NEIGHBOURHOOD

Most-wanted gangster nabbed
Manish Sirhindi
Tribune News Service

Ambala, January 28
The Vigilance Bureau has arrested the executive officer and sanitary inspector of the local municipal council for demanding and accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000 from a local businessman for withdrawing a demolition notice that was served on him a couple of weeks back.

Executive officer Pratap Singh and sanitary inspector Suraj Bhan were nabbed after Vikas Gupta, a factory owner, filed a complaint with the local Vigilance Bureau that the officials had demanded an amount of Rs 30,000 for withdrawing a demolition notice to pull down the sheds in his factory.

According to sources, after receiving the complaint from Gupta, the bureau laid a trap and asked the complainant to strike a deal with the accused inspector. He said though the EO had demanded Rs 30,000, the deal was finalised at Rs 10,000. When the complainant went to hand over the money to the officer, a team of the Vigilance Bureau also accompanied him and nabbed the EO red-handed. The money was recovered from his diary, which he had handed over to the sanitary inspector. The sanitary inspector was also booked.

Following this, a case under the relevant sections of the law was registered against the two who were immediately arrested.

Fatehgarh Sahib, January 28
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed Coca-Cola to pay a compensation of Rs 15,000 to a consumer after a tobacco pouch was found suspended in an unopened bottle of Coca-Cola.

Pronouncing the verdict, the forum stated that the sale of contaminated Coca-Cola, which was dangerous for human consumption, was a matter of deficiency in service.

The complainant, Kanwar Manjit Singh of Patiala, had got a case registered through his lawyer A.S. Waraich on June 8, 2007 against Coca-Cola India and M/s Gian Singh and Sons, the grocery shop from where he had bought the drink.

After listening to both the parties, the forum directed the company to pay Rs 15,000 with interest at the rate of nine per cent from the date of filing of the complaint till its realisation, for harassment, mental agony and cost of the petition to the complainant.

The complainant had purchased six bottles of Coca-Cola from the retail outlet on May 4, 2004. On reaching home, he was shocked to see a pouch of tobacco in one of the bottles. He immediately brought the matter to the notice of the grocery shop owner who passed the buck on to the local distributor of Coca-Cola from whom he got the supply. When the local distributor could not satisfy the complainant, he lodged his protest regarding contaminated drinks to the president of Coca-Cola India and Coca-Cola headquarters at Atlanta through telephone calls, e-mails and registered letters.

When the matter could not be resolved despite a long correspondence with Coca-Cola authorities, he lodged a complaint with consumer court where the case was decided in his favour.

Bassi Pathana, January 28
Residents of Bassi Pathana are up in arms against the decision of the Railways to withdraw the stopover of 4553, 4554 Himachal Express at Bassi Pathana railway station from January 15.

The representatives of various political, religious, social and other organisations from the town as well as the adjoining areas held a protest meeting here today and decided to observe a complete bandh in the town on February 13. They will also hold a protest at railway station against the decision.

Talking to The Tribune, general secretary of the Hindu organisations Manoj Banda said Himachal Express was the only train of Ambala division, which linked Bassi Pathana with Delhi and Himachal Pradesh.

He said the Ambala DRM had issued the orders to withdraw the train stopover at Bassi Pathana. When they met the DRM, he expressed his inability to do anything in this regard as the daily sale of tickets was less than 25.

However, disagreeing with the DRM, Banda said, “The sale of tickets at Fatehgarh Sahib, Morinda and even at Sirhind is less than 25 per day, then why only the stopover of the train at Bassi Pathana has been withdrawn?”

However, the Ambala DRM was not available for comments.

Fatehgarh Sahib, January 28
The district administration has asked city news channels, which had been relaying local news on the cable TV network, to immediately close down operations following some conflict between owners of the channels and cable TV operators.

In an order that was passed two days back, the SDM asked two city news channels to close operations, as they did not have any authority or permission from a competent authority to relay these channels. In the orders, the SDM stated that in case these channels had been granted any permission by a competent authority, they should produce it before the administration within a stipulated time.

Sources in the administration stated that these channels had to secure permission from the union ministry of information and broadcasting to telecast the half-hour news bulletins. The orders were issued after the owners of two-city news channel got into a disagreement with a cable TV operator over the issue of revised fee. According to the owners of the news channels, the cable operator demanded a monthly fee of Rs 30,000 each from them to telecast their news bulletins. Earlier they used to pay only Rs 3,000 per month.

Following this, the matter was brought to the notice of the district administration, which, after listening to all concerned persons, ordered closure of these bulletins. However, owner of one of the two-city news channels stated that the directorate of public relations of the state government, in a formal commune to the district administration, had conveyed that no such permission was required to telecast local news bulletins, as these were CD-based programmes.

Sources in the administration said the step had been taken to avoid a conflict between the owners of the city news channels and cable TV operators. They said though owners of one of these channels were willing to pay the amount demanded by the cable operator, the owner of the other news channel had sought withdrawal of the hiked fee.

Chandigarh, January 28
Playing on expected lines, the highest ranked (61 AITA points) local player, Pankaj Kumar thrashed Ranjeet Singh 6-0, 6-4, in straight sets in the main draw of boys’ singles (under-14) category in the AITA Championship series getting underway at the Lake Sports Complex, here today.

Another local player Digvijay Singh Naruka too, cleared the first round with quite ease, beating Sashank Sharma 6-1, 6-1.

In girls’ u-14 first round matches, Shreya Malhotra drubbed Ayna Arora 6-0, 6-0, while Shivani Manchanda got the better of Nikita 7-5, 6-1.

Earlier, over 20 matches were shifted from the courts of Lake Club to CLTA courts due to pressure on the scheduled venue.

The results of main draw are as under:

Boys’ u-14 (Ist round): Pankaj Kumar b Ranjeet Singh 6-0, 6-4, Siser Chilikuli b Shashank Sharma 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (6), Sunny Dhaiya b Bhavtaran Preet 6-2, 6-1, Nischay Rawal b Amit Bzad 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, Digvijay Naruka b Shashank Sharma 6-1, 6-1, Nikhit Prasad b Rishab Dev 6-2, 6-1, Manish Drall b Ayush Mintri 6-2, 6-2, Arush Sood b Dhruv Goel, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, Naveen Anand b Anush Bhatti 6-3, 6-1, Vilash Khate b Mandeep Kumar 6-1, 6-3, Sushanta Mohanti b Pranav Mehra 6-0, 6-1, Udai Singh Mann b Srijjan Uppal 6-2, 6-4, kamal Kishore b Kushaan Kumar 6-2, 6-4.

Girls’ u-14 (Ist Round) Shreya Malhotra b Ayna Arora 6-0, 6-0, Shivani Manchanda b Nikita 7-5, 6-1, Sonali Bansal b Bhavya Wadhawan 6-2, 6-2, Rimpledeep Kaur b Niyati Aggarwal 6-1, 6-3, Vaibhavi Trivedi b Rajbir Kaur 6-0, 6-3, Radhika Kaishan b Hassan A Dhanoa 6-3, 6-2, Sabatini b Anupreet Bedi 6-0, 6-0.

Boys’ u-16 (Ist round): Navneet Kumar b Sunny Dhaiya 6-1, 6-3, Jaspinder Singh b Ankit Goel 6-3, 6-4, Rishab Dev b Nischay Rawal 6-2, 6-4, Kamal Kishore b Aviraj Kamboj 6-2, 6-3, Raghav Singal b Aysh Mintri 6-2, 7-5, Pankaj Kumar b Jivitesh Kang 6-3, 6-3, Jaiwardhan Gupta b Hardeep Singh 6-1, 6-1, Naveen Shankar b Bhavtarn Singh 6-0, 6-3, Ajay Yadav b Harry Jindal 6-2, 6-0, Bhavneet Singh b Gulshan Kumar 6-1, 6-0, Harinder Bedi b Ramandeep Kaushik 6-2, 6-3, Gurinder Singh b A. Nikit Prasad 6-2, 6-1, Sajal Chaudhary b B. Sai Reddy 6-1, 6-2, Digvijay Naruka b Manish Kumar, 6-3, 6-1, Jatinder Singh b Saransh Bhatia 6-2, 6-1, Maninder Singh b Taranbir Singh 6-0, 6-1.

Girls’ u-16 (Ist round): Nehal Sahni b Priyanka Rawat 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, Sonali Bansal b Nayna Goswami 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, Eetee Mehta b Abhilasha Mehra 6-0, 6-0, Harnoor Mann b Charvi Saxena 6-1, 6-0, Shreya Malhotra b Niyati Aggarwal 6-3, 6-2, Megha Sherawat b Sabatin Ankaraju 6-4, 6-3, Likhita Shetty b Vaibhavi Trivedi 6-3, 6-3, Jaspreet Kaur b Gundeep Kaur 7-6, 7-6, Shreya Malhotra b Ayna Arora 6-0, 6-0, Ravnoor kaur b Tahira Bhatti 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, Iktesh Chahal b Ramneek Kaur 6-3, 6-2, Prabhamit b Shreya Pasricha 6-2, 6-3, Bhavika Wadhawan b Simran, Sandeep saran b Vibhuti Khullar 6-1, 6-3, Baljinder Kaur b Nikhita Deshmukh 6-2, 6-3. 

Mohali, January 28
He did his level-III coaching course with none other than Team India’s bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad, fielding coach Robin Singh and assistant coach Lal Chand Rajput at National Cricket Academy in 1994.

Like his batch mates, who are doing a notable job with the ‘Men In Blue’ of late, Munish Bali, the only level-III coach of Punjab, gets a chance to show his coaching skills with his appointment as an assistant coach with India’s under-19 world cup team.

The young coach would get a chance to rub shoulders with the team’s chief coach Dave Whatmore, the man behind Sri Lanka’s triumph in 1996 World Cup, there.

Terming it as a big leap in his coaching career, which started just five years before in 2002, Munish Bali said, “Undoubtedly, this is the biggest opportunity in my coaching career so far but I have been taking it just as another challenge. There would be nothing new to me as I have already worked with half of the members of the team earlier. But definitely I am looking forward to work with Dave”.

“In 2004-05, my team (u-15) won national championship. We (u-17 team) again emerged champions in nationals in 2005-06. Last year, we clinched under-19 one-day championship for the first time for Punjab”, said Munish maintaining that he wanted to continue his winning record during the World Cup (u-19) to be held at Kuala Lumpur from February 17 to March 2.

About his plans for the preparatory camp scheduled from January 31 at Bangalore, Munish said, “Our target is to win the cup so no stone is left unturned to achieve it. Every cricketing aspect will be looked after during the camp. Dave is our biggest strength,” said Munish, who is an employee of State Bank of Patiala.

Munish Bali, who was playing member of Punjab in under-19 team in 1992, has also represented Indian University against England-A team in 1995.

Chandigarh, January 28
The duo of Kuldeep Singh (Sky Hawk Times) and Shalini Gupta (The Indian Express) lifted the trophy in mixed doubles beating Saurabh Duggal (The Hindustan Times) and Priyanka Chopra (Dainik Bhaskar) 21-14, 21-7, in the Inter-Media Badminton Tournament held at the Sector-42, Sports Complex, here today.

The tournament was organised by the Chandigarh Press Club.

The results:

Men’s final: (doubles): Ajay Bajaj (The Hindustan Times)/Kuldeep Singh (Sky Hawk Times) b Vijay C Roy (Business Standard) 21-5, 21-9.

Men's final (singles): Kuldeep Singh b Rajesh Deol 21-9, 21-7.

Women's final (singles): Shalini Gupta (The Indian Express) b Veena Ahuja (The Political and Business Daily) 15-21, 21-16, 21-7.

Mixed doubles final: Kuldeep Singh/ Shalini Gupta b Saurabh Duggal (The Hindustan Times)/ Priyanka Chopra (Dainik Bhaskar) 21-14, 21-7. 

Chandigarh, January 28
To select the athletic team, Amateur Athletics Association of Chandigarh, is going to conduct selection trials today at DAV College, Sector 10, Chandigarh, at 11:30am.

The team will participate in the 42nd National Cross Country in Goa on Febrary 16, 2008.

Chandigarh, January 28
Matru, a resident of Mani Majra, reported that someone had stolen his phone, two bags containing clothes and gold necklace along with cash Rs 4,000 from his residence during the night intervening January 25 and 26.

Chandigarh, January 28
The Chandigarh Industrial Fasteners Association has decried the sudden increase in price of steel and iron products by the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam and the Steel Authority of India. The prices of MS rounds and wire rods have gone up by Rs 2,500 per metric tonne.

A. L. Aggarwal, president of the association, said this price hike was a bolt from the blue. “This sudden and unexpected increase is going to severely hit the production capacity of small-scale industries. This is the second hike in January, the first price hike was from January 1, when prices went up by Rs 1,500 per metric tonne. In the past three months, the prices have gone up by Rs 6,500-Rs 7,000 per metric tonne,” he said.

There are more than 300 micro and small industrial units in industrial area here, who are manufacturing different types of nuts, bolts, screws, tapping screws, etc. These units will not be able to sell their products due to this hike in the price of iron and steel. The association has demanded an immediate rollback in prices to save the small units from total collapse.