Chandigarh, July 23
Cross-voting by Haryana MLAs during the recently concluded presidential poll is snowballing into a major controversy with the Deputy Chief Minister Chander Mohan today lashing out against the working president of his own party in the state.

In a no holds barred press conference here, Chander Mohan said he would file a defamation suit against working president of HPCC Ram Prakash for accusing him of voting for the NDA nominee. “I will talk to a lawyer today itself and file a defamation suit within next two to three days”, he said.

He said he was immensely grateful to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for choosing him to become the Deputy Chief Minister. “I have always been a faithful soldier of the Congress party and I will always remain one. There was no question of my voting against the UPA candidate Pratibha Patil”, he said.

He said he was very hurt when he saw reports today in a section of the press that quoted Ram Prakash as having said he (Chander Mohan) had voted in favour of NDA candidate B S Shekhawat. The Deputy Chief Minister said he would also complain to Sonia Gandhi as well as to the Election Commission about the “unfounded allegation” made by the PCC working president.

“I used to consider Ram Prakash a thinking man. Now I am compelled to have a different opinion about his mental abilities”, Chander Mohan said. He said Ram Prakash should be immediately removed from the post of the working president of the PCC. “Ever since he has become the working president, Congress workers in the state have started leaving the party”, he said.

The Deputy Chief Minister, elder son of the disgruntled Congress leader Bhajan Lal, refused to hazard any guess about the five unaccounted votes secured by Shekhawat from Haryana MLAs. He said he would not like to say anything on this subject without being certain about the identity of these MLAs.

“What they did was wrong”, Chander Mohan said about MLAs voting for Shekhawat despite being officially supporters of UPA nominee.

Chander Mohan said he had nothing to do with the party proposed to be floated by his younger brother Kuldeep Bishnoi, MP, to challenge the Congress in the state. 

Kurukshetra, July 23
The Kalpana Chawla Memorial Planetarium (KCMP), Kurukshetra, will be dedicated to the nation by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda while Ambika Soni, Minister for Tourism and Culture, Government of India, will preside over the function.

Stating this at a press conference here today, I.K. Mukherjee, Director-General, National Council of Science Museums (NCSM), said that the KCMP had been set up for imparting astronomical education in Kalpana Chawla’s memory here.

In this planetarium a visitor can experience and be a part of the wonders of the cosmos that fascinated Kalpana.

Two programmes "Oasis in Space and "Kalpana's Dream and Beyond" have added value to the presentation at the planetarium.

The central planetarium is surrounded by an exhibition on astronomy and life and works of Kalpana Chawla, which provides an insight into the wonderworld of astronomy and showcases the life and works of Kalpana Chawla.

The construction of the planetarium started in January, 2004.

The project was completed in March, 2007. The capital cost for the project was Rs 650 lakh.

The total expenditure on completion of the project stands approximately at Rs 660 lakh, out of which the equipment cost is Rs 428 lakh.

The planetarium is sure to strengthen the cause of spreading scientific and astronomical knowledge among the visitors, specially the children. Indeed, the planetarium is a wonderland that Kalpana would have desired for the kids of Haryana, Mukherjee added.

The planetarium will definitely boost scientific temperement in Haryana.

Rohtak, July 23
A three-day plantation drive “Hara-bhara Rohtak” got under way with local MP Deepender Singh Hooda planting a sapling on the campus of Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) here yesterday. The MP appealed to the local residents to join in the campaign and plant at least one sapling each to make Rohtak a green city.

Addressing the gathering after inaugurating the greenery drive, Hooda said it was the need of the hour for environmental as well as aesthetic reasons. He said nearly 1.5 lakh saplings would be planted, including 10,000 on MDU campus, during the plantation campaign.

Earlier, the MDU Vice-Chancellor, Prof R.S. Dhankar, delivered the welcome address, during which he highlighted the developmental strides of the university. He also presented a Bonsai plant as memento to the MP on the occasion. This plantation drive is being organised under the aegis of a voluntary organisation, the Sarv Hitkari Seva.

Meanwhile, the MP also laid the foundation stone of the Department of Statistics on the premises of MDU.

Chandigarh, July 23
Working President of the Haryana Congress Dr Ram Prakash said here today that former Chief Minister Bhajan Lal too should clarify like his elder son Chander Mohan whether he cross voted in the presidential elections or not.

Reacting to Chander Mohan's statement that he had not voted against the party's candidate Pratibha Patil, Dr Ram Prakash said he welcomed his statement.

The Congress chief said if Bhajan Lal and two more MLAs, Dharam Pal Malik and Rakesh Kamboj, whom he had suspected of having voted against Patil, also clarified their position, he would welcome that also.

Ram Prakash said he also welcomed Chander Mohan's assertion that he would always remain a Congressman, irrespective of the fact whether he was in or out of the ministry. However, the former added that if Chander Mohan wanted to sue him for defamation, he was welcome to do so.

The working president said instead of worrying about his mental health, Chander Mohan should "discharge his family obligations in this regard".

He again asserted that those who had betrayed the party should be ashamed of themselves and that they had no moral right to remain in the party

Jhajjar, July 23
Lashing out at the Congress government for its alleged failure on many fronts, suspended Congress MP from Bhiwani, Kuldeep Bishnoi, said Bhupinder Singh Hooda had flopped as the Chief Minister.

Addressing a public meeting in Bahadurgarh, the rebel Congress leader again raked up the SEZ issue levelling serious allegations against the state government of duping the landowner farmers of crores of rupees. “The state government has done a deal of 20,000 acres for merely Rs 320 crore, while the market value of this land is around Rs 6,000 crore”.

He alleged that Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, party general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi and Hooda were hand in glove in this land deal scam.

Terming the Haryana CM as puppet in the hands of Sonia Gandhi, Bishnoi said the CM was busy either in appeasing the Party High command or in making corrupt deals with vested interest. “The crime rate is escalating day by day as about 18 murder incidents are reported daily in the state”. This indicated that criminals were having field day in the state as the CM had failed to check these criminal elements.

Bishnoi announced to form a new political outfit soon .

Rohtak, July 23
Vice-chancellor of Maharishi Dayanand University (MDU) here, Prof R.S. Dhankar, has nominated Dr S.P.S. Dahiya, dean, faculty of humanities, as a member of the executive council (EC) and the finance committee (FC) of the university.

Professor Dahiya’s membership of the EC and FC will be effective from July 29 for a period of two years.

He also nominated Dr S.P. Khatkar, dean, faculty of engineering and technology, as a member of the executive council (EC) of the university with effect from July 29 for a period of two years, in terms of provisions of Statute-11 of the MDU Act.

The vice-chancellor has nominated three members to the academic council (AC) of the university. Those nominated are Dr Jyoti Juneja, principal, GVM Girls College, Sonepat; Shakuntala Singla, principal, Vaish Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Rohtak and Dr Ravinder Kumar Sharma, principal, KM College of Education, Bhiwani. Their membership will be effective from August 2 for a period of two years.

Chandigarh, July 23
The Haryana State Counselling Society has issued the revised counselling schedule and procedure for admission to first semester BE and BTech for the academic session 2007-08.

The registration, filling and locking of choices could be made up to July 31 and the result would be declared on August 1, he added.

He said the deposition of admission fee and reporting in the allotted institution could be done from August 2 to 6. The vacancy updating by allotted institutions would be done on August 8, he added.

He said there would be only one counselling session as per schedule for all institutes. The second counselling session for government, government-aided and university departments would be conducted from August 8 to 14. Different institutes, disciplines and categories would be alloted 20 per cent more allocation than the sanctioned intake.

He said reporting would be conducted online in the allotted institutes instead of designated centres. Higher percentage in aggregate of marks for admission to institutions as mentioned in the brochure would be considered, he added.

He said the candidates who had already locked their choices could de-lock and refill the choice and lock them again if they desired to do so.

Kurukshetra, July 23
Following arrest of three persons today, the district police claims to have busted an inter-state gang of highway robbers.

Deputy superintendent of police, Hari Ram said the three arrested persons had been identified as Surjeet Singh, alias Nammy of Kale village of Amritsar, Baljinder Singh, alias Kakakiraj of Amritsar and Harpreet Singh, alias Rimpy of New Golden Avenue, Amritsar.

The police recovered two mobile phones from their possession. The DSP said two of their accomplices who were still at large would be arrested soon.

The trio was produced in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate, N.K. Singhal and has been remanded to police custody till July 26.

The DSP said the accused admitted that they had robbed Prem Parkash of Delhi and Sanjeev Sagar of Ludhiana and had taken their mobile phones, gold bangle, driving license and Rs 3,575 as well as Rs 5 lakh. Similarly, Devender Singh from Ambala Cantt was robbed of his belongings, including Rs 2,500, an ATM card, a credit card, a wrist watch, and two mobile sets.

In the third case, Ram Goyal of Mohali, Punjab, was robbed of his ATM card, Rs 2,000, a mobile set and a wrist watch on the intervening night of July 16 and 17.

Ambala, July 23
Haryana chief secretary Prem Prashant today released an action plan for generating employment for class XII and final-year graduation students with the support of the district administration.

The plan is a pilot project for the town.

Speaking at Kingfisher tourist complex, Prem Prashant said the economic scenario suggested a target growth of 2.5 to four per cent for agriculture sector, while it was six to nine per cent for the organised sector.

Presiding over the function, the chief secretary said more and more polytechnic and engineering colleges were being opened in the state to impart quality education to the student community.

Institute of Tourism and Future Management Trends executive director Dr Gulshan Sharma said according to the planning commission report “India Vision 2020”, around 200 million employment opportunities were likely to be generated by 2020, out of which 120 million jobs were in the service industry alone.

He said the ITFT, Chandigarh, was an institute for research, training and consultancy in service industry and was dedicated towards quality human resource for the service industry with focus on hospitality, aviation, Industry and other management disciplines.

He said the institute strived for developing human capital to adopt the latest trends of employability skills and career paths to meet the challenge of the new millennium.

He said there was a wide gap between the theory and practical knowledge, which needed to be abridged.