Amritsar, March 1
On a complaint of Varinder Pal Sharma, former Finance and Development Officer, Guru Nanak Dev University, the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has reportedly marked an inquiry against Dr Jai Rup Singh, Vice-Chancellor, to Ramesh Inder Singh, Chief Secretary, Punjab.

Dr Jai Rup Sing has recently been appointed Vice-Chancellor of Central University to be opened in Punjab.

Meanwhile, Dr Jai Rup Singh said he was not aware that the CVC had marked any inquiry to the Chief Secretary against him. He said the Punjab Governor, who is also Chancellor of the university, had already given him clean chit, which was presented at a meeting of the Syndicate.

The Chief Secretary said he could comment only after receiving the report.

In a press note, Sharma claimed that the CVC had ordered the inquiry on the basis of his complaint. He also presented the order of the CVC received by him in response to the complaint lodged by him.

Sharma has levelled allegations against Dr Jai Rup Singh pertaining to financial irregularities, appointments and abolition of established university courses.

Sharma had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and others, requesting them that appointment of Dr Jai Rup Singh as Vice-Chancellor of Central University be withheld till the charges of corruption against him were cleared.

Patiala, March 1
The Congress high command has set its priority to allot 30 per cent seats to its youth leaders in the coming Lok Sabha polls on the initiative of AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi

The move has been inspired by the thinking of late Rajiv Gandhi, who, in 1984 and 1989, preferred young leaders like Ahmad Patel, P Chidambaram, Jagmeet Brar, Pawan Bansal, Anand Sharma, Ambika Soni and Ghulam Nabi Azad over old leadership. 

Rajiv’s strategy had worked out effectively as all these leaders are now at the helm of affairs in the central government and the very philosophy has led to the grooming of second-rung leadership in the party.

MM Singh Cheema, member of the AICC and vice-president, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, who met high command leaders in view of the Lok Sabha elections, said Rahul was very confident in the capabilities of youth leaders and it was his view that they would form the future leadership of the country.

“Rahulji observed that it was the most appropriate time to identify the future leaders and give them the opportunity to contest the Lok Sabha elections. They will fill the vacuum of a second line of leaders in the Congress. 

Rahulji is in favour of giving away 30 per cent seats to youth leaders. In case of Punjab, there is no problem in this regard as there are many seats where the party is yet to find candidates,” said Cheema.

Cheema also held discussions with Mohsina Kidwai, general secretary of the AICC and in charge of Punjab affairs, Janardan Dwivedi, chairman of the Screening Committee, and committee member Selja and apprised them about the present state of political affairs in Punjab.

“I told them that everybody should toe party line so that the Congress should win maximum seats in Punjab where people are ready to come forward in support of the Congress and personality clashes should be dealt with firmly,” said Cheema.

“The central leadership has conveyed to me that no sitting MLA or MP of the RS will get Congress nomination due to political realities and there is no question of considering those who had lost 2007 Vidhan Sabha elections,” Cheema added.

Chandigarh, March 1
First declaring the Sainis Backward Class (BC) to garner votes from Anandpur Sahib, then backtracking following protests is likely to become an election issue with Union Minister and Congress frontrunner for the seat Ambika Soni saying the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) had tried to befool the Sainis by this decision.

Rajya Sabha member Ambika Soni said today that the government had treated the Saini community in a callous manner by circumventing procedures while declaring the community backward. She said faced with the fact that the notification would not stand scrutiny as neither the State Backward Classes Commission nor the Deputy Commissioners had been consulted and the government now had decided to keep the decision in abeyance.

Soni said the Congress favoured taking the view of the Sainis on the issue and acting on it, but was against ad-hoc decisions, which did not help anyone but only created confusion.

Earlier sources said the move to get the Sainis declared BC was initiated by prominent Saini leader and Punjab Rice Millers Association president Tarsem Saini. The government felt it would help it win the Anandpur Sahib seat where the Sainis had a sizable vote bank. 

Even though the SAD overlooked Tarsem for the seat in favour of Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema, the government agreed to his proposal after he met the Chief Minister along with a delegation of community leaders on the issue.

However, once the notification was passed, there were protests from many sections of the community which felt the new categorisation would give a bad name to an otherwise progressive community. The main among those against this was the Ajit newspaper head Barjindar Singh Hamdard.

 In the face of the criticism the government decided to keep the notification in abeyance till final view emerged from the Sainis.

Amritsar, March 1
Taking a serious note of the alleged ban imposed on the religious function to be organised from March 1 to 3 in Chandpur (Haryana), Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh today convened an emergency meeting of the Sikh clergy here on March 5.

Akal Takht has also directed SGPC member from Haryana Jagdish Singh Jhinda, who has been spearheading the movement for creating a separate gurdwara committee, to explain his position before the clergy within 15 days by personally appearing.

The Takht has also warned the Congress government of Haryana for playing with the sentiments of the Sikhs by preventing them from holding religious functions at Chandpur.

The decision to summon Jhinda was taken by the Akal Takht Jathedar in the meeting held here today. In a press statement, Giani Gurbachan Singh said Jhinda and his supporters failed to prevent the government of Haryana from imposing the ban on the religious function.

Meanwhile, SGPC president Avtar Singh in a separate press note described the act of the Haryana government as “anti-Sikh”. He said if the Congress government of Haryana failed to tender an unconditional apology to the Sikhs, it should get ready for dire consequences.

Earlier, the ad hoc committee of Haryana recently witnessed a spilt with the expulsion of Didar Singh Nalvi as president by the Jhinda group. Then on October 20 last year, the ad hoc committee of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara had served a 30-day ultimatum to the SGPC for handing over the charge of Sikh shrines to Haryana Sikhs. However, the Haryana Sikhs had withdrawn the ultimatum in the wake of the tercentenary of Gurta Gaddi of Guru Granth Sahib.

Jalandhar, March 1
The state government has been warned against reckless privatisation of infrastructures, including highways, expressways, bus stands, health services and power.

“Consequences of the corporate development model being recklessly implemented by the SAD-BJP government will be disastrous for the state,” veteran Congress leader and former minister Umrao Singh said here.

“With regards to the laying of foundation stone of any thermal plant, expressway, high-profile hospital in the private sector, people of the state have the right to know what charges they will have to pay for buying power from such thermal plants, for travelling on expressways and getting treated in such hospitals,” the minister said.

He stated that he had come to know that the government would buy power from Rajpura thermal plant at the rate of Rs 3.30 per unit. However, it would cost more than Rs 5 per unit to the consumer.

The government should also make public toll charges for travelling on the proposed Mohali-Phagwara, Lalru-Baddi, Sindwan Canal and other four and six-lane expressways.

The minister also alleged that if private companies would be constructing the medical institute at Jalandhar and two cancer hospitals, what would be the role of the government in the development of the state.

Meanwhile, the PCMSA has appealed to the state Assembly to review “short-sighted” policies on health, education, excise and agriculture.

MS Randhawa, patron of the PCMSA, deplored the “anti-people” policy of privatisation of health and education by systematically demolishing these services in the public sector. He said due to miserable degradation of premier medicare services, civil hospitals had turned into “life-taking instead of life-giving institutions”.

Jarg (Khanna), March 1
A gurdwara raised in the memory of Sant Ishar Singh on the outskirts of this town has been serving as a lifeline fountain for people living in its immediate periphery of 15 to 20 km.

Hundreds of villagers, mostly devotees, daily visit the gurdwara, not only to attend the morning and evening prayers, but also to take their supply of “pure water”. It is this water which has nearly ridden the area of not only various water-borne diseases, but also cured villagers suffering from ailments like obesity, arthritis, heartburn, cancer, kidney stones, constipation besides cholera and gastroenteritis.

“I had been suffering from heartburn for a long time. But now my doctor tells me that it’s gone,” says the manager of the gurdwara.

While many in rural Punjab still complain that water flowing in the natural channels, including rivers and canals of the state, is nothing less than “poison” because of its high toxicity, the water that people get from the gurdwara here is as pure as “nectar”.

“The very taste of water used in the gurdwara and its immediate 15-20 km neighbourhood will tell you the difference,” says Harjinder Singh, a resident of a colony on the outskirts of Khanna.

“Our colony is 15 km from the gurdwara, but we prefer to get a few drums of drinking water every morning,” he adds maintaining that “ever since we started consuming this water, the overall health of all members in the household has shown considerable improvement”.

It was a little more than a year ago that a couple of NRIs, including one who works in a mineral water bottling plant in Germany, proposed to the Sant Bhupinder Singh, the present head of the gurdwara, to install a special treatment plant for giving people of the area “clean and healthy drinking water”.

The Bhai Daya Singh Charitable Trust, of which these NRIs are members, then decided to dedicate this Canadian technology-based plant to the 537th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev. The gurdwara offered them land, uninterrupted power supply (through a diesel generator) and also connectivity to the tube well-fed overhead water tank.

The special plant, which cost more than Rs 1.5 crore, has Sandi cent, carbon and micron filters and works on the latest amalgamation of techniques that include ozone and reverse osmosis.

The water from the overhead tank is routed through the treatment plant before villagers who bring in their drums, water cans and other containers in tractor-trailers to draw their daily supply of drinking water.

The plant has a capacity of 1,000 litres an hour. The water is used also in the gurdwara and a senior secondary English medium ICSE school run by it on an adjoining piece of land.

“This water plant has virtually become a lifeline for the people of this area,” says Balwant Singh, a villager maintaining that “things have improved tremendously ever since this pure water has become available to us in the villages. We use and conserve this water not only for drinking but also for all household activities, other than bathing, washing clothes and vehicles. 

Tests conducted from time to time place this water much better than the bottled mineral water available in the market.”

The trust is now trying to replicate the project by a similar plant at Gurdwara Nanaksar, near Samrala Chowk, Ludhiana.

“Though the government, too, is now going for reverse osmosis treatment plants in different blocks, ours is a much more sophisticated technology. We are also keen to cover the whole of Punjab with similar plants. 

Ours is a voluntary effort as only good quality drinking water can produce healthy, tall and strong Punjabis,” says Rana, an NRI from Canada and a key functionary of the trust.

Sangrur, March 1
In the auction of key registration numbers of vehicles of PB13-U series by the local district transport office here on Friday, 0001 number was auctioned for Rs 1.75 lakh while 0002 and 0003 were auctioned for Rs 56,000 and Rs 65,000, respectively.

According to an official of the local district transport office, PB 13-U 0001 number has been purchased by Happy Goyal from Sangrur while 0002 and 0003 have been purchased by Mohinder Singh and Chitwant Singh Kaleke from Barnala, respectively.

The auction was conducted by a committee headed by District Transport Officer (DTO) Sukhmander Singh in the presence of Secretary, Regional Transport Authority (RTA), Patiala, Ravinder Singh.

Some other numbers of the series were auctioned for Rs 17,000 (0004), Rs 42,000 (0005), Rs 41,000 (0009), Rs 25,000 (0013), Rs 20,000 (0022), Rs 55,500 (0099), Rs 30,000 (0100) and Rs 23,700 (1111).

According to estimates, the government would earn more than Rs 6 lakh from 
the auction.

Moga, March 1
Karnail Singh Paras, a renowned freedom fighter, promulgator of communist ideology, poet and singer passed away at the age of 93 at his native village in Ramuwala near here, late last night.

His son, Balwant Singh Ramoowali, a former union minister said that his father was not feeling well for the past few days. He said that cremation would be held after two days on the arrival of two of his brothers who live in Canada. Meanwhile, the body has been preserved in a mortuary at village Singhawala.

Karnail Paras had written more than 18 anthologies in Punjabi, all dedicated to the lives and works of great heroes of the state. The life histories of Guru Gobind Singh, Banda Bahadur, Subash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Sewa Singh Thikriwala and many others were beautifully written in poetic versions by him.

Much more to his credit, he was famous for his kavishris that he used to sing on traditional musical instruments. His melodious voice fetched him the Shiromani Kavishar, Bhai Mohan and many other awards during his lifetime.

One of the main characteristics of his art was that he used to sing inspirational poetic versions mostly from his own creation or from the golden pages of history that not only promoted Sikh religion and culture but also helped in strengthening the freedom movement in the country.

He was so famous during his lifetime that freedom fighters like Subash Chandra Bose, Lala Lajpat Rai, Harkishan Singh Surjit and many others were his personal friends and acknowledged his contribution to the freedom movement.

He was an advocate of communism and actively took part in promoting communist ideology along with Harkishan Singh Surjit during his lifetime.

He, however, remained aloof from active politics but his son Balwant Singh Ramuwala joined active politics and had served as a union minister. 

Although the problem was countrywide, its severity in Punjab was highly intense as the rise in the incidence of such suicides by farmers and farm labourers was alarming and called for a national response.” 

Amritsar, March 1
Condemning the killing of an unarmed Bangladesh national at the India-Pakistan border in the night of February 27 by Border Security Force jawans, Simranjit Singh Mann, president Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), today demanded a judicial probe into the incident.

In a statement here today, Mann termed the incident as an inhuman act and urged the National Human Rights Commission to take notice of it and institute an inquiry into the act.

A Bangladesh national was shot dead while another resident was nabbed while they were illegally crossing over to Pakistan in the intervening night of February 27-28.

Sangrur: President of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) Simranjit Singh Mann on Sunday criticised the Badal government by saying that nobody was accountable in this government as men of the ruling party were capturing even lands of mosques, buses of the Badal family were running over common people and ill-fated incidents like death of infants in a Patiala government hospital were taking place in the state.

Mann alleged that some ruling party persons had taken land of a mosque in their possession in Barnala, while a bus of Orbit Company had killed a boy and an ill-fated bus collision occurred at Barnala a couple of days ago. The state Home Minister had not visited the affected families.

Mann alleged that these persons were capturing the land of mosques in Punjab while BJP leaders like LK Advani were talking about constructing a temple at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid.

So in such circumstances Muslims might also take possession of gurdwaras in Pakistan.

Mann asked Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal to explain that why he was not stopping his party persons from capturing the land of mosques and fixing accountability to stop such acts in future.