Jalandhar, May 25
Commerce students in the city outshone their contemporaries from other streams in the CBSE Class XII examinations, results of which were declared on Friday.

More than a dozen students from the stream, including the city topper, Surabhi Dua, have scored 90 per cent and above marks. Dua, a student of Swami Sant Dass School, has a total score of 94.8 per cent.

The girl, who wants to be a CA, has scored 97 marks in Accounts, Economics and Mathematics and 88 in English.

Following Surabhi closely is Deepika Khullar from Apeejay School with a score of 94.6 per cent. Pardeep Sadhana from Swami Sant Dass School and Bharat Khanna from Apeejay School share the third slot with 93.8 per cent marks.

Seema Gupta from Shiv Jyoti Public School, Anjali Chuahan from Innocent Hearts School and Jatin Setia from Dayanand Model School have a percentage of 93.

Other commerce students who have scored above 90 per cent are: Ajinder Singh, Swami Sant Dass School, Anica Bedi, Neha Mehta and Harleen Kaur, Innocent Hearts School, Muskan, Radhika, Shiv Jyoti School, Gaganpreet K. Dang, MGN Public School, Mandeep Kumar and Kiranpreet Kaur, Police DAV School, Parvisha Juneja, CT Public School and Manbir Kaur, Guru Amar Dass School.

In non-medical, Jaisandeep from Innocent Hearts School is first in the city with score of 92.4 per cent. The medical topper, Ankita Sharma is again a student of Swami Sant Dass School. She has scored 91.6 per cent marks.

Karishma Sodhi from MGN Public School has got 90.6 per cent in humanities stream.

In non-medical stream, Amrisha Arora from Apeejay School and Randeep Singh Heer from MGN School have got 92.2 per cent marks, while Shivansh Chaudhary from Army Public School and Hardeep Singh from Apeejay School have a score of 91.8 per cent.

Paridhi, Anup and Manush, all of Swami Sant Dass School have got 91.4, 91.2 and 90.6 per cent marks respectively. Mohit Bhasin and Preet Kanwal from MGN Public School too have scored 90.6 per cent. Neeti Gulati and Jyoti Kohli from Shiv Jyoti School have got 90 per cent marks.

In medical stream, Chashamjot from Apeejay School has scored 91.2 per cent marks, while MGN student Harsimran Singh Sekhon and Swati Kashyap from Army Public School have score of 91and 90.6 per cent respectively.

Phagwara, May 25
A large number of vehicles running on LPG in the city and its outskirts has exposed the claims of the police that it would bring to book such mechanics and small time shopkeepers who lure customers to use this device instead of petrol.

The spiralling rates of petrol and diesel have succeeded in luring people to use LPG kits.

However, the danger in the changeover was exposed in the recent car fire near Goraya in which Paramjit, a resident of Jalandhar, had a miraculous escape. Another such fire had taken place in a vehicle of another industrialist near the Phagwara bus stand a few months back.

The kits are openly available at cost ranging between Rs 6,000 to 9,000.

This cuts down the cost by one-fourth. The kit consists of a converter that can be changed from gas to fuel in case the cylinder becomes empty.

A businessman dealing in these kits, on request of anonymity, says if the cylinder leaks then it will be confined to the boot, and it will have no mode of escape thus proving dangerous. High speed can generate extra heat, especially during summers, to trigger off a blast.

Despite promises made by the local administration and the traffic police no concrete step has been taken in this direction to book owners as well as mechanics in this regard.

When contacted, Ravinder Singh, traffic in charge, said we do challan such vehicles which come to our notice. Phagwara, being situated on the national highway, it is very difficult to check every car which can result in piling up of traffic on the GT road.

Amritsar, May 25
Nearly 50 polio-like cases have been detected in the border district of Amritsar.

In all these cases, the arms and legs of small kids have been affected due to tension in brain, said civil surgeon Dr Lehambar Singh, while talking to mediamen here on Friday.

“The blood samples of these children have been sent for testing to a laboratory in Kasauli in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh,” said Singh.

He ruled out polio but added that they were awaiting the final reports.

The initial reports suggested that these symptoms appeared due to brain tension in these kids, the doctor further added.

Giving details about the pulse polio programme, which is scheduled to be held on May 27, Dr Singh said more than 3.43 lakh children would be administered polio drops in the district.

For this, 1,398 vaccination booths were being set up in 678 villages and 711 urban areas.

Jalandhar, May 25
Minister of Technical Education, Ch Swarna Ram today said that the issue related bringing down the fee structure of technical education courses to make these more affordable to students from all sections was on the agenda of the next cabinet meeting.

The minister said this during his maiden visit to Punjab Technical University campus here, three months after he had been appointed on the post. He took a round of the small campus and was shown a presentation on the set up of the university, various affiliated colleges affiliated to it, pass percentage and various courses offered.

The minister said that there were chances that certain sections of the society be given some fee rebate or exemption.

He, however, did not clearly spell out the proposal saying that it was confidential. During an interaction with the university officials, he asked the officials to get the copies of prospectus or any admission notices printed in Punjabi or Hindi language.\

On a demand of the university VC Dr S.K. Salwan for appointing staff on regular basis to bring in more stability, he said that it would be looked into. He dashed the hopes of the officials of getting any grants as he said that it was quite unlikely.

“Rather the government is looking for some funds from the university, it is earning so much revenue after all”, he laughed.

On a question regarding sharing of the revenue with Lord Swraj Paul from the much awaited PTU Caparo School of Excellence for Manufacturing and Material Technology, the minister said that he was yet to study the project and he could not reply on the matter.

Hoshiarpur, May 25
More than 1200 chickens perished in a fire at Badowan village (Mahilpur), 35 km from here this afternoon.

According to the police, the fire suddenly broke out in the poultry-farm owned by Amarjit Singh of the village at about 3:30 pm.

The fire engulfed the adjoining storage sheds of Narinder Singh and Mohan Singh.

Some portion of the adjoining house of Dilbag Singh was also caught in the flames but was saved of any major damage.

Fire engines from Municipal Councils of Hoshiarpur and Nawanshahr were requisitioned to control the fire. It took one hour to control the fire.