The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Sports industry seeks govt help to fix dipping sales
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 1
The Khel Udyog Sangh, representing the sports good manufacturing industry in the district, today expressed its grouse against the Punjab government for implementing various policies affecting the sports business badly.

At a press conference today, sangh convener Vijay Dhir said, “The Akali-BJP combine had promised to withdraw the hiked power tariff. However, the sports goods manufacturers are still receiving the bills at enhanced rates. As the neighbouring states are providing power at lower rates, the Punjab government should rationalise the power tariff in the state.”

Adding to his voice, the members lamented that the uninterrupted power supply in the state was creating a lot of problems as they were unable to bear the cost of running generator for long hours.

Complaining about VAT return calculations, Dhir said they were too lengthy and needed to be simplified. “Quarterly returns were sufficient to meet the necessary requirements,” he pointed out. The members condemned the implementation of entry tax and rued that the dealers, who were paying 4 per cent entry tax, had raised the cost of the products. They said it should be stopped before the industry collapsed.

The members said the cricket bat industry was forced to make arrangements to manufacture bats in Jammu and Kashmir by migrating or by sending their workers there. They complained that the state government also failed to convince the Jammu and Kashmir government to lift the ban imposed on export of Kashmir willow clefts.

They also complained that the industry was facing problems at the sale tax barrier of Madhopur as the personnel there were harassing the dealers who were importing the cricket bats from Jammu and Kashmir.

Welcome 2008: PAP does it with all smiles
Dharmendra Joshi
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 1
The Punjab Armed Police (PAP) welcomes 2008 in a novel way by organising a laughing session at its parade ground for the jawans on the first day of New Year. Over 1,500 jawans took part in the laughing session followed by traditional “bhangra”.

Superintendent of police (SP) training PAP P.K. Uppal made each of the participants to laugh by speaking some Chinese words in an amusing way.

Soon the jawans burst into laughter which continued for about 15 minutes. Subsequently they observed silence for five minutes and after that they danced at the beat of the “dhol”.

Uppal started organising laughing sessions for the police personnel during his posting as SP (city-I) in Jalandhar about seven years back. Since then he has organised dozens of sessions to provide relief to jawans from the tension due to day-to-day working.

Among the 1,500 jawans which took part in the laughing session were 1,000 trainees, Uppal told The Tribune.

Earlier addressing the jawans, ADGP armed battalion Rajan Gupta and DIG PAP Parampal Singh wished happy year 2008 to them. Counting the achievements of the PAP in 2007, the police officers urged the jawans to perform their duties in a disciplined way in 2008.

The ADGP gave away blankets to 100 class IV employees.

Woody Affair
A right twist in bark tale
Deepkamal Kaur/TNS

Jalandhar, January 1
A local technocrat has come up with an interesting observation about dry wood trees. He has found that the dry barks of the trunk have a tendency to get twisted towards the right side of the tree in around 90 per cent of the cases.

Kuldip Singh Nagla said he has been observing the unidirectional twist of exfoliating bark since the past eight years. He has even got the results and schematics of the experiment protected by getting them registered from the copyright office of the ministry of human resource development, government of India on November 12 this year.

He said, “During a casual walk in Sector 26 of Chandigarh in year 1999 I made my first observation about twisting. Subsequently, while traveling by bus or train I saw almost all trees with their dry bark falling in screw form. Since exfoliation is clear in eucalyptus trees, the phenomenon could be clearly observed in these trees.” He witnessed similar phenomenon in various trees in other parts of India, Thailand, China and even Europe, added Nagla. The technocrat began his full-fledged experimentation in 2005 at his native place in Dasuya. “To start with, I marked a six inch long vertical cut on the bark of different plants of unequal growth. My apparatus included a tri-square, horizontal L-shaped angle of aluminum and a spirit level. After fixing the apparatus, I marked a fine cut of three mm depth with a knife on each plant.”

Kuldip said, “The experiments went on for eight months and I found that in nearly 90 per cent plants, the bark twisted towards the right hand side by one to four mm, which wondered me.” He thought the observation could be an outcome of either rotation of earth leading to inertial effect on plants, direction of winds, effect of sunlight or transpiration process. Curious to ascertain the facts further, Nagla said he even consulted the professors of the forestry department at the Punjab Agricultural University and scientists from other universities.

“I have been told that no such observations or research in this respect have been ever been made by these universities. I even searched various botanical journals and online publications on the search, but failed to find anything related to my observation,” claimed Kuldip.

Young World
Cantt girl tops scholarship test
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 1
Lovely Professional University conducted its first scholarship programme for the students of classes X and XII. The scholarship test was organised by the Lovely School of Education to reward the students for their brilliance in academics. More than 2,000 students took part in the test. Harnoor Kaur of Jalandhar cantonment won the first prize and received a cash prize of Rs 25,000 from LPU chancellor Ashok Mittal. Kajal Verma of Ludhiana and Bhawna Sharma of Amritsar stood second and third, respectively and were awarded a cash prize of Rs 15,000 and 7,500.

Winter break

Majority of the schools and colleges in the state remained closed for the winter break this week. The campuses that closed after Christmas are likely to re-open from tomorrow onwards. New semester sessions will begin in almost all professional colleges of the city this week.

Bhangra boys

A bhangra team from Shiv Chand Secondary School, Skohpur village, Nawanshahr, gave a lightening performance at an award function in Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall on Tuesday. The performance was put up by a bunch of odd boys of middle classes. The boys dressed up in traditional Punjabi attire won the applause of political leaders, bureaucrats and other present at the event.

School scuffle: 4 more nabbed
Tribune News Service

Phagwara, January 1
The police nabbed four more accused wanted in connection with the murder of Jagdish Chander, alias Kala, of Palahi Gate here on Tuesday. The incident had taken place on December 22.

Phagwara DSP Harkamalpreet Singh Khakh said the four accused, Rajiv Sarin, alias Raju, Amit Sachdeva, alias Vickey (both of Ratanpura), Gaurav Saini and Amit Ghai (both of Mehli Gate), were nabbed at a naka laid down by SHO Sarwan Singh at Hargobind Nagar.

Earlier, the police had arrested three murder accused, Sukhwinder Singh, alias Kalu, Munish Kumar and Rahul Ghai, on December 29.

Jagdish Chander, alias Kala, of Palahi Gate was killed, whereas his two sons Vikramjeet and Narinder Kumar and his nephew Amarjeet, alias Lali, of the Satnampura locality, were injured in the attack on December 22.

A minor scuffle between Lali and one of his classmates had led to the violent attack.

The latter had reportedly informed about the scuffle to some of his known criminals who attacked Lali and his cousin Vikramjeet when they were sitting at Jagdish Chander’s shop in Model Town.

Kalu of the Satnampura locality and his gang members had been identified as the assailants.

The assailants had reportedly come on five motorcycles and injured both Lali and Vikramjeet by attacking them with sharp-edged weapons.

Later the assailants attacked Jagdish Chander and his other son Narinder which led to the death of the former, while the latter sustained injuries.

An FIR under various sections, including 302 and 307, was registered at the city police station.

One dead, 8 hurt in separate mishaps
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar/Phagwara, January 1
One person was killed and eight others, including women and children, were injured in two separate mishaps which took place in Jalandhar and Phagwara.

Monu of UP was killed when an unidentified vehicle collided with a tractor trolley near Lambra. He along with his brother Gopi was returning from Abohar to their nursery in Noorpur village.

In another mishap, eight passengers sustained injuries when a Fatehgarh-bound mini bus collided with a truck near Phagwara civil hospital. The bus was going from Khanowal village to Fatehgarh Sahib.

According to sources, the truck driver applied sudden brakes, as a result the bus, which was coming from behind, rammed into the truck. The injured have been identified as Harnam (9), Sukhraj (10), Nirmal Kaur (50), Harjit (25), Kulwant (50) (all residents of Khanowal village), Paramjeet (41), Neetu (18) (both of Palahi). The injured have been admitted to the civil hospital. One of the injured, Harjit, has been referred to a Ludhiana hospital as her condition was stated to be serious, the police sources said.