NEIGHBOURHOOD

Women oppose liquor vend near school
Our Correspondent

Lalru, May 13
Villagers near Lalru today protested against the recent opening of a liquor shop in the locality.

Protesters, majority of them women, alleged that the opening of liquor shop was a source of nuisance for families living there and leaving a bad impression in the minds of younger generation.

The protesters demanded immediate closure of the shop and requested the police to take necessary action.

The protesters tried to block the national highway but were assured of closure of the shop within a week by the SDM.

Pinjore/Kalka, May 13
The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) finds it easy to destruct than construct. This is exactly what happened at Pinjore when the NHAI carried out a demolition drive here in January this year. After demolishing hundreds of buildings, the authority did not bother to repair the roads, which got damaged during the process, aggravating the problem of traffic snarls in the area.

The town, which used to face traffic jams occasionally, now has to suffer everyday as the vehicles move at a snail’s pace throughout the road due to bumps.

The traffic jams are so long that it takes commuters hours to reach their destinations. On Thursday, a pregnant woman delivered her child in the vehicle itself while being taken to the hospital. Though a little patchwork could change things for better, the officials found it easy to put thousands of commuters in trouble than to spend a few lakhs on laying the road in the area.

The NHAI, in order to widen the road, issued notices to 219 residents of the town on November 27 and 28 last year, asking them to remove the encroachments. And only after a little over one month, the enforcement wing of the authority started removing the encroachments.

Apart from the commuters, shopkeepers of the main market are also a harassed lot. “The road always remains clogged with traffic. And the conditions are worse in the evening. Who would come to the shops in the area?” asked Mohinder Singh, a trader. The dhabas and sweet shops in the area are on the brink of closure. “Dust from the damaged road contaminates all eatables,” rued dhaba owner Waryam Singh.

Apathy of the NHAI is alarming at Kalka where a patchwork on hardly 50 feet of the road near Kali Mata temple could be of great help. However, project in charge of the NHAI Col K.P. Sharma said the road would be constructed anew for which tenders had been passed and approval from the headquarters was awaited. The approval was expected within one week, he added.

Ambala, May 13
The Maxi Cab Association of the district today staged a protest against the district administration for having changed the routes of private bus operators.

The district administration, in an order passed last week, changed the routes of 12 local private bus operators.

Private bus operators for the past several months had been facing a problem on the current route due to the construction of the Baldev Nagar flyover on the national highway. They had repeatedly requested the district administration to change the routes to ensure passengers were not harassed.

The maxi cab owners are, however, not happy with the decision. As many as 185 maxi cab owners of the Ambala-Markanda Maxi Cab Association today, held a protest before going to the deputy commissioner’s office and presenting their demands.

Narsingh Bidlan, president of the association, stated that their livelihood was being affected by the decision. “We operate on these routes and the passengers will now prefer to go on the buses. It is an unfair decision.” He also demanded more facilities for the maxi cab owners.

The association also said it would not allow private bus operators to ply on these routes.

Meanwhile, local private bus operators have welcomed the decision of the administration.

Ambala, May 13
Ashutosh (23) and his mother Rishi were killed when their Maruti car rammed into a stationary tanker truck early yesterday morning on the Ambala-Delhi highway. The incident occurred near the Indian Oil depot on the national highway. The car was coming towards Ambala when it rammed into the tanker.

Chandigarh, May 13
To develop a protocol to evaluate the injury profile of players during the IPL, the department of orthopaedic and physiotherapy, PGI, has started working on it.

With the help of Patrick Farhart, team physio for Kings XI, Punjab, Prof Mandeep S. Dhillon, consultant physician with the BCCI and professor, department of orthopaedics, PGI, is planning guidelines.

He said the idea was to recommend methods for prevention after understanding the causes.

Farhart said injury surveillance in Australian fast bowlers was around 18 per cent.

Dhillon said: “I am coordinating with physiotherapists of the eight teams to share their data on the players’ fitness and nature of injuries sustained during the IPL.”

Chandigarh, May 13
Vishal Gupta moved to the semifinals of snooker in
the ongoing VII Saurabh Khattar Memorial Billiards and Snooker Championship at Chandigarh Club, Sector 1,
here today.

In the quarterfinals’ games of best of three frames,
Vishal registered a convincing win against Ashish Seth (3-1).

Though Vishal did not have a good start and lost the
set miserably 40-79, he bounced back and grabbed the next three sets 57-24, 79-31, 72-26.

In the second quarterfinal tie, Pardeep Kinger defeated Sandeep Chadha 3-2 (34-40, 37-64, 52-39, 52-27, 59-19).

In the billiards quarterfinal game of 200 points, Pankaj Gulati beat Vishal Gupta 201-191.

Tomorrow Pankaj would face Ajay in the semifinal at 12 noon.

Chandigarh, May 13
Trials to select players for the Punjab state tae kwon do teams were conducted at Guru Nanak VBT Polytechnic, Phase I, Mohali, today.

The selected players would participate in the 27 th National Open Tae Kwon Do Championship to be organised at Lucknow from May 23 to 25.

Male: Pee wee group: Arashdeep Singh, Puneet Bhardwaj, Amandeep Singh, Paramveer Singh, Arashdeep Singh; sub-junior: Karanveer Singh, Meharbaan Singh, Gurmukh Singh, Harman Singh Sidhu, Mandeep Kaushik, Mohit Thaman, Prabhjot Singh, Shubham Kaushik, Harman Arora and Navjot Singh; junior: Harshdeep Singh, Bhavak Verma, Mukul, Inderpal Singh, Parminder Singh, Vaibhav, Preetinder Singh, Preet Kamal Singh and Rajat.

Female: Junior and sub-junior: Jaspreet Randhawa, Jyoti Kumari, Amandeep Kaur, Harmanpreet Kaur, Sahaj Basota, Riya, Preet Kaur, Isha Sood and Tarandeep Kaur.

Chandigarh, May 13
The International Nurses Week began at Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, to remember Florence Nightingale yesterday.

The theme of the week is “Delivering quality serving communities: Nurses leading primary healthcare”. Inaugurating the function, GMCH director principal Prof Raj Bahadur congratulated and motivated the nursing staff of the institute to provide quality services to the community.

Mohali, May 13
The Mohali police has booked two IPL employees Jashpreet, a resident of Chandigarh, and Sonu, a resident of Jagatpura, on charges of selling tickets on the black market.

Jashpreet is the son of an ASI posted in Chandigarh. The two were on duty at one of the gates during the match.

As many as 35 tickets of Rs 50 each have been recovered from them. The police sources said Jashpreet was on the supervisory duty while Sonu had to scan the tickets held by the spectators.

Once the ticket was scanned, instead of tearing it and giving it back to the spectator, Jashpreet would allegedly pocket the ticket after allowing entry.

Chandigarh, May 13
With the direct to home (DTH) service invading the city homes, the service providers here are vying with each other to get the largest share of the pie.

Both dishtv and Tata Sky have resorted to slashing down the tariffs and reducing the cost of installation and equipment in order to gain an edge on the other.

With the tricity witnessing one of the largest month-on-month growth rates of 20 per cent in the DTH service, the stakes are high for both service providers.

Officials say the tricity and its satellite townships account for 18 per cent of the total DTH market in the country.

As the neighbourhood ‘cable wallah’ hikes his monthly cable tariff and the cable reception gets worse, more and more people are shifting to the DTH fold.

As compared to a cable tariff of Rs 250-300 per connection a month, the DTH is available at a monthly subscription of as low as Rs 100 per connection per month.

Says Manjit Singh, DVP north zone, dishtv: “Since the customers have been sensitive to the price of set top boxes and installation charges, we have now decided to provide the set top box free of cost, provided the customer pays a years’ subscription and installation charges. This will help us increase our foothold in the region and catapult us several notches above our rivals.”

It may be noted that there has been a steady rate of growth in the DTH service. It is learned that of the 210 million homes, 110 million homes have a television set and 78 million homes have a cable connection.

At the current pace of growth, the DTH service is expected to be available in 25-30 million homes by 2012.

“The better picture quality and customer service offered on the DTH and the free hardware will certainly help us grow,” adds Manjit Singh.

On the other hand, Tata Sky, which was launched just 20 months ago, too, claims that they are the fastest growing DTH service provider in the country.

An official spokesperson for the company said after they had reduced the hardware cost for a connection by 50 per cent earlier this year, they had managed to grow their subscriber base to two million.

Vikram Kaushik, managing director, Tata Sky, says: “We attribute the record sales numbers to our ongoing focus on providing cutting-edge technology, the most comprehensive channel lineup, innovative interactive services and top quality customer service.”

Chandigarh, May 13
BSNL has introduced annual and biennial fixed charges plan for their landline and WLL subscribers. Subscribers in rural areas can pay one-time fixed charge of Rs 600 and get 30 free calls per month for a year. In urban areas, subscriber can pay Rs 1,200 and avail 50 free calls per month for a year.

Blood donation: A blood donation camp was organised by Bharti Airtel at its office in Mohali on Saturday. Over 80 employees donated blood. The camp was organised in association with the Rotary Blood Bank Society Resource Centre, Chandigarh, and was inaugurated by Sanjeev Kumar Saxena, CEO (mobile services), Bharti Airtel, HPHP circles.

Project: Tata Teleservices has launched project “Thunderstorm”, wherein a team of associates will cover the entire retail base of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali and storm markets with latest products and services offered by the Tata Indicom based on prepaid mode. The project is to encourage the prepaid channel to strive the retail outlets for growth and penetration across the region.