Jalandhar, February 17
The magic of music weaves its web into the dense, warm air as a barefooted audience sits basking in the light of the rather sharp early spring sun, devouring every chord let out by the dhoti-kurta clad duo.

The Benaras Bandhu, as they are popularly known, Padama Bhushan Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra were in city on Friday for a classical vocal concert held at Mayor World School in association with Spic Macay.

Starting off with a composition in raag Desi - “nadi naav samjho”, they next sang “re ab mori baat manat nahi”, a bandish in raag Shudh Sarang.

Talking about their childhood and the more than 300-year-old rich legacy of the Benaras gharana, Rajan Mishra said they both were brought up in Kabir Chaura Mohalla in Benaras which is popular as the locality of musicians in the city.

The maestros, who already have the next generation musicians of the Benaras gharana in their sons Ritesh and Rajnish (Rajan’s sons) and Swaransh (Sajan’s son), said, “Our childhood memories abound with the sounds of the tabla and sitar playing in the neighbourhood. We would be given a ‘palta’ (loop of swaras) to memorise by our grandfather (Pandit Bade Ramdas Ji Mishra). Watching us getting bored, our father (Pandit Hanuman Prasad Mishra) would come to us after a while telling us to practise until we started enjoying playing with the different combination of ‘swaras’.”

Speaking of the power of music, he quoted Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahab saying, “If a harmonium and a tanpura get to every house in India, all criminal activities will vanish. Music kills the animal in us,” he said.

The brothers concluded the recital with a composition in raag Bhairavi - “dhanya bhaag seva ka avsar paya”.

Excerpts from the conversation of the maestros with The Tribune on the sidelines of the concert:

How well are the audiences in India taking classical music?

The audiences are undoubtedly increasing. About 30 years ago we had only 60 people attending a concert at Sapru House but now even a concert at a place like Siri Fort opens to a packed house.

Do you think education in music should be compulsory?

Music should be compulsory for students up to class VI or VII.

What do you think about Indo-western collaboration in music?

They are good only to a certain extent. Collaborating is good as long as we retain our own cultural identity and don’t end up blindly following the West.

How does it feel to get Padma Bhusan Award?

Good.

Sometimes there are strange contrasts in the awardees. Does it hurt?

Yes it does. Besides, the awardees should be decided by appropriate research by award committees which seems missing. There is no amount accompanying the awards, no social security either. People responsible for preserving the culture, for e.g. the traditional sari bunkars, are never considered for the awards. A postman who comes to distribute the post will still call you out by your name. You are still a common man. The award seems like a mere label.

Do you teach any disciples except your sons?

We have a school called Gurukul which we run in Dehradun according to the guru-shishya parampara. We don’t run the school all year round but take students along with us whenever we go. We don’t charge any fee from them.

Jalandhar, February 17
The Municipal Corporation Jalandhar, it seems, has started the process of framing a relaxation policy to provide a safe cover to nearly two dozen illegally constructed hospitals in Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar here.

The policy, which is likely to come up in a few days, will make it compulsory for the hospitals running in residential area to take Change of Land Use (CLU) after paying a requisite fee, to ensure an adequate parking space and to remove any non-compoundable violations by covering area more than the preset norms.

The move appears to be just a reverse stance after the MC had last month issued notices to 19 hospitals in the area asking them to take corrective measures or face sealing or demolition.

The notice period will lapse next week, prior to which the officials are contemplating to formulating the relaxation terms.

The decision follows a meeting of the hospital owners and MC officials convened by local bodies minister Manoranjan Kalia at Chandigarh yesterday.

Vinay Bublani, commissioner, said even as nothing concrete had come as of now, the matter was under consideration.

The issue assumes serious proportions for a city like Jalandhar that perhaps has two to three hospitals, nursing homes or scanning centres in every lane and only a handful of them have taken a CLU. “If such a relaxation comes for the hospitals in one colony, hospitals functioning illegally in other areas will also demand similar treatment. If the MC keeps offering liberties to the violators like that, people will start drawing advantage out of it,” many people have started questioning.

Bublani, when asked on the matter, “We are still discussing the legal pros and cons. We still are not clear as to how the issue comes out.”

The hospitals in Shaheed Udham Singh Nagar were in the thick of the controversy after the Punjab and Haryana High Court had taken a due note of the PIL filed by some angry residents of the area.

The court had called for a list of the MC officials from the ATP level to the commissioner in whose tenures the violations have occurred by the next hearing for fixing of the responsibilities.

This indicates that the names of all the commissioners, joint commissioners, senior town planners, municipal town planners and assistance town planners who served here since 1984 are likely to get included in the list, clearly a headache for the existing officials who would have to name many of their seniors.

Jalandhar, February 17
Taking a serious note of non-compliance of the orders of the State Consumer Disputes Commission, the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has issued a notice for recovery of Rs 27 lakh by attachment of heads/accounts of tehsildar (sales)-cum-managing officer, rehabilitation department.

The case relates to a judgment passed in favour of one Kanta of Government Colony, Hoshiarpur, who purchased two plots in Basti Mithu during an auction conducted by the department almost 29 years back on August 27, 1981 but had failed to get the possession.

The commission, in its orders passed on April 25, 2007, had directed the tehsildar to give Rs 60,000 per marla as compensation to the complainant within one month from the date of receipt of the order copy, failing which amount so awarded would carry interest at 9 per cent per annum till payment.

After the respondent failed to comply, the complainant knocked the doors of the district forum calling for action against him under sections 25/27 of the Consumer Protection Act. She wrote that plot numbers 6 and 19, both measuring 38 marlas, were purchased by her after making full payment. She had sought for a refund of Rs 22.8 lakh on 9 per cent interest.

Kanwaljit Singh, who was earlier served the notice for compliance, replied that he had been transferred to Ludhiana and the new tehsildar be asked to respond on the matter. He had been asked to show cause in person why he should not be sentenced for imprisonment of not less than three months and not more than three years.

The forum observed that the respondent had been granted sufficient opportunities but had failed to comply despite being issued over 15 notices. The respondents are intentionally and willfully not complying with the orders passed by the forum, it found.

Jalandhar, February 17
A 50-year-old Italy-based NRI woman was overjoyed when she delivered quadruplets after 14 years of her marriage. The quadruplets are all male and growing healthy.

The woman Ramsisson Beokeenee and her husband Maghar Singh Pabhla, a resident of Nawanshahr, had approached Virk Hospital, Jalandhar, and the woman had to go through hysteroscopy in January 2008. After going in for intracytoplasm sperm injection (ICSI), the woman conceived and delivered premature quadruplets in August last year. Talking to The Tribune, hospital director Dr S.P.S. Virk said Magar Singh, a local resident, had married Ramsisson, a Sri Lankan, almost 14 years ago.

Beokeenee was suffering from secondary infertility of 12 years and had had two abortions.

A team of doctors performed the ICSI on the woman after
the consent of her husband, he claimed. The couple named their babies Manav, Roshan, Rajan and Manmeet.

“The ICSI technique is a cutting edge for modern fertility technology by virtue of which patients with low or nill sperm count, low fertilisation rate and patients 
with failed IVF cycles can achieve pregnancy,” the doctor said. 

Jalandhar, February 17
Vivid colours of youth and dynamism echoed loud in the open-air theatre of Doaba College. The event was day-long Media Fest - Communis-2009 organised by the postgraduate department of journalism and mass communication here on Monday.

With scintillating performances, the event turned out to be a good crowd puller. And, the audience too had a fun time enjoying the media fest.

The event was virtually a learning platform for the budding media students. Attraction of the event was “radio jockeying” in which the students answered funny queries of the audience.

In-sync with the current issues and latest trends, the students left no subject untouched. From the burning issue of global terrorism to the latest rage “Ghajini”, including the high-profile romance of Chand Mohammed and Fiza, students brought to the fore many interesting facets. Adding more charm to the event was the solo performance “purani jeans aur guitar” which brought back the nostalgic memories of college days and made everybody croon along.

Another interesting part of the media fest was “choreography” of various colleges. Students presented different phases of life and cinema under the title “colours of life” and “journey of cinema”. Most interesting was the choreography by boys of DAV College, Amritsar, who showed the various stages in a boy’s life.

The DAV college boys virtually made everybody dance along. Throwing light on the various stages of the Indian cinema, was the girls of BD Arya Girls College, Jalandhar cantonment. From the black and white era of innocence to the present time of fashion, students had everything to offer.

Besides, students also participated in items like ad-mad show, radio jockey, extempore, choreography, news reading, collage making, report writing and caption writing. As many as 20 colleges of Guru Nanak Dev University took part in the day-long event. The journalism students of the host college presented dance and skit items.

Another significant item was panel discussion on “Changing scenario of Pakistan: Its impact”. Senior mediapersons Chander Mohan, Satnam Singh Manak, Surinder Seth, Shahid Reza and Dr Kamlesh Singh Duggal expressed their views on the changing scenario of Indo-Pak relations. The event culminated with a special play by the local theatre group YUVA titled “A gone case” written and directed by Dr Ankur Sharma. Adding charm to the evening was renowned folk singer Sabar Koti.

Meanwhile, the winners were given prizes and certificates. In collage making, Harinder Singh of DAV College, Jalandhar, stood first, Neha of CT Institute of Management and Infotech bagged the second position followed by Kamalkant of Lovely Institute.

In report writing, Davinder Kaur of BD Arya Girls College, stood first, Mehak Bhargava of KMV College bagged the second position followed by Alka Sidhu of Hindu Kanya College, Kapurthala. Similarly, in ad-mad show DAV College, Jalandhar, stood first, GND University Regional Campus bagged the second position and BD Arya College stood third. In radio jockeying, Rekha of BD Arya College stood first, Neha of Lovely Professional University second and Lakha third.

In extempore, Jyot Parkash of DAV College, Jalandhar, stood first, Navneet Bajwa of Hindu Kanya College stood second and Bhavna of Kamla Nehru College third. In caption contest, Priyanka of Kamla Nehru College, Phagwara, stood first, Geeta of GND Univesity Regional Campus second and Gopal Aggarwal of GND University third. In choreography, DAV College, Amritsar, stood first, Hindu Kanya College, Kapurthala, second and BD Arya College third.

Jalandhar, February 17
Even as the problem of plenty is weighing heavily on the minds of the potato growers, their problem has been aggravated as the lone potato processing unit of the region at Partabpura village here has not been able to function effectively. Thanks to the disrupted power supply, owing to which the plant that requires continuous power supply is able to run only through the night.

The fully automated plant, which has the capacity to process u;p to eight tonnes of potato per hour and can run 24 hours a day, is actually functional for barely seven hours these days. The owner of the private plant, Mandeep Singh Lally, said the power problem had become a serious issue for there was erratic supply in the day followed by peak load hours from 4 pm to 9.30 pm.

“This leaves us with only seven hours to run the plant from 10 pm to 5 am. The production begins by midnight after the boilers get heated up. Since the power goes off at 7 am, we have to start slowdown two hours prior to that to follow the process of cooling for safety of boilers and blanches,” he assigned the reason.

Himself a potato grower, Mandeep is processing potatoes into French fries, potato flakes and frozen snacks and marketing the products under the brand name “Mandy’s Foods.”

“Our plant during its normal course processes as much as 40,000 metric tonnes of potato, which is almost one-tenth of the total production capacity of five lakh metric tonnes. Going by our capacity and the problem due to glut, we have been asking for a hotline from the PSEB but without a positive response as of now,” he rued, adding that the use of generator was not viable.

“This year we have decided to accept additional 12,000 metric tonnes of medium-grade potato as a US company has reached us for supply of potato flakes to be used in animal feed there. Since we are already reeling under power problem, I do not think that the tie-up would be feasible,” he complained.

Mandeep said he had gone for purchase to Khanna where the distressed potato farmers had held a protest. “We have been buying the produce for Rs 2.5 to Rs 3 per kg, almost double the prevalent market rate of Rs 1.5 per kg, for we have to follow the terms of our preset contract with a major segment of farmers,” he said.

The plant owner said this time he had planned to enter into contract with small and medium farmers. “We will sign an annual contract with them and allow them to harvest and sell their two crops, including paddy or sunflower. In between, we will provide free potato seed and take the produce,” he revealed.

Students of St Soldier during a dance performance in Jalandhar. A Tribune photo

Jalandhar, February 17
The postgraduate department of physics, DAV College, has received a grant of Rs 30 lakh for research and development by the department of science and technology. Department head Prof C.J. Bahl said Rs 5 lakh had come for the purchase of research equipment, Rs 5 lakh for networking and establishing a computer laboratory, Rs 15 lakh for the MSc laboratory and Rs 5 lakh for setting up a department laboratory.

Farewell party

Guru Amar Dass Public School organised a farewell party for class XII students. Dilsher Bhangal of the science stream was chosen “Mr Farewell” and Jaspreet Kaur of the commerce group “Ms Farewell”. Various fun games, mimicry, music items, bhangra and modelling were organised during the event.

Placement drive

The placement cell of DAV College organised campus interviews for WIPRO (BPO) and Barclays Shared Services. Nearly 19 students were selected at an annual package of Rs 2 lakh each.

Kite-flying contest

Lovely Professional University organised a kite-flying competition on Monday. Nearly 100 students participated in the programme. Each kite symbolised a different theme such as national integration, anti-terrorism, environment protection, religious harmony, literacy and education, resurgent India, Indo-Pak friendship, Indian Military might, Olympics achievements and cricket mania. The contest was based on cutting the strings of other kites in fray and the last surviving one was declared the winner. Mohit and Gaganjit, students of the Lovely School of Business, won the contest.

SSA camp

The Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan is organising a six-day camp for the physically challenged students of government schools wherein they were being distributed aids such as wheelchairs, hearing gadgets and other required items. The camps were being organised in Adarsh Nagar, Ladowali Road in Jalandhar, Phillaur, Bhogpur, Nakodar and Malsian. As many as 836 district students were expected to benefit out of it, said district project coordinator Rajiv Joshi.

Best wishes day

A blessings and best wishes day for class XII students was organised at St. Soldier Divine Public School, Kapurthala Road, under the guidance of vice-chairperson Sangeeta Chopra. About 900 students attended the function. Chopra distributed copies of the Bhagwadgeeta among the students. She advised the students to maintain discipline in life to achieve their goals.

Sports meet

The annual sports meet was held in Innocent Hearts School (Loharan) and a red cross magic show in Innocent Hearts GMT. The programme started with display of hoops and scarf exercises by nursery and LKG students. Different events like frog jump and hurdle and 100m races were organised. The winners were given gold, silver, bronze medals.

Brand ambassadors

Vishal Verma, a student of B. Com-II and Gurpreet Kaur of BCA-II of DAV College have been selected brand ambassadors for Wipro (BPO).

Girls win trophy

Students of HMV College won the overall trophy in the all-India folk art festival organised by the Indian Cultural Association at MGSM Janata College, Kartarpur. Students won four first prizes and three second prizes.

Synergy-2009

The postgraduate department of commerce and business administration of Lyallpur Khalsa College hosted its seventh two-day long mega event “Synergy-2009”. As many as 15 colleges of Guru Nanak Dev University took part in the event. Students presented a cultural programme during the event.

Extension lecture

The department of commerce and business administration of KMV College organised an extension lecture on “Emerging dimensions in Indian capital market”

Winter contest

DIPS, Maqsudan, organised “Master Winter” and “Miss Winter” competitions for the tiny tots. Students walked the ramp in smart winter outfits. An interesting question-answer session was also held.

Farewell party

Police DAV Public School organised a farewell party for class XII students. A cultural programme was presented by students of class XI. Vineeta Singh was crowned “Miss Police DAV” and Navjot “Mr Police DAV”.