Langar Row
Takht tells Canada group to explain
Amritsar, August 19
Akal Takht has directed members of one group of Sikhs of Canada to explain their “forging unity” after recent parleys in Surrey (Canada) with another group of Sikhs who were ex-communicated from the Sikh Panth for violating its 1997 edict prohibiting partaking of langar by Sikhs on and chairs.

Extent of drug addiction alarming: Survey
Chandigarh, August 19
A survey has revealed addiction to drugs of one member of every family in 65 per cent of families of Majha and Doaba and 64 per cent families in Malwa.

Women’s panel flays Health Dept
Chandigarh, August 19
Coming down heavily on the Health Department, members of the Punjab State Women’s Commission yesterday stated that the department had not registered a single case under the PNDT Act, nor suspended any licence from January 1 to July 31, 2009, in majority of the districts in the state.

Declare Moonak belt drought-hit: CPI
Sangrur, August 19
The Moonak belt should be declared drought-hit by the Punjab government as farmers of the area have been facing a drought- like situation due to deficient monsoon. Besides, the farmers are under heavy debt and this belt has a high incidence of suicides.

Amritsar, August 19
A new investigation team, led by DIG (Border Range) Gurpreet Deo and Deputy Commandant, Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB), Sudesh Agnihotri today took over the investigations into the sensational murder case of Dr Shashi Bhushan, a final year medical student, whose body was found in a gutter near the Department of Pathology at Government Medical College in 2006.

The team, constituted by the DGP on the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, visited the spot and hold investigations for more than an hour. They, however, refused to divulge any details.

The probe into the murder case has changed many hands due to the alleged involvement of influential persons in the murder. The district police was investigating the case when the probe was transferred to the Gurdaspur police. After that it was transfer back to the city police.

The case was registered after 21 months of the death of the final year MBBS student when the reports of a second post-mortem examination conducted in Delhi were received. The first post-mortem conducted in Amritsar had mentioned an accidental fall as the cause of the death.

Earlier, the police had suspected it to be a natural death when Shashi’s body was found in a gutter two days after he had gone missing. However Relatives of Shashi suspected foul play in his death. A resident of Bihar, Shashi was allegedly caught helping Dr Arun Dalal, son of a former principal of the Government Medical College, Dr JS Dalal, in copying at an examination. They had complained to then Deputy Commissioner, who had ordered a judicial probe under SDM Manpreet Singh into the murder after about one and a half years of incident. He reportedly had recommended a high-level probe due to involvement of high-profile persons in the case.

In July, 2008, the Punjab Human Rights Organisation (PHRO) had filed a petition in the High Court demanding high-level probe into the incident.

Ludhiana, August 19
The Punjab government has roped in three state universities, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Punjabi University and Guru Nanak Dev University (GND University), to conduct a survey on suicides by farmers and agricultural labourers in the state. In this regard chief secretary SC Aggarwal last week met representatives of the varsities, each of which has been allotted various districts for the exercise.

PAU was commissioned last year to conduct the survey. It was undertaken by its economics and sociology departments, in two districts,Sangrur and Bathinda, on a pilot project basis.

The report, submitted to the state government last March, found 2,890 suicides had been committed in the two districts, of which 1,757 were by farmers and 1,133 by farm labourers. In 1,288 cases of suicides by farmers, the reason was indebtedness, while 469 suicides were on account of other reasons. In the case of agricultural labourers, 671 took their lives due to debt and the rest for other reasons.

In Bathinda district, 773 farmers and 483 farm workers were reported to have committed suicide. In Sangrur district the corresponding figures were 984 and 650, respectively.

The survey was conducted by going door to door in all villages.

The state government has now decided to conduct the survey in all remaining 18 districts, of which PAU has been allotted four, Ludhiana, Moga, Barnala and Mansa. GND varsity will survey Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Ferozepur districts, while Punjabi University will carry out the exercise in Patiala, Ropar, Mohali, Faridkot, Muktsar, Hoshiarpur and Fatehgarh districts. The survey will start as soon as the government sends the funds to the varsities to set up survey teams.

Amritsar, August 19
Akal Takht has directed members of one group of Sikhs of Canada to explain their “forging unity” after recent parleys in Surrey (Canada) with another group of Sikhs who were ex-communicated from the Sikh Panth for violating its 1997 edict prohibiting partaking of langar by Sikhs on and chairs.

Moderate Sikh leaders of Vancouver-based Ross Street gurdwara and hardliners controlling the Surrey’s Dashmesh Darbar gurdwara had met last month and had announced truce by over seven-point programme “in the larger interests of the Sikhs” .

Apart from deciding on separate Baisakhi processions on separate weekends in Surrey and Vancouver, the two sides had stipulated the “common unity programme” was to resolve issues like gang violence, dera culture and drug menace in the Sikhs .

The meeting of the hardliners and moderates following decades of “ideological differences” and subsequent “truce”, however, had splinter groups alleging the leaders of the two groups had agreed to join forces to achieve “opportunistic goals” and woo more donations.

Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh, sources pointed out, had asked leaders of one of one group, backing the 1997 Akal Takht edict over langar issue till recently, to explain if its meeting with any or all ex-communicated leaders.

The letter seeking explanation of persons, who had been supporting the 1997 edict so far, has reached Vancouver and hardliners, it was learnt, were busy to find out an “acceptable” explanation. Reply to the explanation was expected to be sent to the Jathedar, on US tour, in a week or so, said one of his aides.

On the complaints of certain Sikhs, then Akal Takht Jathedar Bhai Ranjit Singh had ex-communicated Sikh leaders, Kashmir Singh Dhaliwal, Jarnail Singh Bhandal, then president of the Ross Street Sikh Temple, Giani Harkirat Singh, Balwant Singh Gill and Tara Singh Hayer, a Vancouver-based journalist who, was later killed in Vancouver in 1998, for defying the edict barring Sikhs from partaking of langar by sitting on chairs.

These leaders, it was learnt, had supported old practice of a section of Canada-based Sikhs partaking of langar using tables and chair with explanation they were adhering to the practice since 1906 “much before the setting up of the SGPC” and owing to harsh weather prevailing in North America when central heating system was not so efficient.

Chandigarh, August 19
A survey has revealed addiction to drugs of one member of every family in 65 per cent of families of Majha and Doaba and 64 per cent families in Malwa.

The state police chief at a meeting held on drug abuse in the state put up these figures to Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. Sukhbir was briefed that as Punjab was the transit route for drugs, addiction to these was spreading fast in the state.

The DGP added that the police had seized 111 kg heroin in 2007 and 269 kg in 2008 and 92 kg till July this year. He said increased recovery confirmed the couriers were increasingly using Punjab as transit route for smuggling drugs.

The Deputy CM was informed recovery of fake Indian currency was record Rs 1.50 crore in 2008. While recovery of fake currency has an upward trend, large quantity of high-quality mint-manufactured counterfeit currency also pointed to support from across the border .

Chandigarh, August 19
Coming down heavily on the Health Department, members of the Punjab State Women’s Commission yesterday stated that the department had not registered a single case under the PNDT Act, nor suspended any licence from January 1 to July 31, 2009, in majority of the districts in the state.

Members rued that the department had utilised only 12.7 per cent of the funds provided under the National Rural Health Mission for taking steps to correct the adverse sex ratio in the state. The commission also expressed concern about the fact that only 33.9 per cent of the NRHM funds have been utilised during 2008-09. It said only 63.5 per cent females were literate all over the state.

Sangrur, August 19
The Moonak belt should be declared drought-hit by the Punjab government as farmers of the area have been facing a drought- like situation due to deficient monsoon. Besides, the farmers are under heavy debt and this belt has a high incidence of suicides.

This was stated by by national executive committee member of the CPI Joginder Dayal, who today visited Moonak, about 60 km from here, to participate in a conference of the party against rising prices.

Dayal said the Punjab government should immediately announce compensation for the farmers of this belt. He also asked the Centre to slash the price of diesel in larger interests of the farmers. Without a special central package, Punjab’s industry and agriculture could not survive the present harsh economic conditions.

Dayal said the main reason for the rising prices was forward trading by traders. The government should immediately initiate steps against hoarding.

State executive committee member of the CPI Baldev Singh, district secretary Satwant Singh Khandebad and CPI veteran leader Sampuran Singh Chhajli flayed the Badal government for its alleged failure on law and order front, saying that the criminals were committing crimes almost daily in the state. 

Chandigarh, August 19
The Punjab government may have stopped its police force from checking and penalising private bus operators of the state and only recently given back this power to District Transport Officers (DTO), but this has not stopped it from firming up a visit of its legislators to Australia to “study” traffic management there.

Despite an objection by Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal in the Vidhan Sabha when the proposal was first mooted, the government has decided to proceed with the visit. Following a request to Queensland State to facilitate this visit, it has now received an invitation for a tour of the MLAs from October 3 to 6.

Sources said the Transport Department has now put up the matter before the Chief Minister who will decide on the number of delegates as well as parties from which they would be nominated. The department has recommended its minister Master Mohan Lal lead the delegation.

The Transport Minister said Queensland had been chosen for the visit because the state had already requested the Mount Cotton Training Institute authorities to set up a driving school in Punjab in collaboration with the government. He said two or three sites, including one in Pathankot, had already been identified for this purpose. The minister said the proposed driving school would also help local youth to find gainful employment in the state as well as abroad as international driving licence would be issued by the institute.

During the last assembly session, the Speaker had proposed that a delegation of legislators should go abroad to study traffic management. The Transport Minister had recommended that the team should go to Australia and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal gave his assent to the proposal. However, the Finance minister had objected to the proposal saying that all necessary inputs were available on the Internet and that there was no need to send a delegation abroad for this purpose.

Even as the government plans out the Australia trip, there is little being done on the ground to improve traffic management in the state. The State Road Safety Council, though constituted now, is yet to take off and the number of deaths in road accidents is on the rise. As many as 1,765 persons have been killed in road accidents till June.

Chandigarh, August 19
What’s in a name? “If it can bring you fame, it can also land you in trouble because someone else also shares the same name,” says Dr Jagjit Singh Chopra, one of the country’s top neurologists who retired as founder director-principal of the Government Medical College Hospital in Sector 32 here.

Referring to the detention of prominent Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan at the Newark Liberty International airport, he recounts: “I suffered several times, including a couple of times in New York and once in Hong Kong, because of the (now dead) Khalistan ideologue Jagjit Singh Chauhan. We not only shared a common first and middle name, but our profession, medicine, too was the same. And if I was singled out at airports abroad by security personnel, it was because of a list of ‘wanted’ people circulated worldwide by the Indian home ministry. Controversies over sensitive issues like security should be avoided.

He said Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni’s reaction to the incident was unexpected of her.

Chopra was once detained at Hong Kong’s international airport as security agencies there found his name on the “wanted list”. He said he had to explain that though his first and middle names as well as profession was similar to the one mentioned on the list, his last name was different. He encountered a similar situation at Newark and New York’s JFK airports in the United States. However, the incidents took place when militancy in Punjab was at its peak.

Another incident occurred when he was picked at random at the Seattle-Tacoma international airport where, after undergoing thorough questioning, he was let off. The security personnel reportedly expressed regret for causing him inconvenience or embarrassment, saying the special search was part of their drill.

Terming Shah Rukh Khan’s detention and subsequent questioning at Newark airport as “unfortunate”, he says such security checks introduced after 9/11 “may have been embarrassing for some eminent personalities, but at the same time US security agencies have been successful in thwarting any repeat of the terror strikes in 2001”.

Referring to various bomb attacks, including terrorist attacks on India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, he says the country’s security agencies need to draw a lesson from their American counterparts.

“If US security agencies have secured the life of a common American, why cannot our agencies do the same? It’s not only terrorists who can walk across national borders unchecked and unchallenged, even arms and ammunition and drugs are flowing across our porous frontiers,” rues Chopra, who was the first Indian to run twice for presidency of the World Federation of Neurology.

He has been the pioneer of neurology in north India and credited with starting the department of neurology at the PGI here.

Ludhiana, August 19
Going by the feedback to the Ministry of Urban Welfare from Consultancy Services Organisation and the Institute of Urban Transport, travellers on city roads should not expect eight-laning of the Ferozepur road or rail over bridges in the near future. These mega projects that were being flouted as face-changers of the congested city, were being listed as a big achievement by the politicians and the administrators for the past over two years.

Not just the Rs 130-crore eight-laning project of the Ferozepur road in the city, the institute and the consultancy firm have also returned the files pertaining to the railway over bridges (ROBs) towards the Pakhowal Road; over bridge at Dana Mandi and a four-lane railway over bridge towards the bus stand at Shastri Nagar.

All projects are coming up under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

The Institute of Urban Transport, in an official letter to the Ministry of Urban Development dated August 6, noted “it has been noted that only the cost estimates of the projects are given and no detailed project report has been provided. Therefore, the projects cannot be appraised and are hereby returned.” The ministry, too, pointed out shortcomings in the projects pertaining to the ROBs. At the same time, the consultancy services of the CPWD returned the file pointing out at least 11 shortcomings, with the noting that: details of lump-sum provisions and shifting of utilities have not been furnished; status of land acquisition for ROBs has not been provided clearly in the detailed project reports (DPRs); the railways’ share of cost and the NOC have not been submitted; and details of measurement have not been submitted besides other factors.

The details have emerged following Manish Tewari, the local MP, writing to different wings of the local government and the Centre, separately, seeking status reports on ongoing projects in the city. The municipal corporation had written back on July 24 "the general agreement drawings (GAD) of ROBs at Pakhowal, Dana Mandi and Shastri Nagar have been sent to the Railway Department for approval and cost-sharing."The letter also said "as MC is facing a severe financial crunch, it will be highly appreciable if the Central government assistance can be provided for speedy completion of projects."

Tewari said, "Giving incomplete information amounted to breach of privilege of an MP. It is unfortunate that being planned as the number one destination for trade in a 2009 World Bank report, the MC was incapable in preparing even a rudimentary plan. The proposals are characteristic of hoodwinking, which underscore the functioning of the MC. How can the projects be cleared when the DPRs have not even passed the preliminary stage?"

GS Ghuman said, "I have not received any communication on the latest noting by the Ministry of Urban Development and will be able to comment only after I read the details."

Patiala, August 19
Punjab director of Research and Medical Education Dr Jai Krishan today said he had ordered an enquiry into circumstances leading to death of an infant at the Government Rajindra Hospital yesterday.

Parents of the child had alleged that they had brought the infant to residence of Dr Harshindar Kaur, a paediatrician working in the Government Rajindra Hospital in Preet Nagar on the Lower Mall.

However, later they reportedly signed a compromise letter saying that Dr Harshindar Kaur had no role in the death of the child and also withdrew the charges of medical negligence against Dr Harshindar.

Jai Krishan said he had read news reports about the child having been brought to the residence of Dr Harshindar Kaur and the subsequent death of the infant. Asked if he was aware of a clinic being run by the doctor at her residence Krishan said he had marked an enquiry into the entire matter.

Harshindar said the parents of the child had brought the infant to her residence and she had told them to take the child to the Government Rajindra Hospital. However, they kept waiting at her residence for almost two hours even though the child was in a critical condition.

She denied that there was any negligence on her part. She said there was rivalry in the Department of Paediatrics and she believed that the relatives of the infant had been instigated by some elements in the hospital against her. 

Ropar, August 19
Campus of IIT Ropar at Government Polytechnic College has already sprung to life and classes will commence from tomorrow.

Functioning from transit campus with more than 250 students, faculty from eight departments, non-teaching staff and wardens, the institute will cater to needs of mechanical, computer sciences, electrical engineering, chemistry, physics, mathematics and humanities streams.

Despite being the first ever IIT of Punjab and an upcoming hub of major academic activities, the institute has been bereft of any social support system. The nearest market in vicinity is 4-km away from the campus. Even the nearest decent hotels and entertainment venues to IIT are situated in Chandigarh.

The present government polytechnic building, which has been given a facelift to suit to IIT needs, does not have even a stationery shop to meet with demands of the students.

A student said IIT has been an institute where students and staff members spend most of their time working hard. On weekends, students try to find ways to take a break from their busy routine, for which they have to go down to Chandigarh.

Apart from being bestowed with nature’s bounty, Ropar does not have even an AC theatre for watching a movie, said another mechanical engineering student. He added that in a way IIT gives birth to an entire gamut of social hubs around it, which constitutes activities of campus life. These components have been missing at the IIT Punjab, as the area lacks university culture.

Interestingly, in its circular issued to students and parents, the IIT authorities had specified that parents visiting the campus would have to make arrangements for living at Ropar or Chandigarh.