Jalandhar, August 16
Though heavy rainfall on Thursday evening brought relief to the residents by bringing the mercury down, the accompanying windstorm made lives of many miserable.

Since morning the sky was overcast and the residents didn’t had any respite from the humidity and high temperature. Suddenly, the city experienced a heavy down pour around 3 pm, which continued for almost hours. Few hours of rain, inundated the city roads affecting residential and commercial areas.

All prominent city roads leading to bus stand, Police Lines, Lyallpur Khalsa College, Company Bagh, administrative complex, Nakodar Road and Ladowali Road were completely deluged. The residents had no other option than to wade through knee deep waters. The vehicles parked outside various areas too were found sinking in the stagnant water. Since the roads remained deluged, the slow movement of the vehicles amplified the commuters’ problems. All major roads had a bumper-to-bumper traffic in the evening. Dragging vehicles was a common site on the roads. Heavy rain also affected the power supply in city. Due to falling of trees on electric cables in the Police Lines, the area remained without power. Similar reports were also received from the other areas of the city as well. Power connection otherwise remained disrupted or disconnected in most of the areas for more than four hours.

Phagwara, August 16
Though the attempt to commit bigamy by UK-based 54-year-old NRI Gurmukh Singh of nearby Wahrrowal village, Nawanshahr, could not be proved, but he has assured to return to his “first” wife Jaswinder, residing in the UK.

With the efforts of DSP H.P.S. Khakh, NRI Gurmukh Singh agreed to live with his “first” wife Jaswinder in the UK as the parents of Gurjit Kaur of nearby Virk village refused to marry their daughter to the controversial NRI.

After a series of meeting with all three parties concerned, ie relatives and family members of NRI Gurmukh Singh, Garhshankar, Gurjit Kaur and relatives of Jaswinder, the police succeeded in making them reach an agreement this afternoon.

According to the agreement, family members and relatives of Jaswinder would pay Rs 4.50 lakh to the family of Gurjit Kaur as compensation for damages due to the ransacking of the Grand Castle marriage palace here where NRI Gurmukh Singh was about to marry Gurjit, daughter of Mahinder Singh, a retired block primary education officer.

DSP Khakh told The Tribune this evening that the amount has been handed over to the family of Gurjit and the passport of NRI Gurmukh Singh was handed over to him. DSP said Gurmukh has assured to return to his wife Jaswinder, residing in the UK.

Jalandhar, August 16
Non-governmental organisations from the United States have come forward to fund Pasricha Hospital in Jalandhar in order to help perform surgeries free of cost for patients with cleft lip, cleft palate and post burn 
deformities.

Plastic, cosmetic, microvascular and laser surgeon Dr Puneet Pasricha talking to The Tribune, said his Pasricha Hospital located in Adarsh Nagar is the only hospital in the entire country which has been funded by NGOs from the US to perform free surgeries for the patients with post burn deformities.

These NGOs would fund the hospital for 20 surgeries related with post burn deformities and any number of surgeries of cleft lip and palate patients, he added.

Consequently, Pasricha Hospital is organising a free surgical camp from August 20 to August 30 for the benefit of cleft lip and palate patients and also for the patients with post burn deformities.

The camp will provide absolutely free treatment in which all the expenditure of surgery, anesthesia, hospital charges and pre operative medicines would be funded by the US-based NGOs, he said. These surgeries would follow US safety standards.

Millions of children all over the world have taken advantage of these surgeries funded by the NGOs, he added.

Pasricha Hospital has performed more than 1,000 surgeries related to cleft lip and palate and post burn deformities, Dr Puneet added. The north India has fairly large number of these problems, he said.

Hoshiarpur, August 16
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, (NREGA) introduced in the district in February 2006 has been instrumental in instilling confidence among rural families, according to claims by the local administration.

The scheme aimed at providing at least 100 days assured employment to the jobless rural youths. The scheme became a tool of development in villages by providing infrastructural facilities thus changing the rural scenario to a great extent.

Deputy commissioner, D.K. Tiwari said, “Employment to 30,868 households had been provided while 2,045 had completed 100 days of guaranteed employment. As many as 40,310 applications had been registered up to February 2007. Out of these 1,809 were rejected. As many as 38,501 applicants were selected and job cards were issued to 37,326 households,” the DC added.

The DC said as many as 789 works for providing all-weather connectivity in rural areas at the cost of Rs 1483.85 lakh has been undertaken. Work for renovation of 290 traditional water bodies and development of ponds has been taken up at the cost of Rs 421.10 lakh.

As many as 30 flood control and protection works, including drainage works have also been started at the cost of Rs 152.52 lakh, he said. Another 119 land development works had been taken up during this period at the cost of Rs 146.75 lakh.

Similarly, 10 plantation works at cost of Rs 4.50 lakh were underway. Preference was given to women under NREGA to ensure they constituted one third of the beneficiaries. From previous daily wage of Rs 55 only women were given employment at wages of Rs 94 per day under the scheme, DC Tiwari said.

Works under the scheme have been planned by gram panchayats by registering households, issuing job cards, allocating employment and executing at least 50 per cent of the works besides monitoring the implementation of the scheme at the village level, the DC added.

Jalandhar, August 16
Harmesh Lal, who is working as a physical instructor and training students at Government Secondary School, Samrai near Jandiala finally got recognition for his hard work.

He was rewarded with the district level award yesterday during the Independence Day function held at Guru Gobind Singh Stadium.

He has already coached the Indian team for Asian championships and world championships including tug of war and weightlifting. Apart from coaching and teaching, Lal also excels in other fields. He has great interest in improvisation of waste material, carpentry, sculpturing, portrait making, landscaping, architecture and painting on banners.

Besides, Lal also has hobby of collecting traditional handicrafts.