Talwandi Sabo (Bathinda), March 27
Candidate of the SAD-BJP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal and her husband Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal today formally launched her election campaign after paying obeisance at Takht Damdama Sahib here.

Sukhbir, after visiting the gurdwara, announced that the “war has begun”. However, Harsimrat said: “I don’t believe in blame-game politics”.

She did not speak any harsh words against her rival Congress candidate Raninder Singh, whereas Sukhbir lashed out at Capt Amarinder Singh and accused the Congress of not fulfilling the election promises.

He said, “We belong to this area and are concerned about the problems of the common people, whereas the Congress leaders will not be seen here after the elections are over”.

Harsimrat said, “I never mix politics with my social relations”.

Accompanied by her husband and mother-in-law Surinder Kaur Badal, Harsimrat carried out a nearly 70-km road show between here and their native Badal village. SAD men burst crackers and danced to the beat of drums as she reached the grain market here from where a motorcade of party activists joined them.

The Badals stopped on the way to pay obeisance at almost every gurdwara en route and later visited a temple at Maiserkhana.

Sukhbir parried questions about the ongoing dispute between Sikhs and followers of Dera Sacha Sauda. But, in the same breath he said it was the duty of every Sikh to obey the hukamnama of Akal Takht.

He said development was the poll plank of the SAD and people would see massive development in Bathinda that had so far remained “tail-end” of Punjab and the most backward area in every respect. Whatever development had been done was during the SAD regime, while no minister visited here during the Congress rule.

Harsimrat said her drive against female foeticide had received an overwhelming response and her next campaign would be against drug addiction. However, empowerment of women would remain her main agenda.

Parmod Mehta adds from Mansa: During her election meetings in the Mansa area, Harsimrat felt a need for job reservation for women. She addressed public meetings in Bhikhi, Borawall, Beeroke, Dodra, Bachuana, Budhlada, Datewas, Dyalpura, Bareta, Boha, Peeplian. Among others who addressed these public meetings were district president of SAD Harbant Singh Datewas, former MLA Sukhwinder Singh Aulakh, Paramjeet Singh Sandhwan, Gurpreet Singh Banawali, Hani Mansahia and Yadvinder Singh.

Jalandhar, March 27
Officials of various state government procurement agencies will boycott procurement from April 1, the official date to start the procurement of wheat in the state.

This was stated here today by Akshar Kumar, a member of the coordination committee of the employees of foodgrain procurement agencies. The officials will hold a rally at Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall here on March 30 against what he described as anti-employee policy of the state government.

Akshar said the officials were not ready to take the risk of stacking wheat in the open. Already 25 lakh tonne of old wheat was lying in the open and about 105 lakh tonne of fresh wheat would arrive in the next five weeks.

He said when any damage was caused to the wheat stacked in the open, senior officers of the procurement agencies hold officials responsible for the damage and forcibly recover money from them. Some time back, a government agency dismissed 30 employees from the service for the damage caused to wheat stacked in the open while many were asked to pay for the damages, he alleged.

About 10 lakh tonne of wheat worth Rs 800 crore had been damaged in the past few years because it was not lifted in time by the Food Corporation of India. The union government asked the state government agencies to dispose of the damaged wheat through auction by March 31, 2004, and lodge the claim with it to compensate for the loss suffered by the agency concerned by selling the damaged wheat through auction. However, as a senior officer was interested in giving that wheat stock to a particular party, the auction was delayed, he alleged.

The state government had surrendered before the FCI on the issue of weight gained by wheat due to moisture during the monsoon season. In the official language it was called storage gain. The FCI had now started lodging claim to this gain from the state procurement agencies.

The officials have asked the agencies concerned to challenge the FCI’s decision in the court. However, nothing has been done. Owing to the storage gain claims of the FCI, the state government had suffered a loss of Rs 350 crore, he added.

Chandigarh, March 27
Punjab Congress’ attempts to corner the SAD on the issue of comments made by BJP leader Varun Gandhi have been answered by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who has claimed that by nominating Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler for the elections, the Congress had rubbed salt on the wounds of the Sikh community.

Sajjan and Tytler are accused of being involved in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.

Badal said even an open admission and criticism of the Congress guilt in this regard by no less a person than former Deputy Speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha had not forced others like Capt Amarinder Singh to search their conscience and oppose their party’s decision to insult the Sikh community.

The Chief Minister declared that tickets to those guilty of 1984 crimes against humanity would be very much an issue in the coming elections.

Badal said Amarinder had resigned after Operation Blue Star on the ground that his conscience did not allow him to be a member the party that was dominated by those guilty of such beastly crimes. “But it is clear now that he came to us with an ambition to become a Chief Minster and when he found that that ambition was not getting fulfilled he forgot all about the tragic assault on the holy shrine.”

Amritsar, March 27
Local Congress leaders today presented a united face when all sitting and former MLAs extending support to party’s nominee for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat OP Soni. However, Raj Kumar Verka, former MLA from Verka, and former Mayor Sunil Datti stayed away from the function.

Among those present on the occasion were former Deputy Speaker Darbari Lal, sitting MLA Sukhbinder Singh Sukhsarkaria, Jugal Kishore, Harjinder Singh Thekedar, Harpartap Singh Ajnala, Swinder Singh Kathunangal (all former MLAs), Sukhdev Singh Shahbazpuri, Prof Gurinder Singh Mamanke, Madame Ratna, Jagjit Singh Sehdev and Sukhjinderraj Singh Lalli.

Earlier, Verka had expressed his opposition following the announcement of Soni’s candidature. However, he said he had been misquoted by the media.

Meanwhile, Soni refused to comment on Verka’s absence but on Datti, he said the former Mayor, who was out of the city, had already offered full support during the elections.

Lashing out at sitting MP Navjot Singh Sidhu for allegedly spreading false propaganda that the Congress had done nothing for the city, Soni said it was the Congress under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that had brought mega projects to the city, including an elevated road, special economic zone, upgrade of water and sewerage system at a cost of Rs 250 crore.

Soni alleged that Sidhu was only claiming credit for the works done by local Congress leaders and he did not even raise voice after the state government shifted the central university announced by the Centre from Amritsar to Bathinda.

Soni said his major poll plank would be development of this border region and he would work with other leaders for setting up major industrial units in the region. Besides, he would also strive hard for getting special tax rebates for industries as was being given to neighboring states like Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh to save the sick industries in the state.

Andana (Sangrur), March 27
A few days ago Ramphal hanged himself to death in this Haryanavi-speaking ‘bangaru’ belt along the Ghaggar that looks more like the neighbouring state than Punjab.

One month back, 30-year-old Dharambir doused himself with kerosene, ran into the street and set himself on fire.

Such suicides have a common history in this as well as adjoining villages of Kheri, Karoda, Banarsi, Bhullan and Baupur with Choudhary Jats and Gujjars. These villages have not caught the attention of either political parties or the government. Culturally attuned to Haryana, the villagers have been virtually pauperised over the years due to constant flooding by the Ghaggar, a very low level of underground water and inaccessibility to costly equipment.

Debt not behind suicides: DC Though the BKU Ekta has come up with a list of 987 persons, who have committed suicide in Sangrur district, Deputy Commissioner VK Ohri says no one in his district has committed suicide due to debt-related problems. The suicide cases could be due to other reasons, Ohri says, adding that the problem of overflow in the Ghaggar was being tackled with the raising of embankments.

The election fever is yet to reach the village though there are a few posters of independent candidate Balwant Singh Ramoowalia pasted on walls. The village is more concerned about its suicide rate and the recent announcement of the state government to give compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the families whose members committed suicide due to debts. There are a large number of women living a miserable existence after their men folk chose what they term as the easier option rather than face the difficulties of life. These women think The Tribune team has come to conduct a survey in this regard.

Who will be eligible for the compensation and what is needed as proof to qualify weigh heavy on their minds, as most relatives of the persons committing suicide did not go through with medico-legal formalities.

The government has said only those, who have committed suicide after 2000, will be covered under the compensation scheme.

In the past 15 years, more than 40 of village men folk have committed suicide, according to the villagers. Shana Devi’s husband took celphos tablets to kill himself 12 years ago. She sold off one out of 2.50 acres of her land to repay the debt.

Many others also qualify for the compensation, but are not sure whether this will take them out of the trough they are in. “Old tubewells do not work any longer, we cannot afford submersible ones,” says Ramratti, whose husband committed suicide soon after selling off part of his land to repay his debts. Ramratti and others like Kamlesh, whose husband consumed sulphur in 2002, make do by keeping a buffalo each, besides leasing out their marginal land holdings.

Nanak, who is from the same village and also a social activist, claims what is needed is the government help in setting up deep tubewells along the Ghaggar. “There is no initiative to help widows of suicide victims to generate alternative resources of income. Nor is there any support to villagers against manipulative dealings of commission agents,” he says, pointing to the family of Mahipal whose two brothers Satpal and Harpal have committed suicide and the family now has no land.

Chandigarh, March 27
Continued rain in the region has got Punjab farmers worried as this will not only delay harvesting, but also cause a serious problem of storage. Besides the farmers, procurement agencies whose “season” starts from April 1 are hoping that the weather clears out, failing which their operations will be hampered. Even though Punjab has ordered a special girdawri, it is not yet know how much wheat has been flattened due to rain and accompanying storms during the past two days.

Punjab is hoping to have a bumper crop this season, but the final outcome is likely to be affected by the rains. According to reports from the Metrological Department, the rains are likely to continue for the next few days making it a serious cause of worry for the farmers and procurement agencies. To top it all, a majority of the makeshift mandis in Punjab are “kutcha” and the lot of wheat that arrives there is subjected to the vagaries of nature.

Punjab is expecting a bumper harvest of around 153 lakh metric tonnes (MT) out of which the government agencies are hoping to procure around 115 lakh MT, almost 10 lakh MT more than last year. This will be collected at 1,624 mandis, according to sources in the government. The Department of Food and Supply has got a limit of Rs 12,153 crore sanctioned from the Reserve Bank of India for disbursement to the farmers. The treat from the rain gods comes at a time when wheat is already under an attack from a new race of yellow rust.

According to scientists, farmers should take stock of the threat from yellow rust and move to other resistant varieties like DBW 17 and DBW 550, otherwise the yellow rust has the potential of wiping out the entire wheat crop in the coming years. Yellow rust is a fungal disease and identified with yellow spores appearing on the crop.

Chandigarh, March 27
Wheat procurement begins in Punjab in three days from now and the state government is still-hunting for a financial commissioner (development) (FCD).

The FCD is the key person who presides over the entire operation.

Former Home Secretary of the state Sudhir Mital, who was shifted out following instructions from the Election commission of India, was made the FCD.

Mital, however, is also holding the post of principal resident commissioner, NRI affairs, Punjab, in New Delhi. Recently he was asked to choose between the two posts as one officer cannot hold on to two substantive posts.

Sources confirm that he is decided to stay in Delhi vacating the post of the FCD. The former FCD and now Home Secretary Navreet Kang has been given the 
additional charge of the FCD till the post is filled.

Meanwhile, Alka Sirohi, Secretary, Food, Government of India, was here yesterday to review the wheat procurement arrangements made by Punjab and Haryana.

She met the Punjab Chief Secretary, along with officers, from the Food Corporation of India (FCI) and Railways.

When contacted, Chief Secretary Ramesh Inder Singh said the state Department of Food Supplies had made arrangement for storage of the fresh procured wheat. “Other than creating additional space we are going to use sugar mills, warehouses, etc, to store wheat. But we have also asked the government of India to ensure that the FCI should move out last year’s wheat stock on priority,”  he said.

SK Sandhu, MD, Punjab Agro Food Corporation, said the state agencies were making arrangements for procuring 115 lakh metric tonnes of wheat this season. “We have been able to meet the shortage of space by about 23 lakh mt but in case the movement of the old stocks is not moved, there can be a problem,” he said.

The Chief Secretary added that the problem of shortage of gunny bags for the procurement was also discussed at the meeting.

“The government has approved the use of bags made of another material 
(HDPE) and we are in the process of procuring these. Almost 1.2 lakh bales of HDPE bags have been ordered,” he said.

Sangrur/Barnala, March 27
Annoyed with the Badal government for not reviving the pension scheme from June 2003 for teachers and other employees of government-aided schools of the state, teachers and other employees today burnt the effigies of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at Sangrur and the Badal government at Barnala.

Led by acting president of the Sangrur district unit of the Punjab State-Aided School Teachers and Other Employees Union Madan Mohan Kapoor, the teachers and other employees today burnt the effigy of Badal at the traffic lights chowk, near the main bus stand, at Sangrur. They also held a “siapa” and raised slogans against the Punjab government, the Chief Minister and the Finance Minister. Kapoor said as the SAD-BJP government had refused to revive the pension scheme, the union had decided to oppose the Badal government in a big way.

Teachers and other employees of government-aided schools of Barnala district today took out a protest march through Barnala town. They also burnt the effigy of the Badal government and copies of the manifesto of the SAD and also held “siapa” near the railway station at Barnala against the non-revival of pension scheme.

On the occasion, Barnala district president of the union Ram Kumar Sobti and secretary Pawan Bansal were also present. A spokesman of the union Raj Mohinder said Capt Amarinder Singh had done injustice to the teachers and other employees by scrapping their pension scheme from June 2003, and Badal had been adopting dilly-dallying tactics and not reviving the pension scheme for the past two years. 

Amritsar, March 27
Close on the heels of the decision of the Guru Nanak Dev (GND) University Syndicate to serve a show-cause notice on former Dean (faculty), who was indicted of using parts of PhD thesis of his student in his DLit thesis, another complaint of plagiarism has been lodged against a senior professor.

Earlier, university authorities had dismissed a lecturer of Regional Centre, Jalandhar, on similar charges. The university had also stopped four increments of a reader and debarred him from headship for four years following charges of plagiarism. The Syndicate had also debarred a senior teacher of Punjabi University, Patiala, from examination duties, who was guide of the lecturer dismissed on charges of plagiarism.

However, Dr Jagroop Singh Sekhon, a senior professor of political science, described the complaint lodged against him by the Anti-Plagiarism and Research Development Committee as “baseless and misleading”.

Regarding copying the thesis, Dr Sekhon said the student whose dissertation was mentioned in the complaint got his admission in MPhil July 1999 and completed course work in June 2000. He was allotted to him for his MPhil. dissertation. He did MA in Punjabi in 1999. “I found him a simple, honest and hardworking rural boy,” he said. Dr Sekhon said while selecting the topic for his dissertation, he asked him to work on Massanian village and provided him the basic output of information about the village. After that they (Dr Sekhon and the student) both visited the village. “It was my intention to show him how field research is done and we also collected additional information from the villagers. To the best of my memory, we wrote 4-5 drafts prior to the preparation of the final draft for submission in October 2001. I guided and helped him from providing him with the basic information, selection, analysis and final interpretation of the data. I also corrected all sentences written by him in English,” he claimed.

He claimed that from the above fact it was clear that the work mentioned in the complaint was a work jointly done with his student. “The similarity of language pertains only to factual and empirical statements,” he said.

Chandigarh, March 27
The Punjab and Haryana High Court believes that the police implicated a Jalandhar resident following its apparent failure to identify Army personnel involved in a murder that took place in the cantonment area.

The murder case was registered by the Jalandhar police against Naresh Kumar under Section 302 of the IPC after Krishna Devi’s body was found by a security guard in military farm in April 1996.

After recording the statement of a prosecution witness Sweety, the police came to the conclusion that the accused and military personnel had raped and murdered Krishna.

During the course of trial, the state counsel had contended that Krishna, Sweety and Naresh were partners in commission of offence of making money by indulging in illicit relations with Army personnel, who lived in the the cantonment.

Naresh was later convicted by the Jalandhar sessions judge and sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for life in the murder case. Reversing the orders, the High Court Division Bench of Justice Mehtab Singh Gill and Justice Daya Chaudhary ruled: The investigating officer, sub-inspector Mohan Singh, it seems, could not identify the Army personnel, who had committed the murder of Krishna, so the best course open for him was to implicate Naresh.

Speaking for the Bench, Justice Gill ruled: “We are of the considered opinion that Naresh has not committed the murder of Krishna. He has been falsely implicated and he deserves the benefit of doubt”.

Justice Gill took note of the fact that Sweety, in her cross examination, had stated the money collected by them used to be equally divided between her, Krishna and Naresh.

Sweety had added that she had seen Army personnel consuming liquor with Naresh before he murdered Krishna. Justice Gill added that her version was not believable.

“Naresh seems to be a party to illegal act of Sweety and Krishna. He was also getting money and there was no motive for him to commit the murder of Krishna for the reason it was a source of income to him,” the Judge concluded.