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Chohan had strong affinity with the city Chohan’s closeness for the Jalandhar was evident as he kept a close contact with city during his 21-year long exile in UK. He not only ran an office in the Dilkusha market of Jalandhar before he fled to the UK in 1971, but also another place which later was re-christened as Shahid Darshan Singh Pheruman gurudwara near Kamal Palace. This place was his head quarter of his activities irrespective of his stay in Punjab or elsewhere. So, much so, that while he was away to the UK, where, he had declared himself to the President of the Council of Khalistan, he used to issue most of his controversial statements from Jalandhar. He also had a large circle of friends in the city. Old timers recall that some or the other way Chohan remained attached to Jalandhar in more than one ways. During 2001, when Chohan came back he kept descending upon city very often and also announced the formation of the Khalsa Raj Party in Jalandhar about two years ago alongwith his staunch supporter Principal Baldev Singh. The motive of his new party, according to him, was to carry forward the cause of Khalistan through peaceful means. “For about four years before he marched on to the UK in 1971, Chohan used his office in the Dilkusha market as a centre for his social gatherings. Rather, it remained to be a meeting point for intellectuals. This office had nothing to do with the Khalistan propoganda or ideology,” said Tejinder Kohli, a Jalandhar-based vetern journalist. Old buddies of Chohan recall his passion about films vividly. Chohan, according to them, was so obsessed about films that he had even ventured to bring a part of the Bollywood to Punjab with the help of renowned film personalities like Dara Singh and Raj Kapoor during his brief stint as the Finance Minister of Punjab in the Lachman Singh
Gill government. Chohan was not only instrumental in allotment of a huge piece of land to Dara Singh outskirts of Mohali, where now Dara Studio stands. He also held a series of meetings with
Raj Kapoor. “He had almost persuaded Raj Kapoor to set up a studio near Ropar during that Golden era of the Indian Cinema, but, his plans got fizzled out as the Lachman Singh Gill government fell just after nine months of its formation.” Though, a leftist originally and a man of ‘revolutionary thinking’, Chohan got inclined towards the Sikh politics when he drew close to Master Tara Singh and got fascinated by his slogan of “Sikh Homeland.” Later, he coined the term ‘Khalistan’ and shot to fame when he declared himself to be the President of Council of Khalistan in England and issued passports, currency notes and stamps in the name of Khalistan. Highly placed sources pointed out that during his initial phase in the politics Chohan, who, was known as an accomplished medical practitioner, remained close to late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi even as, he had has remained to be ‘one of biggest and perennial trouble makers’ for Government of India later. Far away from diverse fields of politics and allopathy, Chohan had also mastered ‘Ayurveda’. During one of his recent visits to Jalandhar, he showcased his knowledge about traditional Indian medicine system by prescribing a few ayurvedic medicines to one of his friends.
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Cops swoop down on drug store, seize samples Jalandhar, April 5 SHO of police station number 4 Vibhor Kumar said the samples have been sealed and dispatched to drug inspector for examination. He said the search operation was carried out after receiving a complaint from Delhi-based representatives of pharmaceutical firm Pfizer. The company officials, Tulsi Ram ad Anil Joshi, had alleged that the shop was selling fake viagra tablets, which are used to enhance sexual pleasure. Ram claimed they had send a decoy customer to the store and found out that colour of the tablets being sold was different from the original ones. Apart from discrepancy in size and weight, the packaging was also different, they claimed. However, when asked, the shop owner Sarabjeet Singh said the tablets were original. Talking to The Tribune, SHO Vibhor Kumar said the next course of action would follow after receiving the drug inspector’s report.
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FM’s ‘Off tube’ continues to sizzle Jalandhar, April 5 The advertisers launch new advertisements for the brands, new recipes come in the eateries with the name of famous cricketers, new clothes, accessories, movies and songs to name a few hit the market. But this World Cup season, it was turn of the All India Radio (AIR) to try something innovative. It came in the form of ‘Off Tube Commentary’, which was introduced for the first time in regional languages across the nation. The venture began on March 19 ‘Off Tube Commentary’ means the one which is being telecast live not from the grounds but some studio wherein the commentators watch the match on a television set. The same is being aired on the local FM Rainbow (102.7 Mhz). Apart from the live commentary of the match which begins at 7.00 pm everyday, a half-an-hour live phone-in programme named “Wicket to Wicket” is also being aired wherein the views of the listeners regarding the forthcoming match are taken apart from the SMS sent by the listeners. Three commentators participate in the programme which runs live till the end of the match. During the half-time of the match experts, comprising of former and present Ranji Trophy players are called in to analyze the proceedings of the match. The experiment has become a huge hit for the innumerable cricket lovers in the city. What can be better than listening to the commentary in your own language? Says AIR (Jalandhar) Station Director D.P. Mallik, “The programme has become an instant hit among the listeners. “It is evident from the day by day increasing number of phone calls and
SMSs,” he said. However, the humiliating exit of the Team India from the tournament might have generated losses to the innumerable, brand promoters, the same hasn’t affected the show’s rating. “We are receiving 100-150 calls everyday needless to mention the SMS that keeps pouring in through out the day till the end of the match,”
he added.
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Insurance Tips Jalandhar, April 5 But what has emerged clearly out of the changing insurance market scene is that most of the customers don’t prefer a ‘term’ policy. This is more pronounced in the Jalandhar region where the insurance agent’s common refrain is: The term policy is a complete wastage of money as the customer will not get anything if he survives the policy. His advise: go for unit-linked insurance plan which carries the aura of a mutual fund. In a ‘term’ insurance policy, if the policyholder expires during the period of the policy, his nominee gets the sum assured. But if the policyholder survives the period of the policy, he gets nothing. This is one of the important reasons as to why the term plans have the lowest premium among various policies. What leads to this widespread ‘rejection’ of the term plan is the Indian mindset of equating insurance with either investment or tax-saving. Insurance per se is not the priority of Indians, says unit manager with the ICICI Prudential Ramesh Chandna. To counter this strongly negative mindset against the ‘term’ plan, the companies have come out with a rather innovative ‘return-of-premium term plan’. This entails the payment of the premium for a certain amount of the sum assured but the premium is hefty as compared to the premium paid for the simple term plan. The significant advantage of this plan is that the policyholder gets back the entire premium he has paid, if he survives the period of the policy, Chandna informs. But is it worth it to go for a return-of-the premium plan for there is a huge cost to be paid by anyone who takes it? Take the case of a 30-year-old male taking a 10-year return-of-premium term plan for a sum assured of Rs 10 lakh. The policy would involve paying a premium of nearly Rs 32,000. If the policyholder survives the period of the policy, he will get Rs 3,20,000. This in plain terms is equivalent to a financial suicide. On the other hand, if this individual opts for a simple term policy then he would have to pay a premium of nearly Rs 2,700 only, which is a fraction of what he was paying in the earlier case. Now, there are enormous gains to be made if he invests the remaining amount of Rs 29,300 (the difference between the two premiums) every year for the next 10 years. Theoretically speaking, this investment needs to grow at a minuscule rate of 1.62 per cent to build a corpus of Rs 3,20,000 at the end of 10 years. But in reality, even savings accounts give a return of 3.5 per cent per year and thus building the corpus by opting for a return-of-the premium plan is a complete non-application of mind. In fact the premium differential of Rs 29,300 can be invested in other avenues to easily generate a return of 8 per cent or more. So, think twice before opting for return-of-the premium plan. Also the concept of insurance is not primarily aimed at investment but to cover the risk and indemnify nominees against future shocks and losses. Simple term plan, thus, is not that bad after all.
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Small exporters ask for membership in trade boards Phagwara, April 5 A.K. Kohli, senior vice-president, Punjab Chamber of Small Exporters, in a memorandum, urged Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, to hold district-wise meetings with the representatives of the export houses of the state before setting up three industrial and trade boards in the state. He said that by nominating its representative in the said boards would give a boost in solving the problems of trade and industry as well as export houses of the state. Kohli said that by doing so, exports from the state would increase manifold especially when exporter chambers and export houses have wide knowledge and international experience in the field of World Trade Organisation. It would also help to generate more employment opportunities, attract NRI-FDI participation, technology upgradation and face global competition especially when China was giving cost and quality competition to the Indian industrial set-up, added the senior vice-president. Earlier, he welcomed the policy of the state government to set up three separate boards for the promotion and growth of trade and industry in the state.
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Market Buzz Jalandhar, April 5 New showroom
Having showcased its new range of electric two-wheelers at the recently concluded Bikex 2007, Hero Cycles Limited in collaboration with Ultra Motor Company, a UK based electric vehicle solutions provider, have opened their exclusive electric vehicle showroom in the city. The showroom located near Nakodar Chowk will showcase the seven new variants of e-bikes and e-scooters along with innovative biking merchandising items. Gaurav Munjal, deputy chief executive, said that the company had aggressive plans to roll out unique electric two wheelers in India. He said that the company was aiming to expand dealer network in 16 major centres of India. He said that the first phase will also include extending markets in the northern region. Date with Jazzy B Spice
Telecom has declared its two winners of the ‘Spice Meet n Greet Jazzy B’ contest. Two subscribers, Rajinder Kumar from Jalandhar and Avtaar Singh from Nawanshahar, have been declared winners of the 15-day contest that was initiated exclusively for its caller songs subscribers. They were given an opportunity to meet and greet Jazzy B in Jalandhar.
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Young World Jalandhar, April 5 Office secretary, Channi G.S. Takulia, said that the contest will be
organised for the boys of two age groups - 6-11 years and 12 years and above. "The dance will be based on Punjabi songs with a time limit of two to three minutes," the secretary said. He further said a one-minute live dance show on dhol will also be organised on three rhythms - luddi, jhumar and bhangra. Two new courses
Two city schools, affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education have introduced the subject of Finance Market Management in the curriculum of plus one. The schools, Kendriya Vidyalaya No.1 Jalandhar Cantonment and Lala Jagat Narain DAV Model School, had applied for the new course and have been allowed to begin
the classes. The course consists of three compulsory professional subjects each in classes plus one and plus two in addition to two academic electives. The schools have now been requested to nominate two teachers for training in two papers - Accounting for Business and Introduction to Financial Market. Biotech research
Dr Vikas Gupta, from Department of Biotechnology of Lyallpur Khalsa College, has conducted a research concluding that a specific gene played a role in occurrence of End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). He said that he had gone to Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, for a month where he had conducted the research. IIT entrance
Plus two students from engineering stream are working hard these days for the forthcoming IIT entrance test scheduled this Sunday. Elaborate arrangements for smooth and fair conduct of the examination are being made at various centres here, including Dr B.R. Ambedkar National
Institute.
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Head-on crash leaves 4 hurt Phagwara, April 5 According to the police, Ashwini Kumar, along with his family members Mohinder Kaur, Shiv Dayal and Harbans Lal, all residents of Mehatpur, were on their way home from Phagwara in a car. On the way, a Scorpio coming from Nakodar collided head-on with their car near the Hadiabad octroi post, causing injuries to all the four occupants of the car. While Ashwini and Harbans got fractures on their legs, Mohinder Kaur and Shiv Dayal also sustained serious injuries.
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Sainiks demand shifting of vend
Phagwara, April 5 The Sena activists have been demanding closure of the liquor shop since its opening as it has become a source of nuisance for the public. Ashwini, state vice-president of the Sena said it had become difficult for women coming to temple and incidents of eve-teasing had increased. He said in spite of his repeated protests, the authorities had taken no action to remove the grievance. — TNS
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TN team visits DSWO
Jalandhar, April 5
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Jalandhar, April 5