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Rs 60 crore proposed for disaster management authority
State to write to centre on SYL canal
Sonia to address ‘smriti rally’ today
‘Murdered’ trader booked for attempt to murder
Give pension to widow, HC tells power nigam |
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Govt all set to purchase copter
Groom turns out to be murder accused
Charkhi Dadri gets facelift
2 remanded in exam paper case
Steel bars looted
Dept moots changes in school exam pattern
Ambassador car may stage comeback
Rohit Verma murder case
‘Not choosing Bhajan as CM was a mistake’
No case solved at lok adalat
7 oil stations get notice
Over 5,000 cassettes seized
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Rs 60 crore proposed for disaster management authority
Chandigarh, November 27 The DMA, set up by the state government recently in adherence to a central legislation, has acquired relevance in view of the earthquake that rocked Delhi yesterday. The epicentre of the tremor measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale was in Haryana areas bordering Delhi. Haryana revenue secretary Dharam Vir, who is engaged in drawing up plans for handling various categories of disasters (earthquake, fire, flood and the likes) that may hit the state, said almost half of Haryana fell on seismic zone IV. The rumbling of the earth yesterday too had been traced to Bahadurgarh near Jhajjar on this zone. Haryana districts falling on zone IV are Ambala, Sonepat, Rohtak, Karnal, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Panipat, Rewari and Yamunanagar. Kurukshetra, Jind, Hisar, Bhiwani, Mahendragarh and Kaithal are on zone III while Sirsa is on zone II. Stating that there had been no report of any damage caused in Haryana by the tremor yesterday, the revenue secretary said the government had already started getting its personnel trained in disaster management from Roorkie and other places. “The idea is that there should be a mechanism which would get functional automatically in case of an earthquake or a train accident or any other disaster,” Dharam Vir said. The DMA was working on drafting of plans for tackling various types of disasters and would start releasing the plans from next month onwards, he said. The DMA units at the district level are headed by the respective deputy commissioners, while the Chief Minister is the chairman of the state-level entity. The state government has already made it compulsory for all new constructions to be earthquake-resistant. Efforts were also on to safeguard the existing constructions against tremors, Dharam Vir said. The eastern parts of Haryana along with Delhi have numerous faults. Proximity to faults, however, do not necessarily mean higher hazards, as damage from tremors will depend on numerous factors, including construction codes. The most intense tremor in Haryana during the past 50 years was felt on zone IV only, as an earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter scale had rocked Gurgaon, Faridabad and Delhi in 1960. In the recent past, frequent tremors were felt at Jind (zone III). The tremors prompted the meteorological department to start seismic monitoring in the district. |
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State to write to centre on SYL canal
Chandigarh, November 27 Sources say Haryana is of the view that the apex court has already decided the issue of the canal’s construction in its order of January, 2004. In the order the Supreme Court had directed that the canal should be constructed within one year of its order by Punjab within its territory. The court also held that if Punjab failed to construct the canal, the centre should get it constructed by an agency of its own. The sources say while the apex court was categorical in its order about the construction of the SYL canal, it had left the issue of the share of the respective states in the river waters for the Eradi Commission to decide. Punjab, on the other hand, says after the passing of the Termination of Agreements Act, vide which that state had annulled all river water agreements, the issue of the construction of the SYL canal had lost its relevance. The constitutional validity of the controversial act is under review of the Supreme Court. Senior officers of Haryana say the controversial act deals only with the share of various states in the river waters and has nothing to do with the SYL canal. They say the apex court order of 2004 is still in force. No party has even challenged it. Meanwhile, the Central Water Commission will again meet tomorrow to look into the technical aspects of the objections raised by Punjab and Rajasthan to the construction of the Hansi-Butana link canal in Haryana. All three states will file their written submissions before the commission. |
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Sonia to address ‘smriti rally’ today
Bhiwani, November 27 Surinder Singh, a son of former Chief Minister Bansi Lal and husband of Haryana tourism minister Kiran Chaudhry, died in a helicopter crash two years ago. Sonia Gandhi is slated to unveil his statue during tomorrow's visit. The rally has been appropriately christened the “smriti rally”. Besides being a tribute to Surinder Singh, the rally is being viewed as a political boost for Kiran Chaudhry and daughter Shruti who have been working overtime for the past several days to mobilise support despite the heartburning it has caused among Kiran Chaudhry's opponents in Bhiwani district and within her party. It has served another useful purpose for Chaudhry. She has been able to bring together supporters of the Bansi Lal clan under her own leadership, silencing sceptics who thought she would remain only a minor player unlike her late husband. The proximity to the Congress chairperson has also raised the hackles of her opponents who fear she might tower over them in the future although to be fair to her she has not done anything to confirm such fears. Other than the Bansi Lal family, the rally is a clear indication to rebel Congress MP Kuldeep Bishnoi that the Congress will not let him win from here easily whenever he contests the Lok Sabha poll from Bhiwani next. Bishnoi won the seat on the Congress ticket in 2004 as a dark horse. Leaving individuals aside, the rally has catapulted Bhiwani district to the status it enjoyed during the heyday of Bansi Lal and Surinder Singh. Whether the fame proves short-lived in the days to come, remains a moot question. The town has been given a facelift and cops are swarming the streets especially around the stadium where the rally will be held. Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has personally inspected the venue and overseen the arrangements. Security agencies made surprise checks at hotels and dharamshalas to rule out the possibility of any antisocial elements taking shelter there. Eight parking lots have been created to accommodate vehicles coming from different directions. Those approaching Bhiwani from Hisar, Tosham, Jind, Hansi and Mundhal will be packed off to Government College and education board grounds. Vehicles from the Rohtak side will be parked at Halwasia Public School. Meham participants will have to park at the Sector 13 Bhiwani Public School. Vehicles from Loharu and Dadri will be sent to Kirori Mal Senior Secondary School and Kirori Mal Park. Local vehicles will be parked in the Adarsh College grounds.
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‘Murdered’ trader booked for attempt to murder
Fatehabad, November 27 The police is waiting for the report of the Forensic Science Lab before reaching any conclusion on the death of trader Jhanda Ram. Evidence available with the police indicates that Jhanda Ram may have committed suicide after he shot at his partner Jai Gopal in a fit of rage. The body of Jhanda Ram had been found in the fields in the night of November 22 with bullet injuries on the left side of his chest. The names of his three partners were written on his arm with a ballpoint pen. Later, one of his partners Jai Bhagwan was found injured with bullet injuries on the right side of his chest. The police had rounded up a few persons in connection with the crime. The police had been following the call details of the mobile phones of all partners and had quizzed all those persons to whom Jai Bhagwan, Jhanda Ram and other partners had talked to during this period. Today, the police took a U-turn from its earlier version and booked the deceased for inflicting life-threatening injuries on Jai Bhagwan. The police, according to sources, has got strong evidence that Jhanda Ram had shot at Jai Bhagwan from an illegal pistol on November 22.
Jhanda Ram, according to the police, was angry with Jai Bhagwan over a land deal and felt that the latter had cheated him in that deal. The bullet recovered from the body of Jhanda Ram, according to sources, appears to be the same as the ones that had been found from the place Jai Bhagwan was shot at. The pistol was also recovered from the spot. SP Saurabh Singh confirmed that a case had been registered against Jhanda Ram but added that the cause of Jhanda Ram’s death would be known only after the report from the FSL was received. |
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Give pension to widow, HC tells power nigam
Chandigarh, November 27 In a strong-worded judgment that reflects the humanitarian countenance of law, Justice Anand allowed widow Leela Devi's petition and quashed the order dated January 2, 2006, vide which family pension to her was declined. Justice Anand also directed the organisation to sanction family pension to the petitioner with effect from the date her husband expired. The Judge further ruled that the petitioner was entitled to arrears also from the same date with 9 per cent per annum interest. Petitioner Leela Devi’s husband Panju Ram “died in harness” on November 29, 1992. The respondent organisation denied the grant of family pension to Leela Devi as her husband had worked as a “regular employee” for a little over nine months, while the “rules required that the employee ought to have put in one year of regular service before his legal representatives became entitled to family pension”. Pronouncing the orders in an open court on Lela Devi’s petition yesterday, Justice Anand ruled: “The instant case is representative of official apathy towards the unenviable woes of a hapless widow, who after losing the provider of the family had to face a denial of least means of subsistence for self and children. “The respondents, in a brazen display of indifference, did not find it appropriate to favourably decide upon the issue of family pension in view of the fact that the deceased employee had been in employment for about two and a half decades. In his detailed judgment, the Judge added that store-mate Panju Ram had been functioning on a work-charge basis without interruption from March 28, 1968, to March 10, 1992. “It defies logical comprehension that the widow of an employee, who gave 25 best years of life to the respondents should be seen craving for the grant of family pension and get faced with denial just because the period of regular service rendered by her husband fell short by a little less than three months. Law, and also acceptable human compassion, would not countenance such an eventuality,” the Judge observed while summing up the matter. |
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Govt all set to purchase copter
Chandigarh, November 27 “It will be a twin-engined helicopter with a sitting capacity of five to seven people other than the pilot and the co-pilot”, a source said, adding that three helicopter manufacturing companies recently gave presentations to the government on their products. The government has tentatively fixed Rs 30 crore as the price of the helicopter, its hangar and other paraphernalia. Pilots for flying the machine, which will be stationed in Delhi, will be recruited by the government. Having permanent pilots will of course entail high recurring expenditure since pilots never come cheap. The present state government had also purchased a new plane by replacing the old state plane soon after it came to power in Haryana. The helicopter is going to be a fresh acquisition. The state government does not have a helicopter at present. M.Ramsekhar, adviser, Haryana civil aviation department, when contacted by The Tribune, said: “ Planes cannot land everywhere. As a result we have been hiring helicopters at a very steep cost for use by dignitaries. With a helicopter of our own, we will not need to spend money on hiring helicopters any more”. Ramsekhar said states like UP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have fleets bigger than that of Haryana. A helicopter would also be useful for giving relief to people or for aerial surveys of a territory in the case of disaster, he said. While the state plane is primarily used by the Chief Minister, it is also sometimes used by other dignitaries, including the Governor. Likewise, the helicopter, too, would not be the exclusive preserve of any particular VIP, it was claimed. Apart from the plane and the helicopter, the present government has also purchased four luxury Mercedes cars as well as a number of other sedans for use by the Chief Minister, ministers, parliamentary secretaries and others.
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Groom turns out to be murder accused
Jhajjar, November 27 The panchayat, led by sarpanch Urmila Devi, directed the father of the grooms, hailing from Sidipur Lova village near Bahadurgarh, to compensate for the expenses the brides’ family had to incur in making the arrangements for the marriages and asked the middleman to apologise to the brides’ father and the panchayat by standing on one leg and clutching his ears as token punishment. Ishwar Singh had engaged his two daughters to Rakesh and Sunil, sons of his namesake in Sidipur Lova village, about 11 months ago. In the meantime, one of the two youths got involved in a murder incident and was lodged in Bhiwani jail for the past five months. However, the family did not inform the family of the would-be relatives in Jhamri village. Though the marriage ceremonies were fixed to be held during day, the barat arrived late in the evening and the grooms’ family started making excuses for the delay. However, when they arrived, the brides’ family discovered that one of the grooms was in handcuffs and two cops were accompanying him. Following interrogation, it transpired that Rakesh was an accused in a murder case and had come out of jail with permission for 12 hours. The disclosure shocked the brides’ family and it flatly refused to go ahead with the weddings. Amid beldam, which ensued the disclosure, the accused groom was taken away by the accompanying cops while the other groom and members of the marriage party fled. The family of the brides held the gooms’ father and the middleman, who had arranged the marriages, hostage. They were let off after the grooms’ father paid Rs 65,000 as compensation as directed by the panchayat. |
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Charkhi Dadri gets facelift
Charkhi Dadri (Bhiwani), November 27 Sonia Gandhi will lay the foundation stones of two projects costing more than Rs 37 crore in Charkhi Dadri. One of these projects is the remodelling and widening of the Dadri-Chhuchakwas-Jhajjar road costing about Rs 21.6 crore and the other pertaining to a railway overbridge costing about Rs 16 crore on the Dadri-Jhajjar road. Both foundation stones will be laid by Sonia Gandhi through a remote control on the premises of Apeejay Public School where she will also address the public assembled on the occasion. Hoardings have been displayed at the public meeting site. A large number of police personnel have been deployed at the site. Chief parliamentary secretary Dharamvir Singh, along with deputy commissioner Satya Parkash and SDM Satbir Singh Lohchab, reviewed the arrangements for Sonia Gandhi’s visit. Three helipads have been prepared near the site of the public meeting. According to Dharamvir Singh, the UPA chairperson is scheduled to arrive at Charkhi Dadri noon by a helicopter from Delhi. She will later leave for Bhiwani 12.10 pm. |
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2 remanded in exam paper case
Sirsa, November 27 The suspects, Anil Dhanuka, a city-based owner of a private institute, and B. Arangnathan, a lecturer in biochemistry from Tamil Nadu, were yesterday arrested under sections 420, 409 and 120B of the IPC. The two had allegedly entered into a conspiracy and opened the seal of the papers before the delivery of these to the examination centre in a private school in the MC colony. The principal had reported the matter to the police. |
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Steel bars looted
Jind, November 27 The police has booked a case on a complaint lodged by the contractor. The incident took place around midnight, when clerk-cum-attendant Prakash was asleep in a makeshift room built on the premises. The intruders who had come in a canter truck and armed with crude weapons, including sticks and iron rods, locked the door of clerk’s room. They directed him to keep quiet and threatened him with dire consequences if he tried to rise and alarm. |
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Dept moots changes in school exam pattern
Chandigarh, November 27 The department is learnt to have recommended that the objective type pattern in the first semester be done away with and replaced with brief descriptive questions instead. This is to check the approach of mugging up questions and reproducing these without applying mind.
“In the one-and-a-half years since the semester system was introduced in schools, our experience has shown that teachers prepare students for objective type questions only and the real learning is given a miss. The students, too, in an attempt to score more, learn the short answer type questions,” explains secretary, education, Haryana, Rajan Gupta. Since learning objective-type questions is being seen by the authorities in the education department as a compromise on quality teaching in schools, the pattern of the question paper is being amended to make learning more exhaustive while emphasising on promoting understanding of the subject. Sources said a number of suggestions were invited to introduce changes to improve education and syllabi in schools. These suggestions were being deliberated upon and the members of the board were likely to finalise the draft in the coming week. Since the semester system is conducted by the Haryana School Education Board and is based on the books prescribed by the CBSE, officials feel that the syllabi being followed is also more suited to the briefly descriptive pattern of questions. Haryana was the first state to introduce the semester system from classes VI to XII in 2006-07. The pattern was introduced in all schools affiliated with the HSEB which is the authority to conduct examinations of classes VIII, X and XII. The decision was taken to further improve the quality of education, equipping and empowering the teachers for effective participation in imparting education and introducing relatively innovative methods of ideal and model education for the students. The concept of semester system implied courses of six months' duration, that is two divisions of the academic year.
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Ambassador car may stage comeback
Chandigarh, November 27 Vehicles figuring in the list included the Ford Fiesta, Tata Indigo and Honda City but did not mention the good old Ambassador that has been traditionally the vehicle of civil servants. Everyone thought it was the end of the government’s love affair with the Ambassador car in Haryana. Many of the elderly bureaucrats actually felt a trifle sad for the old car losing out to upstart entrants in the car market. White Ambassadors, they felt, represented authority, and it would not be easy for another car to become a similar symbol with the people. With the state government recently relaxing its rules on cars, many of the civil servants will be again able to purchase their favourite Ambassador cars as and when the opportunity arises. The latest instructions of the government in this regard said the “ departments concerned of the government, boards and corporations may take their own decisions for the selection of the models/categories of cars/vehicles which are to be purchased by them”. The instructions, issued last week, however, had not affected any change in the price range of vehicles than what was mentioned in the earlier letter on the subject. The price limit is still Rs 6 lakh for the seniormost officers, Rs 5 lakh for joint secretaries, heads of departments and managing directors and Rs 4 lakh for other officers. Asked what the provocation was for the liberalisation of the rules on the purchase of vehicles, a source said the transport department had been insisting on the inclusion of some vehicles in the government list in addition to the cars already mentioned in the list. The government, after considering the proposal, decided to make the choice open instead of expanding the list by incorporating other car manufacturers. The source, however, added that keeping the choice wide open would create one problem. Fixing the criterion of fuel consumption (mileage) for cars of various makes would be a difficult job, he said. |
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Rohit Verma murder case Ambala, November 27 Dr Harbans Lal said his 17-year-old nephew Rohit was kidnapped from Naraingarh on November 21. When his whereabouts could not be ascertained, police was approached on November 23. He claimed that the police did not take the matter seriously and Rohit’s body was recovered yesterday from a village in Himachal Pradesh. He said it was clear that had the police promptly swung into action, they could have nabbed the guilty but no action was initiated. Dr Harbans Lal said if the police had earnestly wanted to solve the case, then it should have thoroughly questioned the person whom the family had doubts on. He said last night he spoke to SP, Ambala, K.V. Ramana, who assured that the guilty would be arrested at the earliest. He demanded strict action against the Naraingarh SHO. Dr Harbans Lal said he would inform Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda about the present state of affairs. He said when his own nephew could not be protected, then the condition of the common man was understandable. He said the statement issued by the Naraingarsh SHO that the case was registered on November 25 and was cracked within a day, was regrettable. He demanded that the case be handed over to the crime branch. Dr Harbans Lal stated that Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Rajinder Kaur Bhattal would visit Naraingarh to press for the arrest of the guilty. He said if required, he would submit a written application against the lackadaisical approach of the police.
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‘Not choosing Bhajan as CM was a mistake’
Kaithal, November 27 He said people had voted in favour of the Congress at that time as they wanted to see Bhajan as CM. Khurdban said Bhajan was a leader of masses and people loved him. The thumping majority got by the Congress in the last Assembly elections was because of the popularity of Bhajan and not that of Sonia Gandhi. If Sonia is so popular then why the party had lost elections in Punjab and Uttar Pardesh where Sonia and her son Rahul had campaigned vigorously in the elections. He said now people of Haryana wanted to see Kuldip Bishnoi as next CM of Haryana so there was enthusiasm among the people to attend proposed Rohtak rally on December 2. Kuldip had raised the SEZ issue, which was connected with the future of farmers of the state. When Kuldip first raised this issue, he was not taken seriously but soon the state government had to announce sops for farmers whose land was acquired for SEZ’s and even the Centre government had to announce a policy on setting up of SEZ’s in different parts of the country. Khurdban said the people of Haryana were least satisfied with the performance of present government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda so they were looking for an alternative leadership and they had started extending support to Bishnoi. The Congress high command had no moral courage to take any action against Kuldip and Bajan.
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7 oil stations get notice Ambala, November 27 The petrol pumps to whom the final notices have been issued are at Nanhera, Mohra, Patti Bagheru, Saha-Panchkula road, Ambala-Kala-Amb road, Patwi and
Mithapur.
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No case solved at lok adalat
Rewari, November 27 The lok adalat was presided over by additional district and sessions judge A. K. Bimal. Exhorting rural people to take advantage of such lok adalats, the chief judicial magistrate-cum-secretary of the district legal services Sukrampal Singh highlighted various benefits of lok adalats. |
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Over 5,000 cassettes seized
Karnal, November 27 The police raided the shop on the complaint of Niranjan Das, anti-piracy officer, Super Cassettes Industries, Noida. Meanwhile, in the case of attack on two Japanese nationals on November 2, two more suspects, Praveen and Surender, have been arrested while one has surrendered. |
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