Dharamsala, October 7
Fearing that abolition of class X board examinations might threaten their existence, state education boards have come together for opposing the move.

Members of three BJP-ruled states, including Himachal, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat, today held a meeting for discussing the education reforms proposed by the Union Ministry of Education headed by Kapil Sibal.

Though the chairman of Gujarat Board of School Education failed to make to the venue, other delegates during the meeting collectively rejected the idea of abolition of class X board examinations.

Chairman of Chhattisgarh School Education Board Tiwari said most of the youth in the country rely on class X board examinations certificate for getting employment. “If the board examination is abolished the youth will not get a certificate and find it difficult to get jobs on the criterion fixed by union and various state governments in the country,” he added.

Chairman of the Himachal Board of School Education CL Gupta also opposed the idea. He was of the opinion that if board examinations were abolished there would be no uniform criteria to adjudicate students from various schools.

Representatives of both boards also discussed measures to reduce their dependence on the NCERT. They expressed the opinion that the state education boards should increase coordination among them and fix syllabus as per their regional needs.

The state education boards in a national-level meeting held in the recent past had also opposed the reforms proposed by Sibal. Some of the education boards had decided to first evaluate the results of abolition of class X board examinations in the CBSE before implementing it in their respective states.

The education boards depend on examinations conducted by them for survival. Maximum students appear for class X board examinations in most of the state boards. Its abolition would mean a loss of revenue for education boards that also might threaten their examination. Already most of the education boards would have to abolish class V and VIII board examinations after the implementation of Right to Education that had recently been passed in Parliament.

The education authorities in Punjab have already taken a decision to abolish class V board examinations this week. The Himachal will also have to abolish class VIII board examinations because as per the Right to Education Bill no student can be declared fail till class IX.

Shimla, October 7
Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kaul Singh has lambasted Chief Minister PK Dhumal for making false allegation that the UPA government at the Centre was handing out a raw deal to the state.

In a statement here today, he said Dhumal was making such baseless charges only to divert attention of the people from the failure of his government to deliver in the past two years. He said Dhumal had been indulging in dual talk all through.

On one hand he had been taking credit for all central projects and claiming that he had managed to secure these on the strength of his good relations with the Centre, on the other, he had been alleging that the Centre was discriminating against the state.

He said it did not behove leader of his stature to indulge in such double speak and it only lowered his credibility in the eyes of the public. Of late, he had even tried to confront the Centre by stating that he was demanding the due of the state and not any unjustified favours.

Kaul Singh advised Dhumal not to indulge in politicking and make a sincere effort to speed up development activities which had come to a standstill. All projects the present government had inaugurated were sanctioned and almost completed during the Congress regime.

People in the villages were getting succour only because of the funds being provided by the Centre under the national rural employment guarantee scheme (NREGS), not to speak of mega projects like central university, ESIC medical college and IIT sanctioned by the UPA regime, he said.

He urged Dhumal to change his mindset and take full advantage of the liberal funds being provided by the Centre. 

Kullu, October 7
Five persons were killed and two seriously injured when one tipper truck (HP 66-1119) rolled down into a 200-ft-deep gorge at Khodu Nullah on the Malana-Jari road last night.

KK Indoria, SP, Kullu, said the vehicle was on its way back from under-construction Malana-II hydro electricity project and seven persons, including the driver, were travelling in it. All five died on the spot. They were identified as Bhagat Ram (47), the driver, son of Salu Ram of Bhanwar Maloh village, Mamraj (26), son of Jalam Singh of Nadhea village, Ashok Kharka, son of Yam Bahadur, Juck Bahadur, son of Taum Bahadur and Vijay Lama (52) son of Therjing Lama of Nepal.

The injured Kancha Viva and Vinod Lama were admitted to the regional hospital here and their condition was stated to be serious. Bodies of the deceased were handed over to their relatives after a post-mortem examination.

BILASPUR: Three persons lost their lives and one was injured in separate incidents at various places here in the district on Tuesday evening.

Reports said Punit Mahajan (25) of Kangra district and an electrician at the construction site of Bagh Chaal bridge over Gobind Sagar near Jagat Khana was electrocuted when he was working on a machine and was injured seriously. He was rushed to the Suharghat Primary Health Centre but was declared dead.

In another accident, Luxman Dass (56) of Panol village was bitten by a snake in his house. He was rushed to Regional Hospital here but was declared brought late and dead.

A diesel-loaded tanker going to Manali from Ambala fell down into a 20-feet gorge near Kunala village on the NH-21 on Tuesday night and its driver Amrik Singh of Rajpura, Punjab, was killed on the spot while its cleaner Gurdhyan Singh, also of Rajpura, was injured seriously.

CHAMBA: Two persons were killed on the spot and one person had a narrow escape when a Canter (HP45V-0180) loaded with apples went off the road and rolled down the hillock at Chhou in Pangi tribal subdivision in Chamba district on Tuesday night.

The vehicle was on its way from Pangi to Kullu when the mishap took place. The deceased has been identified as driver of the vehicle Devi Lal and Moti Ram. The bodies were extricated and handed over to their relatives after carrying out an autopsy.

Manali, October 7
Padam Sabenhang from Nepal won the fifth edition of the Hercules Mountain Biking Himachal Championship title after beating 69 spirited challengers who pedalled through the beautiful yet arduous locales of the state from September 26 to October 6.

This is the second time he has bagged the title in a row.

Sabenhang received the winner’s trophy and a cheque for Rs 1.5 lakh at the prize presentation function held at Manu Rangshala last evening. The runners up were Ramesh Chandra Joshi followed by Dilip Singh, both from the Indian Army who received prize money of Rs 75,000 and Rs 40,000 respectively.

Speaking on the occasion, MP and president of the HPCA Anurag Thakur said the biking event, which was into its fifth edition, had attracted cyclists from across the world and had put the state on the world map of adventure tourism.

He further said in future, more people from the state should take part in the event so that it could carry the message to promote eco-friendly tourism in Himachal Pradesh.

Hercules MTB Himachal is the third toughest mountain cycling adventure in the world and an endurance race. The cyclists were flagged-off by Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal on September 27.

The race saw 70 amateur and pro-riders using all their skills to cover the beautiful landacape while bouncing, grunting and pedalling through 652 km of wilderness trails.

Rahul Gupta, VP, operations, TI Cycles, that the company believed in selling cycling rather than cycles. “We have also been promoting local events called FFF-fun, fitness and freedom.

Shimla, October 
Accusing Chief Minister PK Dhumal of blatantly patronising land mafia, Union Minister for Steel Virbhadra Singh today asserted that on coming to power, the Congress would review all projects, including setting up of private universities, for which huge chunks of land had been given to outsiders.

“A lot of money had changed hands in these shady land deals and there was a lot of talk about involvement of kin of BJP leaders who were themselves on land purchasing spree,” he alleged, while interacting with mediapersons at Holly Lodge, his private residence.

The “benevolent” attitude of the government towards land sharks had made a mockery of Section 118 of the Land Reforms and Tenancy Act which debarred outsiders from acquiring land in the state, he said.

Thriving under the wide protective wings of Dhumal, the land mafia not only posed a threat to the clean environment and culture of the hill people, but also the political identity of the state. Dhumal, who joined politics only after formation of Himachal Pradesh, has no idea of the prolonged struggle the people here waged for carving out a separate state to preserve the rich hill culture, he added.

The Congress, which shaped the destiny of Himachal by merging the hill areas of Punjab and granting statehood, would protect its identity at all costs and take all required steps to “undo” the damage being done under the current regime.

He said there was a huge scope for involving private sector in education but institutions of higher learning like universities could not be given like “fast food joints”. Only reputed organisations, which had requisite resources and capability of managing universities, should have been considered.

Lack of concern for the fragile hill environment was also visible from the manner in which Dhumal had granted permission to set up a thermal plant at Nalagarh. There was no logic or justification for allowing a thermal plant in the private sector when pit-head alternative was available, he said.

Virbhadra also said Dhumal was an expert in character assassination and according to information, he was in the process fabricating another CD in league with a former Congress leader, to drive political mileage during by-elections to Rohru and Jwali. However, he was least bothered as his reputation among the masses was well-established, he added.

Solan, October 7
With the seizure of various illegal arms in the industrial area of Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) in the past few months, the police has stepped up its drive to recover such weapons.

According to an conservative estimate made by the police, a large number of such weapons could be found in the area as it comprised thousands of labourers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, etc, where such weapons were easily available.

The recent seizures of illegal arms included country made pistols, sharp-edged weapons as well as bullets from a couple and from an activist of the banned SIMI who had come to execute some killing.

Security guards operating in the area are also possessing arms and majority of the guards hail from other states.

A random check by the police had revealed that they often possessed licences from other states which were not applicable in Himachal as a licence for all India use was made after following rigorous procedures of the state Home Departments while a licence for local use was made through the ADM.

With hundreds of industries having their private armed security guards there was no estimation about the number of weapons in the area, confessed Baddi SP Chander Shekhar Pandit. However, he said surprise checks were being conducted to assess their number.

Police officials had also been directed to seek help of local representatives, including panchayat and municipal committee, to conduct such checks in their areas. This step would help the police to assess the presence of weapons, confided police officials.

What had, however, caused alarm was the fact that in the recent past several crimes, including looting passersby in the dark and even bank robberies, had been executed with miscreants brandishing weapons, including country made pistols.

Kullu, October 7
Scientists, environment activists, Kardars of devtas and local travel agents have joined hands against the “mindless concreting of the historic Dussehra ground---Dhalpur Maidan---- that has spelled doom for the “last remnant of the divine get-together of valley’s devis and devtas”.

Worse, even 10 deodar trees on the ground are dying a slow death as the mela committee raised temporary toilets during Dussehra around them.

Environmentalists have raised a serious concern in the wake of Chief Minister PK Dhumal’s statement that Rs 1.86 crore would be spent on beautification of Dussehra “shivir” or camps of devis and devtas in the Dhalpur Maidan, making camps comfortable by levelling the ground.

They said the district administration and the Kullu municipal council had raised concrete walls all around the cattle ground and upper Dhalpur Maidan, spelling doom for the natural beauty of the historic ground.

Dr JC Kuniyal, a senior scientist at GB Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, here said the average temperature had been pushed up be one degree centigrade in the valley in the past 50 years.

“The concrete boundary walls and other such structures will make things worse,” he added.

Abheshek Rai, president, Himalayan Environment Protection Society, Kullu, said they had brought it to the notice of the committee and administration that the lifeless concrete boundary walls and structures for devis and devtas would mar this maidan forever.

Dhalpur Maidan is not only a cultural centre for get-to gather of devis and devtas, but it also attracts visitors and tourists converging from all across the world for week-long Dussehra.

Joining them, president, Kullu Kardar Sangh, Narotam Negi, said they were grateful to the CM for allotting Rs 1.86 crore for beautification of the maidan. However, they had decided to hold a meeting with the Deputy Commissioner shortly on how to go about it.

Meanwhile, Gopal Mahant, president, Kullu municipal committee, claimed that the council was saving the lower cattle ground from encroachers and would develop it into an eco-friendly park.

BM Nanta, DC, Kullu, and vice-president, mela committee, said no fresh walls were being raised and the lower Dhalpur was being protected from stray cattle. “We will make proper plan for landscaping once the funds are sanctioned, keeping in mind protection of Dhalpur environment,” he said. 

Shimla, October 7
The tussle within the BJP for the ticket for the by-elections from Jwali might finally end as the state election committee will finalise the names at its meeting to be held at Chndigarh on October 9.

State BJP chief Khimi Ram today said the names of candidates for Rohru and Jwali by-elections would be finalised at the meeting to be attended by Chief Minister PK Dhumal, MP Shanta Kumar, in charge of BJP affairs in Himachal Satya Pal Jain and co-in charge OP Dhankar.

All 10 members of the state election committee have been asked to attend the crucial meeting.

“The formal announcement of the names of the candidates will be made immediately after seeking the approval of the central Parliamentary board,” he said. Polling is scheduled to take place on November 7 for Jwali, which was with the BJP and Rohru, which has traditionally been with the Congress.

Being the party in power, it is important for the BJP to win both the seats even though that might be a difficult task, considering that Rohru is the citadel of Union Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh.

However, it is Jwali which is proving to be difficult for the party because of the bickering for the ticket among senior leaders.

Besides Sudha Sushant, wife of Rajan Sushant, who was representing the seat till he got elected to the Lok Sabha, his own brother has also staked claim for the ticket.

With former MP Kripal Parmar joining the race for ticket, the scene has become all the more complicated. However, a lot will depend on Shanta Kumar as the party high command would definitely give weightage to his opinion considering his clout in Kangra area.

Sudha Sushant, a school lecturer, has already resigned from government service to make her electoral debut eventhough it is not certain is she will emerge the choice of the party.

Faced with the uphill task of wresting the Rohru seat from the Congress which has been represented by Virbhadra for the past two decades, it is most likely that the ruling party may once again field its old face Khushi Ram Balnatah.

With Virbhadra himself not being the candidate, the BJP is hopeful of a better performance even though a victory might still not be possible considering the fact that his wife Pratibha Singh is likely to be fielded by the Congress.

Shimla, October 7
The Congress is likely to leave the final decision on candidates for by-elections to Rohru and Jwali Assembly seats to party supremo Sonia Gandhi.

With most of the senior leaders busy campaigning for the party in the neighbouring state of Haryana, it will not be possible for the party to convene the meeting of the state election committee. The candidature of former MP Pratibha Singh from Rohru is a certainty as the local party unit had recommended only her name. Similarly, the party will, in all probability, field former minister Sujan Singh Pathaina from Jwali, though there are two more aspirants for the ticket. However, a formal decision has to be taken with the approval of the high command.

Pradesh Congress Committee chief Kaul Singh said senior leaders of the party would meet in a day or two and take a decision in this regard.

While the recent Lok Sabha election was held according to the delimited constituencies, the by-elections will be held as per old constituencies.

The Rohru Assembly constituency has been reserved for Scheduled Castes after delimitation and as such it will be for the last time when candidates from the general category will be contesting from the seat.

Prestige of Virbhadra Singh, who represented the seat all these years, and PK Dhumal will be at stake. The outcome of the two by-elections will provide a good indication of the public mood as one of the seat is located in Kangra, a traditional stronghold of the ruling BJP, and the other in the Congress-dominated Shimla. The BJP has, of late, made inroads in the Congress citadel and even managed to win the Shimla Lok Sabha seat for the first time early this year.

However, Rohru will be a hard nut to crack as Pratibha Singh will be contesting on the strength of Virbhadra Singh who has already toured the area thrice since the Lok Sabha poll. There is a considerable sympathy for BJP candidate Khushi Ram Balnatah who has been taking on Virbhadra Singh since 1993. 

Hamirpur, October 7
The Hamirpur district health authorities have put a youth of Ralli Jajri under observation after revelation of his exposure to a boy found to be positive for swine flu.

A team of doctors, constituted to tackle such cases by the Health Department, headed by district health officer Dr PR Katwal visited the house of this youth at Ralli Jajari and put him under observation and asked him and his family members to observe all other precautionary measures.

The Health Department came into action after receiving a report that this youth had gone to fetch two boys studying at Alpine School near Pinjore after closure of their school, who had been found positive for swine flu.

However, the youth remained in close contact with one of the boys hailing from the Ghumarwin area who tested positive for swine flu and was thus exposed to the virus.

When boy’s report of being positive was confirmed the Health Department immediately swung into action and put all other persons under observation.

The youth was also given Tamiflu (75 mg), as a preventive measure by doctors. He and his family members have also been advised to take all other preventive measures to check the infection.

Shimla, October 7
Even after four months since the Vigilance Bureau sought permission for registering a case in the alleged irregularities in the sale of land owned by the HPMC at Kundli, the government nod is still awaited for taking action against the guilty.

The inquiry was conducted into the sale of prime land at Kundli near Delhi owned by the HPMC to a private firm by the Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau. During investigations it was found that the land measuring 2.88 acres had been sold to Delhi-based Raga Business Solutions in 2006 and within five months it was taken back by deciding to cancel the sale deed to oblige the company, who failed to secure a good deal for the resale of the land to earn a good profit.

In case permission is granted by the government, the case could be registered against the then Managing Director of HPMC during that tenure. When investigations progress in the case, other officials of the HPMC could also face the music.

Even though the decision taken by the government to cancel the deed for sale of land to the company within four months surprised everyone but what was even more shocking was the fact that a sum of Rs 4.38 lakh was paid to the company as the interest that had accrued on the amount of Rs 2.75 crore which had been paid as the initial 25 per cent cost of the land.

The land at Kundli was sold to Raga Solutions for a sum of Rs 9.11 corer after their tenders were accepted. As per the conditions, Rs 2.27 crore were paid to the government through cheque while the remaining three fourth amount was to be paid by March 31.

“Since no deal could be struck for the land which had been bought with the clear objective of trading, the company approached the government to take back the land and return the amount deposited earlier,” said sources. He added that returning the money was all right but there was no justification in giving a sum of Rs 4.38 lakh as interest to the company when the sale deed had been cancelled at their request.

The issue of sale of HPMC land at Kundli had prominently figured in the BJP charge sheet against the Congress regime. On assuming power, the Vigilance started a probe into the base as the BJP had alleged that financial loss had been caused to the government to benefit the private firm.