Solan, May 19
In an unprecedented case of rivalry among students, which the police dubs as a case of voluntarily causing hurt and rioting, Yogesh Singh, a fourth-year student of Solan Homeopathic Medical College and Hospital, along with his father and five other relatives allegedly entered the classroom and beat up Dhirender Singh today.

According to principal Dr P.D.Dudhe there was some dispute between Yogesh Singh and first-year student Ashish over normal etiquettes.

“It was after receiving a complaint from Ashish that we started contacting Yogesh’s parents to come to the college to settle the dispute but there was little response. After sending several communications, his father finally came to the campus located near Kumarhatti today but instead of approaching the administration they went straight to the classroom to settle the issue on their own.”

“We immediately acted and lodged an FIR with the police against Yogesh and his relatives. ‘Yogesh has been suspended for unruly behaviour,’ added Dr Dudhe.

Inquiries, however, revealed that trouble started when Yogesh asked Ashish to wish him but the latter’s refusal earned him verbal abuses.

The feud between them deepened. Things came to such a pass that Yogesh slapped Ashish during a cricket match at Solan a few days ago.

A peeved Ashish collected three or four boys and confronted Yogesh. This led to an altercation, with Yogesh being roughed up at the college common room yesterday.

Yogesh then informed his father Ranvir Singh Sehdev who along with his relatives Harvir Singh, Gagan, Atul Shah and Sham Lal came to the college today.

The entire clan, instead of meeting the principal, entered the classroom and first intimidated and then roughed up his classmate Dhirender to reveal the whereabouts of Ashish.

Dhirender had earlier tried to effect a patch-up between the duo. They also dealt blows to another student Prabhat Trivedi who was also present there.

The SDPO, Parwanoo, while giving information said an FIR had been registered under Sections 147, 148 and 323 of the IPC for rioting and voluntarily causing hurt against Yogesh and others, including his father. Yogesh and Sham Lal had been arrested.

Interestingly, Ashish later moved a complaint before the police alleging being ragged which, however, was a ploy to justify his yesterday’s beating up of Yogesh, claimed the police.

The principal denied any element of ragging in the incident and said it was a case of junior students being asked to follow etiquettes and had no semblance to ragging.

Kangra, May 19
A 73-year-old resident of Mewha village of Dehra subdivision falling under Haripur police station died under suspicious circumstances when another resident of the same village allegedly told him that the land on which he was working belonged to him, the police said here today.

Kangra District Police Chief Atul Fulzele said Jamait Singh, a resident of Mehwa
village, was cutting bushes on his land when another resident of the same
village Rasal Singh told him that the land on which he was working belonged to
him (Rasal Singh).

He said this shocked Jamait Singh and he fell down unconscious. He was rushed
to a hospital, but died on way. The post-mortem confirmed that Jamait Singh
died due to head injury.

Shimla, May 19
With temperature being almost 4°C higher than normal, the pine forests in the state are raging with fire.

There have been 576 incidents of fires till now as compared to a total of 572 such incidents last year.

Despite claims of better preparedness to keep damage resulting from forest fires to the minimum, the soaring mercury has sparked fires converting forests into infernos.

The severity of the problem has increased to such an extent that four villagers in Panjog Dhar area adjoining Mashobra here sustained serious burns while trying to control a fire, which has gripped the forest close to their village since last night.

The damage caused by fire incidents so far has been put at Rs 69.01 lakh. An area of around 6,90,207 hectares has been affected. There were 320 forest fires in April and the number has reached 256 by May 18.

Barring tribal districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti, every other district in the state
is in the grip of ravaging fires, leading to thick smoke formation that led to further
rise in temperature.

With the temperatures being on the rise, there seems to be no respite from forest fires. The maximum temperature in Shimla today touched 29.4°C, just a degree less than the all-time record of the highest temperature in the month of May.

“It was on May 21, 2004, that the record for the highest temperature in the month of May till date was made,” said Director of the Meteorological Centre here.

What is causing worry to the forest authorities is the fact that with a good part of summer yet to come, the damage this year could be unprecedented.

“In the absence of sufficient snow and rain during winters, there is less moisture content in atmosphere that made pine needles inflammable,” forest officials said.

Forest Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda said steps had been taken to prevent forest fires, but high temperatures, coupled with a dry spell, had aggravated the problem.

“Though the department is making all-out efforts, the cooperation of villagers, especially those residing near “chir” forests is a must,” he said. Rapid response teams had already been constituted in each forest range in the state.

Shimla, May 19
Four villagers sustained severe burns today while trying to control the fire, which had spread in the Panjog-Dhar pine forest, near Mashobra, about 15 km from here.

According to officials, the fire, which broke out in the Panjog-Dhar forest, had spread to a huge area, causing panic among villagers.

With the area not being connected by road staff of the Forest Department along with the villagers are trying to bring the fire under control since yesterday.

Four villagers- Vidya (24), Mahender (22) and Dimple (25) all from Dhar village and Rita Devi (37) of Panjog village- were admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC) with severe burns.

District police chief RM Sharma said he had directed his staff to send in some police force to assist in bringing the fire under control.

He added though no houses or villages were under immediate threat, in case the fire is not brought under control there could be trouble.

Shimla, May 19
Tourists and tribal people of the picturesque Sangla Valley in Kinnaur are enjoying locally grown button mushroom for the first time.

The delicacy has been added to the local cuisine due to the efforts of the Shimla- based Himalayan Research Group (HRG), a non-governmental organisation.

It is the outcome of continuous efforts put in by the director of the group Dr Lal Singh, who grew mushroom in the valley to convince farmers that it could be grown in relatively cool environment during the summer season.

A trial lot with 5,000 kg compost was set up in the last week of March, 2009, in the house of farmer Vidya Karan Negi at Ajad Kashmir village across the Baspa.

The crop has matured and over 169 kg of button mushroom has been already been harvested within first three days of harvesting.

Lal Singh said the trial lot would help produce over 1,000 kg mushroom in all and a bulk of it would be consumed in Kinnaur.

It was selling like hot cakes in the wholesale markets at Sangla and Reckong Peo at a good price of Rs 100 per kg.

His organisation was now providing training to 89 tribal farmers, mostly women and youth, at Sangla so that they could grow mushrooms.

It would go a long way in augmenting the income of the tribal people and also help in soil improvement through use of spent mushroom compost as manure.

A team of HRG scientists and support staff was providing continuous support to button mushroom growers in Mandi and Kullu and now Kinnaur had also been added to that list.

Dr Singh said efforts were on to introduce cultivation of high-value less-volume medicinal plants like Chirata, Karu and Patish at Sangla Kanda on the demand of local people. In the first phase, Chirata seeds were provided to 15 farmers for initial trials.

Shimla, May 19
Despite there being a low prevalence of the disease in the state, Himachal has adopted a very vigorous approach to check HIV/AIDS epidemic while ensuring that there is no discrimination of infected persons in the mainstream medical services.

This was the observation of the six-member World Bank team along with members from the Department for International Development (DFID) and AIDS Control Organisation who reviewed the implementation of National AIDS Control Programme (NACP-III) activities in the state.

The team approved an annual action plan of Rs 1,127.31 lakh for the year 2009-10, an increase of 30 per cent over last year.

The team lauded the system of grievance procedure established in the state which they felt must be considered as the best practice.

“NACO should study the example of Himachal Pradesh in adopting a procedure for grievance and other states must also be encouraged to establish similar systems,” the team observed.

The team also appreciated the high-level of political commitment, which was reflected with participation of the Chief Minister and other officials in various programmes and good collaboration of the State AIDS Control Society (SACS) with other structures of the government.

The team also stated that the efficient functioning of computerised financial
management system at SACS could be selected as a pilot site to test these
value additions. The state has two anti-retro viral therapy (ART) centres in
Shimla and Kangra.

Four new blood transportation vans, two mobile counselling and testing vans, one new community care centre and a blood component separator unit have been sanctioned this year.

Hamirpur, May 19
A local environment activist Ratan Lal Verma has expressed his concern on the environmental degradation and threat of global warming.

In a press release issued here Verma said, “Despite huge hype on this issue the process of environmental degradation is on, which is a serious matter of concern.”

He said, “Strangely people who are responsible for this degradation have been entrusted the job of protecting it as a result of which the efforts to protect our environment have not brought the desired results.”

Verma said that he had warned authorities about the threat of global warming five years back which has been vindicated by the fresh research by a British scientist Steev Connor, who has said that the ice lands in Antarctica are melting fast which would lead to rise in water level in the seas reducing gravitational force on earth.

Solan, May 19
In a bizarre incident, Kasauli MLA Dr Rajiv Sehzal failed to find justice from the district police despite lodging an FIR against a contractor who had pushed him after a victory procession held at Kumarhatti on May 17 to celebrate the victory of Virender Kashyap in the parliamentary poll.

Sehzal said, “I was taken aback when I was deliberately pushed by contractor Yash Pal when I was going towards my parked vehicle after the procession finished at Kumarhatti around 4:45 pm on Sunday. I not only lost my balance, but barely helped to keep myself standing after receiving the severe jolt. On recognising the culprit I called Yash Pal and asked him why he had behaved like this. But instead of feeling sorry he intimidated me saying that such incidents were routine during processions.”

Sehzal added that seeing no iota of repentance, he e-mailed an FIR to the police
the same evening. But, despite lapse of two days, the police has failed to do
anything in this regard.

He added that he, however, received a telephone call from Solan SP SPS Verma sometime back who said that Yash Pal wanted to tender an apology from him and he was there in his office.

Expressing shock at this defiant behaviour of the SP, Sehzal added that it was a sorry state of affairs that the SP was favouring such wrongdoers by giving them place in his office.

The SP, however, said the dispute had been amicably settled between the duo after they sat down and decided to compromise. He agreed that a complaint had been received from the MLA, but was dismissed.

In contrast the MLA said no compromise had been arrived at till the filing of this report and it was surprising how a SP can give such unreliable statements.

The incident had peeved the supporters of the MLA who said they would approach the Chief Minister in this regard. It was also surprising how the district police chief could issue statements which were far from true, quipped the BJP leader.

The incident had exposed the little credence being given to the BJP MLAs and also how the police conveniently ignored even elected representatives of the people.