Bathinda, November 24
Cactus, the once most preferred ornamental plant, has no takers these days. The sale of cactus in Bathinda has dipped significantly. The nursery owners here blame it on Vaastu Shastra consultants for the fall as an erroneous belief was prevalent among people that cactus would mar the peace of the house.

Cactus adorned corners of almost every home until four to five years ago when Vaastu Shastra gained popularity. A spurt of Vaastu consultants made cactus pay a hefty price for its survival, said Ram Kumar from Mahadev nursery on the Barnala road. He has been into the business for past 10 years now.

“People used to pay Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 to proudly carry a huge cactus home but now no one is ready to dish out even Rs 20 for a cactus plant. On an average, cactus finds one to two customers a month,” he added.

The nursery now has only 15 cactus plants kept in a corner.

Poonam Sharma, a Vaastu consultant, said, “Thorny plants, except rose and aloe vera, should be avoided inside four walls even for decorative purpose, as it throws negative rays that hamper the positivity of a house. Cactus also possesses demonic and evil properties. So, it is better to avoid them.”

Opposing the belief, Col Bera Singh (retd), who runs Bhoomi Greens, a nursery at Sector 30 in Panchkula, stated, “One cannot term anything reared by nature unfit. Cactus is a beautiful plant and India has almost 2,500 varieties. We recently got over 300 cactus plants from Tamil Nadu and we are trying to sell them. We have always had cactus in our homes and it never had any negative effect. Bamboo plants are being blindly promoted because Feng Shui promotes it.”

Sunder Singh from Agra, who has been selling plants in Bathinda for the past 20 years, stated that people now preferred other plants like palms over cactus. “Cactus started losing ground almost five years ago. People used to place orders with us for cactus but now, I have five cactus plants and am looking for buyers. We have cactus at our shop but nothing unpleasant ever happened due to cactus,” Sunder said. 

Fazilka, November 24
More than 100 activists of the Youth Welfare Federation 
(women wing) led by their national president, Gurcharan Kaur, took out a procession in the main bazaars of the town with the aim of fighting against social evils like femicide, addiction and prostitution.

The activists were carrying placard bearing slogans against the social evils. After taking out the procession, an awareness rally was brought out at Shastri Chowk presided over by the municipal council president Anil Kumar Sethi.

While addressing the gathering, Gurcharan Kaur lamented that the younger generation today instead of protecting the country is indulging in drugs and femicide.

She said that the skewed sex ratio is a major concern for society today. She called upon the younger generations to fight female foeticide with all its might, lest it should damage the social fabric of the society.

The MC president Anil Kumar Sethi, while addressing the gathering, called upon people to indulge in nation-building and avail of the benefits of welfare schemes launched by the government from time to time to save the girl child. 

Fazilka, November 24
Sadar police during nakabandi intercepted a motorcyclist near village Tahliwala Bodla in suspicious conditions. The police party recovered 7,000 tablets of different variety used as sedatives and hypnotics, painkiller and tranquilizer. Police also recovered 249 bottles hidden in a bag.

Some of these consisted of soma compound and Ricodex tablets. The motorcyclist, identified as Gurmit Singh, a resident of Malout, was arrested. His bike has been impounded. Police have registered a case under sections 22, 61, 85 of the NDPS Act against Gurmit Singh. — OC 

Abohar, November 24
IFFCO chairman, a progressive farmer of Abohar, Surinder Kumar Jakhar has been re-elected as member of the Global Board of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA).Jakhar scored second highest votes among 804 votes polled. ICA Global Board has 23 members. Founded in 1895, ICA is an independent NGO, which has 220 members' organisations from 85 countries representing over one billion individuals worldwide.

While hailing the win, IFFCO MD, US Awasthi, informed that IFFCO has bagged the first ever dotCoop global award for cooperative excellence, for providing its services to its cooperative members during a glittering opening ceremony of the general assembly of the ICA at Geneva.

IFFCO was adjudged the best for its cooperative model of business and nurturing cooperative values at the grassroots level.

The contest was hosted by dotCoop LLC, which own the coop domain name. On behalf of its over 40,000 member societies, Jakhar received the award, in the presence of Dr Awasthi, Dr GN Saxena, director (Coop. Dev) and other directors of IFFCO.

He termed it as a moment of pride for IFFCO and the entire Indian cooperative movement. He said that Jakhar has been working for the development of cooperatives at grassroot from its inception and continues to work for the betterment of farming community.