Amritsar, March 20
Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit the holy city here on March 23 to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple and the Durgiana Temple after his successful operation, highly placed sources in the Congress have said the visit should not be interpreted as a sign of his being interested in contesting the Lok Sabha elections from his home constituency.

Though all factions of the Congress had been persuading the PM to contest from the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency by passing resolutions, he has reportedly declined to accept the offer.

Meanwhile, the names of O.P. Soni, Sukh Sarkaria, Bollywood actress Poonam Dhillon, and Iqbal Singh, a member of the Congress Working Committee, have been doing the rounds.

However, the party high command is not in a position to spare Iqbal Singh for contesting the Amritsar seat because he is busy in defusing the Bihar situation following the alliance reached between the parties of Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram 
Vilas Paswan.

Though initially the party high command had refused to field the sitting MLAs to contest the Lok Sabha elections, Soni and Sarkaria are said to be front-runners as far as the Amritsar parliamentary constituency is concerned.

Earlier, Poonam Dhillon had expressed her keen interests to contest the Amritsar seat against BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu, yet, being an outsider, the party high command may not zero in on her name.

Meanwhile, former Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and PPCC President Mohinder Singh Kaypee held a meeting with Sonia Gandhi, President, Indian National Congress, at her official residence for 10 minutes.

The final decision for selecting candidates was left to her.

Jalandhar, March 20
The PTC Punjabi Music awards - an event to felicitate the great work accomplished by the Punjabi music industry during 2008 - would be held at PAP Grounds here tomorrow. A platform to honour talent in Punjabi singing, the channel received entries from various music companies who sent their nominations.

The entries were screened by a panel of 100 judges from diverse fields of creative arts.

The winner in each category will be decided by voting for the favourite artiste, which would be announced at the live award ceremony.

Gurdas Mann’s “Boot Polishan” and Hans Raj Hans’s “Sajda” have been nominated for the best pop vocalist (male).

This includes Jazzy B’s hit album “Rambo” and Balkar Sidhu’s “Gal Taan Bandee”. Besides this, the highlight of the event will be performances by Jazzy B, Malkit Singh, Yana Gupta, Bombay Vikings and many other artistes.

Nawanshahr, March 20
With a view to providing the facility of hassle-free registration of FIRs, the district police has launched an innovative scheme. Under it, a special FIR registration counter has been set up at the Community Police Resource Centre in the office of the SSP here.

Giving details, SSP Rakesh Aggarwal told mediapersons that people had a common grievance that the FIRs of theft, burglary, snatching and injury cases, etc. were not registered timely at the police stations.

“To do away with this grievance, a special FIR registration counter has been opened where anybody can just walk in, fill the FIR registration form and the FIR will be registered without any hassle or questions,” said Aggarwal, adding that even a copy of the FIR would be made available to the complainant within 24 hours from the same counter.

Besides, the FIR can also be registered by sending the performa via e-mail at sspnsr2003@yahoo.com, but the identity proof of the complainant would be taken to avoid lodging of an FIR by impersonation.

Moreover, to prevent the misuse of this facility by some persons to harass others by falsely registering FIRs against them, the SHOs of different police stations in the district had been instructed not to arrest anyone without prior permission from the SSP.

The SHOs had been instructed to collect evidence against the accused and put up the case file before the SSP for permission to arrest the accused. If the FIR was found to be false, then proceedings under section 182 of the IPC would be initiated against the complainant, said Aggarwal.

The squall was bad news for roadside vendors and migrant labourers putting up in the open, as the rain threw them into a state of chaos with them looking for shelters owing to the sudden change in the mood of the weather gods.

Jalandhar, March 20
The Punjab People Party (PPP), a political wing of the Life Awareness Movement, has declared a “holy war” on what it called as “irreligion” in society and has decided to organise a convention of ex-servicemen at Adhiyatam Niketan at Kukanet Dehrian village in Hoshiarpur district on March 22.

Dr Sardara Singh Johl, Chairman of the party, will be the chief guest, while Col Channan Singh Dhillon (retd), President of the Ex-Services League, will preside over the function, said PPP central conductor Dr Jasvir Dosanjh.

“The present crisis are for irreligion prevailing in society. Contrary to it when a man becomes authentically religious his working comes out of compassion and love,” said Dr Dosanjh.

Hoshiarpur, March 20
More than 30 per cent area under wheat crop has been affected by the yellow rust disease in the district.

The chief agriculture officer, Dr Sutantar Kumar Airi, said here today that the yellow rust disease had been transmitted from the adjoining state of Himachal Pradesh after the rains on February 11 and 12.

The disease had generally affected 343, PW 502 and PBW 343 varieties of wheat in the district, particularly in kandi and bet areas. The disease was reducing the yielding capacity of the wheat plant.

However, timely action taken by the farmers with the help of agriculture department had reduced its effect to a great extent, claimed Dr Airi suggesting the spray of 160 ml tilt medicine mixed in 200 litres water in an acre.

About 143 lakh hectare area is under wheat cultivation in the district. 5.32 lakh tonnes of wheat production was expected during the season as compared to 5.42 lakh tonnes during the last year. The yellow rust disease would reduce about 3 per cent yield of wheat in the district during the season, he said. — OC