Rewari, October 6
Thousands of Vaish delegates from various parts of the country participated in an all-India level convention of the Vaish community held under the auspices of the Haryana unit of the All India Vaish Federation (AIVF) in the Hindu Senior Secondary School complex here.

Mr Laxmi Goyal of the ZEE TV was the chief guest of the convention while Mr Ram Das Agarwal, MP, and national chairman of the AIVF presided.

The convention, which was inaugurated by Mr Rohtash Goyal, chairman of Omax Ltd., was held as a part of the Gandhi Jayanti festival.

In his inaugural address, he said it was a matter of great pride and satisfaction for them all that the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi, who was an apostle of peace and non-violence and who got freedom for India without any warfare, belonged to the Vaish community.

Paying rich tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, speakers asserted that Gandhian tenets and principles would take care of various ills of terrorism, proliferation of war weapons and all such scourges affecting the world today. Simultaneously they exhorted members of the Vaish community to follow the teachings and ideals propounded by Mahatma Gandhi in the interest of the community as well the humanity.

Mr Kailash Agarwal Manav, founder of the Narain Seva Sansthan, Udaipur (Rajasthan), was honoured with the “Special Vaish Seva Samman-2006” for his outstanding services rendered to cure about 60000 polio- affected children of India, Pakistan, Nepal, England and several other countries at his charitable Institute.

Yamunanagar, October 6
Ms Anita Gupta who was defeated in elections to the Municipal Committee, Jagadhri, has been nominated a councillor on the house. Three persons have also been nominated to the Municipal Committee of Yamunanagar.

Besides Ms Gupta, Mr Rana Chander Pal, a former Chairman of the Jagadhri Marketing Committee and Mr Satwant Singh Sudan have also been nominated on to the house.

Mr Naresh Sharma, Ms Kusum Tyagi and Mr Anil Gupta have been nominated the Municipal Committee of Yamunanagar. — TNS

Ambala, October 6
Former Ambala MP Ratan Lal Kataria yesterday uged that the President not pardon Mohd Afzal, who has been awarded death sentence, in the Parliament attack case.

Talking to mediapersons here, Mr Kataria said the UPA government should not intervene in the issue. “If any recommendation for pardon is made by the UPA government, then it would act like the proverbial nail in the government’s coffin,” he said.

“Despite the gravity and seriousness of the attack, when the Congress Chief Minister of J&K seeks that Afzal be pardoned, it is shocking, he said.

He said the other persons arrested following the attack on Parliament had to be let off due to the poor investigation carried out by the police, Intelligence Bureau and CBI.

Mr Kataria demanded that Haryana Power Minister Venod Sharma to resign. “Mr Venod Sharma is not fit to be a public representative. He should resign from ministership and MLAship. If he does not resign, then he should be dismissed,” he said.

Mr Kataria criticised Union Minister and Ambala MP Kumari Selja for “doing nothing” for Ambala. “Whatever announcements are taking place now are the result of the hardwork which I had put in to get them sanctioned during my tenure. For instance, the cluster project was approved during my time and she is taking the credit for it,” he said.

He demanded that the sources of income for buying property by Kumari Selja should be thoroughly investigated.

Ambala, October 6
Activists of the Vikas Parishad led by former Ambala Cantt MLA Anil Vij today held a demonstration outside the office of the Municipal Council, Ambala Sadar.

They were protesting against cutting of power connections of commercial activity in residential areas.

The activists raised slogans against Hooda government. They demanded that the drive should be brought to an end immediately. They criticised the pick and choose policy of the teams which were carrying out the drive.

While addressing gathering, Mr Vij said the drive was hurting livelihood of the common people. He said people who were running small businesses and tiny industries were getting uprooted due to the drive.

Mr Vij said the Congress had made an electoral promise to generate employment but the drive was going to increase unemployment.

He claimed that the area in which drive was taking place falls outside the purview of HUDA as well as housing board. He said residents of Ambala Sadar were facing undue harassment due to the drive.

Sirsa, October 6
The district administration and health authorities have constituted district and block-level task forces to check the spread of malaria, dengue and any other type of fever. The District Health Officer, District Malaria Officer, District Family Welfare Officer and District Family Welfare Education Officer have been included in the district-level team.

Stating this here, the Civil Surgeon, Dr P.R.Kayasth, said the task forces would keep vigil on the suspected cases of any type of fever in the district. These teams would conduct medical examinations of the patients suffering from various types of fever.

Apart from this, a control room had been set up at the local Civil Hospital. An isolation ward has also been made for the purpose, where a physician had been permanently deployed. Besides, teams of the Health Departments are touring the villages of the district to bring awareness about dengue, malaria and other types of fever.

The Deputy Commissioner, Mr V.Umashankar, asserted that the necessary steps had been taken to prevent the spread of dengue, malaria and other contagious diseases. The district administration as well as the Health Department were fully alert to tackle the situation, he said.

The Civil Surgeon maintained that so far, a single case of dengue had been reported from Jasania village in the district. The patient was under treatment at AIIMS in New Delhi and was out of danger.

Sonepat, October 6
Despite protests by the families concerned, the local municipal authorities continued the drive for disconnecting water and electricity connections of shops and dairies on the third day today.

The authorities said the connections of at least 72 dairies and more than 40 shops in residential areas within the municipal limits had been disconnected so far.

Dairy owners have condemned the move alleging that the municipal council has not fully developed the new sites near Harshana and Debru villages for shifting of dairies. The Diary Owners Association alleged that the authorities had taken this step without serving any notice.

The municipal engineer, MR R.P. Garg, however, said the council had been asking the dairy owners to get their area booked at the new sites for the past two years, but of the 300 dairy owners, only 22 had applied for plots at the new sites.

Yamunanagar, October 6
The state government has started a campaign to increase production of wheat during which officials of the agriculture department and scientists would be giving information to farmers regarding the available new techniques. No officials, employees and scientists associated with agriculture and related departments could proceed on leave during the period of campaign.

The Deputy Commissioner Mr J.P Kaushik, administered oath to officials of the department and scientists that they would work in the campaign with full enthusiasm and honesty. He said that the production of wheat and other agricultural products could not be increased if the practical aspects of scientific knowledge is not communicated to farmers. He asked the officials and scientists to give all available knowledge to farmers.

Mr Jagdeep Brar, Deputy Director Agriculture (Yamunanagar), said that proper management right from the time of sowing could increase the output by 25 per cent. He said the farmers lacked knowledge regarding proper management.

He informed that officials and scientists would visit villages and camps would be organised to give them knowledge regarding proper methods to be adopted to increase wheat production.

Dr Goel from Agriculture Science Centre, Damla said that wheat output is gradually decreasing for the past five years. 

Kaithal, October 6
An ultrasound center which was sealed on August 28 will remain sealed and owners of three others have been asked to keep their centers closed for a week following detection of some irregularities at these centers.

This decision was taken at the meeting of advisory committee held here.

District Family Welfare Officer Dr C.P. Virmani said here yesterday that following inspection on August 12 and detection of certain irregularities, four Ultrasound owners were served notice and asked to file reply . Three of them had filed replies and one Apollo Diagnostics Centre, which failed to reply, was sealed as per directions of the director health services.

Three other centres Sanjay Ultra Sound , Anand Ultra Sound and Modern Ultra Sound —had been asked to keep their centres closed for a week as they were not found conducting any tests but some shortcomings were noticed in maintenance of records by them.

The owners of these three centres have been asked to explain their position by appearing before the PNDT advisory committee on October 11.

In the meanwhile Civil Surgeon Dr Satvir Choudhry has clarified that conducting a PNDT without keeping proper or incomplete records of such tests was also a violation of the PNDT Act which was an offence and punitive under the law .

Rewari, October 6
The Sessions Judge, Mr R.C. Bansal, has sentenced Rakesh’s husband Sunil Kumar to rigorous imprisonment for seven years while her father-in-law Dharam Singh and mother-in-law Lali have been awarded two years’ rigorous imprisonment for dowry death.

Rakesh was made to die an unnatural death for bringing insufficient dowry by the accused at Akera village, near Dharuhera, on October 11, 2003.

Besides, the judge has also imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on her husband while Dharam Singh and Lali have been fined Rs 5,000 each.

When Rakesh got married to Sunil on February 18, 2002, her father Mitter Sain of Bambar village, near here, had given Rs 1 lakh in cash, besides jewellery and other valuables worth over Rs 1.5 lakh as dowry. However, this failed to satisfy her in-laws. Her husband started torturing her, demanding a motor cycle in dowry.

When Rakesh’s parents failed to meet their demand, she was given such a shabby treatment that she died an unnatural death at the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi on October 11, 2003.

Consequently, on a complaint lodged by Mr Mitter Sain, father of the deceased, the Dharuhera police registered a case of dowry death under Sections 304-B, 498-A and 34 of the IPC against Sunil, Dharam Singh and Lali, who were arrested and sent for trial.

Rewari, October 6
Gopi Ram Yadav, an assistant lineman of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam was electrocuted while working on an 11 KV line at Aulant feeder of the Buroli sub-station, about 20 km from here, yesterday.

After being drawn by a strong electric current, he fell down from the pole after which he was brought to the local Civil Hospital where doctors referred him to the Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi. However, he succumbed to his injuries while being taken to Delhi.

Panipat, October 6
One trickster succumbed to his injuries while his accomplice was injured seriously when they were allegedly beaten up by the public.

According to police, both the persons with their two other accomplices offered a doctor in the Kaccha Camp locality the dollars for the exchange of Indian currency at a cheap rate on Sunday. The doctor handed them over Rs 1.5 lakh for exchanging these for dollars, informed Mr Bijender, SHO, Model Town.

After getting the money the accused tried to flee but the public caught two of them and thrashed badly due to which Gayoos a resident of West Bengal, died today while his other accomplice Salim was undergoing treatment at civil hospital.