The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

NEWS AND VIEWS

PUNJAB

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JAMMU & KASHMIR

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R E G I O N A L B R I E F S

PUNJAB

ABOHAR
NSS camp: Ramesh Kumar was adjudged the best camper, whereas Rahul Dev and Krishan Kumar bagged the titles of best field worker and best mess worker during the 10 day NSS camp of the G. D. Senior Secondary School which concluded in village Dangarkhera near here on Friday. The school administrator Aman Ravikant Sharma gave away the prizes.

Selected: One Devinder Madaan, who had topped in the DAV College during graduation and later passed M.Sc Physics, was among a dozen students from the state who have been selected in general category by the Defence Research and Development Organisation, sources said on Saturday.

AMRITSAR
Pirated CDs seized: The district police seized thousands of pirated CDs, VCDs and DVDs of newly released movies like “Welcome”, “Saawariya” etc here on Saturday and arrested one Badlu Ram in this regard. A case has been registered against him at the local Civil Lines police station on a complaint of the Indian Music Industry, a consortium of over 75 music companies.

BATHINDA
Rape case registered: On the basis of a complaint filed, the Kotwali Police on Saturday registered a case against five persons for alleged rape. As per the officials at the Kotwali police station, a case under sections 376, 363, 506, 148 and 149 of the IPC has been registered against Vijay Thakur, Bhati and three unidentified persons.

Follow Guru’s teachings: The General Samaj Party has said through a press release that though the nation was celebrating Guru Gobind Singh’s birth anniversary, but the guardians of Sikhism were worried about the decreasing number of faithfuls as many people were converting to other religions. The party tried to remind them that people from all religions and castes had become Sikhs after getting inspired by Guru Gobind Singh. It exhorted people to follow the Guru’s teachings and follow his ideals. It also asked for identifying illiteracy and corruption as major enemies. However, president of the party, Suresh Kumar Goyal, clarified on phone that the party is against only those conversions, which are carried out in lieu of money.

Collision: A bus carrying a wedding party collided with a tractor-trolley ahead of Harraipur on the Bathinda-Bajakhana road on Saturday. The passengers in the bus had a miraculous escape but the driver and the conductor were injured. The two injured, identified as Sukhamandar Singh, 47, and Pali, 24, were taken to the civil hospital in Bathinda for treatment. Yesterday also, three people were reportedly killed when a tanker carrying milk had collided with a truck that was coming from the Hoshiarpur side.

GURDASPUR
Illegal colony: 2 booked:In yet another case of alleged political vendetta, the local police has booked for violating the PUDA Act a close associate of former PUDA minister the late Raghunath Sahai Puri just two days after his bhog ceremony. Chairman of the Punjab Agriculture Development Bank Kuldeep Singh Gosainpur and his son Balwinder Singh have been booked for allegedly developing a housing colony on a 22 kanal and 17 marla piece of land at Gosainpur village. Kuldeep made it clear that he had sown wheat on the land where PUDA claims a housing colony was developed.

Hoshiarpur
Bigamy charge: Police has booked Seema Kaur, a resident of Khudda and Satinderpal Singh, a resident of Gill under sections 380, 420, 494, 497, 498 and 120 B of the IPC. Amritpal Singh, a resident of Masitpal Kot, in his complaint to the police stated that Seema was married to him on May 7, 2005 but allegedly ran away with Satinderpal Singh on July 5, 2007 thus committing bigamy.

Drugs seized: Police has arrested Harjinder Singh, a resident of Tohlian and Kulwant Kaur, a resident of Roopowal under various sections of the NDPS Act after seizing drugs from the shoe store at Chabbewal village owned by accused Harjinder Singh on Thursday.

Mansa
Suicide: One Dinesh Kumar, a resident of Labh Singh Street, committed suicide by reportedly hanging himself on Friday night in Mansa city. On the basis of the statement of Naresh Kumar, father of the deceased, the police has registered a case against Hanuman Singh, Dalvir Singh, Doctor Kaka Singh and his
brother.

PATHANKOT
Gang of dacoits busted: The police has busted a gang of dacoits. SSP Lok Nath Angra said here on Saturday that the gang had been operating in the district for the past several months and had looted cash and gold. He said Inderjit, who was arrested, had revealed that other gang members included Dimpal of Dhariwal, Joginder Masih of Gurdaspur, Shamun Masih of Dhariwal and Manpreet of Gurdaspur. Another gang member Gurmit Singh was still absconding.

PATIALA
Presentation: Former DGP Lalit Bhatia made a presentation on ‘Enneagram’ at Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law Punjab, on Friday. During interaction with the faculty members, Bhatia stated that based on ancient philosophic tradition, ‘Enneagram’ was a profound, elegant and compassionate approach to people and described nine basic worldviews and nine ways of doing business in the world. Dr Gurjeet Singh, vice-chancellor and Dr G.I.S. Sandhu, registrar of the university, were also present.

Workshop: ABC Montessori School, Chandigarh, conducted a workshop at Bhupindra International Public School, Patiala, for principles and teachers on Friday. Jayanti Rajgopalan, an expert Montessori trainer from Canada, gave a spellbinding presentation. She said the focus of the system was to treat each child with respect.

Phagwara
Double strike by burglars: Thieves broke into Leo Health Club, located on GT road, and decamped with a DVD and weightlifting material amounting to about Rs 15,000 on the intervening night of 4th and 5th January. The thieves had also struck at a DJ’s office, located at Fateh Singh Nagar on Sukchainanan road, on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday and reportedly decamped with Rs 35,000.

Betting arrest: The police nabbed two persons, Varinder Kumar of Shivpuri and Rattan Kumar of Gobindpura, on the charges of betting here on Saturday. It seized slips of ‘dara satta’ and Rs 1450 cash from the accused. Meanwhile, separate cases have been registered against them.

Sangrur
Law sought on accidents: The district unit of the Lok Bhalai Partyon Saturday asked the Punjab Government to enact a law to deal with accidents occurring due to vehicles parked on both sides of the roads during night. It also asked the government to make law to book drivers responsible for deaths in accidents due to wrong parking. This was stated by district president of the party Sardar Ali.

TARN TARAN
Mobile dealer booked: The Sale Tax Department on Saturday recovered Chinese mobile sets worth Rs 5 lakh from an unauthorised mobile dealer during a raid conducted and detected evasion of tax to the tune of lakhs of rupees. Ashok Bhatia, assistant excise and taxation commissioner, disclosed this here on Saturday.

CHANDIGARH

MOHALI
Visit: Former health minister of Canada, former British Columbia Premier and present member of parliament from Vancouver South B.C. Ujjal Dosanjh visited the World Wide Immigration Consultancy Services' Asian headquarters on Friday. He spoke about the contribution made by the Indian immigrants in Canadian economy.

Fix prices: Members of the Mohali Development and Residents’ Welfare Association have demanded that the district administration should fix the prices being charged by various vendors outside the DC and SSP’s office. Col H.S. Sangha (retd), in a press note, stated that the stamp vendors, notaries path commissioners, sarpanchs, typists sit in a shed opposite the district administrative building in Phase II and charge different rates from different persons. He said the administration should come up with a rate list, which was uniform and also acceptable to the service providers.

ZIRAKPUR
Labourer found dead: Sudama Pandit (32), a construction labourer, was found dead on Saturday. The victim died due to suffocation when he was buried under soil during digging work being carried out on the national highway. He had gone missing from the construction site on Friday evening and was found dead on Saturday afternoon by his co-workers. The police has started inquest proceedings under Section 174 of the IPC.

HARYANA

AMBALA
Osteopathy camp: An osteopathy camp was organised at Sarvatra Sainik Institute, Ambala Cantonment. The medical camp was organised by Deep Strikers Division free of cost as a welfare measure for troops and families of Kharga Corps. Lt Gen V.K. Singh inaugurated the medical camp while Kharga Awwa president Bharti Singh cut the ribbon. Major Puja Dudeja delivered a talk and elaborated on the achievements of world-renowned osteopath Dr G.L. Parashar, who, along with his team, conducted the camp.

HIMACHAL PRADESH

KANGRA
Demand: The Himachal Pradesh Public School Organisation and other teachers’ organisations have demanded that an educationist from the school cadre should be nominated for the post of the chairman the board of school education. General secretary of the Himachal Pradesh Public School Organisation Sudhir Awasthi on Saturday appealed to Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal that a teacher well versed with school education should be selected for the post. Several organisations of teachers, including the C & V Teachers Association, the Nation and State Awardees Association, the Physical Education Teachers Association, the HP Sanskrit Shikshak Parishad, the HP School Lecturers Association and the Non-Teaching Employees Federation (Education Department) have also supported the demand.

KUMARHATTI
Fire incident: Two minor children sustained burn injuries when a devastating fire broke out in a slum area at Chakka village, near Baddi, on Saturday. Eight jhuggis were completely damaged in the fire. The occupants lost their valuables and other belongings. The injured children were six-month-old Kiran and her 5-year-old brother.

JAMMU & KASHMIR

Anantnag
Welfare schemes: Over Rs 23.09 crore have been utilised on various developmental and welfare programmes under current year’s district plan by December last in Anantnag district, revealed MLC Bashrat Bukhari.

SRINAGAR
PDP nominates chief whip: The PDP has nominated MLA Abdul Gaffar Sofi as its chief whip in the Legislative Assembly and Nizamuddin Bhat as leader of the PDP legislature party in the state Legislative Council. Senior PDP leader and minister Abdul Aziz Zargar said this decision had been taken as desired by PDP president Mehbooba Mufti.

Rs 5 cr spent on job scheme: Rural Development Department and Panchayati Raj minister Mula Ram held a meeting with senior officers of the department on Saturday. He was informed that against an availability of Rs 1,709 lakh, Rs 1,123.37 lakh had been spent under SGRY till December 2007. Regarding National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), Mula Ram was told that the expenditure ending December was about Rs 5 crore out of which Rs 3 crore had been paid as wages to the labourers.

Drive against pulse polio: About 10 lakh children in the age group of zero to five years have been covered under Pulse Polio Immunisation Programme in Kashmir division. For this purpose, 5,046 pulse polio booths have been set up which would be manned by about 20,000 government employees drawn from Health, Social Welfare and other departments.

Musical concert held: Radio Kashmir Srinagar in collaboration with District Information Centre organised a musical concert at Kupwara town hall today. The artists from Jammu, Rajasthan and valley participated in the concert.

Return of Hajis: Another batch of 214 Hajis including 74 females arrived by a special air flight here today. At the airport, they were received by officers of district administration Budgam, Airport Authority and State Haj Committee.