Shimla, April 4
Dissatisfied with the reply of Education minister I.D. Dhiman on the debate held to discuss the report of the inquiry held into the PTA appointments, the Congress today staged a walkout from the Assembly.

Former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said the government had failed to address the issues raised by the Congress members during the debate. He said instead on holding discussion on the PTA appointments, the minister was talking about other decisions taken by the Congress regime.

The entire opposition members left the House even as the education minister was giving his reply on the discussion on the PTA inquiry report tabled in the House on April 2.

Initiating the debate on the issue from the Congress side, former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh said that the issue should be viewed with complete rationality as it not only involved the future of the PTA teachers but also the students studying in those schools. He also crticised the suggestion in the inquiry report that the PTAs should be starved of funds so that the teachers are forced to leave.

The former Chief Minister said that rather than acting with a sense of political vendetta, it would be better if the government tried to utilise the services of these teachers in the best possible manner. “The government can individually examine the cases where the appointee is either not qualified or does not fulfil other norms but it would be wrong to remove all of them,” he said. Former minister Kaul Singh Thakur urged the government to rise above petty political considerations and take a objective view on the issue as thousands of families would be affected.

Harshwardhan Chauhan said the government had not come out with the exact number of PTA appointees as different figures had been given. “It is for the first time that schools in rural areas are functioning properly. Only those appointments should be looked into where there had been irregularities,” he said.

Shimla, April 4
Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal said today that the government would keep in mind the opinion expressed by the members of the House on the issue of PTA appointments and take an appropriate decision.

Making a statement in the Assembly the Chief Minister said though the Cabinet was competent to take a decision on the PTA issue on its own but it was felt that since the issue was important it should be discussed in the House.

He said there should be no confusion about the exact number of PTA appointments since as per the government record their strength was 6,806. “Nobody has questioned the existence of the PTA’s but the manner in which norms and rules were given a complete go by appointing teachers was certainly objectionable,” he said.

He said the government had no intention of acting with vendetta like the previous Congress regime, which stopped the appointment of 514 TGT teachers, duly selected by the Subordinate Services Selection Board.

In his reply on the debate on PTA inquiry raised in the house by R.R. Koundal and Mohinder Singh, education minister I.D. Dhiman announced that the government would look into all aspects and then take a decision.

Initiating the debate, Koundal said the PTA appointments must be cancelled as merit had been ignored and injustice meted out to thousands of deserving candidates.

Shimla, April 4
Several high and midhills experienced a mild intermittent snowfall while light-to- moderate rainfall lashed almost all places in the lower areas of Himachal Pradesh for the second day today, the Met office said.

High hills, passes, valleys and mountain peaks in the tribal districts of Kinnaur, Lahaul Spiti, Kullu and Chamba have been experiencing intermittent snowfall for the past 48 hours.

The Met office said the minimum and maximum temperatures in the tribal districts plummeted sharply with Kalpa in Kinnaur district recording the night of .6°C as compared to 1.8 °C yesterday.

The remote Pangi and Bharmaur areas of Chamba district have also been receiving a light drizzle since morning. Lower areas of the state had widespread rain in the past 24 hours.

The minimum temperature at Shimla fell to 7.2°C as compared to 7.5°C recorded yesterday after experiencing 0.7 mm of rainfall.

The Met office said the minimum temperature at Sundernagar dropped by three degrees to 12.7°C degrees after experiencing 2.8 mm of rainfall while Bhuntar recorded a low of 11.4°C after receiving 2.6 mm of rainfall.

Palampur in Kangra district was the wettest place in the state after receiving 18.8 mm of rainfall Dharamsala recorded 6.6 mm of rainfall.

Una town recorded a night temperature of 10.8 °C followed by 14.1°C at Mandi, 2.3°C at Keylong, 14.7°C at Nahan and 11°C at Solan, the Met office said.

A report from Hamirpur district said a heavy rainfall followed by thundershowers lashed the town and other surrounding areas during the day, forcing the people to scurry for cover.

The Met office said western disturbance (WD) and the cyclonic circulation would bring widespread rain followed by thundershowers in the state over the next three days.

Solan, April 4
Dr K. R. Dhiman has been appointed as the seventh vice-chancellor of Dr Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, as per a notification issued by the Governor, also the university’s chancellor.

He succeeds Dr Jagmohan Singh who will superannuate tomorrow. Dhiman, who hials from Bilaspur district, has been working as a joint director with the Central Potato Research Institute, Shimla.

He graduated from Nauni university and was a B.Sc student from 1967 to 1971. He completed in M.Sc from Pant Nagar University and procured his doctorate degree from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.

Dhiman served in the strife-torn north eastern states, including Tripura and was also associated with various prestigious national-level committees. His name was selected from a panel of three, which also included Dr Katwal and Dr R.C. Sharma.

The appointment of the university’s own student as a VC has been welcomed by the scientists community. Dhiman is an expert on mountain agriculture.

Manali, April 3
The horticulturists in Kullu valley, committed a grave mistake by not caring to plant polliniser apple-plant varieties like the golden delicious, kalidevi, commercial, red gold, greensmith and jonathan etc. These apple plants play a vital role in increasing the crop productivity by way of pollination. Horticulturists are only eager to plant royal delicious and red delicious to earn good remunerative prices in the market.

Royal delicious and red delicious fetch high prices in the fruit market in India, but cause a great shortage of polliniser plants in the orchards.

The horticulturists in Kullu -Manali region have now developed a new technique to increase the pollination process. Flowered branch of a polliniser, which is cut off is placed in a polythene bag and the bag is then filled with water so that pollen from the polliniser’s flower is easily carried to the apple trees where effective pollination takes place.

The horticulturists are using 5 to 10 such polythene bags on each tree. But the scarcity of the polliniser trees is now so acute that the people are forced to request the other orchardists having polliniser trees to give them the cutting of the polliniser branches.

The use of fungicides and insecticides on apple trees in Kullu valley had controlled the spreading of scab to a large extent, but the constant use of these sprays on apple trees has killed honeybees and many species of insects, which had been playing a pioneering job in pollination in apple orchards.

The honeybees and insects also play a vital role in increasing pollination on apple trees. Among the insect pollinators honeybees are of prime importance.

In order to get a good apple crop in Kullu valley, the horticulturists are doing five to six sprays of different kinds of fungicides and insecticides to control the menace of scab, canker and scale etc. The effect of each spray lasts for many days.

Although these spray controls the disease, it also kills the insects and bees responsible for pollinations.

Shimla, April 4
All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD) have withstood competition without diluting the core values and regained their dominant position as the largest news channels.

Stating this while launching the AIR’s “news-on-phone” service here today chief executive officer of Prasar Bharati B.S.Lali said as the public broadcaster his organisation had to fulfil the social responsibility of empowering people by raising their level of knowledge and dissemination of information in a sustained manner. The competition from private broadcasters had started telling on the organisation and mid-course corrections had to be carried out to ensure that there was no mimicking of private channels.

Both AIR and DD had stuck to the core values and presented news and information without being didactic and propagandistic. As a result their popularity graph, which suffered some decline, had started rising of late. Their reach had expanded further and content had become richer. The value addition service like news on phone would take AIR further to the remotest pockets.

In yet another new experiment DD would broadcast a soap entitled “kyonki jeena isi ka naam hai” at prime time from April 7.

Prasar Bharati also had the largest DTH reach and it was serving the remotest areas. In hill areas like Himachal, the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir the DTH sets were being given free of cost for community viewing. Last year alone these states were provided 10,000 sets each.

He said the “news-on-phone” service was very popular as evident from the fact that AIR Keraa station received 30,000 calls per day and Delhi over 3 lakh calls per month. Shimla was the 14th station to have this service and the last to be covered under the 10th Plan.

Director-general of news P.K.Bandhopadhyaya said that AIR had left the Voice of America and BBC far behind in expansion, though the latter were better off technologywise. It broadcast 500 bulletins in 82 languages.

Latest local news could be accessed by dialling 125800 and national news by 125900.

Shimla, April 4
The Himachal Cabinet which met here today sanctioned creation of 413 posts of different categories in different departments, including 120 posts of horticulture development officers, 120 posts of horticulture extension officers, 117 posts of teaching and non-teaching categories for five newly upgraded senior secondary schools, 35 posts of teaching and non-teaching categories for newly upgraded government high schools and 6 posts of similar categories for the newly upgraded Government Middle School, Rampur in Una district, besides 15 posts of civil judges (Junior Division) in the subordinate courts of the state. Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal presided over the meeting.

It approved opening of a tehsil at Baddi in Nalagarh subdivision of Solan district to facilitate revenue work and for the convenience of the industrialists.

It granted permission to lease government land in favour of Himachal Sorang Power Private Limited to pave the way for construction of 100-MW Hydroelectric Power Project at Sarang in Kinnaur at the rate of Rs 1 lakh per bigha per year, to be paid in advance.

It further approved enhancement in the Block Government Guarantee in favour of the National Minorities Development and Finance Corporation, Delhi, without levying of guarantee fee and commitment charges.

It also approved in the remuneration for the members of State Commission for Backward Classes and members of State Women Commission at Rs 600 per sitting or Rs 10,000 per month whichever was higher.

Shimla, April 4
Former Congress minister Singhi Ram, who had been admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) following chest pain while in police remand, was today sent back to the police lockup. Singhi Ram was today interrogated by sleuths of the Vigilance Bureau after he was discharged from the hospital.

A case has been registered against Singhi Ram, his daughter Upma Kashyap and former Chairman of the Himachal Board of School Education B.R. Rahi in the forged certificate case..

The former minister and Rahi will be produced in the court of the chief judicial magistrate tomorrow.

Meanwhile, a team of the Vigilance Bureau from Shimla has reached Dharamsala to take into possession the documents, typewriter and all other material related to the forged certificate case.

The Vigilance Bureau has summoned four employees of the board for questioning.

Shimla, April 4
State chief electoral officer Manisha Nanda has issued show-cause notices to 26 candidates, who had contested the recent assembly election but had failed to submit the statement of their poll expenditures through the concerned district election officers.

The candidates were also asked to submit the required statements within 20 days through a notice issued to them on March 24, 2008.

The candidates, who did not submit the required statements include Randhir Ranta and Goverdhan Singh Chauhan (Rohru segment) Hari Chand (Chopal) Rajinder Singh (Theog), Harbhajan Singh Bhajji , Rajesh Sharma, Madan Singh Rana, Liaqat Ali and Surender Rajput (Shimla).

Shimla, April 4
The government will review the cases of illicit felling of 1298 trees against two power projects in Kullu district, besides formulating a policy ,where punitive action is taken.

Replying to a query by Mohinder Singh, Roop Singh Thakur and Satpal Satti during the question hour, forest minister, J.P. Nadda today said the government was in the process of formulating a policy where the cases of illicit felling would not just be compounded but some legal action would be taken.

He informed the House that 364 trees had been felled illicitly by 100-MW Malana-II hydropower project in Kullu and 934 trees by 192-MW Allian Dhuangan project. “Though Rs 3. 38 crore had been deposited by the two projects but I agree with the members of the House that some strict action must be taken,” he said.

Intervening in the discussion, Chief Minister P.K. Dhumal said everyone must join hands in the fight against the forest mafia, which had political nexus with the connivance of some of the forest officials. “Some strict action must be taken against these big companies, which got away by merely paying the amount for compounding the illicit felling,” he said.

Former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh urged the government to plug the loopholes so that all the cases of illicit felling were dealt with sternly in a time-bound manner.