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Officers in spot over society norms
Dalit-Jat clash leaves 5 hurt
Better pay draws youths to Army
Youths in action during an Army recruitment rally at Rayya near Amritsar
on Wednesday. — Photo by Vishal Kumar |
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Indian polity fascinates youth across
the world
Kaypee fails Bajwa
Punjabi varsity to get global perspective
CM accuses Centre of bias
Punjab, US company ink pact for solar power project
Proposal to set up world-class eye hospital
Missing lawyer: Police yet to register FIR
Inside Babudom
Re-employment
Move
Wage war against drug, piracy mafia, says DGP
Villagers trained to monitor water supply
Brar takes charge as VC
Clean chit for Sarvesh Kaushal
1,529 trees on NH-15 face axe
Pak Gurdwara Row
Baba Piara Singh’s petition admitted in HC
Deliver pension by first of every month: HC
Women’s commission to hear more cases
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Officers in spot over society norms
Chandigarh, July 15 In a report submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the Naya Gaon land-grab case, Additional director-General of Police Chander Shekhar has asserted: “A close scrutiny of the property details given in the prescribed proforma by IAS category officers revealed that there are 18 IAS officers, who have more than two properties/house/residential plots in their spouse/family dependant’s name. “Similarly, 15 PCS officers, three representatives of people, eight IPS, one PPS officer and one doctor also have more than two properties/house/residential plots in their spouse/family dependant’s name as at present”. The officer has also enclosed a list, which says the “representatives of people” are: Balramji Das Tandon, Madan Mohan Mittal and Manpreet Singh Badal. The IAS officers are: BC Thakur, Bhushan Chander Gupta, CS Talwar, DS Jaspal, Dilip Kumar, G Vajralingam, Gurinderjit Singh Sandhu, Harsimrat Kaur, Mandeep Singh, Ramesh Inder Singh, Roshan Sunkaria, Sarwan Singh Channy, Satinder Pal Singh, Satish Chandra, Seema Jain, Shivinder Singh Brar, TR Sarangal and Viswajeet Khanna. The names of IPS officers in the list are: Anil Kaushik, Ganseh Dutt Pandey, Jagdish Kumar Mittal, KK Attri, Sanjeev Kumar Kalra, Sanjiv Gupta, Sumedh Singh Saini and Suresh Arora. The ADGP has added some other officers and officials might have obtained membership of cooperative house building societies registered in Panchkula. As such, information on these officers from societies in Panchkula is necessary. “In case of violation of the condition given in the affidavits, or violation of the bylaws of the societies, or giving false affidavits, his membership of the society could be cancelled by society. But, so far no society has taken such a harsh step since a society takes affidavit of a member as genuine and true,” the ADGP has added.
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Dalit-Jat clash leaves 5 hurt
Muridpur (Jalandhar), July 15 The clash took place as some members of the Jat community of the village and their several associates were reportedly forcibly trying to vacate a decade-long possession of 22 Dalit families over 6 kanal shamlat land of the panchayat by burning their huts in the presence of DSP, Rural II, Balkar Singh, Karatarpur SHO Surinder Pal and Kartarpur Naib Tehsildar Sri Ram Anand. The members of the Jat community also allegedly attacked the Dalits with swords. The Dalits also retaliated and members of both communities pelted stones at each other. Three Dalits, including an aged person Chanan, Dalbir Kaur and Jinder, and two Jats were wounded in the clash. They were admitted at the Civil Hospital Kartarpur. While the panchayat, headed by Sarpanch Sandeep Singh, passed a resolution in its general meeting held on December 22, last year, to provide ownership rights of the land in favour the 22 families, Kartarpur Naib Tehsildar with police force had gone to the village to vacate the land on the directions of DDPO Avtar Singh. The Naib Tehsildar said they postponed their process of vacating the possession for two days, as two Dalit families, shown orders of a court regarding status quo, and the other families said they would also show some legal papers in their favour. One of the Dalits Tulsi Ram alleged that the DDPO had asked them to vacate their possession at the behest of some SAD politicians as they had voted and supported Congress candidate during the last Assembly elections in 2007. Corroborating his statement, district president of Pendu Mazdoor Union Hans Raj Pabwa said, “According to Rule 13-A of the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Rules, 1964, framed under the Punjab Village Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961, a village panchayat may allot its shamlat land free of cost to landless labourers of weaker sections with the permission of the Punjab government”. Pabwa said panchayat had already passed a resolution in this regard and sent on December 24, last year, the copies of the resolution to the CM, DC, DDPO and BDPO for getting approval of the state government in this regard.
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Better pay draws youths to Army
Rayya, July 15 More than 20,000 youths from the border districts of Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran and Amritsar appeared for test at an Army recruitment rally being conducted by the Headquarters Recruiting Zone (Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir) in collaboration with officers from Jammu and Srinagar and 55 (I) Mechanical Infantry Brigade, Rayya. Brig KD Malhotra, Deputy Director-General, while talking to The Tribune here today, said this year they had received a tremendous response from the three districts as more and more youths were coming to the recruitment rally, which would continue till July 20. He said increased salaries, better facilities, including allowing the recruits to talk to their family members on their cellphones while on posting, have encouraged the youths to join the Army. Brigadier Malhotra said the recruitment rally was being held for the categories of soldier (general duty), clerk/store keeper, soldier technical and nursing assistant. Shopkeepers and arhtiyas at the local grain market have been providing board and lodging to candidates for the past four days.
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Indian polity fascinates youth across
the world
Patiala, July 15 “In fact, youngsters from different countries are even more curious than their Indian counterparts to learn about the Indian polity and administrative systems,” said Amardeep Singh Cheema, the vice-chairman of the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), who represented the Ministry of Youth Affairs at the recently concluded Regional Conference of Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) in Malaysia. “Recently held general elections evoked a lot of curiosity among participants to find out how the Indian youth participated in the election process and with how much interest, and how the outcome affected the young Indians,” said Cheema. Cheema said he apprised international delegates of the fact that it was for that first time that Indian Parliament had witnessed election of such a record number of young members in the general elections. “I elaborated special initiatives taken by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in encouraging the youth so that they could come and participate in the poll process in an effective manner,” emphasised Cheema. Referring to the NYKS, Cheema said having been encouraged by Gill, his organisation had launched a nationwide campaign,“My Vote, My Right” along with a number of media groups and it has proved to be successful in attaining high youth voter turnout in the polls. Cheema said it was most prestigious conference of Commonwealth countries where more than 250 young leaders from more than 50 Commonwealth countries participated. Impressed by the views of Cheema, Cabinet Secretary of Government of Malaysia Tan Seri Mohd. Sidek Hassan had a detailed discussion with him on youth issues as Malaysia was going to have more than 40 lakh new voters in next general elections and they were finding it to be a huge job to motivate them to exercise their franchise.
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Kaypee fails Bajwa
Gurdaspur, July 15 Mohinder Singh Kaypee, president of the PPCC and MP, Jalandhar, who was supposed to accompany Bajwa to the office, reached late. The Kahnuwan assembly seat fell vacant after MLA Partap Singh Bajwa was elected MP from Gurdaspur. Fathe Jung’s opponent is former minister and SAD-BJP candidate Sewa Singh Sekhwan, who had tasted defeat at the hands of Partap Singh Bajwa in two assembly elections.
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Punjabi varsity to get global perspective
Patiala, July 15 Varsity Vice-Chancellor Jaspal Singh, during his recent foreign tour, had interacted with senior functionaries of different universities to discuss modalities of agreements for starting joint study programmes. He had also met NRIs in Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Toronto and Houston. In an exclusive interview with The Tribune, Jaspal Singh said the university already has a memorandum of understanding with Wilkes University and Kutztown University of Pennsylvania for management courses. He said during his tour he had negotiations with officials of a number of universities over tie-ups for courses in engineering and religious studies. Singh said Punjabi University was committed to its main objective of furthering the cause of Punjabi language, art and literature and had started an exchange programme with the Singapore Institute of South Asian Studies of the National University of Singapore. Under this programme, a batch of 45-50 students came to Punjabi University where they got to understand Punjabi language and culture. The Golden Heart Scheme, launched by Punjabi University, was aimed at bridging the gulf between privileged and under-privileged by imparting technical education to bright students from rural areas. Since poor parents living in rural areas were unable to afford even the minimum required fee for the engineering courses, the university was making efforts to raise interest-free loan scholarships from benevolent NRIs. Singh added that of late fund flow from the NRIs had declined drastically which was causing hardships in implementation of the scheme.
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CM accuses Centre of bias
Gurdaspur, July 15 Badal, while addressing mediapersons before going to the office of the SDM here to file the nomination papers of SAD candidate Sewa Singh Sekhwan, said with the hike in prices of petrol and diesel, the Centre had put an extra burden of Rs 600 crore on the peasantry of the state, which had already been facing an acute financial crisis. He said the Centre should announce better prices for the foodgrain to help farmers come out of the vicious cycle of debt. He said successive Congress governments at the Centre had been discriminating against Punjab in every respect. In the recent Railway Budget, no new railway line had been allocated to Punjab. In the General Budget, no new project had been given to the state, which had suffered a lot during the days of terrorism and then due to shifting of industries from here to neighbouring states. He disclosed that the Centre had given approval to the Shahpur Kandi project, which would be completed at a cost of Rs 1,600 crore. He, however, added the technical sanction to the project had been given when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The work on the project would start within two months. He claimed whatever development had been taking place in Punjab was due to sincere efforts and policies of the SAD-BJP government. He said the SAD-BJP combine was contesting the elections to Kahnuwan in Gurdaspur district, Jalalabad in Ferozepur and Banur in Mohali district on its development agenda. Meanwhile, Sekhwan filed his nomination papers for the Kahnuwan assembly segment. His wife is his covering candidate.
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Punjab, US company ink pact for solar power project
Chandigarh, July 15 EBS president Jessie Singh said this project would be one of the biggest solar projects in Asia involving an investment of Rs100 crore and would be commissioned within 18 months. A spokesman of the Chief Minister’s Office said the EBS group further intimated that the company was in the process of purchasing land for setting up of the project near Garhshankar in Hoshiarpur district and it had already deposited the necessary performance security with PEDA. T.P.S.
Sidhu, Chief Executive, PEDA, who signed the MoU on behalf of PEDA, said the project was being set up under the National Renewable Sources of Energy (NRSE) Policy-2006 and tariff for sale of power from the plant would be applicable in accordance with the Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) tariff order. The work on two other solar power projects of 1 MW capacity by M/s Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. at Lalru and 2 MW capacity by US based M/s Azure Power (Punjab) Pvt. Ltd., at Awam village in Amritsar district has already commenced and these would be commissioned by December 2009, he added.
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Proposal to set up world-class eye hospital
Chandigarh, July 15 Briefing the Chief Minister about the project “Vision 2020”, its honorary director CN Srivatsan of Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Medical Trust, which is running a chain of Sankara Eye Care Institutions with its mission headquarters in Coimbatore, said the proposed eye hospital at Ludhiana would be the first project of its kind in North India. He said the districts of Ludhiana, Moga, Firozepur, Kapurthala , Jalandhar , Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Sangrur would be served by Sankara Eye Hospital, Ludhiana, on a need- based manner. He said every year 15,000 free eye surgeries would be performed and this target would be met within three to four years. He also pointed out that 80 per cent of the beneficiaries would be the poor to whom the entire services would be provided free of cost. The middle income group and affluent people would constitute the balance 20 per cent of beneficiaries, who would pay for their eye care. Badal directed the deputy commissioner, Ludhiana, to find a suitable location to allot two to three acres of land on lease basis in or around Ludhiana to establish this "Mission for Vision" to provide international quality eye care facilities to all sections of society in the state.
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Missing lawyer: Police yet to register FIR
Ferozepur, July 15 The SSP said he was busy in a meeting with the DGP at Chandigarh today, therefore, he was not in touch with the inquiry being conducted by the DSP. “We will register an FIR in this case tomorrow morning if the missing lawyer does not come back,” he added. The lawyer’s mother Lilavati and other family members had suspected that one employee and one elected member of the cantonment board were after his life for quite some time because he had filed applications under the RTI Act in the board’s office to expose corruption in the local body. She further alleged that they whose names had been given to the police might have abducted and killed her son. Meanwhile, the District Bar Association came out in open against the dilly-dallying tactics of the police in registering a case and observed a total strike on today. The strike would continue tomorrow if the police did not register the case, a spokesman of the association said.
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Punjab officer goes to UPSC
Prabhjot Singh Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 15 Sunil Kumar, a 1995 batch IFS officer, has been appointed Joint Secretary in the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). KA Prasad Sinha, who belongs to the 1992 batch of IAS, has been given a posting in the Ministry of External Affairs. He has become Private Secretary to Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur. The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet considered the case of Dr Aggarwal who wanted to go on inter-cadre deputation to her parent state of Punjab. The committee held that her case would be considered for inter-cadre deputation only after she completed six years in the cadre and her “cooling off” period. She was on Central deputation till March. The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet has also cleared the appointment of Asit Singh, an IRS (Income Tax) belonging to the 1991 batch, as Private Secretary in the Ministry of Surface Transport and Highways. Neeraj Mittal, an IAS belonging to the 1992 batch and Tamil Nadu cadre, will also join the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in the rank of Director. Padamveer Singh, who belongs to the 1977 batch of IAS and Madhya Pradesh cadre, has been promoted and appointed Special Director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He will be in the rank of Additional Secretary to Government of India. Earlier, he was Joint Director in the Academy.
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Re-employment
Move
Chandigarh, July 15 As first move, over 100 doctors and surgeons, under the aegis of the Senior Punjab Civil Medical Service Association, have decided to submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal urging the government not to re-employ retired doctors as this would stagnate the growth of those in service for years. This will restrict the promotional avenues for junior doctors who, having given up private practice, were working for the government, a senior doctor said. Last Sunday, these doctors gathered at Ludhiana for a special meeting of the general house of the association to discuss the issue. Senior medical officers, civil surgeons, deputy directors and a Director of the Punjab Health Department attended the meeting. The association opposed re-employment of retired and retiring doctors or extensions in service against the
PCMS-I cadre and served an ultimatum to cancel all orders of re-employment/extensions as these had blocked “the already meagre promotional avenues available to PCMS doctors”. Director, Health Services
(ESI), YC Markan, who is also president, Senior PCMS Association, has pointed out that there were only 40 promotional posts in a cadre of 3,561 PCMS doctors and 1,200 rural medical officers. They pointed out that the Health Department recently re-employed a retired medical superintendent, two retiring civil surgeons and a retiring assistant director against the appointed retired doctors on contract as Director and Joint Director in the Punjab Health Systems Corporation, an Additional Project Director, AIDS Control Society, and State Programme Manager under the National Rural Health Mission. These posts generally are held by in-service PCMS cadre officers. The association has demanded the termination of their services and filling these posts from PCMS cadre.
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Wage war against drug, piracy mafia, says DGP
Chandigarh, July 15 Addressing the first introductory meeting with all district police chiefs here today, the DGP said this challenge could be fought only by launching a well-coordinated drive by taking intelligence inputs from traditional as well as other sources. He said Punjab being the border state had to suffer because of being on the nefarious trade route of smuggling of drugs from neighbouring countries and it was imperative for them to be vigilant on this front. Expressing concern over the low rate of conviction, the DGP said professional and scientific investigation of all crimes could bring a sea change in the scenario. He said all investigating officers should be instructed to video record the crime scenes thoroughly and use these effectively as evidence wherever required. Regarding increasing incidents of robbery, rioting and untraced crime, he directed them to personally monitor the investigation of all cases.
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Villagers trained to monitor water supply
Chandigarh, July 15 According to an official spokesman, the department has conducted over 922 workshops this year, each workshop for a cluster of five villages to give basic training to the villagers and members of the PRIs for surveillance of water supply. The spokesman said this year 4,779 villages were covered under this training
programme. He said each village has also been provided with a water testing kit that was capable of testing 100 water samples for 8-12 parameters i.e. pH, alkalinity, hardness, chloride,
TDS, fluoride, iron, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate and residual chlorine. In addition to field test kit, nearly 1,00,000 H2S kits have also been distributed to different villages for testing water of different sources for bacteriological contamination.
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Brar takes charge as VC
Amritsar, July 15 Addressing the faculty, officers and non-teaching staff after taking charge, Professor Brar said he would also be taking classes along with the formal duties of Vice-Chancellor. He used to teach chemistry students in Lucknow University during his tenure as Vice-Chancellor. He said along with science subjects, social sciences and culture would be equally promoted in order to reduce effects of western culture on Indian society. He emphasised quality education and research to meet the global challenges. The new Vice-Chancellor said a transparent administration and academics would be his top priorities.
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Clean chit for Sarvesh Kaushal
Chandigarh, July 15 The closure of the inquiry was recently ordered by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal after the Vigilance Bureau (VB) gave a clean chit the officer. The allegations against Kaushal regarding embezzlement in government funds pertaining to Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan for the year 2005-06 were found baseless by the VB as he was not even posted as secretary of the Education Department then. According to sources, the inquiry also found that the accusations of Kaushal being in nexus with certain other officers were untrue as he had in fact never worked with them in his entire career.
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1,529 trees on NH-15 face axe
Tarn Taran, July 15 A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the district-level traffic safety committee held here today. Officials of the Central Public Works Department, PWD B&R, Punjab Mandi Board, PSEB, Transport Department, Punjab Police, BSNL participated in the meeting,. The DC instructed officials of the Forest Department to initiate the proceedings on a war footing so that the 45-km NH from Varpal village to Harike township village could be made accident-free. There are certain points where old trees touch the corner of the highway, which was the main cause behind the accidents. More than 25 lives have been lost during the past six months.
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SGPC writes to PM
Amritsar, July 15 The Pakistan Evacuee Trust Property Board (PETPB) has allegedly launched the process to dispose of 34 acres to pave the way for a defence colony. The SGPC has acted on the issue following a news item published in these columns on Wednesday. — TNS
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Meeting venue changed
Chandigarh, July 15
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Baba Piara Singh’s petition admitted in HC
Chandigarh, July 15 In his petition placed before the Punjab and Haryana High Court division bench of Justice MM Kumar and Justice Jaswant Singh, the Baba asserted that a single judge had allowed his earlier petition against the ban on the ground that the impugned notification by the Punjab government, dated September 27, 2001, was “non-speaking”. The judge had also observed the respondents were not bound to issue a show cause notice to the petitioner before issuing the impugned notification imposing a ban on “the holy book”. His counsel asserted the Baba was aggrieved by the findings of the single judge “regarding non-compliance of the principles of natural justice” by not providing reasonable opportunity of hearing to him before issuing the impugned notification. He added a fresh notification, dated December 15, 2008, had been issued without following the principles of natural justice and not affording an opportunity of hearing to him. Taking up the matter, the Bench this afternoon admitted the petition.
DLF hearing on Aug 13
Taking up a petition by Gurgaon-based DLF Resorts Limited against Punjab Entertainment Duty Act as it permitted “levy of duty/tax on sports”, the High Court Division Bench of Justice MM Kumar and Justice Jaswant Singh yesterday ordered stay in the case. The case will now come up on August 3, when a related petition comes up for hearing before the Bench. In its petition, DLF had sought directions to the Excise and Taxation Commissioner and other respondents for declaring 1955 Duty Act ultra vires of the Constitution of India “in so far as it permits levy of duty/tax on sports”. Directions had also been sought for prohibiting the respondents, “their agents, servants, officers and subordinates” from taking any action against the petitioner; and also for quashing an order dated May 26 holding the petitioner liable for payment of entertainment duty from 2004 to 2008.
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Deliver pension by first of every month: HC
Chandigarh, July 15 The development is significant as in Punjab there are 15,10,459 pensioners; the aged toping the list with a figure of 11,98,804. Taking up the petition filed in public interest by physically challenged Raj Kumar Gautam of Ludhiana, Chief Justice Tirath Singh Thakur and Justice Kanwaljit Singh gave time till April next to the state authorities to make foolproof arrangements for ensuring against delay in implementing the order. In his petition, Gautam had sought directions for the release of the outstanding pension. He had claimed the state government had failed to pay the monthly pension of Rs 250 per month since July 2007. Appearing on his behalf, counsel Ranjan Lakhanpal said the state had increased the electricity duty by five per cent and the stamp duty by three per cent to raise the required amount of Rs 450 crore annually towards payment to the pensioners. The increased electricity duty and the stamp duty were being collected, but it was apparently being spent elsewhere. The state counsel, on the other hand, asserted the pensions up till December 2008 have already been paid and steps to pay the remaining dues too were underway.
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Women’s commission to hear more cases
Chandigarh, July 15 Sangha further appealed to such women that they should file their complaints in the office of the Punjab State Women’s Commission, Chandigarh. The complaint must mention the name, address of the complainant and phone number. Any aggrieved women can contact on the office telephone no 0172-2783607 for seeking any sort of information or immediate relief. she further said the commission initiated legal proceedings after giving an opportunity of personal hearing to concerned party.
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With economic slowdown taking toll on job avenues in private sector and Army personnel witnessing a handsome hike in salaries after the implementation of the 6th Pay Commission, the youths, especially those from border districts of Punjab, have find the Army an attractive career option.
