Fatehabad, June 1
Every year, hundreds of criminals across the state tend to evade the process of law to avoid being punished for the crimes they are accused of. The courts, under a process of the Criminal Procedure Code, declare such persons as proclaimed offenders by following a procedure and send the names of such persons to the police for their arrest.

Some others, who though join the process of law, jump bails and stop attending proceedings after getting bail.

Such offenders, called bail jumpers by the police, are also proclaimed offenders in the eyes of law.

Arresting proclaimed offenders has been considered an important aspect of policing because the persons of these categories are generally of criminal intent and if let free, they can resort to committing more crimes.

However, due to different reasons, including vested interests of some cops and the rush of work, such cases are often ignored by the police.

During a recent campaign launched by the police in the Hisar range, the Fatehabad police succeeded in arresting 210 proclaimed offenders so far this year.

The figure is substantial as one sees that the police in Bhiwani, Hisar, Jind and Sirsa, the other four districts in the Hisar range, could together nab around 300 proclaimed offenders during this period.

“The drive was slowed down during the parliamentary elections due to preoccupation of the police. Otherwise, the figures could have been even better,” informed Dr C Sambasiva Rao, SP, Fatehabad.

He said the district police had evolved a system whereby names and addresses of the proclaimed offenders were handed over to the cops manning particular beats.

“The officer in charge of the beat becomes answerable for the proclaimed offenders living in his beat,” Dr Rao said.

He said depending upon the area of their residence the proclaimed offenders had been classified in four categories.

“Those living in Fatehabad district have been classified as ‘Fatehabad Whites’, those in other four districts of the Hisar range and neighbouring Punjab and Rajasthan have been categorised as ‘Hisar Range Yellows’, those in other districts of Haryana as ‘Haryana Greens’ and those outside Haryana as ‘Outside Haryana Reds’”, the SP informed.

A majority of proclaimed offenders are from “Fatehabad Whites” and “Hisar Range Yellows” categories and more emphasis is being laid on these to arrest maximum proclaimed offenders, said Dr Rao.

Ambala, June 1
For the first time, residents and the administration of Ambala have joined hands to tackle floods, especially in the Naggal area, where residents of numerous villages have to face huge loss every year due to floods.

The Bhakra canal and the SYL canal pass through Jansui village close to Naggal. Water flows in the Bhakra canal throughout the year while water in the SYL canal comes only in the rainy season.

Every year, the situation becomes worst when the adjoining villages of Punjab breached the SYL canal in their areas to discharge excess water.

The residents of several villages have been demanding the construction of a siphon on the SYL canal in Haryana through which rainwater could be flushed out into the Ghaggar.

Ambala deputy commissioner Samir Pal Saro has prepared a plan to check floods in the area.

He has involved the villagers and social organisations like the Nehru Yuva Kendra and NSS units of colleges, to handle the flood situation this time.

The district administration has planned to store around 25,000 sandbags along the banks of the SYL canal so that in case of any breach, it could be repaired immediately.

The administration has not engaged any labour for preparing sandbags. Hundreds of villagers have been offering their services voluntarily for the job.

Saro said before the arrival of the monsoon, thousands of sandbags would be stored on the banks of the canal at the distance of every 1,000 yd from 0 point to Naggal.

Raghubir, a villager, who is contributing in this operation, is of the view that political leaders and officers of the administration should also join this social campaign as it would further motivate the common man.

It is to be mentioned that a major portion of the SYL canal that falls in Haryana is badly damaged and it is dangerous to carry huge quantity of water in it.

Whenever its water flowing capacity exceeds, it leads to breaches.

Rohtak, June 1
After nearly one-and-a-half month, Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) campus is coming alive again as the process of admissions for the new academic session has begun with the notification of admissions for various academic programmes.

Not only prospective students from different parts of the state have started coming here for making inquiries and preparations to find a place in the university, but also parents of aspirants are visiting the campus and trying to get acquainted with the university officials who could be of some help to them.

Since the academic session 2009-2010 is scheduled to commence on July 1, the MDU administration is gearing up to meet the huge admission rush. Prof Ramphal Hooda, vice-chancellor, says the university is fully geared up for the admission process.

“The university has offered a plethora of traditional as well as professional courses for the students. After 10+2, there are five-year integrated programmes in commerce (M.Com Hons), economics (MSc Hons) and mathematics (M.Sc Hons) and a six-year integrated programme in visual arts (MVA),” he informs. He says the university has emerged as a top-most destination for students seeking admission in prestigious professional courses.

The university has decided to introduce semester system in the PG and M.Phil courses from the coming session. Following this, teachers of all departments of the university have also been busy these days in restructuring the curriculum and giving a final shape to the schedule of various courses.

Entrance test for the PG courses will commence from July 2 and the first cut-off list will be displayed on July 10 in the department. First counselling will be conducted on July 11 whereas the second cut-off list will be displayed on July 13.

Entrance test will be held for admission to PG programmes in English, economics, geography, journalism and mass communication, psychology, law (LLM), bio-chemistry, genetics, botany, environmental science, zoology, medical biotechnology, food processing technology, biotechnology, microbiology, physics, chemistry, mathematics and mathematics with computer science.

Besides, admissions in statistics, Hindi, music, defence studies, fine arts, political science, public administration, history, sociology, education and commerce will be done on the basis of academic merit as the university has decided not to hold entrance examination for the courses due to declining number of the aspirants in the courses.

There will be separate prospectus for professional courses which will be available at the PG Regional Centre, Rewari, of the university and Engineering College, Gurgaon, besides sales counters set up on the university campus in Rohtak.

Admission notice for law and management courses has already been issued, while admission notice(s) for tourism & hotel management, diploma courses in hotel management, foreign language courses and physical education courses will be issued separately. 

Sirsa, June 1
Ashok Tanwar, the newly elected MP from Sirsa, said he had a long meeting with Union Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal recently and talked to him about various educational projects to be taken up in Sirsa.

Talking to The Tribune here, Ashok said he also talked to him about bringing improvements in Chaudhary Devi Lal University. He said Sibal had assured all possible cooperation in this direction and he would soon meet the Union Minister again with concrete proposals.

“It will be my endeavour to provide the best of educational facilities in the district because quality education is the only means that could ensure empowerment of people, especially those belonging to weaker sections, and this is what I had promised during my election campaign,” he said.

He said providing quality health-care facilities in the district were also among his priorities and for this he would soon meet Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad.

He said, besides meeting the central leaders, he would also take up the issues of development with the state government.

Ministerial berth is no temptation for Ashok. While many of the MPs were busy lobbying hard for a berth in the union cabinet after the results for the parliamentary polls were announced, Ashok was amongst the people of the district.

The young MP, a member of AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s brigade, is very clear about his priorities for the next five years.

“Being president of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC), I have to tour across the country with Rahul Gandhi in his endeavour to empower youths and to bring about transformational changes in the IYC as initiated by him, which include talent search, open membership, organisational elections and to take schemes and policies of the UPA government to masses through our programme, ‘Aam Admi Ka Sipahi’,” he said.

The IYC leader said bringing forward youths without political background and those coming from poor background would also be the IYC’s endeavour as visualised by Rahul.

He said he was basically a person with administrative background and that is why he was more interested in working for the party rather than becoming a part of the government.

“Assembly elections in some of the states, including Haryana, are coming near and I visualise a bigger role for me during these elections,” he said, adding his role would not be limited to the nine Assembly segments in the district or in the state for that matter.

Sirsa, June 1
Monika Gupta, a local correspondent of a national television news channel, whose book on children’s literature, “Main Hun Mani”, has bagged Pustak Puruskar from the Haryana Sahitya Akademi, has been writing short stories and short plays since childhood.

Many of her short plays have been broadcast on AIR from Jaipur and Rohtak stations. Also, her compilation of short plays, “Samay Hi Nahin Milta”, has been approved for grant by the akademi for publication.

A story, “Ankahi”, written by her has been selected among the top 20 stories to be published by the akademi in book form.

“Main Hun Mani” is the story of a seven-year- old girl Mani who herself narrates her story in a simple style.

“This is the narration of simple incidents in the life of a small girl coming from a middle-class background,” Monika says about her book.

The incidents are so simple and so common that any child will relate him or her with these.

For example, in an incident, Mani’s father takes her to the market on his scooter, where she asks for several kinds of fruits, but her father refuses to buy those and finally gets her papaya that she does not like. Next day, she fells ill and her father again takes her to the market and gets her all those items she had asked for the previous day. But, being ill, she was not able to eat those and by the time she was all right, the fruits perished. Further, the taste of her mouth was too bitter to anything tasty due to the intake of medicines.

There are several other simple incidents narrated by Mani in the book, which the children will read with interest.

Monika, who is also working as a secretary in an NGO, “DOST”, which aims at bringing out the hidden talent of small children and encouraging them to do better, has been in the field of writing since her childhood.

Her award-winning book, “Main Hun Mani”, has received accolades from the likes of Arpana Vaish, deputy director-general, Doordarshan, Mandi House, New Delhi, Lakshmi Narain Goyal, Zee Telefilms Limited, Noida, Dr Manohar Parbhakar, a noted writer and journalist, and PK Bajaj, a noted publisher.

Yamunanagar, June 1
Endangering the life of or causing any harm, injury, intimidation, obstruction or hindrance to any medical service personnel, including doctors, nurses and medical students, in the discharge of duty or damage to any property of any medical institution is an offence under the Haryana Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions (Prevention of Violence and Damage to Property) Act, 2009, said the president of the Haryana Civil Medical Services Association (HCMSA), Dr Vijay Dahiya.

Expressing concern over a rise in the cases of assault on doctors and ransacking of hospitals by relatives of victims, Dr Dahiya said the Act was passed on March 26 and most of the people were not aware of it as yet.

There was an urgent need for the implementation of this Act as it was unfortunate that due to the lack of proper infrastructure and manpower in health institutions, these were being attacked by relatives of victims.

In two recent incidents, the Yamunanagar civil hospital was ransacked and a medical officer posted at CHC Kalayat in Kaithal district was attacked, he added.

Dr Dahiya said doctors could only provide medical care to the best of their ability. “Every death in the hospital is not an act of culpable negligence. In various kinds of medical or surgical interventions, the likelihood of an accident or misfortune leading to death cannot be ruled out”. “Petrified by such incidents, many doctors may stop taking any kind of risk while treating their patients. Hence, many patients may be deprived of life saving surgeries and medical treatment,” he added.

Kurukshetra, June 1
Hundreds of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) customers attended a camp on 3G services organised by the nigam here recently. The presentation of a live demo of 3G services was the main attraction, said BSNL area manager, Anil Bhatia, adding that this service had already been launched in Ambala, Karnal and Hisar while Kurukshetra was the fourth city where the service had been launched.

Besides, all concessions that were provided to the visitors during the previous camps on new connections of mobile, landline and broadband were also given to new subscribers who attended the event here, Bhatia added.

He said with the launch of the 3G mobile services in Kurukshetra, residents, mainly students of Kurukshetra University and various engineering colleges, would be able to use a number of services like video calling, mobile TV and mobile broadband. The use of the 3G services would enable the convergence of mobile communication, entertainment and computing, he added.

Divisional engineer telecom Bhagwan Dass said this year had been declared as “BSNL on your doorstep” and during the current year several new schemes were being declared for the benefit of the customers. BSNL officers replied to various queries of the visitors and also offered solution to their problems, he added.

Sonepat, June 1
A four-day training programme was organised at the Research and Development Centre of the Haryana Agro Industries Corporation (HAIC), Murthal, in the district on bee-keeping from May 26 to May 29. At least 50 youths from all over the state participated and showed interest in this new income-oriented occupation.

NS Sheoran, lead district manager, in his concluding lecture on the last day of the programme encouraged the youths to take up this activity and assured them all financial help from banks under him to start the activity.

Dr Ajay Singh told the trainees that bee-keeping was a profitable agriculture venture for landless, office-goers, women and farmers as it was not time-consuming activity and could be easily started at roadsides, canal embankments and in wastelands.

He informed that if one entrepreneur keeps 40-50 beehives, he could easily earn Rs 90,000 to Rs 1,00,000 annually after making an initial investment of Rs 40,000 only. “This enterprise needs minimal inputs and goes on without making more efforts as bees on its own collect nectar and pollen from 4-5 km range to make honey for you,” he added.

Other experts, including Dr CJ Juneja, Dr Puta Tunda and Dr Yogesh, imparted training on various aspects of bee-keeping. Trainees were taken into the apiary of Ramakant Tyagi for imparting practical on bee-keeping.

Gurgaon, June 1
Cairn India, India’s fourth largest oil and gas exploration and production company, organised a robotic summer camp for children of its employees here recently. Targeting children aged between 9-17 , the camp was aimed at imparting theoretical as well as practical knowledge about robotics to the children and helping them make complex machines on their own.

Kids explored a high-tech atmosphere which stimulated their imagination. Using the latest Robotics Inventions System, the participating children learnt how to design and make complex machines to perform a number of tasks.

The skills taught at the camp included the pulley system, simple and complex machines, parallel and series circuits and design of robotics circuits etc.

At the end of the camp, a competition was organised for the participants. 

Rohtak, June 1
Dharmvir Singh, headmaster, Saini High School, Rohtak, has been conferred the First Class Sanad Award with a certificate of excellence for his meritorious services and outstanding performance in the field of first aid and home nursing.

Dr AR Kidwai, Haryana Governor and president of the Haryana State Red Cross Society, presented him the award during the annual general meeting of the Haryana Chapter of the Indian Red Cross Society and St John Ambulance at Haryana Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh recently. State Education and Transport Minister Mange Ram Gupta was among those present on the occasion.

Earlier, Dharmvir had been honoured by then State Education Minister Phool Chand Mullana for his contribution in the field of teaching. Besides, he is also the recipient of the Best Scout Master Award given by the district education department.

Dharmvir has been associated with the Red Cross for the past about 10 years. During this period, 45 of his students have succeeded in getting the Rashtrapati Award while over 50 have been conferred the Rajya Puruskar for their performance in the field of scout and guide.

Gurgaon, June 1
Not satisfied with the functioning of the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG), local residents are demanding an empowered municipal body. They are even ready to come on roads for their rights.

They resolved to fight for the cause at a meeting held by the Gurgaon Unified Residents Movement (GURM) here on Sunday. Two residents’ bodies - Gurgaon Citizens’ Council (GCC) and the Federation of RWAs of HUDA sectors (FORWA) - spearhead the GURM. About 150 DLF residents attended the meeting.

A number of resident welfare associations, civil society organisations, non-government organisations and individual citizens are also supporting the movement.

The members of the GURM say the state government constituted the MCG in September 2008, but still the first elections to the municipal council have not been held even after the six months are over.

They mentioned that an area of 162 km has been earmarked to fall under the corporation, which includes the old city as well as all developer colonies. However, the 35 odd new sectors that had been planned for the development under the Gurgaon-Manesar 2021 master plan are yet not given to the MCG.

“Multiplicity of agencies has been at the root of all development problems in cities,” said Major Gen Satbir Singh (retd), senior advisor with the core committee of the GURM and a member of the Citizens Task Force, West Gurgaon.

“For effective results, infrastructure planning as well as development and maintenance functions must remain with one agency. It is also easier for the citizens to deal with a single agency, not multiple,” he added.

Advocate TK Malik, who is also BSF commandant (retd), affirmed that the government would not listen to them if they visit them normally. “We need to come together on roads and then only we can achieve our target,” he mentioned and added, “HUDA means harassment until death.”

“Among the 18 functions granted to the municipal corporation under the 74th amendment, urban planning, including town planning, is at number one while public health and sanitation is at number six,” claimed Col SS Oberoi, another core member of the GURM.

Property tax and other forms of taxes on services are the major source of revenue for the MCG, however, the GURM strongly feels that the MCG has no right to collect taxes till 100 per cent development has been carried out under the corporation area.

“About Rs 3,000 crore has been collected as external development charges (EDC) from the residents, but the state of infrastructure development in the city shows inadequacy in investment. We want this fund to be transferred to the MCG or a development authority based in Gurgaon,” mentioned RS Rathee, core member of the GURM and president of the GCC. “We want a development authority in Gurgaon with full planning and implementation powers,” he added.

“We want our MCG to be fully empowered body with all 18 powers under the constitution and not just end up as yet another tax collecting and sanitation agency only,” Rathee said.

The residents also want to seek out the registration of voters card before municipal council elections.

Prem Sablok of the GURM said, “Names of thousands of urban voters, including me and my family, were found missing from the final voters list drawn up for the recent Lok Sabha elections. This will have a direct impact on the results of the municipal elections in the city and all future elections. Thus Chief Election Commissioner and the State Election Commission should enquire the mistake.”

“Many residents from HUDA sectors have also complained of missing names,” affirmed Dharam Sagar of the Federation of Resident Welfare Associations of HUDA sectors (FORWA) and a member of the GURM core committee.

Panipat, June 1
An ever-increasing interest of farmers in pisciculture has started showing results in Panipat district, which has registered 145 tonnes of fish production in the last one month.

Buoyed by the recent success, the fish farm development agency has set an annual target of 43.2 thousand tonnes of fish product for the current year.

The agency had been successful in involving more and more farmers in pisciculture through which it brought 20 hectares of land under fish farming. Fish farming has also proved to be a lucrative option for the farmers.

Deputy commissioner Vijay Singh Dahiya said a number of farmers were benefitted immensely from pisciculture in the district. He said the government was quite keen on further promoting it as an alternative to regular farming or as a source of additional income for the farmers.

Going by the records of the past three years, more than 1,375 acres was developed in the district alone to promote fish farming. These wetlands produced more than 2,500 tonnes of fish a year enabling the farmers to bag substantial profits. In the district, farmers involved in fish farming earned profits to the tune of Rs 4 lakh by selling fish seeds alone in a year.

It is not just the lucrative gains that have been attracting the farmers to take up fish farming. The state government has been going all out to boost the blue revolution by offering subsidies. These subsidies also play a vital role in promoting fish farming.

Dahiya said many persons, who had been struggling against unemployment for years, picked up fish farming and were today making huge profits. He said, besides helping new aspirants, the agency was regularly updating the owners of the existing fish farms with the latest advents in the field so that they could keep up their pace and continue to make good profits.

Kurukshetra June 1
The Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kurukshetra, organised a soil and water testing campaign at Lukhi village recently to observe the fertility status of soil for the sustainability of rice-wheat cropping system in this area.

According to senior scientists, the productivity of rice-wheat cropping system is either stagnant or decreasing due to deteriorating soil health and the imbalanced use of chemical fertilisers.

Highlighting the importance of soil and water testing, Dr BS Dhuhan, senior soil scientist, CCS, Haryana Agricultural University, called upon the farmers to get their soil and tubewell water tested. He advised them to use chemical fertilisers based on the test report of soil and irrigational water for better efficiency.

Prof SP Goyal, senior coordinator of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra, cautioned about the excessive use of nitrogenous fertilisers in rice crop which causes incidence of insects, pests and diseases while Dr Goyal emphasised on the use of recommended dose of various fertilisers.

Apprising the farmers of the method of taking soil samples, Dr OP Lathwal, an agronomist of the kendra, said the sample should be taken from 15 cm soil layer from five places in the field and after mixing, a representative sample weighing about 250 gm should be sent to the laboratory for testing. Similarly, the water sample should be collected after four hours running of the tubewell. The samples thus collected should be got analysed free of cost at CCS Haryana Agricultural University, he added.

Chandigarh, June 1
The agriculture department has formulated a comprehensive district agriculture plan (C-DAP) for all districts in the state. Under this plan, block agriculture planning units and district agriculture planning units have been constituted. The plan for each district has been formed keeping in view the natural resources and funds available under other centrally sponsored and state plan schemes for that district.

According to Agriculture Minister HS Chatha, under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVP), which is a 100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme, Rs 61.03 crore was released by the Central government against the allocation of Rs 97.12 crore during 2008-09. Out of the released amount, Rs 60.23 crore was utilised under different projects approved by a state-level sanctioning committee.

He said Rs 32.81 crore was utilised by the department for promoting the use of green manure, improving soil health, upgrading eight soil-testing laboratories, promotion of underground pipeline system and farm mechanisation and for providing quality inputs like gypsum, pesticides and seed of summer moong.

Chatha said the animal husbandry and dairying department utilised Rs 10.52 crore for in-site preservation of top quality murrah germ plasm, genetic improvement of buffalo, cattle health management, fast genetic improvement of cattle and fodder seed production.

The horticulture department targeted the promotion of improved varieties and the hybrid seeds of vegetables and potato seed production under the RKVP and Rs 251.30 lakh was utilised to promote these activities during 2008-09. Similarly, Rs 779.0 lakh was allocated to the fisheries department, which was utilised for enhancing fish seed and fish productivity and the renovation of government fishponds.

Ambala, June 1
There are numerous reasons like environmental, ethical and financial for the world market to seek a mass produced non-fossil fuel car. Students of MM University here have come forward to address such issues with their innovation.

Four B.Tech students of the university, Ankit Kakkar, Mohit Goyal, Varun Dhir and Piyush Saini, have proved their mettle by devising “TRIO”, a car that can run on conventional fossil fuel as well as on electricity. The basic aim of the cars is lower cost of transportation and reduction in pollutant emission of the vehicle.

“TRIO” will use petrol, LPG and battery packs for electricity source. It can run solely on any of these fuels. The usage of these different sources will depend on the engine RPM, torque required and speed of the vehicle. “TRIO” has an inbuilt generator to generate electricity. The cost of running “TRIO” is Rs 0.83 per km with electricity, Rs 3.2 per km with petrol, and Rs 1.8 per km when run on LPG.

Applauding the effort of the students, Tarsem Kumar Garg, chancellor of the University, said, “The production of fossil fuel has already reached its peak and it is only a matter of time before natural gas and coal will follow the suit. These near-term concerns about oil supply have led to the increasing focus on alternative sources of fuel. We are proud of our students for working towards addressing these concerns”.

The students, thrilled at the success, expressed their gratitude to the university for providing them an opportunity to showcase their calibre and for the pedagogic system of MM that instilled the spirit of entrepreneurship in them.