Chandigarh, October 5
The patience of Haryana Sikhs, who have been demanding a separate gurdwara prabandhak committee for the state, seems to have run out. Now they have decided to go for a “direct action”.

President of the Haryana Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (ad hoc) Jagdish Singh Jhinda today told The Tribune on phone that “the Haryana Sikh sangats will take over the “sewa” at Chhatti Patshahi Gurdwara in Kurukshetra on October 8 after the expiry of the ultimatum given by them on October 7”.

“Taking over the “sewa” at the gurdwara” is an euphemism for forcibly taking its control.

Jhinda said it was the “legal and religious right and religious duty” of the Haryana Sikhs to serve the gurdwaras in their state, which were being “illegally and unjustifiably” managed by the Amritsar-based SGPC.

In pursuance to a promise in the Congress manifesto released before the Assembly elections in 2005, the state government had constituted the Chatha Committee to give a report on the legal aspects of the issue as well as to know the wishes of the Haryana Sikhs.

However, the committee is sitting over its report, reportedly in view of the reservations of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the issue.

Akalis in Punjab and the SGPC are opposing the demand for the creation of a separate committee for Haryana. Jhinda said the Akalis and the SGPC had been taking away income of the Haryana gurdwaras to their state and nothing was being spent on the propagation of the Sikh religion in Haryana. As a result, the young Sikh generation in Haryana was getting dissociated from its religion.

He warned that if the police or any task force of the SGPC tried to stop the Haryana Sikh Sangats from taking over the “sewa” at the historical gurdwara of Kurukshetra, it might lead to bloodshed. 

Karnal, October 5
The Haryana Janhit Congress would go it alone in the Lok Sabha elections and announce its candidates for all 10 Lok Sabha seats by November 1, HJC president Kuldeep Bishnoi said today.

“We are preparing to contest elections on our own and may announce our candidates at the rallies being held in different Lok Sabha constituencies,” he told mediapersons here.

He parried questions regarding the possible alliance of the HJC with the BJP or BSP but indicated that the party was not averse to alliance by making an oblique reference that both L.K. Advani and Mayawati were fit to become Prime Minister.

Bishnoi was cautious on the issue and avoided a premature statement in spite of strong possibility of the INLD and the BJP entering into a poll alliance. His reference to Mayawati was a clear hint that alliance with the BSP was a possibility if the BJP and the INLD joined hands.

Bishnoi said there were reports that the BJP cadre was not in favour of alliance with the INLD and in case the BJP high command ignored the sentiments of workers, the HJC would welcome all those “deserting” the parent party.

He reiterated his charge against Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee that he lied under pressure of Sonia Gandhi and disqualified him from the house in spite of the fact that he resigned twice from the Lok Sabha and sent the resignation letters to the Speaker.

Clarifying his stand to vote against the UPA during the trust vote in Lok Sabha on July 22, Bishnoi said he was not opposed to the nuclear deal, but his vote was against the “discriminatory” policies of Sonia Gandhi.

Referring to his remarks regarding the denial of jobs to “outsiders”, Bishnoi reiterated that 80 per cent of the jobs would be reserved for Haryanavi domiciles, if his party came to power. Bishnoi also supported the demand for a separate SGPC for Haryana and said it was the legitimate right of the Sikhs living in the state to have an independent body to manage their gurdwaras.

Describing the allotments of plots to BPL families as poll gimmick, the HJC supremo expressed apprehensions about the implementation of the scheme. He claimed that panchayats in several villages had refused to give land and asked the government to provide land for allotment.

Firing another salvo against the UPA government, he alleged that on his birthday, he received anonymous calls from foreign numbers threatening to “eliminate” him and reported the matter to the police but no action had been taken yet.

When asked who could be behind these anonymous calls, Bishnoi said he had many rivals and he did not rule out the possibility of the involvement of bigwigs like Sonia Gandhi, Mukesh Ambani, Chautala or any other opponent hostile behind the threats.

Karnal, October 5
President of the Haryana Janhit Congress Kuldeep Bishnoi today called upon the Sikhs of the state to support his party in the upcoming Lok Sabha and assembly elections.

Addressing a Sikh Sammelan convened by the minority cell of the party, he said it was an irony that the state government was formed with the support of the Sikhs and in return the Sikhs were discriminated and subjected to atrocities.

Assuring the Sikhs of justice and equity in jobs and other benefits, Bishnoi said atrocities perpetrated on them would be revenged, adding that he would not betray their confidence.

The Sikh Sammelan demanded the setting up of a state minority commission, effective second language status to Punjabi, establishment of Guru Gobind Singh University and equal share for Sikhs in jobs.

The other demands raised at the sammelan included expeditious execution of Kalpana Chawla Medical College project, waiving of Red Cross fee of Rs 5,000 for fire arms licence, adequate compensation to flood-hit farmers and announcement of bonus before harvesting the crops.

The turnout at the sammelan was not very impressive and Bishnoi covered it by saying that it was not a political rally and only a conference of Sikhs.

Karnal, October 5
Close on the heels of suicide by ex-ASI Mangat Singh yesterday, a cook in the Sector 9 police station here Kishan Bhadur allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself at his residence.

Bhadur (37) was found hanging in the room when his wife, Seema, opened the door at around 6 a.m.

Seema alleged that her husband was being persistently harassed by the munshi and in charge of the police station where he was working as a (langri).

He was depressed due to continuous maltreatment, and ultimately took the extreme step, she added. A native of Nepal, Krishan Bhadur had been working as a cook for the past 18 years.

SSP Karnal A. S. Chawla said the matter would be investigated, but added that the Bhadur was a drunkard. "We are verifying the facts and the line of action would taken”.

Fatehabad, October 5
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) has criticised the state government for its failure to manage the procurement of kharif crops, causing inconvenience to farmers, traders and labourers.

Talking to mediapersons here today, Sampat Singh, a former minister and a senior INLD leader, said today that owing to poor management and wrong policies of the government, farmers had been facing a lot of problems during the procurement of their crops in grain markets. He alleged that bajra-producing farmers of the state, in particular, were the worst sufferers due to “anti-farmer policies” adopted by the Haryana government.

He alleged that first the government deliberately delayed the procurement of bajra for over a fortnight and when it opened its purchase, it imposed several preconditions like revenue documents and girdawari with it.

"Out of the 60 grain markets in Haryana where bajra has arrived, government purchases are being made in five to six markets on a particular day. This results in 10-12 days for the procurement operations to be repeated in that particular market," he said.

"Farmers have been forced to sell their produce in distress to unscrupulous traders, who take benefit of this vulnerability of the farmers."

Sampat Singh also lashed at the central government for causing losses to paddy-producing farmers in the state by its policies.

Sirsa, October 5
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda today said the state government would make efforts to bring the Nano car project to the state.

Talking to mediapersons here today, Hooda said the state government would provide all kinds of facilities to the Tata group if it decided to establish its unit in Haryana.

Hooda said Haryana was considered the best destination for big and small industries and already several leading companies had set up their units in the state. He said his government was committed to providing the best of the facilities to the trade and industries so that they could develop and also improve the economy of Haryana.

The Congress would contest the coming parliamentary elections on the basis of development works carried out by his government during its term of three and a half years in power.

“When I took over the reins of power, I inherited scarcity of power, drinking water, irrigation water and almost everything. However, things have changed for the better and will improve further,” he added.

He said the state government had made elaborate arrangements for the procurement of paddy and assured that every grain of the farmers’ produce would be purchased. He said the government expected the announcement of a handsome bonus by the central government on paddy this year.

Earlier, addressing a state-level function on Agarsen Jayanti celebrations in the local Maharaja Agarsen School, Hooda said the life history of Maharaja Agarsen would be incorporated in the curriculum of schools in Haryana from the coming academic session. Lauding the role of the Agarwal community, Hooda said the community had been playing a vital role in the nation building.

The Chief Minister also performed “bhoomi poojan” for the construction of a railway overbridge near Surkhab Chowk. The flyover will be built at a cost of Rs 36 crore. The work on the flyover would begin soon, according to an official spokesman.

Hooda also laid the foundation stone of a sewer disposal plant in Natar village here. Official sources said the plant would be constructed at a cost of Rs 3.80 crore.

Rohtak, October 5
Dr Zile Singh Kundu, a senior faculty member at the orthopaedics department of the Pt Bhagwat Dayal Sharma University of Health Sciences here, has been selected for the prestigious Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship.

The fellowship is awarded by the Commonwealth Foundation and British Council to faculty members of teaching institutions.

Dr Kundu, who is among the few Indian researchers selected for the coveted fellowship, will undergo specialised ortho-oncology training at Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore, UK, which is a leading tertiary-level referral centre for bone and soft-tissue cancer, spinal disorders and joint replacement.

Talking to The Tribune here today, Dr Kundu said the six-month-long fellowship programme would provide him an opportunity to work under the supervision of renowned orthopaedic experts - Tim Briggs and Steve Cannon - in the areas of musculo-skeletal neo-plasms and bone and soft-tissue tumours.

Dr Kundu is also pursuing PhD on “Profile of primary bone tumours and tumour-like lesions and their surgical treatment” under the supervision of Prof S.S. Sangwan, vice-chancellor of the Pt Bhagwat Dayal Sharma University of Health Sciences here and is among the very few and pioneering orthopaedic surgeons doing doctorate-level research in the country.

A recipient of several prestigious awards and honours, Dr Kundu has nearly 45 national and international research publications to his credit. At a recent triennial of the World Orthopaedic Congress, he presented research papers on limb-salvage surgery in cases of bone tumour around knee, treatment of soft tissue sarcoma and various leg bone fractures.

He has also undergone a six-month specialised training in the treatment of bone and soft tissue tumours at Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital in Mumbai.

Karnal, October 5
N.T. Yaduraju, national coordinator of the National Agriculture Innovation Projects (NAIP), has stressed the need for state contribution to act as a bridge in the dissemination of information among those who really needed it.

Speaking at a workshop on “assessment needs of website of animal sciences, dairy science, education and research along with transfer of technology”, he said we could create a knowledge portal to benefit the agro-class and educationists but the success was dependent on the state governments’ efforts to create infrastructure at the grassroots level, specially in the remote areas, so that the maximum number of people could get access to the web world.

He said apart from creating a web portal, which would be the “one-stop window” to ICAR institutes for accessing the information about the National Agricultural Research and Education Systems in India, we would be connecting 200 Krishi Vigyan Kendras with the Internet, he added.

There should be a knowledge centre in every fifth village to cater to the needs of farmers and solve their problems, he said, adding that it would also generate employment for villagers who could open cyber cafes and thus serve the dual purpose.

Director of the National Dairy Research Institute A.K. Srivastav said the comprehensive website of animal science, dairy science, education and research along with the transfer of technology would provide a wider reach to various end users.

Gurgaon, October 5
In view of the fast growing demand for electricity in Gurgaon district due to rapid development, Haryana Power Utilities have prepared an ambitious Rs 6,034 crore long-term plan to augment power transmission and distribution system.

The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN) and the Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam (HVPN) plan to jointly cater to the load demand for the period up to year 2021, as the growth in load demand in the region was 20-25 per cent as compared to 8-10 per cent in other areas of the state, an official spokesman said here today.

Under this huge long term power transmission plan, the DHBVN and the HVPN would construct 486 additional substations, including 11 substations of 400 KV level, 32 of 220 KV, seven of 66 KV and 436 of 33 KV level. As many as 124 substations of 2775 MVA capacity will be constructed by the 2011-12 while 192 substations of a transformation capacity of 4000 MVA and 170 substations of 4000 MVA capacity would be set up during the period from 2012 to 2016 and 2016 to 2021 respectively.

Presently, there were five 220 KV substations of 960 MVA transformation capacity in Gurgaon feeding 50 power transformers at 24 substations of 66 KV level from where feeders for power distribution emanate.

The DHBVN has planned to create an infrastructure network of 33 KV substations for electricity distribution in the district.

Presently, there was a network of 66 KV substations for distribution of power, which was controlled by the HVPN. For this, the DHBVN plans to set up 436 new 33 KV substations in the district, which would be connected to 220 KV substations to get power. To connect these substations, the Nigam would lay 33 KV lines of a length of over 2000 km.

In addition, for augmenting the distribution system, DHBVN would lay additional high tension and low tension lines of several thousand kilometres and would set up thousands of additional distribution transformers in the district during the period up to 2021.

For feeding these substations and the increased demand of the existing network, the HVPN plans to set up 32 new 220 KV substations and 11 new substations of 400 KV level.

Besides, 23 existing substations were planned to be augmented by installing 13 additional power transformers and replacing 10 old transformers with new ones of higher capacity. — UNI

Faridabad, October 5
In the wake of an increase in terrorist activities in the country, the district police has stepped up efforts to curb criminal activities in the area. It has launched a move to keep a check on sensitive areas and criminals.

The district police has divided the district into 141 beats, which will be headed by a constable in order to make the policing more effective.

The police authorities have also decided to set up vigilante groups from among the public in colonies and markets so that they can constantly inform the police on smallest details relating to crime in their areas.

District police chief Srikant Jadav said volunteers had been sought from the Residents Welfare Associations and market organisations. The names of volunteers submitted would be screened before giving them some assignments.

As a proactive measure, the police had also launched an exercise to build up data bank of details of house owners and tenants in the district.

He said the preparation of the data bank was a massive exercise and work on it had already been started. Some sensitive areas from the crime point of view had been identified.

The police was working on a two-pronged strategy. One was from the aspect of combing operations, which by and large pertained to the areas identified as sensitive and the others related to building up of the data bank.

The strongest component in the police strategy was to increase police-public participation in order to make policing more effective.

The routine exercise of police mobility in public places would also be stepped up.

The police planned to install closed circuit TV cameras in markets and other public places with the help of the public to zero in on culprits.

Kurukshetra, October 5
Addressing a seminar on “Women reservation in India”, organised by Kurukshetra University in collaboration with the Indian Council of Social Justice at Dr Radha Krishanan Sadan on the campus of Kurukshetra University here today, chief guest D.R. Shekhwat, Rashtrapati Bhawan, New Delhi, said women should be given reservation so that they could come on equal footing with men.

He said one government after another had put the bill in Parliament, but without any consensus. He also cited examples of some countries where women were well represented in Parliament. He emphasised that both women and men were equal citizens of the country and they should be given equal opportunities.

Dr Shekhwat said the emphasis in the liberal democratic state had been on enlarging opportunities for equalities and individual freedom to enable women to make choice for themselves. The prevailing norms and ideologies about the roles of men and women and the manner in which they were articulated in the states policies had an important bearing on the status of women. He said all political parties were only interested in promoting caste-based quota and they did not favour women reservation. Lack of law and positive attitude on the part of political parties were the reasons behind the present status of women. In order to ensure that women were given equal opportunities to participate and contribute to the growth of the nation, various institutional measures need to be taken.

Amar Singh Bhadauria, national chairman, NCSJ, said India was a culture-based country where a lot of women set examples of reaching heights.

Condemning social evils like dowry and female foeticide, he said there should be reservation for women along with caste-based reservation in order to give women equal status and dignity.

H.S. Hooda, Advocate General, Haryana, said the government was making all efforts to ensure that women were able to develop themselves to their full potential and also contribute to the development of the nation. He said the Haryana government had especially designed a number of polices and programmes so that girls were able to pursue education at all levels. The government provides free education to all girls up to graduation level. He also talked about various legal measures to protect women like the Property Act, recent amendments in property act, dowry prohibition act.

He said the constitution of India provided equal protection to women in all spheres of life such as equal pay for equal work.

He also highlighted that 2000 was declared the year of women empowerment and 2006 was declared as the year of the girl child in which several schemes like “ladli” and “Usha Kiran Yojna” were launched as an effort to change the mindset of the people and to give women power in decision making. However, the Bill of 33 per cent reservation for women had been delayed in Parliament for one or the other reason but the time would come when the hands that hold the cradle would be the hands to rule the world he added.

Dr R.P. Bajpai, vice-chanceIlor, Kurukshetra University, said the theme of the seminar was indeed one of the most serious issues that concerned the nation today. In the context of Haryana, this was extremely relevant because even though the present government was making earnest efforts to restore and provide a new element of dignity and security to the deprived sections, much more needed to be done.

Highlighting the status of women in India, he said though women constitute about 49 per cent of India’s population, their position in a patriarchal society had never been marked with equality. He emphasised that the ultimate goal of empowerment of women was the welfare of all through cooperation and trusteeship in the economic sphere, equal participation in the political sphere and mutual aid in the social sphere without regard to caste, class or gender.

He further said there was a countrywide debate on the issue of reservation of seats for women in the legislative and other bodies. He hoped that this reservation would bring a radical change in the social system.

Giving a brief introduction of the theme of the seminar, Dr Reicha Tanwar, director, Women’s Studies Research Centre, Kurukshetra University, said the status of women in independent India occupied an important role and all efforts were being made to establish the significant role of women.

The preamble to the constitution of India resolved to secure to all its citizens social, economic and political justice, liberty of thoughts, expression, belief, faith and worship, equality of status and opportunities, dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation.

She further mentioned that though India was emerging as one of the largest democracies in the world today, it was an undeniable fact that without equality and social justice, there could be no democracy.

With all this, women’s development in emerging India posed special challenges and no doubt the existing structures, policies and programmes need to be reviewed and modified.

Jind, October 5
Four persons were killed and 20 others seriously injured in a head-on collision between a school van and a jeep near Sirsa branch canal in Narwana subdivision of Jind district today.

The deceased have been identified as Satyanarain (26), Dhira (24), Rambir (40) and Ramesh, driver of the school van.

Satyanarain, Dhria and Rambir were travelling in the jeep.

The incident occurred when the jeep and van had a head-on collision. All four died on the spot. The jeep was on its way to Kaithal from Bhandari.

All seriously injured had been hospitalised in Rohtak.

The ill-fated school van belonged to Sarvodaya School, Sidar village. — PTI

Sonepat, October 5
One person was killed and four others were seriously injured when they were attacked with sharp-edged weapons, allegedly by their neighbours at Udeshipur village under the Ganaur police station late last night. The body of Randhir (40) was handed over to his family members after post-mortem examination here in the Civil Hospital today

The injured Jagminder and his wife Salochana, mother Ram Murti and Randhir's 12-year-old son Neeraj have been been admitted to the Civil Hospital.

On the complaint of Jagminder, the police has registered a case under various sections against Joginder, Bijender, Vinay, Raju, Jai Narain, Amarjeet, Rajinder and Deva Nanad, who reportedly absconded after the incident.

According to the complaint lodged with the police, Jagminder alleged that the accused were under the influence of liquor after winning a case and were using abusive language.

When they were asked not to do so as there were women in the family, the accused attacked them with sharp-edged weapons. In the attack, Randhir died on the spot.

Yamunanagar, October 5
The police today claimed to have solved 10 cases of dacoity and robbery with the arrest of three members of a gang here. The three were arrested when they along with other members were planning to commit another dacoity of worth Rs 1 crore, said the police.

Giving details in a press conference, SSP C.S. Rao said the five gangsters were planning to commit dacoity in a house in Sector 18 of HUDA last night here.

The trio - Murshleen, Suresh and Kamal - was arrested while two other members, Baldev and Sonu, managed to escape.

The CIA team also recovered weapons, including Masket 12 bore, 315 bore country-made pistol, live cartridges and sharp-edged weapons, from their possession.

A case under Sections 399 and 402 of the IPC and the Arms Act had been registered against the accused, he added.

The gang members had confessed their involvement in 10 cases, including Rs 3.75 lakh robbery, the SSP said.