Jalandhar, October 2
With the location of most of the city-based educational institutes on the highways and main roads, the students, studying in these, fall under high risk of being hit by a speeding vehicle, while trying to cross the roads to enter the campus.

One of the most accident prone sites is just outside the Lovely Professional University campus, which is located on the national highway. Even though the university’s own buses opt for a proper route, picking and dropping students inside the campus, those commuting on private buses face a major risk.

Every day at around 8:30 am, hundreds of students can be seen getting down from the private buses stopping on the road across the campus.

Not only do these buses stop in the middle of the NH 1 but halt just for a few minutes to allow a huge bunch of students to disembark. The students then cross over the divider atop a railway over bridge to reach the campus.

Further, the location of the campus gate is close to the over bridge and as a result of which there is no cut between the divider. The students coming on their personal vehicles prefer take wrong side of the road with chances of being hit by the approaching traffic. The situation is same during the evening hours after the classes are over around 4 pm.

Chancellor of the university, Ashok Mittal, said he had written to the officials of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) asking them to get a foot bridge constructed outside the campus. “We have expressed our willingness to bear the entire cost for the safety of our students if the proposal gets accepted”, he said.

Owing to a huge strength of students of Apeejay School and adjoining Apeejay College of Fine Arts, a portion of Mahavir Marg close to BMC Chowk remains choc-a-block with the traffic at opening and closing hours.

Though police personnel remain on duty to keep a check on unregulated traffic, the situation often goes out of control.

The cut in the divider in front of the school is closed at the time of the working hours so as to avoid more chaos. The traffic police face a lot of objection owing to it for the commuters have to take a much longer route or take a U-turn to reach their destination.

There is a proposal for construction of elevated road from BMC Chowk to Guru Nanak Mission Chowk for the smooth movement of the traffic but it is still under re-consideration owing to change of power in the municipal corporation.

The traffic outside St Joseph’s Boys’ School in Defence Colony also becomes unmanageable at times owing to the busy road that forms the first link after crossing the cantonment between the GT Road and Garha Road as well as other colonies behind. Passage of heavy vehicles including trucks and buses at the day time further poses a serious problem.

SP Traffic Rakesh Kaushal said policemen were on permanent duty outside the main campuses of all the schools at the time of opening and closing for the safety of the students. He said the men had been asked to help the students cross the road to avoid any mishap.

Phagwara, October 2
Three members of a family, including a woman and her two children, reportedly committed suicide by consuming poison at Nakodar on Monday night. According to the reports, all three were immediately rushed to a Jalandhar hospital. While both the kids died last night, their mother breathed her last early morning today. The deceased have been identified as Kulwinder Kaur, Navjot Kaur (15) and Manpreet (10).

The illicit relations of Kulwinder’s husband Ravinder Singh with two young girls of a nearby village are said to be the cause of suicide, said police.

Ramesh Rani of village Sareeh while talking to newsmen alleged that her daughter was married to Ravinder Singh of Nakodar 15 years ago. She claimed that Kulwinder was in depression due to her husband’s behaviour. “ She repeatedly told him to discontinue his relations with the girls, but the latter paid no heed. They had frequent fights and Ravinder used to often thrash my daughter,” claimed Rani, adding that the kids were also suffering.

Fed up with the mental and physical harassment, the woman and her kids consumed sulphos tablets to end their lives. Nakodar police has registered a case under section 306 of IPC against Ravinder. The bodies were handed over to the family members after conducting postmorterm examination in Nakodar civil hospital today. Later, the three were cremated in the presence of hundreds of villagers.

Jalandhar, October 2
The Education Volunteer Teachers Union Punjab organised a dharna at BMC Chowk here today, demanding regularisation of their services.

The members said they had been rendering their services for the past four years and yet the government was not assuring them of regularisation. Union general secretary Navneet said, “Our representatives had already met education minister Upinderjit Kaur at Kapurthala recently. Though the minister assured us of regularising our jobs, no step has been taken so far.”

The members of the Primary Elementary Sikhya Bachao Front, too, held a protest at Company Bagh today. Their demands included shifting of secondary teachers to the elementary schools so that they could be given a chance to serve in secondary schools.

Jalandhar, October 2
Fifteen-year-old shooter Nikita Gupta of Jalandhar is not only hopeful of qualifying for the national shooting championship but also confident of winning a medal in the competition. Interestingly, her performance in the recently concluded state-level championship at Mohali has already qualified her for all-India GV Mavalankar shooting championship to be held at Agra from October 24.

A class X student of Apeejay School, Nikita said she started shooting in March this year. She took her initial lessons at the CRPF shooting range under the guidance of international coach and CRPF IG T.S. Dhillon. Her mother Dr Ruby reveals that seeing her enthusiasm her father set up a personal shooting range on the top floor of Karan Hospital for her. “Nikita spends at least an hour daily at her personal shooting range and practise at the PAP shooting range on weekends under the guidance of Narinder Bhalla,” she added. Disclosing her plans, Nikita said, “My immediate goal is to repeat my performance in the national after qualifying for the same.” However, her ultimate aim is to play in the Asian, Commonwealth and Olympic games and bring laurels for the country.

In the Punjab state shooting championship, which held at Mohali from September 21 to 23, Nikita bagged two silver and one bronze medals in 10m air pistol competition in the sub-junior group. Proud of her daughter’s achievements, Dr Kamal Gupta said, “I was really surprised when she won the medals because she clinched these medals with effort of just six months.”

Maintaining a balance between her hobby and studies, Nikita is doing well in academic too.

Here is a mathematical game which you can play with your friends.

Ask your friend to think any number up to six digits and follow the following steps:

• Multiply the number thought of by your friend by 100
• Subtract the original number
• Divide the result thus obtained by 9
• Again divide the outcome by the original number

Now here brings the trick. You can tell your friend that the answer thus calculated by him is 11 even without knowing the remnants of the calculations. He won’t believe it but when you will tell him the answer he had calculated after the above steps, he will be amazed to get the correct answer.

Let’s understand it with the help of a few illustrations.

1. Suppose your friend thought of a number, say 22, multiply it by 100 and you will obtain the result to be 22 x 100 = 2200. Subtract the original number from 2200 i.e. 2200 - 22 = 2178. Divide this result by 9 i.e. 2178/9 = 242. Again dividing this 242 by the original number, which is 22, you’ll get the answer as 11. This is the answer which you have already told your friend.

2. Let’s take another example. Assuming that your friend thought the number to be 5462. After multiply it by 100, you’ll get 546200 (5462 x 100 = 546200). After subtracting the original number you’ll be left with 540738 (546200 - 5462 = 540738). Now divide the result thus obtained by 9 i.e. 540738/9 = 60082. Again dividing this result by the original number you’ll get the required answer which is 11 (60082/5462 = 11).

Isn’t it really an amazing game?

email: bansalvandana@yahoo.com

(The writer is lecturer in Ramgarhia College, Phagwara)