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Candidates keep fingers crossed
Expulsions: Read suspensions, rules Cong
Dairy farmers from Mandi get training in Haryana
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HP Votes
Dhumal calls on Shanta
JBT students threaten self-immolation
Need to upgrade medical facilities at Dharamsala
Bigger Victory Margin
Banks asked to focus on agriculture
Irate HRTC staff block traffic
Pulse Polio Immunisation
Conference on engineering systems begins
Rape accused sent to judicial custody
Army recruitments
Ram Setu raksha yatra held
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Candidates keep fingers crossed
Mandi, December 27 The six counting centres set up at Mandi for Mandi Sadar and Balh, at Sundernagar for Sundernagar and Nachen, at Gohar for Chachiot, at Karsog for the Karsog segment, at Jogindernagar for Jogindernagar and Drang and at Sarkaghat for Gopalpur and the Dharampur segments. Counting will start at each centre at 8 am and the result of first round of counting will be out by 9 am and the second round between 10 and 11 am and third round at around 12 pm or before, said officials. The officials stated that the first election result is expected to be out by 11 am. as electronic voting machines (EVMs) have sped up the work of counting. The counting of tribal segments Bhamour, Kinnaur and Lahaul -Spiti for which the polls were held on November 14 in the first phase will also begin at 8 am tomorrow at Bharmour, Recongpeo and Kullu respectively, revealed officials. As many as 53 candidates, including 23 independents, the SP, the CPM and the LJP candidate fought election this time in 10 assembly segments. The political fortunes of the Congress, the BJP and the BSP including two main independents Hira Lal(Karsog) and Natha Singh(Dharmpur) and two senior Congress leaders, agriculture minister Rajkishan Gaur(Kullu) and forest and sports minister, Ram Lal Thakur (Kot-Kahloor) are also at stake in the central Kullu-Mandi-Bilaspur region. Solan: With less than a day left for the declaration of results, the candidates are having anxious moments awaiting for the poll outcome tomorrow. Relaxing before the results, two-time Solan MLA Rajiv Bindal of the BJP felt, “I have done my act and it was now time to wait for the result. Since we can only pray for the best after the conclusion of the polling, all that could be done was to wait for the results.” The first-time candidates are trying to assess the situation and calculate the number of votes they can muster. “We feel it will be a close contest in Arki as the BJP appears to have suffered some infighting and sitting legislator Dharam Pal Thakur, who is contesting as an Independent, would fail to cut ice with the voters after being expelled from the party,” confided a supporter of Congress candidate Prakash Karad. However, among the relaxed lot of new faces is BJP candidate Rajiv Sehgal from Kasauli, who felt the results would be favourable seeing the public support gained by him. Hamirpur: District election officer Nandita Gupta has said that all arrangements have been completed for the counting of votes for the five constituencies in Hamirpur district. Talking to mediaperson here today, she said five counting centres had been set up and counting would be taken up in the presence of observers of the Election Commission at 8 am tomorrow. Fiftyseven employees had been deployed for counting in the Nadaun constituency, 76 for Hamirpur and Bamsan each, 77 for Nadaunta and 83 for the Mewa constituency, she said. |
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Expulsions: Read suspensions, rules Cong
Shimla, December 27 HPCC chief Viplove Thakur said today that all expulsions ordered so far since the elections were announced would be treated as suspension and not expulsion so that the party men could be given a chance to present their case before the state disciplinary committee. The HPCC action had come in for severe criticism as party men had alleged that the occasion was being used to settle personal scores in the garb of anti-party activities during the recent elections. It was also felt that factionalism was also very much at play as a large number of loyalists of Virbhadra Singh were being targeted. Surprisingly, the HPCC has straightaway been ordering the expulsion of senior leaders as well as party workers whereas the norm is to order suspension and refer the matter to the state disciplinary committee for the final action. It was only yesterday that the HPCC had ordered the expulsion of 45 party men in one single list. Interestingly, the HPCC does not even have a state disciplinary committee since the list forwarded by it to the AICC is still awaiting approval. “We have already sent the list to the AICC but since the elections were announced in the meantime, the approval is still awaited,” said Kuldeep Rathore, HPCC general secretary and spokesperson. The manner in which the HPCC straightaway expelled former MLA from Chopal Yogender Chander, HIMFED chairman Pratap Chauhan from Jubbal-Kotkhai and Kullu Zila Parishad chairman Ses Ram without giving them an opportunity to plead their case, has led to a lot of resentment among party workers. “Strict action must be taken against anyone who has worked against the party but then the proper channel has to be followed and nobody should be made a target to settle personal scores,” remarked a senior Congress MLA. He said it was shocking the manner in which the HPCC had straightaway been expelling people without giving them an opportunity to be heard. |
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Dairy farmers from Mandi get training in Haryana
Karnal, December 27 This was stated by Dr Dalip K. Gosain, head of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and Dairy Training Centre (DTC) of the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), here today. He was addressing a group of 40 beneficiaries of Mid-Himalayan Watershed Development Project (MHWDP) operating in Mandi district of the hill state. Addressing the group of dairy farmers, including 28 women, from seven villages of the Kunnu panchayat of Darang block, he said the families should adopt the recommended practices in dairy farming in a holistic fashion to get the maximum benefit. He said majority of the members of the group were rearing buffaloes but the milk production was quite low. He said the dairy farmers in Himachal should have more crossbred cattle. He shared with farmers the impact studies and success stories of earlier training programmes organised for dairy farmers from Una, Kangra and Solan districts. He said the farmers should adopt artificial insemination in dairy animals and feed them on the basis of their requirements. Baldev Chandra, agriculture extension officer of the MHWDP, said four groups had been recently formed in the Kunnu panchayat based on their needs in dairying and the members of the group would share their experiences with other group members. Dimple Thakur, working as watershed participatory development facilitator with the MHWDP, said although a milk cooperative society existed in their area, majority of the families under the Kunnu panchayat preferred selling milk to the local vendors. Satyapal, Saroj Mehta and some technical officers of the KVK imparted training to the participants in dairy production and processing. |
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Fate of stalwarts to be decided today
Tribune News Service
All arrangements have been made for the counting, which will take place at 41 locations across the state. With the counting scheduled to start at 8 a.m, it is expected that by 10 a.m it would be clear as to which party is heading towards formation of a government in the hill state. The guessing game as far as the performance of the BSP is concerned will also be over as it is for the first time that the party is trying to replicate its social engineering formula of UP. The results will indicate whether the BSP has been able to be a spoilsport in keeping either the Congress or the BJP out of power. Besides the Chief Mnister himself, the fate of six of his Cabinet colleagues, including Vidya Stokes, Thakur Kaul Singh, Ram Lal Thakur, Raj Krishan Gaur, Kuldeep Kumar and Rangila Ram Rao will be decided. Speaker Gangu Ram Musafir also contested the elections from Pachad in Sirmaur for the seventh consecutive time without having lost even once. It is Ishwar Dass, Congress MLA from Ani in Kullu, who is the old warhorse as he contested the ninth election since he made his electoral debut in 1967. State BJP chief Jai Ram Thakur and BSP convener Vijai Singh Mankotia are also trying their political fortunes from Chachiot and Dharamsala, respectively. Prominent among the BJP who are trying their luck includes Suresh Bhardwaj, former state BJP chief and Rajya Sabha MP, former ministers J.P. Nadda, Kishan Kapoor, Ramesh Dhwala, Roop Singh Thakur and former Speaker Gulab Singh. While the BJP contested all 68 seats, the Congress fielded its candidates from 67 constituencies barring Gangath. The BSP fielded its candidates from 67 seats, the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) from 39 seats, the Samajwadi Party (SP) from 12, the CPI from nine, the CPM from seven. The total number of candidates in the fray is 336, 24 of them women. Six women candidates have been fielded both by the Congress and the BJP. This includes power minister Vidya Stokes and Congress MLAs Asha Kumari, Anita Verma and Chandresh Kumari. As per the present party position in the Assembly, the Congress has 42 MLAs, the BJP 17, LJP one and six Independents. Two seats, Bamsan from where BJP chief ministerial candidate Dhumal is contesting and Shahpur from where BSP leader Mankotia resigned after he quit the Congress, are unrepresented in the current Assembly.
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Dhumal calls on Shanta
Palampur, December 27 Both leaders held talks for around an hour. No one else was present during the meeting. Neither Dhumal nor Shanta interacted with mediapersons, who had assembled outside the residence of Shanta. Sources said the main agenda of the meeting was the formation of the new government and names of possible ministers in the Dhumal’s cabinet. Dhumal also reportedly extended an invitation to Shanta to accompany him to Shimla after the declaration of the results on December 29. Dhumal said there was no dissension in the BJP and with the cooperation and blessing of Shanta, the BJP would serve the people of the state in a better way. He said he would not adopt vindictive or prejudiced approach like Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and no one in the state would be harassed unnecessarily. However, his crusade against corruption would continue and no one would be spared, he added. He also said the BJP government would have a media friendly approach. Press accreditation and recognition rules would be amended in accordance with the suitability to the journalists working in the state. Senior journalists would be inducted into press accreditation and press advisory committees. He said the policies of the BJP government would be transparent.
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JBT students threaten self-immolation
Hamirpur, December 27 The 149 students of Rameshwari teachers training institute, Sara Bai (Kullu), have been agitating for quite long for the holding of JBT examinations by the HP Board of School Education for the students of two batches of 2002-2004 and 2003-2005. While students are blaming the dispute between the management of the institute and the HP government related to affiliation of the course and the matter is also pending in the court. The treasurer of the students body Pushpender Atwal talking to The Tribune said: “We have been suffering as the HP board has not granted affiliation to our course run by the institute despite the fact that two earlier batches before 2003 were allowed to take exams by the board and 174 of them have even been given jobs by the government recently.” One of the agitating girls Anita Suman said, “Though we have met the Chief Minister and the board chairman several times even a compensation of Rs 50,000 awarded to each student by high court for non affiliation of the course to be paid by the management of the institute has been challenged in the Supreme Court.” President of the agitating students Raman Patial
said, “We are now determined to intensify our agitation and would start indefinite hunger strike from January 7 and resort to self-immolation on January 12 before the DC office.” The chairman of the institute Anirudh Sharma said, “Our institute has been targeted for the political reason for granting affiliation to the two batches of JBT as we have been getting batch-wise affiliation from the government.” On the other hand, B.R. Rahi, chairman of the board of school education told The Tribune: “The management of the institute admitted the students of the two batches without having an affiliation from the government. It was denied for want of facilities in the institute on the recommendation of a committee. Moreover the management was told categorically that affiliation to earlier course was given as a one-time relaxation.” |
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Need to upgrade medical facilities at Dharamsala
Dharamsala, December 27 Shortage of specialists in the paediatrics and orthopaedic departments has now virtually made the zonal hospital a referral centre. Residents allege that owing to the uncaring attitude of the state government, the Health Department has miserably failed in providing basic medical facilities to the critically ill. Twelve posts of doctors and a large number of posts of the paramedical staff are lying vacant in the zonal hospital. When patients directly go to the medical college on the new premises, they have to face many ordeals. On Thursday last week, a pregnant woman was referred to the medical college from the district hospital of Chamba. She had got burn injuries in a fire incident. Unfortunately, she succumbed to the injuries in the medical college. The medical college authorities refused to keep the dead body and conduct a post-mortem examination saying the mortuary had so far not been made functional. The family members were forced to hire a taxi and bring the body to the zonal hospital for a post-mortem examination so as to get rid of legal hassles. It took them one day to get conducted the post-mortem examination due to which the cremation was delayed. The coordination between the authorities of the medical college and the zonal hospital is so poor that even the case history of the deceased woman was not sent with the request to conduct the post-mortem examination. In another shocking case, C.R. Mahajan (70) of Kangra, who met with an accident on Friday last was immediately rushed to the medical college hoping for better emergency care, but the medical authorities referred him to the PGI, Chandigarh. Unfortunately, the old man died on the way to Chandigarh rubbishing the claims of the state government to have established a medical college and hospital on a par with AIIMS. A newly born child had also died in the medical college early this month. The parents of the child alleged their child died due to negligence of the hospital staff. The doctors were of the view that the child’s weight was very less at the time of birth, therefore he could not survive. Sources in the zonal hospital said they somehow admit and treat the routine cases with the help of available specialists, but serious cases have to be referred due to the lack of facilities. Majority of the emergency cases coming to the zonal hospital relates to accidents, but the absence of orthopaedic specialists forces them to refer the cases to the medical college. Veteran Congress leader and former local MLA Chander Warker felt sorry on the state of affairs alleging the Health Department was fully aware of the problems being faced by the patients here, but nothing was being done to improve the medical facilities. |
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CM or Dhumal: Decision today
Tribune News Service
Shimla, December 27 It was Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh who had won by the highest margin of 17, 289 from Rohru in the 2003 assembly elections, with the lead of only seven other candidates being above 10,000. Virbhadra Singh was followed by horticulture minister Singhi Ram, who had won by 17,247 votes from Rampur. It was BJP leader and the then chief minister P.K. Dhumal who was a close third as he had won from his traditional seat of Bamsan by 15,689 votes With Dhumal being projected as the chief minister just before the elections, it remains to be seen if he can surpass Virbhadra Singh in terms of the victory margin. Virbhadra Singh did not visit his constituency Rohru even once after filing of nomination this time as he was leading the Congress campaign in the state. It was Satpal Satti of the BJP for whom it was virtually a case of touch and go as he had the most slender winning margin of just 51 votes from Una. His election was challenged by Congress candidate Virender Gautam but he lost the election petition as the decision went in favour of the BJP nominee. The other candidates who had won with an impressive margins of over 10,000 votes included Baldev Sharma of the BJP from Nadaunta (12,561), former telecommunication minister and HVC supremo Sukh Ram from Mandi (12,390), Rakesh Kalia of the Congress from Chintpurni (10,941), G.S. Bali of the Congress from Nagrota (10,934) and Jagjivan Pal of the Congress from Sulah (10,930). With the BSP playing the spoilsport this time it is being expected that the winning margins in a large number of seats will be pretty close this time. There were five seats of Arki, Nachan, Geharwin, Mewa and Rajgir where the winning margins were below 1,500 in 2003.
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Banks asked to focus on agriculture
Shimla, December 27 Speaking at the 109th meeting of the State-level bankers committee here today, Finance Secretary Arvind Mehta stressed the need for making Himachal a model state for inclusive growth through cost-effective and easily accessible credit to the poorer sections in the state. The meeting also reviewed the progress in the banking and finance sectors and performance under the annual credit plan 2007-08. Mehta emphasised the need for focussing on agriculture and irrigation. He said the banking sector had extended a total credit of Rs 1834.61 crore since April this year. “Out of this amount, 76.28 per cent credit has been provided to priority sectors like agriculture, small-scale industry and the services sector,” he stated. While stressing the need for technical inclusion in the state in order to provide banking services at the door-step of the people he disclosed that UCO Bank had started a pilot project for 100 per cent technical inclusion in Sirmaur district. He added that UCO Bank had also taken the lead in mass financial awareness and credit counselling campaign throughout the state. Ripan Murgai, general manager and convener, state-level bankers committee, gave details of the banking sector in the state. “Punjab National Bank has introduced an innovative no-frills savings bank account with an overdraft facility of up to Rs 500 as the next step to financial inclusion,” he stated. He further said that banks had till date given 3,28,295 kisan credit cards to farmers providing credit up to Rs 3 lakh at the rate of 7 per cent with personal accident insurance cover and crop insurance at nominal and hugely subsidised rates of premium. |
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Irate HRTC staff block traffic
Nurpur, December 27 An HRTC bus was parked by its driver on Jassur- Dhameta chowk. The traffic police intervened but the bus could not move due to its sudden breakdown. This was followed by an altercation between both parties. The traffic police constable received injuries in his hand when he tried to open the bus door. This infuriated the police. They then reportedly thrashed the bus crew members. The irate HRTC staff immediately swung into action and blocked the traffic on the highway, which was restored after about 45 minutes following the intervention the Pathankot HRTC regional manager. |
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283 booths set up in Hamirpur
Tribune News Service
Hamirpur, December 27 As many as 1,189 employees would be deployed for the purpose. The help of NGOs would also be solicited for this programme, he added. The Health Department and the district administration had also appealed to people to bring their children for pulse polio immunisation on January 6.
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Conference on engineering systems begins
Hamirpur, December 27 Prof Y.V. Rao, director, NIT, Warangal, was the chief guest of the inaugural function. He stressed on various means to perceive reliability, maintainability and availability aspects for complex engineering systems to meet the global market needs. He also talked about application of various quality management principles and emphasised on the need of total quality management (TQM) not only in engineering systems, but also in the education sector, especially technical education, to uplift the economy of the nation by improving productivity. A souvenir was also released on the occasion. Fiftyone research papers would be read in the conference. |
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Rape accused sent to judicial custody
Bilaspur, December 27 The girl, accompanied by her mother, had alleged in her FIR that her parents were living separately and she was living with her mother in a rented house at Ghumarwin. Joginder Singh was a friend of her father and used to come to their house. On the night of December 24, Joginder Singh forcibly carried her away from the room where she was sleeping and raped her, the girl said. |
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Army recruitments
Hamirpur, December 27 Talking to mediapersons Brigadier J.S. Mann said here today the process had been so designed that there was no scope left for any extraneous consideration. Any candidate could check his score even after the test, he added. Every candidate would also have to undergo a physical test. He said all officers for the recruitment were deployed from outside to avoid any favouritism and even question papers were set by the New Delhi office to make the test foolproof. |
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Ram Setu raksha yatra held
Bilaspur, December 27 Addressing devotees Ram Setu Raksha Manch convener Hoshiyar Singh Chandel and Durga Vahini state president Vimla Angiras Hindus would never allow this setu to be destroyed. They declared that more than 1,000 Rambhaktas would visit Delhi on December 30 from Bilaspur district for participating in a national rally against the government proposal on Ram Setu. State organising secretary Lekhram Verma and VHP leader Shyam Lal Shastri also addressed the congregations at various places. |
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Held for stealing phone poles
Nurpur, December 27 They were arrested after villagers caught them stealing telephone poles. |
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Karnal, December 27
Shimla, December 27