Amritsar, November 7
Thousands of rural youth, including girls, today thronged the Red Ribbon Express, which had arrived at Amritsar railway station three days back to create awareness among the people about AIDS and HIV.

About 10,000 people, mostly from the rural belts of the border district, showed keen interest in the express as the rural belt has been the most affected area by this dreaded disease. Figures show that due to lack of awareness the people living in villages have been affected with the disease as most of the drug addicts use used syringes to injected drugs.

Some of the drivers in the region have also contacted the dreaded disease while having sex with unknown persons while moving from one place to the other and further spread the disease to their wives and children.

Surjit Singh (17), a resident of Fatehgarh Churian, talking to The Tribune said it had been very informative about the dreaded disease.

He said the exhibition had been able to clear misconception about many things such as spreading of AIDS and HIV through mosquitoe bite and touching a patient afflicted with the virus.

Kamaljit Kaur of Tarn Taran said the train had cleared their doubts and misconception about the disease as they could not discuss it with their teachers or the members of their family as she belonged to a orthodox family.

Mohan Singh Rana, chief executive officer, RRE, said they had received a tremendous response as more than 4,000 school and college children got the explicit information about AIDS in various compartments of the train, which is a joint venture of the National Aids Control Organisation and Rajiv Gandhi Foudation.

He said there were 50 artistes accompanying them who moved in various villages in the border district on bicycles and two buses to educate the rural folk through “nukkad nataks” and plays.

Rana said they arrived here after covering 18 states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Nagaland , West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry , Kerala, Karnataka and Gujrat.

Giving details about their future programme, Rana said they would be moving to Pathankot tomorrow and the next day they would go to Jammu where they would hold a two-day exhibition.

He said from there they would return to Ludhiana and stay there for three days and thereafter would move to Haryana.

He said the train, which started its campaing from December 1 last year, would terminate its journey on the same day this year in New Delhi after visiting Ambala Chandigarh and Panipat

Amritsar, November 7
The municipal corporation which has faced a resources crunch due to abolition of octroi two years ago, has once again come out from the red by launching a vigorous campaign to recover old dues of house tax, water and other charges.

It was perhaps for the first time in the past 20 years that the corporation has not only achieved the budget targets but has also managed to surpass the collection and recovery targets which have been surpassed by 10 to 20 per cent.

Commissioner D.P.S. Kharbanda, who took over the charge of the civic body last year, said he had set the targets rolling for the recovery staff and took stringent steps for the old recoveries for the various levy which had remained uncollected for unknown reasons.

He said the Punjab government had allocated the target of collection of house tax of Rs 12.75 crore and added that with the joint efforts of his staff the civic bodies had collected more than 60 per cent dues during the first six months.

He said the corporation has taken a slew of measures to effectively collect the house tax arrears and added that he had formed two separate teams headed by senior superintendents who had been provided with supporting staff for launching the drive.

The house tax evaders have also been warned that the MC would launch the process of auctioning and sealing of properties of landlords who failed to heed the notices and deposit the arrears. In the case of habitual evaders the corporation planned to invoke section 138 of the Punjab MC Act, 1976, to attach the movable and immovable properties of the defaulters for the non-payment of the tax.

The corporation has also taken several measures for the recoveries of water supply and sewerage charges. A team of five executive engineers have been constituted to recover the arrears. The corporation has assigned targets of recoveries to the five executive engineers who had been made responsible for collecting the arrears in their respective areas.

The MC would also initiate due process of law in case of default to auction their properties to recover the dues of water and sewerage charges.

The corporation was working hard to achieve the targets allocated to the town planning department to recover Rs 11.75 crore and the department has done appreciably well to meet the projected targets.

Amritsar, November 7
Tiny tots of various schools enthralled the audience gathered at Punjab Naatshala with live performances during staging of play “The Kings” here on Thursday evening.

A delightful debacle of two very unlikely kings, the play inspired the children to become self-dependent and confident in their life. About 23 children from senior study, senior study-II, Springdale Senior School, Delhi Public School and DAV Public School set the stage on fire with their brilliant performances.

The young artistes portrayed various facets of colourful life and presented how to make life a successful story.

The main focus behind the play was that the man must dream, and achievement of the dream was the crux of life. The play spells out a strong message of brotherhood. The story dwells on two brothers one with good intentions and the other with a negative thought process who always tried to harm the other.

The final scenes make the evil brother realise that it was his real brother who was generating goodwill towards him and he reconciles and surrenders to the will of his good brother.

The play was a production of the Light House group of theatre. Main organisers of the programme Deepa Swani, Dalbir Kaur and Seem Maheshwari said that they had brought the young talent to learn the intricacies of theatre and encourage them to build up their confidence level.

Amritsar, November 7
Two persons, including a woman, got serious burn injuries after a pipe got disconnected from an LPG cylinder in a dhaba resulting in bursting of two gas cylinders near the civil hospital area late last evening.

According to information, the woman Kairon and her husband got serious burn injuries.

Passers-by took them to the civil hospital for treatment. Fire engines and a large number of policemen from Ram Bagh police station arrived at the site of the incident. After one and a half hours the fire was brought under control by the firemen.

SSP Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh also reached the site and ordered for the closure of entry points to the site.

One of the customers, Harvinder Singh, said that he had arrived at Joginder Da Dhaba at around 7.40 pm and added that the woman was cooking food in the adjoining khokha. Meanwhile, the pipe got disconnected from the gas cylinder.

He said he immediately rushed out of the dhaba and the khokhas were turned into rubble within a few minutes as the two cylinders burst.

The power supply to the area was disconnected immediately which resulted in a blackout in the area and other shopkeepers also came out of their establishments. The adjoining Raj Guest House was also got vacated.

Generally people from Jammu and Kashmir stay at the guest house for getting eye treatment at various hospitals in the city.

Meanwhile, the closed down factory of Hindustan Vegetable Oil situated in Chhehrta area also caught fire at 8 pm.

However, no loss of life was reported in the incident.

Security men Jaswant Singh and Jasbir Singh said that oil placed in one of the rooms caught fire due to the sparking in the two wires crossing over it.

Amritsar, November 7
The Punjab State Medical and Dental Teachers Association on Friday welcomed the appointment of Dr S.S. Shergill, former head of department of orthopaedics, PGI, as vice-chancellor of the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot.

Expressing the hope that the university would progress under him, Dr Amrik Singh Arora, president, PSMDTA, said Dr Shergill should work with an iron hand so as to improve the academic standards at all levels of medical education. The association hoped that he would avoid succumbing to extraneous pressure from any quarter so that the university worked as an autonomous body without compromising the standards of education.

Dr Arora said the association would help him in his endeavour to work for the upgradation of standards of the university to the best medical university of the country.

Amritsar, November 7
Shopkeepers of the Nehru Shopping Complex at Lawrence Road protested against the proposed move of the Improvement Trust to levy parking fee on all vehicles entering the complex.

They raised slogans against the trust authorities and alleged that this would only harm the shopkeepers who were already facing slowdown in business.

After coming to know about the protest, mayor Shawet Malik and MLA Anil Joshi, along with councillor Anuj Sikka, came to the spot and assured the shopkeepers that the auctioning of the parking area would be cancelled. The shopkeepers asked the mayor that if the trust wanted to auction the parking lot it should auction the parking slot constructed in the shopping complex at a cost of several lakhs rupees.

Malik said the SAD-BJP government would not allow such things to happen which were bothering them.

The shopkeepers alleged that instead of repairing and maintaining the complex, the trust was troubling the public and shopkeepers. They said that garbage dumps at every nook and corner of the complex had marred its beauty.

The association urged the improvement trust and the district administration to review its decision before taking any drastic decision which would hit the businessmen hard. He said the condition of the complex was pathetic and filth had spread all over the area. It lacked proper maintenance and proper street lighting.

Amritsar, November 7
Much to the chagrin of the health department, a majority of the sweet samples collected prior to Divali by it from famous confectioners and sweetshops in the city were found to be spurious with reports finding dead insects, synthetic colours and foreign objects in them. The sweets were declared unfit for human consumption.

The famous sweetshops, whose samples failed, include Bansal Sweet Shop at Lawrence Road, workshop of Sri Bikaner sweetshop near District Court Chowk and Ganpati Sweetshop at Sultanwind Road.

Besides, the 150 kg of sohn papri seized by the department was also found dangerous for human consumption.

Dr Lehmbar Singh, civil surgeon, warned all the sweetshops and confectioners and said the department would file a case in court for the necessary action.

Sources in the department revealed that dead insects were found in the samples collected from these shops, besides the synthetic colours were used in place of saffron and added sugar which could cause drastic diseases like cancer.

The health authorities said they would continue the drive to check adulteration and maintain proper hygienic and sanitation conditions in the manufacturing hubs.

Amritsar, November 7
Dr Sukhwant Singh Bindra, professor, department of political science of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU), will visit Johnass Guttenberg University, Mainz, Germany, as a visiting professor for three months from November 11.

A university spokesman in a press note said here today that Dr Bindra would head the chair of Indian studies established at the university there on the initiative of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in collaboration with the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, New Delhi.

He said during his stay as a visiting professor, Dr Bindra would be delivering lectures and attending seminars on Manu, Kautalya, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru, Jai Parkash Narain, Indian foreign policy and emerging trends in the Indian economy and foreign trade.

Amritsar, November 7
Tiny tots of Senior Study School, Amritsar Cantonment, left the audience spellbound with their performances at the annual function held on the school premises recently.

Amritsar, November 7
Students of Citizens’ Forum Vidhya Mandir of the Maqboolpura slum locality were being given the right kind of exposure in the two-day personality development camp being held at Badhani under the aegis of Punarjyot to equip these children with learning so that they may face the challenges that future has in store for them.

The society has picked up 15 girls, 15 boys and 10 teachers of the school for the camp at Badhani, near Pathankot, led by Master Ajit Singh, founder promoter of the school in the locality of widows. The group was flagged off by principal Manveen Sandhu who said they had adopted them under project “Umeed” to give them the exposure of different kind to bring out their inner talent.