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HIMACHAL PRADESH |
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NAHAN
Bridge inaugurated: Speaker of the HP Vidhan Sabha G.R. Musafir on Sunday inaugurated a bridge on the Marighat-Sultanpur road, constructed at a cost of Rs 15 lakh. He also inaugurated the Chakla to Dharoti link road and laid the foundation stone of the upgraded middle school,
Dhabra.KUMARHATTI
Rs 2 lakh heist: Robbers decamped with Rs 2 lakh after breaking upon the glove box of a parked scooter at Nalagarh on Friday. The scooter owner, Lakhshman Dass, who hailed from Gayol Jamla village, had put the amount in the scooter glove box after withdrawing it from a
local bank. He had entered a dhaba after parking the scooter near Police Traffic Chowk.
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REGIONAL
POTPOURRI |
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Mission manuscript
History uncovered
SUB TEXT: Several 200-year-old manuscripts have been unearthed in Uklana township
of Hisar district.
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With a view to conserving the country’s rich cultural heritage and preparing a computer database thereof, district-wise surveys of ancient manuscripts were recently carried out under the National Manuscript Mission of the Union Ministry of Culture. Teams of surveyors toured villages, religious places, libraries and other probable sites across the country in search of ancient manuscripts and artifacts.The exercise generated heaps of useful information about the whereabouts of rare, ancient manuscripts and artifacts in Haryana state. Nearly 200-year-old manuscripts of the Shreemad Bhagvat, Amrit Sahar, Man Sagari and Balmiki Ramayana have been found in Uklana township of Hisar district. A 400-year-old “chaupal” found in Ladwa village has an inscription in Sanskrit which can be read only by sprinkling water on it. “The results of the survey have been very encouraging as a number of ancient manuscripts, coins, weapons and other articles of archaeological significance have been found at various places in Hisar and nearby areas,” said Dr R.K.Srivastava, Scholar Coordinator-cum-Assistant Director (Archives), Haryana, who looks after the Hisar division. Dr Srivastava has trained the surveyors of Hisar, Sirsa and Fatehabad districts — mostly Sanskrit and Hindi teachers, social activists and other volunteers — about the finer nuances of conducting surveys. He said the surveys had been carried out as part of the first phase, language experts would do the listing and cataloguing to prepare a computerised database of the ancient Indian manuscripts. “The database containing all information related to the place of availability and other details about the manuscripts will be uploaded on a website, which will be of immense help to researchers and other interested individuals,” Dr Srivastava added. Heart to heart
Dr Naresh K. Solanki |
As many as 23 years after he graduated from the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak, Dr Naresh K. Solanki returned to his alma mater early this month to share with its teachers and students his experiences as an interventional cardiologist in Louisville, USA. While the interface was a pleasant surprise for the PGIMS faculty and students, Dr Solanki himself expressed shock at how little India was doing to tackle the problems caused by heart disease, blood pressure and diabetes. He was delivering a lecture on Revascularisation Srategies in Coronary Artery Disease in Diabetic Patients. He said diabetes was an alarming problem both in the West as well as India. But what surprised him was that the number of young Indians suffering from heart disease was much more than that in the USA, in particular, and the West, in general. He suggested that India follow the US pattern wherein 80 per cent of the funds for medical research came from pharmaceutical companies. The Centre should make it obligatory for these companies to contribute a fixed percentage of their profits for medical research. Dr Kuldeep Laller and Dr S. S. Lohchab performed surgeries on some patients with the help of equipment worth Rs 4.25 lakh donated by Dr Solanki. Dr Lohchab claimed that the equipment helped cut the cost of surgery by Rs 30000, a boon for poor patients. His effort’s not going down the drain
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Baba Jaspal Singh
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While most religious organisations are mainly concerned with increasing their following, this religious leader of Baddowal village, near Ludhiana, has been more busy doing his bit for conserving the environment and serving society. Baba Jaspal Singh of the Baddowal dera, who is nowadays helping clean up the Budda Nullah, the killer drain of Ludhiana, has thus far organised the marriage ceremonies of 6,000 poor girls, sheltered orphans and planted more than 4 lakh saplings in and around the district, besides running a charitable herbal dispensary in his dera. Having started with a missionary zeal some 11 years ago, the Baba was till now concentrating on marrying off poor girls and running the dispensary before he woke up to the environmental degradation around him and decided to tackle the problem head-on. Now he gifts saplings to all visitors to his dera, asking them to plant and nurture them till they grow into trees. The ever-growing problem of pollution in the Budda Nullah too has caught his attention and he has decided to get it cleaned with the help of his followers. “Our gurus have taught us the importance of water, trees and earth. But these lessons have been forgotten over the years. I am just following the gurus’ teachings and doing my bit,” says the Baba, who has been camping near the drain since the cleaning operation started. “My followers draw encouragement from me. So, why not put them on a job that will benefit society?” he says. “Instead of concentrating on building our deras, we all should come up together for a noble cause. That is true religion,” he adds on a philosophical note. ——Contributed by Sunit Dhawan, Raman Mohan and Kanchan Vasdev 
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