Shimla, November 16
At least 11 persons were killed and 14 injured, five of them seriously, when a bus (HP-07-0747) of the state road transport corporation plunged about 1,000 ft into a gorge at Chadhiara in Kotkhai, about 85 km from here, this evening.

The ill-fated bus was on its way from here to Reoghat. The driver of the bus was among those killed. While 11 injured were referred to Indira Gandhi Medical College, here, the remaining were hospitalised at Kotkhai Civil Hospital. Seven persons died on the spot while three succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.

There were 25 persons on board when the accident occurred. Superintendent of Police RM Sharma, who immediately rushed to the scene of the accident along with Deputy Commissioner JS Rana, said 11 deaths were confirmed and rescue operations were still underway. The cause of the accident could not be ascertained so far. The road at the spot is in a good shape and the curve is quite wide, enough for two-way traffic of heavy vehicles.

Meanwhile, Horticulture Minister Narinder Bragta, who was on the spot, said 10 bodies had been recovered but the body of a boy, who was stated to be missing, could still be trapped in the wreckage of the vehicle. Rescue work was hindered due to darkness. However, workers were still on the job and trying their best.

Post-mortem examinations were conducted on the spot and the bodies were handed over to the families.

Home Guards have been summoned to carry out the rescue operations 
in darkness.

According to sources, driver Misra Lal was not an experienced hand and was recruited only a few months ago on contract basis. Six other deceased were identified as Vijay Singh of Kemli village, Ramesh of Nehra Ghati, Mandeep Gripta of Purag, Veena of Hora, Suresh and Mathi Devi, both of Rukhla.

Governor Prabha Rau, Chief Minister PK Dhumal and Transport Minister Mohinder Singh have expressed shock over the accident and conveyed their sympathies to the bereaved families.

This is the second major bus accident in the state in the past 10 days. As many as 33 persons were killed when a private bus fell into a khud near Guler in Kangra district on November 6.

Solan, November 16
Protesting against inordinate delay in constructing a new bridge over Chikni khud near Nalagarh, Congress men blocked the National Highway 21-A for nearly two hours from 11 am to 1 pm today.

The protest was led by PCC member Lakhwinder Rana who, while addressing the people, said local MLA HN Saini had failed to address the crucial issue of getting construction of a new bridge over Chikni started despite the old bridge giving way in August 2007.

He said the MLA had failed to petition the case of getting this work initiated at the earliest despite the fact that it caused severe hardships to the local people as well as scores of industrial units located across the khud.

He alleged that the MLA was insensitive towards public grievances as he had made little effort to pursue this case.

The Congress men also presented a memorandum through the local SDM to the Chief Minister to press for expediting work on this bridge.

It is worth mentioning that in the absence of a bridge, precious lives had been lost in the past three years. The protestors also pressed for an alternative arrangement till the new bridge was constructed.

Officials of the PWD NH, however, said the delay was on account of the fact that the estimates had to be revised at least thrice as modifications were suggested by the central team of officials of the Ministry of Surface Transport, Roadways and Highways.

The estimate has now been fixed at Rs 7.64 crore and they expected the approval to come through at the earliest.

Employees of major industrial units such as Greenply, Jindal Mactech, Unitech Rubber, Indag Rubbers, etc., who were located across the khud, faced the maximum hardship while traversing the khud during late evenings. Similar was the plight of villagers living across the khud.

Interestingly, the police had stationed three reserves as a precautionary measure and the number of policemen seemed to outnumbered the protestors.

DSP Sanjiv Lakhanpal said the protest was peaceful and they had registered a case against the protestors for blocking the highway.

Hamirpur, November 16
Education Minister ID Dhiman has asked everyone, including mediapersons, politicians and other sections of society, to make self-introspection to root out different social evils from society.

Addressing mediapersons in his presidential address on ‘Changes in Indian Media’ on the occasion of National Press Day here today, the minister said, “Before effecting any change in society it is important that everybody should make his introspection and also practice good things in life before preaching them.”

He said, “Despite various pressures on mediapersons and with changing values, the print media still has a great reach and important role in exposing various social evils and presenting constructive things before society.”

Talking about the role of mediapersons, Dhiman said, “Journalists should work with utmost impartiality and boldness. Verifying truthfulness and avoiding sensationalising of facts helps in building credibility of a journalist and a newspaper.”

The minister also talked about various other aspects of electronic media and technological advancement in the field of media.

Local MLA Urmil Thakur, DC Abhishek Jain, press club president DP Gupta, DPRO Ajay Prashar and other journalists also participated in the discussion on occasion.

CHAMBA: Dimensions of the mass media have increased to a wide range in the length and breadth of the country, which in itself is a big change. Chamba Deputy Commissioner Devesh Kumar stated this while presiding over a symposium organised to observe the National Press Day here on Monday.

He said the National Press Day was a symbolic of a free and responsible press in India. Despite all odd, the media must function as a moral watchdog and ensure maintaining and improving the high standards and ethics of journalism, the DC said.

It may be recalled that the National Press Day was observed to commemorate the establishment of the Press Council of India on November 16, 1966, with recommendation of first recommendations of the Pres Commission of India.

KULLU: The district-level Press Day, which was presided over by Deputy Commissioner BM Nanta, was celebrated at the Circuit House here on Monday.

Speakers stressed upon maintaining ethics and adopting positive attitude towards society. Participants spoke on the subject “Changing Scenario of Indian Media” and expressed that the commercialisation of media had prevailed upon the social values in today’s time.

Nanta said limitations were always present in all spheres whether that was administration, media or business. But how one handles the situation was more important within those limitations.

Shimla, November 16
Facing criticism for opening floodgates to private players in the higher education sector without any regulatory mechanism in place, the government has come out with stringent guidelines for setting up private universities in the state. However, some important concerns have not been addressed in it.

Besides increasing the endowment fund and the minimum built-up area to be developed, a provision has been incorporated for vesting the land in the government if the university fails to function according to prescribed rules and regulations. The amount to be deposited under endowment fund has been increased from Rs 3 crore to Rs 5 crore and the minimum built-up area, comprising the university campus, has been raised from 10,000 sq m to 15,000 sq m.

An employment clause has been added to safeguard interests of the local people under which 80 per cent reservation in Class III and Class IV jobs for Himachalis has been made mandatory and preference will be given to them in other categories. The entire land acquired for setting up the institution will have to be used for academic purposes and it could not be diverted for any other use. In cases where the promoters do not have at least three years’ experience of managing postgraduate or undergraduate institutions, an experienced academician of the level of vice-chancellor will have to be engaged as adviser.

However, there are issues like imposing a maximum limit on land to be provided and reservation of seats for bonafide Himachalis in various courses in private universities. While the government is demanding 50 per cent reservation for Himachali students in central institutions like the NIT, it has made a provision of only 25 per cent seats for them in private universities. In most of the other states, 50 per cent or even more seats have been reserved for local students.

The meagre reservation makes it obvious that the institutions are being set up more for the benefit of outsiders. Further, land is a scarce quantity in the hills but no limit has been imposed on the quantum of land to be provided for private universities, lending credence to the allegations that these institutions were more of real estate ventures.

The government also proposes to bring a legislation to provide for an independent regulator to oversee the functioning of universities, professional colleges and other institutions of higher education in the state.

However, it will be worthwhile only if set up on the pattern of the electricity regulator so that transparency could be ensured in determining the fee-structure on annual basis, besides ensuring the availability of required faculty and physical infrastructure.

Shimla, November 16
Crass commercialisation of media, erosion of ethical values in journalism and declining credibility of news channels and newspapers came under sharp focus at a seminar on the “ Changing face of Indian media” here today. Their unanimous opinion which emerged was that the menace of ‘space marketing,’ which had wiped the line dividing news and advertisement, will spell doom for the media and society at large, if immediate corrective steps were not taken.

Main speaker Vibhuti Narayan Rai, Vice-Chancellor, International Mahatma Gandhi Hindi University,Wardha, lamented that newspapers had been reduced to a commercial product and the editors were nothing more than ‘brand managers.’ The proprietors whose only objective was to make as much profit as possible, were calling shots. Worse, package deals were being offered to political parties for ‘biased’ election coverage even by reputed news channels and newspapers. Sponsored poll surveys which eventuality turn out to be far from reality, have been causing immense damage to credibility of media.

It was surprising that two main pillars of democracy, the judiciary and the media, were averse to taking any initiative towards self-regulation. The media should evolve a self-regulatory mechanism in its own interests because if the government came into picture it might have to contend with draconian measures.

Resident Editor of Hindustan Times, Ramesh Vinayak said that media had undergone rapid expansion over the last decade or so, as evident from the fact that the country had over 300 TV channels with 80 news channels, 60,000 news publications, including 7,000 dailies, and the readership had increased to 242 million. The growth in the past five years had been a substantial 4 per cent. In the past two years alone 25 million first time readers and been added. However, dependence on advertisement revenue had reduced newspapers to a commodity and it was not good for the future of media as well as society.

Veteran journalist P.C. Lohumi said technology had revolutionised the entire media but it had veered away from the real social concerns under the undesirable impact of market forces. He said any erosion to the credibility of media could be a threat to society itself.

Director of Information and Public Relations B.D. Sharma said the Press Day provided an occasion for self-introspection and hoped that the deliberations of this seminar would go a long way in achieving the objective of the seminar. 

Bilaspur, November 16
The Himalaya Niti Abhiyan Samiti, an organisation devoted to protection of environment and also interests of project oustees, has opposed the uproot notices to those occupying government forest land within one month. It said these notices, being served in the entire state, were not only illegal but also unethical.

Addressing mediapersons here today, samiti state convener Ghuman Singh, accompanied by another leader Nand Lal Sharma, said thousands of encroachment vacation notices have already been served and some 4 lakh notices were expected to be served in the state within the next few weeks.

He demanded that the state government should first apply the Peoples Forest Rights Act, which had been implemented in all other states since past three years. He pleaded that under this Act, all other similar earlier Acts and rules, under which present notices were being served, were redundant.

Ghuman Singh said if the Peoples Forests Rights Act was applied to the state, ownership of most of these so called encroached lands would automatically vest in those who have been occupying these forest lands since the year 1930.

He urged the Chief Minister that the matter should be reconsidered at the highest level and the campaign of removing encroachments should be stopped forthwith in pure public interest and also to maintain dignity and respect of the government decisions and orders.

Mandi, November 16
Rainfall in the Chetigarh-Ropa panchayat and the surging Chetigarh nullah triggered cracks in four houses and washed away a cowshed in Choti Kandi village. It also flooded several houses and hit cabbage and garlic crops in over 50 bighas of land in Ropa village.

Compounding the matter was the debris left behind by the PWD on the Bajaura-Ropa road. This debris acted as a catalyst in triggering landslide downstream, said villagers.

According to the them, it was on Sunday night when the heavy rains, uphill of the Chetigarh panchayat, sent the nearby seasonal nullah surging. The gushing water triggered a landslide that resulted in cracks in four houses in Choti Kandi village and washed away a cowshed along with two cows, which were, however, saved by the owner, they added.

The villagers rued that the debris dumped by the PWD on the Bajaura-Ropa-Katola road worsened the situation and triggered landslide downstream.

Chetigarh panchayat pradhan Parvatu Ram said the slushy surging water entered several houses in Ropa village. The landslide hit vegetable crops of cabbage and garlic in over 70 bighas of land.

Meanwhile, Kullu Deputy Commissioner BM Nanta said patwaris had been asked to assess the loss so that relief could be given to the villagers.

“However, no loss of life and other property has been reported,” he added.

Shimla, November 16
Chief Secretary Asha Swaroop said today that demands of the Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh would be considered on priority and assured that pending matters and cases of workers would be decided within three months’ time.

Speaking at a meeting with representatives of the sangh, which was convened to discuss various issues and demands and at which senior officers were also present, here today, she said the government had decided to regularise daily wagers who had completed eight years of service as on March 31, 2009, against available vacant posts in various departments.

Besides, functional posts would be filled every year to ensure smooth working of the departments, she added.

She also asked the sangh to submit details of the workers who had not been regularised despite completing the prescribed period so that appropriate action could be taken. She said contractual workers would be regularised on a priority basis. She also asked the Social Justice and Empowerment Department to look into pending pay of craft teachers.

She informed that 425 cases of appointment on compassionate grounds had been decided and the remaining would be settled soon.

President of the sangh Surender Thakur urged that labour laws should be implemented in the right perspective so that workers were benefited.

He said the government schemes and programmes should also be formulated keeping in view the interests of the working class.

Kangra, November 16
A 24-year-old woman of Sadhubargran village, falling under Baroah tehsil of this subdivision, was allegedly raped, blackmailed and assaulted by a youth, the police said here this evening.

The youth was driver by profession and a resident of the same village.

Kangra SDPO Jeet Singh Thakur said Sapna, a graduate, lodged a report with the Kangra police this evening that a youth from her native village had raped her in a forest two months back, allegedly made an adult film and started blackmailing her.

The victim alleged that the youth, identified as Virender Singh, had been stalking her and today, when she was on way back home from here, dragged her in the bushes and raped her again.

The DSP further said the girl alleged that he assaulted her and threatened her of dire consequences if she divulged about the crime to anybody.

The girl bore injury marks on her head and legs and was sent for a medical examination. The police registered a case under Sections 376, 323 and 506 of the IPC. He said police parties had been rushed to arrest the accused. Investigation was in progress, he added.

Mandi, November 16
The police today registered a case of theft at the Karsog police station on the complaint of Jiya Lal, a jeweller of Shaindhal, Mahunag, stating that some burglars broke the lock of jewellery shop and decamped with gold jewellery worth Rs 2.5 lakh last night.

According to the complaint, the shop owner stated that he had locked the shop but when he came to the shop the next morning he found it burglarised and reported to matter to the police.

Though no arrest was made today, the police said that efforts were afoot to recover the stolen jewellery and nab the culprits.