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Cook found dead at minister’s house govt employee
He can’t commit suicide: Family
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Housewives present saas-bahu relations in new light
NHAI project victim of vote-bank politics
Dilapidated school building poses threat
Farmers take to organic farming in Udhampur
JAMMU diary
Defence nod sought for huts along LAC
CII to launch e-shiksha in 15 schools
Tattoo makers subject youths to diseases
Helping unite separated devotees
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Cook found dead at minister’s house govt employee
Jammu, September 22 The cook was supposed to be working in some government department and not at the minister’s house. SSP Basant Kumar Rath said an investigation was on. “The police was conducting inquest proceedings under section 174 of the CrPc.” The section is used in cases where the cause of death, the circumstances and whether it was natural or unnatural is not known immediately. The presence of the employee at the house of the senior minister is curious as it seems he was being illegally used as a domestic help. None other than the Speaker of the state Legislative Assembly has confirmed to The Tribune that he was an employee of the state Assembly. “He was an employee of the Legislative Assembly secretariat and had been drawing his salary from the Assembly and if he has committed suicide, let the police investigate the matter,” said the Speaker, Mohammed Akbar Lone. However, he feigned ignorance that the youth had been working at the senior minister’s official residence. “I don’t know if he was working at someone’s residence but I have come to know about the incident and since he belonged to a poor family, I would definitely engage kin of the deceased on compassionate grounds,” said Lone. The Assembly is based in Srinagar these days. An employee attached with it is not supposed to be at the house of a minister that too in Jammu. However, all employees attached with the Assembly or the secretariat
don’t move with the shifting of the Darbar. They remain at the place of posting, but not at the house of a
senior minister. No suicide note has been recovered so far and doctors are awaiting viscera examination report. No one is willing to talk much about the case. Neither the police nor the doctors or the minister concerned is willing to divulge any details to the media or come clean on what actually happened. However, a senior government spokesperson said the youth had committed suicide and was suffering from depression. |
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He can’t commit suicide: Family
Kalakote, September 22 “He was not my son. He was the son of sahib (minister). For me, he is working there at his quarters,” says the depressed mother. She recalls, “My son used to praise that sahib and his wife consider him as their son while he was also dear to both their children and sahib’s mother, who would not accept tea from anyone else but Sansar.” However, neither the minister nor anyone from his family made a sympathetic phone call to the bereaved family so far. “We are told that sahib’s wife was deeply anguished and was not able to talk,” maintains Swarna. According to her, Sansar was working at the residence of the minister for the past four years. “He got a government job of a cook recently and since then he was sending Rs 6,000 to us every month,” she says. “On Friday, at around 8:30 am, Sansar made a phone call and spoke for 10-15 minutes. He asked about front wall of the house that got collapsed recently,” says Sansar’s father, Prakash Singh and adds: “He was sounding confident and there was no trace of disappointment in what he was saying.”“He was hale and hearty when he visited here on the death of his uncle around a month ago. He had come for one day and was not a frequent visitor to home. He would never stay for more than a day or two,” informs Prakash. “At 12:30 pm, we got a call that chhotu (Sansar) was critical. They asked me to rush to GMC Hospital. On the way, we got another phone call that he was stable and we could go back. But we persisted and went to the hospital only to know that he was no more”.
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Housewives present saas-bahu relations in new light
Jammu, September 22 The three-day exhibition ended recently, but the initiative taken by the five women may go a long way in establishing the identity of the fair sex. Apart from the sheer effort to find time for such work while looking after the family, the women have underlined the joint family value-system of society. They were managing stalls with the help of their mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law and children. Mothers-in-law, who are usually projected as the one who dampens the spirits of ‘bahu rani’, were seen standing shoulder-to-shoulder with each other. Out of the comforts of their homes, these women aim to carve a niche for themselves. They left their career for families, but nothing could kill the creativity in them. “It is for our identity. It is to give vent to our creativity. We have been managing our families, but still we find time for ourselves and create things for everyday use,” said Suparna Kapur of Vidhi Creations while showing innovative shagun thalis, wedding gift packets and much more to customers. Suparna Kapur, who has done MBA, left her career to take care of a young child. “My professional qualification just couldn’t go away like that. I had to do something,” she said. Sapna Jain, who floated the idea among the housewives, namely Suparna Kapur, Meenakshi Gupta, Poonam Sharma and Sonal Jain, wants to take it to the height of the Deep Shikha, a housewives organisation in Hyderabad. “Just four or five housewives in Hyderabad had come together as a collective effort to showcase their talent a few years ago. Now, over 200 housewives are part of the group. They are our inspiration. We hope this statement of togetherness will bring more Jammu women to our fold,” said Sapna. Sapna, along with daughter Sanya, is selling Rajasthani and Hyderabadi jewellery along with home furnishings. Meenakshi Gupta deals with customers standing close to her nanad Swati Kalra selling kids wear, mats, rugs, towels and gifts for kids. Sonal Jain, who specialises in creating and selling variety of daily use products, including bouquets, show pieces, magnetic paper clips, hoofs and designer shagun envelopes, handles the stall with the help of her elder sister-in-law Meenu Jain. “My two sons are grown up. I have remained inside my home all these years. Sonal, who is having two daughters, inspired me. She has been creating these products for sometime, but this is my first outing,” said Meenu Jain. Poonam Sharma, whose five-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter are helping her in handling the customers, said her mother-in-law Swaran Sharma was instrumental in helping her out. The women are not doing just to earn money or to spend their time. They have decided to give some amount in the CM’s relief fund out of their earnings, besides calling differently abled for employment. “I invite differently abled persons to work with us. We will give them employment,” said Suparna Jain.
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NHAI project victim of vote-bank politics
Jammu, September 22 A couple of days ago, Industry and Commerce Minister Surjit Singh Slathia intervened to impede the construction of an underpass on the Vijaypur highway and warned NHAI officials to replace the underpass with a straight road. The NHAI has asked the minister to send the suggested change in written form so that they can proceed with the project without any complication in future. Col MK Jain, project director, NHAI, says it will be a difficult proposition to clear the alternative design because if the underpass is replaced by a straight road, it will set a bad precedent for the project at the all-India level as in different parts of the country, the project is running as per the designs and rules set by the NHAI. “If the basics of the national highway are tampered as per the whims and fancies of local people and their leaders, the NHAI will lose its integrity”. Jain says if the underpass is replaced with a straight road, the state highway will merge with the national highway, which will create a conflict zone and give rise to accidents. The traffic load which could have been divided with an underpass would remain unsolved and the speed of vehicles in this case would get affected. Slathia’s opinion that the underpass will divide this historical town into two parts and shield its beauty has been rejected by Colonel Jain, who says huge openings of 70 ft will not divide the town. It would rather allow the smooth passage of traffic. He also says the same structure has been approved on the national highways throughout India. The NHAI also do not find Slathia’s suggestion of giving outlets on roads to avoid conflict zone as pragmatic. It is not for the first time that the NHAI had to suffer because of local politics. Similar kind of projects at Bari-Brahaman remained embroiled in vote-bank politics for more than two years. Insiders say when the NHAI gave an opening in flyover towards the house of a politician, who was at the forefront of the agitation, as per his demand so that he need not have to travel any distance to go to the other side of the underpass, he suddenly stopped the agitation by misleading people that he has managed to safeguard their interests. Another such incident happened at Hiranagar recently where an MP hindered the construction of an underpass by addressing hundreds of locals saying that they would not let it constructed as it would hide the statue of veteran leader Giridhari Lal Dogra. The work could be resumed only when the NHAI assured them that it would raise the height of the statue to make it visible after the completion of the flyover. With such interventions coming from politicians, it is quite a challenge for the NHAI to complete this highway by June next year.
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Dilapidated school building poses threat
Sunder Bani, September 22 Though the Central government is giving liberal funds for the construction of new structures under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA), the policy lacks provisions for the preservation of old structures. One such primary school at Kathanoo in Sunder Bani tehsil of Rajouri district holds testimony to the fact. The school has three rooms which have developed cracks in the roof as well as walls and could crumble any time. The school started way back in 1967 and today it has only 15 enrolled students, all of them come from the families of labour class. They have to sit outside in verandah or courtyard to attend their classes. However, the courtyard sans a boundary wall and is dangerously exposed to a deep gorge. The fact that officially three teachers have been appointed in the school, only one Rajini Dutta teaches at the school. The locals alleged that the rest of the two teachers had been attached with the zonal education office. In the name of grant-in-aid, the school got just Rs 7,500 for the maintenance and Rs 5,000 for teacher-learner equipment purchase under the SSA. “Last year, there were only five students who belonged to a single family. I convinced upon the families of other labourers to send their children to the school and now the number has gone up to 15,” said Dutta, adding, “The funds were used to purchase chairs for students as they used to sit on ground earlier”. The local residents alleged that the government was discouraging its schools to encourage mushroom growth of private schools everywhere. “How can a person risk the life of his child by sending him to a building that could crumble any time?” questioned Bansi Lal, a local resident. “The school is in shambles for the past over a decade and is crying for immediate attention. Now, the school needs to be dismantled to raise a new structure in its place as the existing building is beyond repair work,” he added. KK Gupta, chief education officer, Rajouri, said as many as 1,300 new school building came up in the district over the past seven years. “The SSA implemented in 2002 does not have any provision for the maintenance of the old school buildings,” he said. “From the pool fund, we can offer an amount up to Rs 20,000 for the maintenance of some old buildings. In case, the maintenance cost is more, we take up the matter with the district administration and the deputy commissioner to get the school repaired under the annual district plan,” Gupta said, and added that he had directed all zonal education officers to submit the survey report of all such crumbling school buildings before October 4 so that the issue could be brought into the notice of the authorities concerned.
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Farmers take to organic farming in Udhampur
Hartriyan (Udhampur), September 22 It is pertinent to mention here that farmers of Paddar have been producing organic vegetables that have a great demand in the state as well as the national market. Whereas farmers of the Paddar belt have been getting all possible help from the Agriculture Department their counterparts in Udhampur have so far not been provided any assistance by the department concerned. Instead of depending upon the Agriculture Department, some NGOs working in this kandi belt have come forward to provide assistance to villagers to start organic farming. The Gramin Pragati Sangathan and the Dehat Sudhar Sabha are two such NGOs that have started organic farming in Hartriyan village with encouraging results. A two-day awareness camp was organised on September 7 and 8 at the initiative of these NGOs in which farmers turned up in large numbers to learn about organic farming. Rajiv Dixit, general secretary of the Rashtriya Sabhiman Trust, came all the way from Hardwar to educate farmers about the importance of organic farming. The farmers were trained how to grow crops and vegetables without using fertilisers, chemicals and pesticides. Farmers were convinced to return to the traditional system of farming to increase their production and preserve purity of their products. Udhampur BDO Bansi Lal has appreciated the revolutionary step taken by some NGOs for the uplift of farmers of Udhampur. “Organic farming would prove a positive step in improving the economic condition of farmers in Udhampur”, Bansi Lal said, adding that he had directed officials of his department to start an awareness campaign to educate farmers in all 46 panchayats of Udhampur on September 24.
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This cop seems to be different
Cops, especially senior ones, are known to throw tantrums at press conferences. They often show their stiff upper lip and respond with authority and attitude to “force” their point. But the new SSP of Jammu, Basant Kumar Rath, floored journalists at his first meeting with the media. He went from chair to chair shaking hands and hugging mediapersons telling them that the police can’t succeed without public cooperation. It was a refreshing change from those officers, who, on their first interaction, talked with a dead-pan expression glued to their seats. Jammu residents, who are suffering a serious crime wave and whose trust in cops has been shaken by their alleged corrupt activities, would watch the young SSP translate his words into action. Global warming
triggers debate
The rising threat of global warming has created a debate among all, particularly elders. They are missing old days when they used to sit under the shade of a ‘pipal’ tree in a village, where they usually got irritated from the chirping of birds. Now they are missing that noise which has lost somewhere due to the fast pace of cutting of trees for commercial purposes by some people. The necessity of the hour is to promote green cover in the state and in the country as this alone could help fight global warming and bring back the old golden days. To the aid of parents
“I earn to support my family, I too want to study, but the situation back home has forced me to do this job to earn some money to support the family,” said a kid while roasting corn. (see picture) Digging of roads routine
Digging of roads and lanes in Jammu has become a common feature nowadays. There is hardly any mohalla or a locality where men and machinery have not been pressed into action either to lay sewerage pipes or tar roads. Local journalists too are digging out stories. They are even redefining news. For some of them, digging of roads and lanes seems to be no longer news. They are now on the hunt for a road untouched by the digging process to churn out good copy. (Contributed by Jupinderjit Singh, Sunaina Kaul,
Tejinder Singh Sodhi and Rajesh Bhat) |
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Defence nod sought for huts along LAC
Srinagar, September 22 State Revenue Minister Raman Bhalla said concrete huts would also help the nomadic shepherds to stay there. Nomadic shepherds are currently using mobile tents. Leh's Deputy Commissioner Ajit Kumar Sahu said recently that the Chinese had threatened some shepherds in the remote regions of the district. The state government is also reportedly planning to house revenue officials and guards to monitor Chinese activities along the Pangong Lake, sources said. — ANI |
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CII to launch e-shiksha in 15 schools
Srinagar, September 22 Skill development, power, tourism and renewable energy are other key priorities that CII’s action agenda includes under the joint CII-Government of Jammu and Kashmir National Task Force. Harpal Singh, chairman, CII, outlined initiatives planned by the confederation with an intention to support the Jammu and Kashmir industry and to create a large workforce of skilled and semi-skilled workers in the state. “The CII is now commissioning a more detailed district-level study to assess skill gaps in the state,” he says. Six ITIs have been adopted by the CII for upgrade in six districts namely, Kathua, Udhampur, Samba, Ganderbal, Badgam and Pulwama. “The confederation has completed a gap assessment study for these ITIs. The findings of this gap assessment have been shared with the secretary (Technical Education), essentially to create a fast track mechanism to evolve joint action to upgrade ITI, to improve curriculum and to train the trainers,” says Harpal. The chairman says after training 60 earthquake-affected youth in hotel management and 80 rural women in Kashmiri traditional embroidery on a pilot basis, the CII plans to upscale model to have a larger reach by opening a skill centre in Baramulla. “The feasibility study for the same has already been undertaken by the NSIC to gauge availability of raw material and market potential,” he adds. Deepak Puri, deputy chairman, CII north, and CMD, Moser Baer Limited, will lead the CII’s initiative on the power. Puri said the confederation would work with the government to help contain the transmission and distribution (T&D) losses which currently were to the tune of 70 per cent in the region. “Solar and hydro are the huge areas of opportunity to improve power situation in the state”. The CII will be preparing four policy papers for the state government on power, setting up of the Jammu and Kashmir infrastructure development board, health policy focusing on PPP models and tourism promotion. The confederation has also committed to organise sectoral round tables and field visits of the key industry players in the renewable (bio fuels, biomass, small, hydro and waste energy), health care, agriculture and food sectors.
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Tattoo makers subject youths to diseases
Katra, September 22 Devotees in large numbers throng Vaishno Devi during Navratras. This time, a large number of tattoo makers from outside the state have also arrived to cash in on the rush. However, these tattoo makers have been subjecting the youths to various diseases as they use one needle on several people. When asked, why they do not changing the needle, the tattoo makers say they wipe the needle with a cloth before using it on others. Experts say a used needle could become a carrier of virus of various deadly diseases like AIDS, hepatitis, tetanus and other such diseases, subjecting the life of other persons to danger. “A blood-soaked needle can become a carrier of HIV virus. Though the survival time of the virus is less, if the blood comes in contact with another person, he can also get infected with the disease,” says MA Wani, project director, AIDS Control Society, Jammu and Kashmir. He says he has been telling people to avoid getting tattoos from roadside tattoo makers as they do not even bother to change the needle while hygiene is a far cry. “The practice is dangerous as a blood-soaked needle of one person if used on another could infect him with various diseases, including hepatitis and tetanus,” Wani adds. Meanwhile, the local police in Katra is too busy to worry about the spread of infection by tattoo makers. The entire force is busy in controlling the rush of pilgrims. Around 15 tattoo makers are busy making tattoos of various deities on the body of devotees coming to the town. For each tattoo, they charge Rs 10 to 20. “We have been in this profession for the past 15 years and so far we haven’t seen anybody getting infected. From our side, we take all precautionary measures and take care of hygiene,” said Ram Gopal, a tattoo maker from Rajasthan.
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Helping unite separated devotees
Katra, September 22 Following the ongoing Navratras festival, Katra is overflowing with devotees from different parts of the country for obeisance at the cave shrine during the Navratras is considered auspicious. On an average, the centre receives more than 200 complaints daily after which announcements are made on the microphone system about the relatives lost in the rush. “I am really happy with the job I am doing. I am helping unite the people who get separated in the huge rush,” said Ajit Singh, helper-cum-announcer at the centre. He said mostly children got separated from their parents. “In case the relatives don’t listen to our announcements, we have wireless sets to pass on the message to police posts,” Ajit said, adding that a majority of the people are found within minutes of the announcements. The devotees are happy with the service as they say without this they could have no other option but to rush to the police if their get separated from their relatives. “I lost my young daughter in the rush. I went to this centre and made an announcement that I was waiting for her near the centre. In less than half an hour, a police personnel brought my daughter,” said Anita Kaushal of Dehra Dun. The centre expects its workload to increase as the number of pilgrims visiting the cave shrine will shoot up in the days to come.
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Jammu, September 22
The family of Sansar Singh, living in a kutcha house in Jigni village near Kalakote, 140 km from Jammu, is shocked at his death.
Swarna Devi does not want to accept that her son is no more.
TV serials and the usually accepted saas-bahu-nanad fightings, all projecting women as plotting against each other, can take a bow before five housewives of the city, who along their nanads (sisters-in-law) and mothers-in-law put up a first-ever exhibition displaying home furnishings, products, decorations, bouquets and jewellery designed by them.
Jammu, September 22
Cops, especially senior ones, are known to throw tantrums at press conferences. They often show their stiff upper lip and respond with authority and attitude to “force” their point. But the new SSP of Jammu, Basant Kumar
Rath, floored journalists at his first meeting with the media. He went from chair to chair shaking hands and hugging mediapersons telling them that the police can’t succeed without public cooperation.
Katra, September 22
While children of affluent people are enjoying the ongoing festival season, the children of not so well-off ones are helping their parents earn a little extra to support the family. These days one can see small children busy roasting the corn on the roadside and selling them to people. Be it rain or extreme heat these children sit near a bonfire to roast corn.