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Factories ill-equipped to tackle fires
Call centre for students of distance education
Vector-borne diseases |
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Special loan scheme for farmers
KU accepts teachers’ demands
Concentration important while studying, opines topper
Divisional commissioner DPS Nagal honours Nitin Jain in Gurgaon.
Summer camp for rural children
CII mission for clean, green enterprises
Sustainable development centre to be set up
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Factories ill-equipped to tackle fires
Bahadurgarh (Jhajjar), June 4 Every time the authorities wake up after the incidents and launch a drive to beef up safety measures in the factories by constituting committees. Though the committees conduct surprise raids in the factories as a formality ,such drives turn out to be mere eyewash as the owners again start violating the rules. When two major fires broke out in shoe factories in four days at the MIE here about eight months ago, the district authorities formed a committee led by the Bahadurgarh SDM. Both incidents not only caused heavy losses to their owners but also exposed their negligence in keeping regular maintenance of fire extinguishers. As per reports, a majority of industrialists have installed firefighting systems in their factories just to fulfill legal requirements. However, they hardly bother about the maintenance of the systems. The law requires the factory owners to maintain firefighting systems at regular intervals and also impart training to their employees . But, most of the owners do not take interest in imparting training to their workers. However, there is a provision in the law for checking safety measures in the factories at regular intervals and initiating stringent action against erring factory owners as well, but the authorities don’t carry out raids. Narender Kharab, assistant director for industrial safety, Bahadurgarh, said surprise raids were carried out at regular intervals to check the safety measures in the factories. All factories located in Bahadurgarh town had fire extinguishers and other safety components required as per rules, he claimed. He added that the absence of training agencies in the region forced the factory owners to employ untrained workers.
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Call centre for students of distance education
Rohtak, June 4 The DDE administration has decided to set up a call centre on its premises with a view to answering the telephonic queries of the students. An agreement with a Delhi-based company, NYSA Communications, has recently been signed in this regard to put into practice the decision at the earliest. Interestingly, electronic support services will be introduced in the call centre to make available another facility to the students for receiving the answer to their inquiries through e-mail, SMS, online chatting etc. Besides, the centre will also be supportive in the preparation of video advertising and the promotion of various programmes of distance education through online support. Owing to arduous and time consuming system of the DDE, students have to visit several times to seek various information regarding admissions, study materials, fees and result. Keeping in view the problems, a committee had been formed by vice-chancellor RP Hooda to find out an amicable way in this regard which could be useful in redressing the grievances of the students without forcing them to visit the university. Narender Garg, director of the DDE, said students need not visit the university for getting their queries answered after the setting up of the call centre. The centre would be helpful especially for those students who reside at distant places and are not able to visit the university frequently. “Since the DDE is one of the most important bodies of the university, the administration feels that it must follow those practices, which are not only competitive but also conformed to international standards,” said Garg, adding that an area of around 5000 sq ft would be provided free of cost to the NYSA for setting up the call centre.
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Vector-borne diseases
Sirsa, June 4 With summer at its peak, several cases of malaria and viral fever are already reported from Sirsa town and several villages of the district. Government hospitals in the district as well as private nursing homes have been receiving patients suffering from vector-borne diseases. Considering the gravity of the situation and also looking into the fact that vector-borne diseases affected a large number of people of this district last year, the district authorities have prepared a strategy to combat mosquitoes and other insects. Yudhvir Singh Khayalia, deputy commissioner, Sirsa, recently convened a
meeting of officers of health, public works department (public health) and other departments associated with the health and sanitation in his office. It was decided to take preventive steps to check mosquito breeding. “Villages, which witnessed the outbreak of malaria and other vector-borne disease last year, have been identified. Intensive fogging will be done in these villages though “It has been noticed that once mosquitoes are allowed to breed, it is very difficult to control the outbreak of malaria and other diseases. Hence, it is necessary to check the breeding of these insects,” he added. Khayalia said that the authorities had been asked to concentrate on checking the breeding of mosquitoes and check out for stagnant water, wherever it was found. “We are going to start an awareness campaign on this issue through schoolchildren so that people should know how they can contribute by keeping
their surroundings clean and free from stagnant water and be safe from vector-borne diseases,” Khayalia said. He said the authorities had also decided to intensify the sanitation campaign in the district to keep the towns and villages clean.
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Special loan scheme for farmers
Panipat, June 4 TS Chatha, managing director of the Cooperative Bank, said earlier the farmers were being given Rs 1 lakh as agricultural loan, but the amount had now been revised and a loan up to Rs 1.5 lakh could be availed from the bank. Besides, the bank would also be providing seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and other agricultural inputs to the farmers. The farmers would be given Rs 1.12 lakh cash, while the agricultural inputs worth Rs 37,500 would also be given on which an interest of 7 per cent per annum would be charged. Chatha said the step would definitely consolidate the financial standing of the farmers. He said the scheme had been launched to benefit the farming community, especially the small farmer. He said the banks had been issued instructions not to put the farmers to any inconveniences. More than 30,000 farmers had already availed loan under the scheme, while around 5,000 others had been given loans up to Rs 10 lakh in the district.
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KU accepts teachers’ demands
Kurukshetra, June 4 The president and general secretary of the Kurukshetra University Teachers Association (KUTA), Dr NS Kaushal and Dr Parmesh Kumar, respectively, said the demand for granting two advance increments on promotion as reader was pending for over 10 years and the decision would benefit about 100 readers, who had been denied their due in the past. They said the university authorities had also agreed to grant earned leave to the deans/directors/chairpersons in the university in lieu of working during the vacations. Welcoming the gesture of vice-chancellor RP Bajpai and registrar Raghuvendra Tanwar, the KUTA office-bearers claimed that the university authorities had also assured that the agenda for the confirmation of teachers under self-financing scheme would be put up in the forthcoming meeting of the executive council of the university, paving the way for the confirmation of over 100 teachers. The teachers had been agitating in favour of their demands for the past several months and had even staged dharna for four days in front of the office of the vice-chancellors in April. As the model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha polls was in force, the demands could not be taken up and they had renewed their threat to resume the agitation after the polls. But the university authorities invited the KUTA representatives for talks and settled several issues and assured to refer the remaining issues to authorities concerned while KUTA leaders assured the authorities of their cooperation in creating conducive atmosphere for academic activities and also announced to send a delegation of university teachers to participate in deliberations with the UGC chairman SS Thorat at Jamia Milia Islmia Unievrsity, New Delhi.
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Concentration important while studying, opines topper
Gurgaon, June 4 He feels it’s not necessary to study for long hours, what is important is that how much you are focussed while studying. “I never study for more than five to seven hours, the only thing I do is I understand the things instead of mugging them up,” he said. He was in the city recently as divisional commissioner DPS Nagal had invited him to his office to congratulate him. Nagal also presented him with a bouquet and a gift. He told Nitin that he must concentrate on his health, along with his studies. “You must do physical exercise, along with your studies, as it will keep you fit and healthy,” Nangal said. Nitin said mathematics and physics were his favourite subjects, but he worked hard on chemistry. He mentioned, “It is necessary to do equally well in all subjects.” Nitin’s mother, Kumkum, said he was a good reader. “You give him any book and he will finish it as soon as possible, he has a good reading speed,” she said. His father, NC Jain, said Nitin was a brilliant student since the beginning of his academic career and he knew that he would do something big one day and he did. “I am proud of my son,” he added.
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Summer camp for rural children
Kurukshetra June 4 Explaining the purpose of organising the camp, deputy director of the museum Rajesh Purohit says, “Every child is an artist and a genius in his own stride. It all depends on how we groom the children and inculcate the creative ability in them”. He suggests that there should be a platform or some avenue from where the creativity chapter of the child should begin. “Moreover, it is the responsibility of institutions like schools, museums etc to offer free courses to nurture their creative ability,” he adds. Purohit claims that the museum has been making efforts to provide opportunity to children to express their creative strength through various means so that we could understand what they would like to convey to society. This could be symbolic or realistic in the form of painting or through creative writing, he adds. With a view to utilising the summer vacations in a constructive manner, the museum use to offer unique and special courses every year. “This year, the museum is offering a 10-day free course to children in the age group of 6 to 12. The entire course includes basics of computers, knowledge of painting tools in computer, drawing, animation drawing, three-dimensional drawing, scanning, photography, photo-album making, power-point presentation, coral draw, photoshop, etc, he adds. About 50 students drawn from Maha Lakshmi Shiksha Niketan Senior Secondary Public School, Pipli, and Government Senior Secondary School, Mathana, are participating in this camp.
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CII mission for clean, green enterprises
Gurgaon, June 4 “The CII mission provided us an opportunity to share the experiences of companies that focus on care for environment. These eco-friendly companies provided us a platform to learn about the advantages of implementing latest technologies such as recycling techniques, e-waste management procedures and other energy efficiency enhancing tools which has motivated us to embark on a similar journey within our companies as well,” said Dr RN Dravid, mission leader and group president, corporate HR and training, Orient Craft. The participants visited manufacturing facilities of Carrier air-conditioning and refrigeration, Hero Honda Motors, ITC and Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India. The visits to these companies included meetings with their top management, presentations, discussions and visits to the key facilities where environment-friendly technologies are used. The objective was to provide exposure to the participants about the best operating and maintenance practices for energy and water conservation, optimum utilisation of natural resources and reduction in emissions.
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Sustainable development centre to be set up
Gurgaon, June 4 On the occasion, MDI director B.S Sahay said this was the institute’s first step in the direction and it looked forward to collaborating with each stakeholder to promote the cause. He announced the setting up of a centre for sustainable development and informed that the institute would now promote teaching, training and research. Dr Pritam Singh, Professor of Eminence at the MDI, affirmed that the need was to develop a consciousness where one was able to hear the cry of the unborn - a sensitivity where one could pre-empt the pain or the problem before it started. Mathew Cherian, CEO, Helpage India, called for transparency and accountability in the non-profit sector and urged everyone to be part of the change they wanted. Prof Ashok Kapoor, Dean Continuing Education and Consultancy, said the need of the sector was to have people who were ready to operate from nothingness and in the process achieve infinite goals.
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The recent devastating fire in Mine Chemical Factory at the local Modern Industry Estate (MIE) has yet again exposed not only inadequate firefighting measures being taken by factory
owners
Gurgaon, June 4
