Bathinda, October 29
Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Member of Parliament, today urged the womenfolk to participate in large numbers in the first anniversary celebration of the “Nanhi Chhaan” campaign against female foeticide that would be presided over by President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil at Amritsar on November 9.

Addressing a series of public meetings in the Bathinda district, Harsimrat said the campaigns against female foeticide and greening the earth received a big boost with the President accepting the invitation for the function. She added it would also warrant an international recognition to the movement.

She urged women and right thinking citizens of the state to participate in the celebration to create a movement against the evil practice of eliminating the unborn girls.

Harsimrat said that she owes the success of the movement to the people in the country, who are working hard to take the message of “Nanhi Chhaan” door to door and uniting people against the menace of female foeticide that was disturbing the demographic equilibrium of various states.

Harsimrat exhorted womenfolk to come out openly against female foeticide that was giving rise to discrimination against women in the society.

Speaking about expanding the area of operation of this movement, she said the campaign was against every social menace that was encouraging discrimination against women as a class.

For overall development of the Bathinda constituency, Harsimrat distributed cheques worth Rs 70 lakh for villages Manwala, Bangi Kalan, Bagha, Ramsra, Tarkhanwala, Sekhu and Phallar besides giving 300 pension sanction letters to deprived people.

The Bathinda MP also handed over cheques for construction of 22 new houses and renovation of 57 houses and cheques of Rs 10,000 each to eight families under the National Family Beneficiary Scheme.

Bathinda, October 29
The state government will think before allowing the sowing of PAU 201 variety of paddy in the next season, stated Darbara Singh Guru, principal secretary to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. He was in the district today to take a first hand account of the arrangement for paddy lifting at various mandis.

“Our prime focus being lifting of paddy, we have made the rice millers agree to get the PAU 201 variety stocked at their shellers. But it will be processed after fresh decisions are taken,” said Darbara Singh.

While inspecting the arrangements, Darbara Singh met some farmers, who rued that due to slow pace of lifting, they had been sitting in mandi for past couple of days. Darbara immediately asked the officials concerned to resolve their grievances.

Talking to media, the principal secretary said despite best efforts, the government had been facing problem of lifting.

“The whole state has been divided into six sectors. The system is running at smooth pace in most of the mandis in the state. However, the problem is being witnessed in Malwa,” he said.

Replying a query about the PUSA 1121 variety of paddy, Darbara Singh said, “We know that prices of this crop have been slashed but since prices depend upon market, we are helpless.”

Giving details about the total arrival of paddy in the state, Guru said that 95.75 lakh MT had arrived till Wednesday, out of which about 94.25 lakh MT had been purchased. He added that out of the total calculated price, which was Rs 8,500 crore, about Rs 8,000 crore had been released.

The principal secretary was accompanied by ADC (Gen) Shruti Chaudhary, SP (D) Ajay Maluja, RTA secretary Bhupinder Singh and other officials of the market committee and the mandi board.

Bathinda, October 29
The additional district and sessions judge, Bathinda, today rejected the bail application of Hardeep Singh Khalsa, chairman of the Malwa wing of the Khalsa Action Committee (KAC), and extended his judicial custody for another 14 days.

Hardeep and others were booked for assaulting Dera Sacha Sauda followers on October 4, when they were about to hold ‘Naam Charcha’ at Mehraj village in the district. On the day of incident, some Sikh hardliners had uprooted the tents, which Dera followers were installing to arrange congregation and also damaged their two vehicles.

The Phul police had booked five persons by name — Hardeep Singh, Ranjit Singh, Ghuddar Singh, Charan Singh and Sukhdev Singh — along with 70-80 unidentified persons under sections 307, 153-A, 148, 149, 323, 325, 353 and 186 of the IPC.

Hardeep Singh, Charan Singh and Ghuddar Singh had recently been arrested while other two were still absconding.

Confirming the facts, Ranbir Singh, SHO, Phul police station, said, “Hardeep had moved a bail application, but sensing the gravity of crime, the court rejected the application and further sent him to 14-day judicial custody.”

Bathinda, October 29
Against the target of 3323 TB (tuberculosis) cases given to the Bathinda district for the current calendar year, as many as 1,735 patients have been registered under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) in the first nine months. Thus, the district has met only 52 per cent of the target leaving 48 per cent to be achieved in only three months, which appears to be next to impossible.

Sources in the Health Department told The Tribune that there were many reasons due to which no district in the state could achieve the target. The main reason was that fearing social stigma, the rich and upper middle class people and unmarried girls do not want to disclose their disease to any one.

Due to this, they do not visit the government hospitals for treatment. Rather, they prefer to take medicines secretly from private medical practitioners, the sources added.

Apart from this, there is lack of awareness about TB among people, especially poor sections of the society, including slum dwellers. Resultantly, there are hundreds of untreated and undetected patients, who are unaware of the disease they are suffering from.

The poor TB patients do not know that an untreated TB patient can infect 10 to 15 healthy persons in a year.

In the first quarter (January to March) of 2009, as many as 516 new and re-treatment patients (old patients) were registered in Bathinda district. Out of them, 224 cases (147 male and 77 female) were detected as new smear positive pulmonary TB cases (highly infectious lung TB cases) with six patients (four male, two female) being not more than 14 years of age.

In the second quarter, 636 new and old TB cases were registered. Among them, 261 cases (150 male and 111 female) were new smear positive pulmonary TB cases, including seven girls up to the age of 14 years.

In the third quarter, 583 new and old cases were registered in the district. Out of them, 223 patients (153 male and 70 female) were detected as cases of new smear positive pulmonary TB cases with seven (three male and four female) of them not more than 14 years of age.

When contacted, Civil Surgeon Dr Neelam Bajaj today said efforts were being made to achieve the targets, for which the district unit of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) was also being involved. Awareness camps were being held with the help of NGOs to detect suspected TB cases.

She, however, said several private medical practitioners were not reporting TB cases to the health authorities while many rural medical officers were not referring TB cases to the hospitals due to which achievement of the targets was affecting adversely.

Abohar, October 29
The Khuyiansarwar police have registered an FIR under sections 406, 409 and 420 of the IPC against four depot holders, two each in urban and rural area, and owner of a flour mill for siphoning off wheat, which was to be distributed to the APL (above poverty line) families. A partner of the flour mills has been taken into custody.

As per the information available, district controller of food and civil supplies (DFSC) Sukhdev Singh, who was camping at Khuyiansarwar, on Wednesday night informed the police that the wheat was being released through depot holders for distribution to APL families under public distribution scheme (PDS).

The local officials informed him that Abohar-based depot holders Raj Kumar and Jagdish Kumar had been issued 224 bags of wheat weighing 112 quintals. Besides, 195 bags were issued to village Waryamkhera-based fair price shops owned by Vishnu Dutt and Nachhattar Singh.

The DFSC further said that he chased the vehicles and located the same in Aggarwal Flour Mills premises near village Sayyedwala on Abohar-Sriganganagar road (NH 15). Some of the wheat bags had been unloaded by that time. He questioned Rakesh Kumar, partner of the mills, who reportedly confessed having purchased the wheat at Rs 1,200 per quintal from the fair price shop owners. Raids are being conducted to nab the depot holders, sources said.

Muktsar, October 29
The BEd Teachers Front which has been demanding better pay scales as envisaged by the 5th Pay Commission found themselves on the backfoot as talks between their representatives and the Punjab government broke down at Chandigarh on Wednesday.

Muktsar-based spokesman of the Front Sandeep Sharma said a seven-member delegation met the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Education Minister Dr Upinderjit Kaur and principal secretary Darbara Singh Guru at Punjab Bhavan yesterday.

Sharma added that the government tried to extend the olive branch to the agitating teachers and agreed to increase their pay scales by 50 per cent. However, this proposal was rejected by the teachers' delegation, who wanted scales of teaching fellows to be raised from Rs 4500 to Rs 11,400 and those of education service providers from Rs 5400 to Rs 14,300 as per recommendations of the 5th Pay Commission.

The CM assured the delegation that their services will be regularised after three and a half years, which again was rejected by the Front. Sharma said the Front wanted that services of all its teachers should be regularised immediately but the CM was not willing to accede to this demand. Another Front leader Ranbir Bhandari said they would now chalk out their future plans after consulting the district units. He said the government had once again forced the Front to adopt an agitational approach as all their demands were rejected by the CM.

Abohar, October 29
The non-teaching staff of all the DAV colleges here on Thursday staged a dharna outside the offices of the principals and shouted slogans against the state government for not treating them at par with teachers in implementing recommendations of the UGC over revision of pay and allowances.

KK Sidana, joint secretary of State Private Colleges Non-teaching Employees Union criticised the Punjab government for its step-motherly treatment.

He informed that strike will be observed all over the state in private colleges on November 6 and a state-level rally will be held at Khalsa College in Patiala on November 13. The state unit has also decided to stage dharna at the entrance of all colleges on November 21.

Ferozepur, October 29
The state government has embarked on a proposal to provide potable drinking water to entire population, both in urban and rural pockets for which an estimated amount of Rs 73.50 crores will be spent this fiscal year, revealed Sher Singh Ghubaya MP while inaugurating the new building complex of the municipal committee here on Thursday.

Ghubaya was accompanied by Sukhpal Singh Nannu CPS Revenue, Gurtej Singh SDM, Shiv Kumar executive engineer besides MCs, SAD-BJP workers and other officials.

Ghubaya said SAD-BJP government has unleashed new era of development in the state, under which all-round development of towns and villages alike was going on war footing.

Ghubaya announced a grant of Rs one lakh for the furniture of the MC building. Later, Ghubaya also inaugurated the civil dispensary at village Katora near Indo-Pakistan border constructed at cost of Rs 15 lakhs.

Muktsar, October 29
Taking cognisance of the fact that farmers were polluting the environment by burning paddy stubble in a big way, the district administration has started a concerted drive against the erring farmers by registering criminal cases against them.

The Deputy Commissioner Rajat Aggarwal said the local police had registered as many as 10 cases against farmers burning paddy residue in the past one week.

He said he had instructed all SDMs and Tehsildars of Muktsar district to keep a hawk's eye on such unlawful activities.

The DC added that the Chief Agriculture Officer (CAO) of Muktsar had also been asked to tour various Tehsils of the district to educate the farmers about the ill effects of burning paddy stubble.

Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) staff has also been asked to disconnect tubewell connections of farmers once it was proved that they were burning paddy residue.

Abohar, October 29
Preeti Ratan of the DAV College of Education here was adjudged as best classical dancer in the PU zonal youth and heritage festival.

The college teams also topped in group singing and poetical recitation. Jyoti got first prize for individual performance in group song. Bathinda District and Session Judge Kuldeep Singh, alumni of the DAV campus, was the chief guest for the session.

Convener Dr Venita Singh informed that in the instrumental music (Indian) Dashmesh Girls College Badal topped in sitar besides folk dance Sammi, DAV College of Education Fazilka got first position in taal vadya, Babe Ke College of Education Mudki in elocution, JD College of Education Muktsar in group folk orchestra, GGS College of Education Gidderbaha in folk instrumental, Jyoti BEd College Fazilka in classical music vocal, SDS College of Education for Women Lopon in folk singing, Satyam College of Education Ghall Kalan in group dance and Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial College of Education Dhudike in geet/gazal .

Gagandeep Kaur of Dashmesh Girls College Badal was adjudged individually best on group dance while Rachna of Lala Jagat Narain BEd College Jalalabad West got same position in folk dance competition.

In one of the hard contest in drama 'Mukti' staged by the students of Satyam College of Education Ghall Kalan village (Moga) topped the tally while 'Gandhi' staged by the hosts DAV College of Education Abohar got runner up position. Other dramas targeted child labour, female foeticide and unemployment.

GGS College of Education Gidderbaha stood first in vaar/kali singing, Baba Nihal Singh BEd College Muktsar in mimicry, Babe Ke College of Education Daudhar in kavishri and gidha dance.

Individually toppers included Bhupinder Singh of Kenway College of Education Abohar in vaar/kali singing, Ramandeep Kaur Daudhar in kavishri and gidha dance, Vimmy of Shri Guru Ram Dass BEd College Jalalabad in essay writing, Sandeep Kaur of DM College of Education Moga in short story writing, Nidhi Jain of SDS College of Education for Women Lopon in poem writing, Neha of DAV College of Education Abohar in histrionics. Gurpal Singh of Ghall Kalan was adjudged best actor in drama.