentage of schools in rural areas is just around 50. Officials in the Education Department say 30 per cent of posts of school teacher/lecturer/physical
Interestingly, most schools located in Panchkula and even in its semi-urban peripheral towns of Pinjore, Kalka and Barwala have almost no vacancies. The maximum vacancies are in the schools located in far-flung villages of Morni, Barwala and Raipur Rani blocks. Officials concede that course curricula for certain subjects has not even been started in certain schools because of shortage of staff. A number of middle schools in the district are functioning with just one teacher. They, however, maintained that the staff has been rationalised as far as possible with staff from the towns being posted at village schools. The process of selection of masters and lecturers is on and the staff will be soon available in all schools, they add.
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Man leaves wife, four daughters to fend for themselves
Chandigarh, November 11 Even before Sunita utters a single word, her eyes, saturated with grief and agony, narrate the woeful tale of struggle and anguish. Sunita claims she was four-month pregnant when her husband abandoned her. The reason: He came to know that she was going to give birth to their fourth daughter. “He took me to a clinic near Ambala for getting some test conducted…. After that, his attitude changed completely. I think the doctor told him about the possibility of another daughter being born,” Sunita says. She adds that things have been going from bad to worse ever since her husband left them. “The roof of our house in Mauli Jagran partially collapsed during the rains, forcing us to shift to a relative’s house in Sector 7 here. I went to my in-laws’ house to seek support, but the response was not very positive,” Sunita claims. Clutching a month-old baby born after her husband’s alleged disappearance, Sunita says she has been clinging to her honour despite pangs of hunger and desperation. “A woman with bad intentions approached me with an indecent proposal while I was returning from the market one evening,” she says. “It’s so difficult for an abandoned woman to survive in this world…. I do not know how I am going to get through”. Going into the background of the matter, she says her ordeal began on April 13. “It was Baisakhi. My husband, working as a sweeper in a government office, told me that he had been assigned a special duty in view of a VIP’s visit to the city. There was no way for me to know that he would never return”. Sunita claims that she waited for him “endlessly” at their Mauli Jagran house, before lodging a missing person’s report with the Mauli Jagran police post on May 3. The police registered a daily dairy report (DDR) on her complaint, but could not trace him. A senior officer says, “We have forwarded information to the missing persons squad. A hue and cry message has also been flashed in this regard. So far we have not received any information about him.”
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Invisible braces — new trend in field of orthodontics
Chandigarh, November 11 Talking about the this trend, Dr Ram Nanda, from the USA, informed that the braces were of the tooth colour made in porcelain or ceramic which made them invisible. Dr Nanda added that since these braces were not obtrusive they promised better oral hygiene and a large number of people were using these across the world. At the PGIMER too this facility was available. Discussing the latest developments in the field of orthodontics Dr Nanda said the old gold and metal wires had now given way to nickel titanium wires, including the heat-activated ones which hardened up on being placed inside the mouth. With the concept of cosmetic dentistry fast picking up, Dr Nanda said while a well-consulted orthodontic treatment assured long-term results, cosmetic surgery was a mere patch-up job. He added that while orthodontics was a well-researched specialised field of dentistry, cosmetic dentistry was a more recent addition. Also present with Dr Nanda was Dr Jayanth Dehadrai, Honorary Secretary of the Indian Orthodontic Society. Mentioning teeth bleaching as part of cosmetic dentistry, Dr Dehadrai said such practices were not much suited to Indians due to the high use of spices like turmeric and beetel chewing which decreased the effect of bleaching. He added that bleaching also led to problems like acidity, making the enamel brittle and the tooth sensitive. Instead, people should go for regular cleaning and polishing of the teeth, he added. Stressing upon the dire need of generating awareness among people about dental problems, Dr Dehadrai said according to the Dental Council of India norms only 4 to 5 per cent of people visited a dentist regularly. He, however, said 80 per cent of the people could be helped through orthodontic treatment, provided they consulted an orthodontist. According to him protruding and crooked teeth were the most common problem in orthodontics. This was due to the intermixing of races leading to the discrepancy of the jaw and the tooth size. Dr Dehadrai said efforts were being made to bring a third party finance in dentistry and orthodontics in particular.
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Passing Thru
Reasons about your visit to Chandigarh?
Inspiring to be in the dream city. More so I love the city for its elite and art loving audience. A passout of the National School of Drama, New Delhi, and later trained in France what are your contributions to the theatre? With over 50 directorial assignments of classic plays, under the aegis of Toli, an art group, I have done theatre with a message that too in farflung rural areas. Being a specialist in children theatre what are your achievements in India and abroad? Working with the deaf and dumb artists, child prodigies from slum areas and orphanages is satisfying, my first love. The children in their bloom of adolescence can be groomed as model actors and I have done it in France and back home in India. How do you bring out the best in a play? The contemporary folklore arts of the period in which the play is structured must be associated and employed to augment the performance. Any message for the new actors. They must shun shortcut to glamour and instant popularity. — S.D. Sharma
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2-kanal piece registered for Rs 2.5 cr
Panchkula, November 11 The Revenue Department has earned Rs 20 lakh as stamp duty through the registration. This is for the first time that a property in the town has been registered for over Rs 2 crore. Though the market rates of the property are much higher, most sale deeds are executed as per the District Collectorate rates. Sources in the Revenue Department say the highest registration of sale deed of a two-canal residential piece of land done in recent times was for Rs 75 lakh.
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Tributes paid to Capt Rohit
Panchkula, November 11 He also announced a grant of Rs 5 lakh for the construction of a memorial hall to be constructed after Rohit Kaushal at the Government High School, Jalauli, which had already been named after him. The Additional Deputy Commissioner, Panchkula, Mr Parveen Kumar said that the district administration would provide Rs 21000 for the upkeep and maintenance of the memorial of Capt Kaushal. Jawans of 18th Punjab Regiment presented a guard of honor. The 27-year-old officer from 12 Rashtriya Rifles had attained martyrdom, while fighting Afghan militants in the Gandoh area of Doda district in Jammu Kashmir.
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Electronic goods worth Rs 15 lakh stolen
Panchkula, November 11 Mr Kamal Kaushal, owner of the showroom said as many as 20 camcorders, 70 mobile hand sets and 15 cameras were stolen. “Other than this, Rs 3000 in cash and 25 memory sticks were also stolen from the cash box,” he said. The theft came to light this morning, when Mr Kaushal was passing by the Sector 11 market, after dropping his children at the school. As he passed by his showroom, he saw that the shutter was not properly shut, and was at least two feet up from the ground. “ I parked my car and as I reached the entrance, I saw that the locks of the showroom were broken,” he said. Mr Kaushal then informed the police. A team of police personnel led by Inspector Balram, Station House Officer of Sector 5 Police Station, and a Scene of Crime team rushed to the spot. The police found that though the electronic goods on display — televisions, music systems etc. were not touched, the camcorders and digital cameras kept in the strongroom were missing. Interestingly, two security guards were on duty just a stone throw away from this showroom. They have reportedly told the police that for almost an hour around 2. 30 am, they head loud music playing in the market corridor. The police suspects that the music was on to ensure that any noise made from breaking the locks did not attract any attention. The police have registered a case of burglary, and investigations have started into the incident.
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No headway in child rape case
Chandigarh, November 11 The SHO of the Sector 31 police station said they had got the girl medically examined. The reports did not confirm rape clearly. “We have sought final opinion of doctors concerned in this regard,” he said.
OC
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Woman ends life
Chandigarh, November 11 Giving details of the incident, sources said Saroj set herself on fire at around 6 pm, when she was alone at home. Her mother-in-laws reportedly went to meet a neighbour, when the incident occurred.
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Revolver stolen from car
Mohali, November 11
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Chandigarh, November 11
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Industrial Expo 2005 gets under way
Chandigarh, November 11 The organiser of the event, Dr Harish Arora, said the city had been made the venue for the event as a number of industrialists from Baddi and adjoining industrial centres were keen on seeing the latest advances in technology.
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