Jalandhar, December 23
The alarming security concerns are now forcing the railway authorities to provide armoured locomotives for the security of its passengers.

The Northeast Railways has tied up with the Jalandhar-based Laggar Industries for providing 16 bullet-proof engines to be attached in the trains traversing past the terror-affected region.

After seeing the success of the first eight locomotives, the Railways have asked the company to ready another consignment, said company MD Sandeep Sobti.

Sobti said earlier the railway authorities were finding it difficult to provide services in the Agartala region. “Sending food grains to the extremist-hit areas had become a Herculean task. We then offered to do armouring of an engine for barely Rs 3 lakh. After we delivered our first set of consignment, there was firing incident by an extremist group at one of the armoured engines and everyone was safe. Since then, the Railways have called in for another consignment,” he said.

Post the recent terror attacks, there has been a surge in demand for bullet-proof vehicles. The company based at Pathankot Road here is now getting over 10 SUVs per month for converting them into bullet-proof vehicles. “We are receiving three to four queries each day”, he said

“Till sometime back, we were hardly getting queries 10 customers in a year’s time. Now scores of MLAs, politicians, hoteliers, film stars and industrialists are approaching us for getting their vehicles armoured,” said Sobti.

“Anyone who has a threat perception and could spare Rs 8 lakh to Rs 80 lakh for his personal security (depending on the make) is reaching out to us,” he said.

The company is already providing armoured vehicles and other bullet-proof products for the defence personnel. The product range includes jackets, headgears, podiums, bullet-proof glass, barricades, check-posts and watch towers.

Another utility product which the Sobti group has started manufacturing is the run-flat tubeless tyres. “These tyres do not get deflated with a bullet strike. One can easily manage to drive speedily for over 70 kms and sneak out of the danger zone if he has these tyres intact,” the company officials said.

Asked about any measures taken for assuring that the safety goods did not reach out criminals, the company representatives said, “We almost have a foolproof system for that. We ask every client to fill up a declaration form. The form includes his name, address, personal information, vehicle information and other details. The form is handed over to the intelligence agencies to verify the details and antecedents of the persons at their own level. We have the vehicle of the person with us for at least 20 days. In case, the agencies or the police officials feel that the person has some wrong intentions, he can always reach out to us and impound his vehicle”.

The company started its operations in 1989 while Punjab was facing a militancy threat. Everything beginning from bullet proof steel is being fabricated at the plant here at Nurpur village.

Jalandhar, December 23
The ministry of human resource development in an attempt to universalise the secondary education in the country has introduced the Rashtritya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) on the lines of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). The first of its kind survey began on December 1.

The survey is being carried out throughout the country for mapping provisions in all recognised secondary, higher secondary, local bodies, private aided and private unaided schools. Under this exercise students in the age group of 14 to 18 from classes IX to XII would be covered.

Talking to The Tribune, DEO (secondary) Harinder Sahni said the survey would also include details pertaining to the present status of the schools, infrastructure, number of science labs, total teachers and students in these classes.

“Earlier the ministry of human resource development started SSA with an aim to reduce dropout rate among the primary students and to universalise the education. The survey has been started on trial basis under which the teachers have been given data capture forms (DCF), the details of which are being uploaded online.”

Besides this, the results of the past 10 years of the schools would also be included as this would help the authorities to check the feasibility of the RMSA in the schools.

The long-term objective of the exercise is to institutionalise a secondary education management information system (SEMIS) for maintaining a district-level comprehensive database for secondary and higher secondary education in the country.

“The RMSA would include 75 per cent share from the central government, while 25 per cent will be from the state government. The MHRD has plans to implement the project from next academic session,” he added.

It may be noted that the SSA was launched to make primary education compulsory in the country. “Once again the central government has pulled up its socks to bring each student under universal education. The aim is to improve the quality of education and to bring it within the reach of every child,” maintained Sahni.

Jalandhar, December 23
The run-up to the grand finale of the Miss World Punjaban contest held last Friday in Jalandhar was not easy. The contestants, most of whom had been leading an urban life since their childhood, said they had to go back to the villages and learn traditional, rural household chores, including weaving on charkha, using wooden churner (madhani) and making chapattis on earthen chulha.

The title winner, Mohit Inder Bawa, said she was barely two when she had shifted to Rajpura town from her village house in Barnala. “Few years back, we shifted to Chandigarh for better study options,” said the girl, who is currently preparing for her B.Tech (electronics and communication engineering) final-year examination.

“Since I had never tried my hand on charkha, I had to go back to my village, stay there for some days, get a charkha and learn the art of using it. It was indeed a pleasure to do it,” she beamed.

Having won the title, Mohit already has an offer to work in Harbhajan Mann’s movie. “I need to discuss about it with my family. I am also a bit worried for I am in the final year of my studies,” said the 21-year-old lass, who already has done the second lead role in a Punjabi film, “Teeyan Teej Diyan,” main role in a commercial for “Wheel Active Gold” and has been the winner of “Rani trinjnan di-2007,” a similar event at Barnala last year.

It was all the more difficult for Gurpreet Khera, a 10+2 student from Toronto, to learn the basics of rural Punjab. “I was in class IV when my father who was then a JE with the PSEB at Ropar moved to Canada with family. It was even longer since we had left our Khera village, near Doraha, in Ludhiana. The charkha and madhani rounds forced us to revisit our village and learn the typical style of the movement of hands from the elderly rural folk there,” she said.

An economics student, Gurpreet said she had already acted for a tele-film, “Mitti ki khushboo,” which was yet to be released. She said she, too, had started receiving some acting offers but she would be forthcoming only if they would be really attractive. “I will be here for just a month and then go back to complete my studies,” she said.

Jalandhar, December 23
The first-ever live surgery in this region of the state with blade-free Lasik lazer was performed on the valedictory day of the 12th annual conference of the Punjab Opthalmologic Society here yesterday.

City-based ophthalmologist Dr J.S. Thind performed the surgery on multi-focal intra-ocular lens during a live session in his hospital. Apart from this, ophthalmologists, including Dr Mahipal S. Sachdeva, Dr Shashi Kapoor, Dr Rajat Dhesi, Dr V.C. Mehta and certain other experts from Mumbai, New Delhi, operated 10 patients for various vision-related diseases.

Earlier, experts presented papers on topics like deep anterior lamellar keraoplasty in the treatment of large corneal perforation, managing swollen disc, subtyping of glaucoma in the tertiary care hospitals.

Dr Daljit Singh shared his experiences on the topic “retinotherapy of prematurity”. Experts also threw light on various other issues relating to glaucoma, congenital glaucoma, normal tension glaucoma, surgical pearls in AGV implantation and many others.

Jalandhar, December 23
A major provider of healthcare to the middle and lower strata of society, the civil hospital is more in news for its crumbling infrastructure than for the services provided by it these days. None else but the patients are the lone sufferers this time. A visit to the major departments of this institute reveals irregularities even in some of the basic services.

Long queues of patients in front of the radiology room announce that the 500mili-Ampere X-ray machine worth approximately Rs 7 lakh is out of order for the past one month.

Only one machine of 100mili-Ampere is in working order. A senior employee, on the condition of anonymity, said, “On an average, 15 to 20 patients suffering from backache and some spinal complications visit doctors daily. But owing to the non-functional 500mili-Ampere X-ray machine, doctors are unable to start with the treatment.”

It is pertinent to mention here that doctors need a lateral view of the vertebrae for better diagnosis, but 100mili-Ampere X-ray machine only provides them X-rays of antero-posterior view of lumbar sacral vertebrae.

One may get compromised results of laboratory tests. Not because of lack of equipment, but may be due to improper sterilisation of test tubes.

According to Jalandhar district Laboratory Technicians Association president Sohan Lal Bawa, “Sometimes our laboratory technicians have to carry out tests and wash the test tubes on their own. Technicians always need laboratory attendants for things to go in a systematic and safe manner. There are 200 sanctioned posts for class IV employees in the hospital but about 40 seats are vacant. Basic facilities, which were being provided by class IV workers to the patients, have almost been brought to an end.”

The reception of the hospital has been non-functional for the past one and a half months. There is nobody to answer the patients’ queries. Even the inter-communication system established in different wards is non-functional. The post of the senior biochemist of the laboratory is also vacant.

During epidemic outbreaks, the hospital administration needs to call staff nurses from other hospitals and primary health centres. “During times, when malaria or dengue broke out, our staff of 70 nurses provided basic care to patients. But now after the expansion of indoor wards, the situation is usually such that only one nurse is available for an entire ward. There should be at least two nurses per ward at a time,” said Nursing Sisters Association president Bimal Kaur Kainth.

“Work has already been started to upgrade the inter-communication system. The vacant post sof the biochemist will also be filled soon,” said the medical superintendent.

“He is the most romantic figure in the recent history of mathematics, a man whose career seems full of paradoxes and contractions, who defies almost all canons by which we are accustomed to judge one another and about whom all of us probably agree in one judgement only, that he was in some sense, a very great mathematician.”

These were the words of English mathematician G.H. Hardy about Indian mathematical genius Rinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan (December 22, 1887 - April 26, 1920). S.A. Ramanujan was one of India’s greatest mathematical wizards who excelled in the heuristic aspects of number theory and insight into modular functions. Let’s remember this great mathematician Ramanujan on his 121st birth anniversary and learn from this legend.

Born in an orthodox Tamil Brahmin family on December 22 , 1887, he inherited mathematical skills from his mother as his mother is believed to have been well-educated in Indian mathematics and Ramanujan is supposed to conjecture some as well. Ramanujan credited his acumen to his family goddess Namagiri and looked to her for inspiration in his work. In spite of his anonymous childhood, he rose to the pedestal of glory and fame with his superb intelligence. It is only G.H. Hardy who recognised his true worth and invited him to Cambridge. But Ramanujan’s orthodox practices did not permit him to accept the suggestion of staying in the UK. Later on the persistent efforts of Cambridge mathematicians like E. Neville and Narayan Iyengar, he cut his tuft and agreed to go to Cambridge on March 17, 1914.

Ramanujan’s intuitive grasp of the symmetries and structure in collaboration with Hardy’s immense insight produced wonderful results and in the words of George E. Andrew: “But the two of them together were an absolutely terrific team.”

Ramanujan made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic function, continued fractions and infinite series.

Hardy was highly impressed by his keen insight that Hardy remarked, “He could remember the idiosyncrasies of numbers in an uncanny way…. every positive integer was one of his friends.”

Ramanujan had an intimate familiarity with numbers and he excelled, especially in number theory and modular Function. His familiarity with the numbers was exemplified by the following incident. During an illness in England, Hardy visited him in hospital in a taxi. He noticed the taxi number which was 1729, a singularly unexceptional number. He noticed the number to be quite remarkable. He said to Hardy, “It is a very interesting number and is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.”

(1729 = 13 + 12 3 = 93 + 10 3 )

This 1729 is also known as the “Hardy- Ramanujan number.”

Ramanujan worked continuously for more than 30 hours in scribbling equations in his notebooks. This overwork took a toll on his health. He returned home to recover his health in 1919 but he died next year on April 26, 1920, at the age of 32. His works were solved by Bruce C. Berndt and his co-workers. His talent suggested a plethora of formulae that could then be investigated in depth later.

Today the students of mathematics need to learn a lot from this scholarly genius whose excellent craftsmanship in mathematics has paved the way for innovative excellence.

Jalandhar, December 23
The teams of HMV College, Jalandhar, won the overall trophies in air pistol and air rifle championships held at Guru Nanak Dev University. In air pistol tourney, Parveen Rani got the gold medal with 364 points followed by Natinder Kaur who bagged the silver medal with 359 points. Jeanie Katyal won the bronze medal by scoring 353 points.

In the air rifle competition, Amanpreet won the gold, Janupriya Katyal bagged the silver, and Navneet received the bronze. Jasmine house win overall trophy

The annual athletic meet-2008 of CT Public School was held on the school campus on December 17. Students from all the four houses, Lotus, Rose, Marigold, and Jasmine, participated in the sports event.

Students took part in the three categories, sub-junior, junior and senior in athletics, shot put and long jump. Prizes and medals were distributed among the winners. Overall trophy was awarded to the Jasmine house.