Panchkula, May 27
Ankita Gulati brought laurels to her school and family by topping in tri-city in the matriculation examination conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), results of which were declared today.

A student of Bhawan Vidyalaya, Sector 15, Ankita scored 97.4 per cent marks.

While talking to Chandigarh Tribune, Ankita attributed her success to hard work and motivation by teachers and parents.

Aiming to be an engineer from the IIT one day, she would go for science stream (non-medical) in Class XII.

Ankita, whose father Harbhushan Gulati is a mechanical engineer and owner of brick kilns, had been bagging top positions during previous years. Ankita said she had been devoting five to six hours every day to studies after school hours.

Besides attending regular classes, she had also been taking tuitions in mathematics and science.

“My aim is to pass out engineering from the IIT and do MBA from a reputed university or institution. Dancing and listing to music are my hobbies. Hard work has seen me through. My mother Shashi Gulati played the role of my best friend during studies,” she said.

Harbhushan Gulati said Ankita had also won many cash prizes and certificates of merit in various competitions.

Relatives, friends and family members celebrated her success and distributed sweets.

Meanwhile, 32 students of Bhawan Vidyalaya, Sector 15, secured 90 per cent and above marks in the examination this year.

Tri-city topper Ankita Gupta was followed by Nikita Saxena, who secured 97.2 per cent, followed by Silky Mittal, Garima Daga, Charu Sharma and Pranshu Bansal, who scored 97 per cent marks each.

Besides, 16 students of Mahatma Hansraj Public School, Sector 6; 13 of Manav Mangal School, Sector 11; nine of DC Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 7; six of DAV Senior Secondary Public School, Sector 8; four of Haryana Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 10; three of DAV Senior Public School, Surajpur; and one each from Jainendra Public School, Sector 1, and Satluj Public School, Sector 4, secured 90 per cent and above marks.

Chandigarh, May 27
Meenal Gakhar of Bhavan Vidyalaya, Sector 27, bagged first position in the city in the CBSE Class X examination, results of which were declared today.

Meenal secured 97.2 per cent, lagging just .2 per cent behind the tri-city topper.

Talking to the TNS, an elated Meenal said she would like to pursue commerce in her Class XI.

“I will finally like to appear for the IAS and if that doesn’t work out I may join the corporate world.”

Daughter of Rajiv Kumar Gakhar, a businessman, and Suman Gakhar, she said she was on cloud nine.

“Today has been a very busy day, I will celebrate tomorrow.”

The second position was shared by two students — Prateek Mahajan of KB DAV, Sector 7; and Nitika of GMSSS-37 — who scored 96.8 per cent marks each.

While the third position in the city went to Divya Sharma of Manav Mangal School-21, who scored 96.6 per cent marks, fourth position was bagged by Pooja Gupta of Shishu Niketan, Sector 22, by scoring 96.4 per cent marks.

More than 400 students achieved more than 90 per cent marks in the city. Teachers felt that the result this year had been exceptionally good.

Government schools improved over their performances of the last year.

The pass percentage stood at 58.16 in 2005-06, while it was 56.65 in 2004-05.

As many as 5,928 students took the examination from 77 government schools.

Model schools (48 in number) also improved their performances and came out with flying colours. They registered a pass percentage of 73.58, while it was 71.65 per cent last year.

Mohali, May 27
Boys took the lead in Mohali by securing majority of the top positions in the township in the CBSE matric examination. Randeep Singh of Gian Jyoti Public school stood first in the township by securing 94.4 per cent followed by Bikramjit Singh Bindra of the same school who secured 93.8 per cent marks.

The third position was bagged by Gulinder Singh of Shivalik Public School here with 93.6 per cent marks. Pritpal Singh of Lawerance Public School secured 93.4 per cent marks followed by Jaspreet Kaur Bajwa of Gian Jyoti Public School securing 93.2 per cent marks.

Shshank Jain of the same school was bracketed with Anurag Singla of DAV School Mohali at 93 per cent. Sadhvi Mehta of Gian Jyoti School secured 92.8 per cent marks bracketed with Jivrai Singh of Lawerance Public School. Geetu Gill of Lawerance Public School secured 92.4 per cent marks.

Subject wise, Abhishek Khanna of Gian Jyoti School and Rahul Agnihotri of Shivalik Public School secured 100 per cent marks in mathematics while Jasirat and Pritpal of Lawerance Public School scored hundred per cent in science.

Navjot of Shivalik Public School secured hundred per cent in social studies while Davinder Kaur of Gian Jyoti School secured 98 per cent marks in Punjabi. Sadhvi Mehta of the same school secured 97 per cent marks in English and Bikramjit Singh Bindra scored 92 per cent marks in Hindi.

The other toppers of the school included Somil Gautam, Abhishek Khanna, Saurabh Atul, and Sehajroop Kaur.

Eight students of Shivalik Public school secured above 90 per cent marks while another 20 students were placed between 85 per cent to 89 per cent marks. The other toppers included Gurleen, Rahul, Navjot, Eeshwarjit, Mohit, Aastha and Aagyapal.

Students of DAV Senior Secondary School, Phase X, Mohali, brought laurels to the institution with the second batch students of Class X scoring 100 per cent result. Elated over the result, the Principal, Ms Jaya Bhardwaj, congratulated the parents and the students and wished them a bright future. The other toppers of the school included Anshuman, Sumeera, Nitin Kalra and Kanwarpreet.

Jaskirat Singh, Arvind Sharma, Akhil Raj, Simrat and Anurag were among the other toppers of Lawerance Public School. Sant Isher Singh Public School secured 100 per cent result. Gagandeep stood first in the school securing 86.4 per cent marks.

Kunal Kumar topped the Golden Bells Public School, Sector 77. Rubyenjit was second in the school while the other toppers included Avleen, Akshit, Kirti Joy, Jasveen, Indervir, Kamal and Sonal.

Sunil stood first in Swami Ram Tirath School securing 87.2 per cent marks while Deepanshu stood second in the school with 76.4 per cent marks.

In Kharar A.P.J. Senior Secondary School scored 100 per cent result. Khushpreet Kaur stood first in the school by getting 87 per cent marks, Harsimran Singh got 86 per cent marks and Rupanzal got 85 per cent marks.

Chandigarh, May 27
It was a celebration of different kind at three city homes after the CBSE Class X results were declared this morning. Facing all odds, these city students proved it that where there is a will there is a way.

Sai Sidhant, a student of Bhavan Vidyalya, Sector 27, secured 70.8 per cent. Nothing exceptional about his marks, except that he suffers from profound hearing loss since child birth. A fact that has not deterred his paediatric surgeon mother from making him an achiever. His teachers at the school are absolutely thrilled with his achievement and can't stop praising him.

While his mother, Dr B. Satya, a paediatric surgeon, however feels he is capable of doing a lot better. “I did not put any pressure on him considering it's a board class. He has, however, achieved much higher marks in the past.”

Sidhant studied for the first five years at a special school for the hearing impaired being run by the The Hindu group of newspapers in Chennai. It was only after they gave the permission to put him into a regular school that he was shifted to a regular school.

Though initial hiccups were there, his mother informs that they did not face much problems at school as the teachers were very accommodating. “It takes time for one to understand his speech. His teachers took special care, ensuring that he understood things.

“A major hiccup is, of course, the other children adjusting to the child”, she adds. Dr Satya is however unhappy about the fact that awareness is lacking in the city. “Children go without hearing aids and there are other problems too which they face.”

She is, however, very happy with the CBSE ruling that an extra subject can be taken in place of a language. “It was difficult for him to learn a language, so he took up information technology. Sidhant now plans to take up commerce in his class XI”, she adds.

Another success story is Dayakaran Singh, a student of Vivek High School, Sector 38.

Suffering form attention-deficient learning disorder, he has scored 69.7 per cent marks. His mother Gurvinder, also a teacher in the same school, is thrilled with his result. “He is really a gifted child and has given us an opportunity to meet beautiful people.”

Talking to TNS she informs that he would like to pursue humanities streams.

A success story of a different kind is of Monica Sharma. A student of Government Model Senior Secondary School, Manimajra Town, she has secured 79.6 per cent in her boards.

Daughter of a junk dealer, she had to face financial difficulties to acquire books. This did not deter her from doing well. Monica is however not too happy with her result. “I wanted to get 90 per cent, but it's still ok,” she rues.

Monica now plans to pursue the medical stream in Class XI.

“I didn't take any extra coaching. Now I am now hoping to study even harder”, she said.

She is ,however, hoping that the local administration can help her out with a scholarship to achieve her aim. “My school has been very helpful, especially Principal Kamla Bains. She helped me with books, but now it will be tougher”, she added. 

Chandigarh, May 27
While girls have outclassed boys in scoring better pass percentage at the national level, results of class X in the Chandigarh region can offer some solace to the boys.

In the Chandigarh region, which comprises Chandigarh, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, the pass percentage of boys has slightly improved from 80.68 (2005) to 81.21 (2006) in class X results. On the other hand, the pass percentage of girls in the region has fallen from 84.33 (2005) to 84.14 (2006).

The highest overall pass percentage has been recorded from Chennai (89.44) followed by Ajmer (88.24) and then Chandigarh ( 82.41).

In the figures released by the CBSE, the pass percentage of regular candidates has increased from 83.82 (2005) to 84.10 (2006). But on the other hand, the pass percentage of private students has fallen from 48.87 (2005) to 37.54 ( 2006).

Another interesting aspect of this year's result is that of the total 48, 031 boys who sat in the board exams, 38,752 boys could pass it. On the other hand, of the total 34, 614 girls who took the test, 29, 190 girls were declared successful.

Chandigarh, May 27
The Panjab University Syndicate today unanimously authorised the Vice-Chancellor to take disciplinary action against the Controller of Examination, Mr Sodhi Ram, and the Assistant Registrar (Conduct), Mr S.K. Sharma, for negligence of duty due to which the CET examination conducted by the university had to be cancelled.

The Syndics discussed the findings of the report submitted by Prof K.K. Bajaj that had established the need of a full-fledged inquiry into the role of the COE. The report also fixed responsibility on the Assistant Registrar (Conduct) and the printer for the “debacle”.

However, on the insistence of one of the Syndicate members, the report was accepted only after the word “complete” was removed from the sentence “complete lack of responsibility in monitoring” used in the report.

Interestingly, the Syndicate member ensured that the words “studied and strategic” used to describe Mr Sodhi Ram’s ‘silence’ regarding the delay in the arrival of question papers be removed from the report. The report had said, “…his (Sodhi Ram’s) studied and strategic wait and silence about the lingering delay in the receipt of the papers till May 20 morning, the lack of active monitoring and timely sharing of information on part of Mr Sodhi Ram…cannot be ignored and calls for an in-depth regular inquiry and appropriate action if deemed necessary,”

The inquiry report points to the fact that the truck was to travel about 750 km but took five days to traverse the distance. “The inordinate delay in its journey seems to have no convincing explanation and is a glaring gap in the entire chain of events.” Syndicate members further authorised the VC to take stringent action against the printer and also take remedial measures to check recurrence of such incidents.

The Syndicate agreed to introduce environment education as compulsory subject for all first-year undergraduate students. The subject would now be incorporated in the syllabus for these classes in all streams, including arts, commerce, science, computer applications, biotechnology and education from the session 2006-2007.

The syndicate also allowed admission to the Chandigarh College of Engineering and Technology from diploma to II year degree level. A committee constituted for the purpose recommended that entry from diploma to II-year of degree level to only those students who had completed the plus two senior secondary examination with physics and mathematics. The admission would be made on merit obtained at an entrance test to be conducted by the university.

Syndicate members set up an inquiry to consider action against those examiners who had given zero marks to three MA (II) History candidates whom the re-evaluators later gave substantial marks. Three candidates were given zero by the first examiner following which during re-evaluation the marks were increased. The third examiner also gave the students some marks. Then the VC asked a fourth evaluator to look at the answersheets who also reached a conclusion. The inquiry would be conducted by Syndicate member N.P. Manocha who would submit a report within 10 days.

The Syndicate decided to fine SGGC College for girls Sector 26 Chandigarh a sum of Rs 25,000 for admitting students to a course which had not been affiliated to the university. The result of the 28 affected candidates would now be declared by the university.

The Syndicate agreed to change the name of the Masters in Mass Communication Course to MA in Journalism and Mass Communication. The number of seats, too, has been increased from the existing 30+10 to 40 +10 (NRI).

University’s ‘gold medals’ will now be plated with gold. Earlier gold medalists were being given silver medals as gold medals.

The Syndicate members also noted that about 100 cases of retired employees had been finalised for grant of pensionary benefits. The members felicitated Ms Gurneet Tej, an alumnus of PU, for standing second in the All-India Civil services examination and also felicitated the principal and staff of GGDSD College, Sector 32, Chandigarh, for being selected as college with potential for excellence.

Chandigarh, May 27
At least 2,000 school and university students, information technology professionals, lawyers and traders, besides medicos, from the region came to strengthen the Voice for Justice, the North India chapter of organisations formed against reservation, here today.

They burnt an effigy of HRD Minister Arjun Singh and raised anti-Congress slogans at the Matka Chowk, vowed to fight from a common platform and marched from the Matka Chowk to the PGI.

Representatives from the IIT and the IIM, the Hotel Association of India, the Beopar Mandal, the Young Scientists, the Grain Market Association, the Bar Association, medical institutes at Jalandhar, Amritsar and Rohtak and St Stephen’s School students signed a joint charter of demands, which spelt out that reservation should not be at the cost of seats available in general category.

At a joint press conference, Dr Anand Nivekar of the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) said, “We have come together under one umbrella to be able to chart out a roadmap for debate”.

A spokesman of the ARD, Dr Subhmohan Singh, said their demands included excluding the creamy layer among SCs and OBCs from the benefits of reservation, conducting a feasibility study before implementation and long-term measures like a roadmap for a proposed reservation policy and changes that might be brought about in a timeframe.

The organisers were enthused about the participation of school students and teachers, maintaining that they were happy that they had reached the target audience and received an overwhelming response from them.

Chandigarh, May 27
This day saw a celebration of Sikh wisdom and the endeavours of those who preserved it for posterity.

In the sacred ambience created by an offering of Gurbani at Government Museum Auditorium this morning, Sikh scholars assembled to witness a historic event - one that will go a long way in introducing Sikh history and religion to those who have long felt thirst for it.

Thanks to benign gestures made by Sikh scholars Dr Man Singh Nirankari and Dr Madanjit Kaur, the handwritten knowledge compiled by Sikh Gurus and their followers will no longer rest in exclusive locations. Both the scholars have parted with treasures of a lifetime so that the Word of the Gurus can bless every home. After making the knowledge available, they have also prepared a descriptive catalogue to provide to the readers an insight into the world of rare manuscripts.

The catalogue, revised and edited by Prof Kirpal Singh from Punjabi University, Patiala, was released by Tamil Nadu Governor Surjit Singh Barnala today. While lauding the generosity of Dr Nirankari and Dr Madanjit Kaur, Mr Barnala spoke of the lofty purpose of this exercise. He also admonished the museum director to take care of the precious collection, citing an experience from his state, "Some of the rarest manuscripts from a palace in Tamil Nadu have gone missing. The onus of guarding this legacy lies on us."

As of today, the manuscript section in Government Museum comprises 50 rare manuscripts, of which 22 in Gurmukhi have been gifted by Dr Nirankari. Today, Dr Nirankari recalled the manner in which precious manuscripts were created, collected from the world over and then disseminated by the keepers of Sikh faith. "The fragments of Sikh wisdom were compiled by the gurus in 1604 AD. That was when they instructed their followers to transcribe the Adi Granth for use by Sikh scholars. Even when Sikhs assumed political power, Misl leaders were duty bound to install copies of the Adi Granth in gurdwaras and also provide them to soldiers who went to fight. Each such copy is a great work of art, and bears beautiful illustrations."

For her part, Dr Madanjit Kaur, a Sikh historian, has donated 1600 rare books to the museum. The collection is priceless both in terms of historical richness and content - it features discourses made in 1700 AD, accounts of European travellers, dictionaries in languages like the Persian and the French. The rarest of all is the "hukamnana" of 1701 by Guru Gobind Singh in which He instructed the Sikhs not to follow the "masands" as they had strayed from the path of pure service to the faith. Her collection also features 310 coins and specimen of "Darshani rumalaas."

All this and much more has been documented in the catalogue which has three sections - one on the Adi Granth, also called Kartarpuri Bir; another one on miscellaneous manuscripts related to the life of Guru Nanak Dev, and yet another one on Damdami Bir, which contains the verses of Guru Tegh Bahadur to the Adi Granth.

Chandigarh, May 27
Residents of Sector 9, adjoining the Madhya Marg, continue to face the inconvenience of unattended waste lying in the open despite frequent complaints to the municipal corporation authorities.

A public space measuring 300 square feet near the road separating sectors 9-C and 9-D is home to construction garbage. Scavengers, birds and stray dogs are a common sight. The nauseating smell compounds the problem.

The site in the official papers has been reserved for a landscape feature, educational institute or a public utility space.

Mr Arun Nehra, a senior advocate, said a number of representations had been forwarded to the senior authorities, but to no avail. The parking of vehicles by daily office-goers during the daytime at the place posed a big problem for the local residents, he said.

Mohali, May 27
A 17-year-old boy has stage-managed his own kidnapping before his parents to extort Rs 10 lakh from them.

The boy, Amandeep Singh of Salimpur Kalan village in Kurali, was arrested for attempt to extortion, among other charges.

According to Kharar DSP Raj Bachan Singh Sandhu, Amandeep went missing from his home on May 24, a day before his class VIII results were to be declared.

Initially his parents presumed that since he had failed in the examination last year, he had left home fearing the same result.

The next day the family received a telephone call. The person on the line claimed to have kidnapped their son and demanded Rs 10 lakh for his return.

Amandeep’s father, Mr Surinder Singh, a transporter, contacted the police, which launched a search for his son.

“We were able to trace Amandeep in a nearby village within hours. Amandeep kept long hair and used to wear a turban, but when he was found, his hair were shorn. He was living on top of a tubewell room. He claimed that the kidnappers had cut his hair, beat him up and injected him with drugs. On crosschecking, every word that he said was found to be untrue. We traced the barber from whom he got his hair cut and a medical check-up proved that he had neither been beaten up not injected with anything,” said Mr Sandhu.

Once Amandeep found himseef cornered, he concocted another story to save himself. “He said he was having an affair with one of the girls he went to tuition with and she had provoked him to leave home for a brighter future. He alleged that she is the one who got the extortion phone call made to his parents. We contacted the girl and questioned her relatives, but found her family to be innocent,” said Mr Sandhu.

The truth came out when further interrogation revealed that Amandeep had go upto Baddi to make the phone call to his parents. “His telephone record was available with the STD booth owner in Baddi. Once he realised that there was no escape, the whole truth tumbled out. He admitted that he did not want to study anymore and wanted to leave home with lots of money, for which he staged the entire kidnapping drama,” said Mr Sandhu.

Mohali, May 27
A 37-year-old resident of Nadah village here was allegedly murdered by his nephew following a spat over the ownership of a piece of land.

The victim, Bhag Chand, was allegedly killed when he was hit with hand axes on the head while he was sleeping outside his house in the village this afternoon.

The suspects are Rattan Chand's son, Balwant Singh and his two friends, both brothers.

According to the police, Bhag Singh and Rattan Chand had a long standing dispute over the ownership of about 3.5 acres of land in the village. While both claimed to own the land, the panchayat had some years ago helped the two reach a compromise, dividing the piece of land into two.