|
|
|
|
Stringent excise law proposed
Stolen medal put up for sale in London
RSS doubts credibility of Liberhan report
Forest dept to boost grazing land productivity
Lady doctor commits suicide
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Four more bodies found
Charas seized
Five-Star Hotels
Nepalese youth murdered
Single women living in ‘no-man’s-land’
Police tightens grip around drug peddlers
Eye surgeons meet at Palampur
|
|
Stringent excise law proposed
Shimla, November 25 At present two different versions of the Punjab Excise Act enacted in 1914 are in force in the state. Apart from bringing uniformity in the law across the state the proposed legislation will also remove infirmities and deficiencies experienced over the years. The draft bill has been approved by the state Cabinet for introduction during the winter session. Major changes have been effected in respect of provisions dealing with illegal manufacture, import, export and transport of liquor. However, not much changes have been made in the provisions dealing with technicalities of the excise administration and all 15 sets of relevant rules framed under the Act will also be valid under the new act. The stringent punishment has been proposed to deal with offences pertaining to adulteration, illegal manufacture and movement of liquor. In case of death caused by adulterated liquor the sentence could be as severe as death penalty or life imprisonment along with a minimum fine of Rs 10 lakh. Similarly, grievous hurt caused by adulterated liquor will attract a minimum sentence of six years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5 lakh and in case of minor hurt, one-year imprisonment and a fine of
Rs 2.50 lakh. All offences have been made non-bailable and excise officers will be empowered to confiscate the vehicles used for illegal transport of liquor. The minimum sentence for such offences has been fixed at three years’ imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1 lakh. Further, the offenders will be bound to pay compensation to the victims which will be at least Rs 3 lakh in case of death, Rs 2 lakh for grievous hurt and Rs 20,000 for minor hurt. As the police has been finding it difficult to store the huge quantities of liquor seized in various cases for want of space in the thanas, a provision has been made for prompt disposal of case property after following a prescribed procedure on the pattern of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The seized liquor will be destroyed or sold as the case may be. |
||
|
Stolen medal put up for sale in London
Shimla, November 25 The bravery medal has been listed in the lot to be auctioned on December 2, 2009, by Dix Noonan Webb Limited (DNW), United Kingdom’s leading specialist auctioneers and valuers of coins and medals. The base price indicated for the item is Sterling Pound 20,000 to 25,000. At current prices in the global market of antiquities it is worth over Rs 50 lakh. The prized possession of Brahmi Devi, widow of Kirpa Ram, was stolen from her house about eight years ago and an FIR was lodged by her at Bharai police station on February 3, 2002. However, the medal was never found and the police closed the case as “untraced”. Information that the medal has been listed for sale by DNW was given by Marion Hebblethwaite, who has authored a 12-volume series on lives of George Cross awardees worldwide, to Shakti Singh Chandel, a retired IAS officer who has written a book on Bilaspur, on Monday through an e-mail. Chandel immediately swung into action and informed the district police chief and the state government so that prompt action could be taken through Interpol and the Indian High Commission at London to prevent the sale of the stolen medal. Meanwhile , eighty-year old Brahmi Devi has also approached the district police authorities for the recovery of the stolen medal. Kirpa Ram hailed from a military family and his father Mussadi Ram had served with the 57th Wilde’s Rifles (Frontier Force) in France during the Great War. Kirpa Ram enlisted in the 13th Frontier Force Rifles on 9 January, 1935, at the age of 17. Brahmi was only 13 years’ old when she went to receive the posthumous award of her late husband. The George Cross was received by Brahmi on January 1, 1946, and presented by Field Marshal Lord Wavell, Viceroy of India, on behalf of King George VI. |
||
|
RSS doubts credibility of Liberhan report
Shimla, November 25 Talking to mediapersons here today, Vaidya said the fact that it had taken 16 long years for the report to surface when the commission had completed hearings in 2005, left a lot of scope for doubt and suspicion. “Even though the Ram Janam Bhoomi Andolan remains a movement of the ‘sants’, the RSS wholeheartedly supports the construction of a
Ram temple at the site,” he said. “It has, time and again, been reiterated that the pulling down of the Babri Masjid was a spontaneous reaction and not pre-planned as it was not cadres alone who were present there,” he opined. “The BJP has not given up the issue of construction of the temple though it had certain compulsions as it was a coalition regime of the NDA and not of the BJP alone,” he admitted. He added that having to follow a common minimum programme (CMP) while in power,
the BJP could not have its way. The RSS leader denied reports that there had been a decline in the number of people joining the RSS or its “shakhas”. “On the contrary, even students of IIT, Mumbai, are attending the shakhas, which reflects the fact that even intellectual elite are impressed with the party ideology,” he remarked. |
||
|
Forest dept to boost grazing land productivity
Shimla, November 25 Stating this while presiding over a meeting of the state-level Grazing Advisory Committee here today, Forest Minister JP Nadda said invasion of grazing pastures by weeds like Lantana and Parthenium (congress grass) were reducing grazing lands and carrying capacity of pastures, both in the alpine regions and lower Shivalik hills, causing major problems to sheep and cattle rearers of the state. He said the forest department was according top priority to weed control and effectively manage invasive species, especially Lantana, to save the grazing lands. The government has approved a proposal to create 200 “van sarovars” to harvest rainwater to help mitigate water scarcity in pastures. The plan was to develop one such storage in each forest range. He urged non-official members present at the meeting to provide information as regard to ranges or pastures facing acute water shortage so that “van sarovars” could be constructed in those ranges on a priority. The government would try to open up restricted forests for grazing purpose by this winter. The minister suggested that the best course would be that panchayat representatives and local residents decided as to which forest area was to be opened and which to be closed so that a consensus was reached. Chairman of wool federation Trilok Kapoor said measures to eradicate weeds would be implemented under NREGA and steps would be adopted to remove encroachments from pastures. |
||
|
Lady doctor commits suicide
Hamirpur, November 25 Dr Madhu Kaushal, working as a medical officer at Hamirpur regional hospital, was found hanging in her bathroom at about
10 am today. Both Dr Madhu and her husband Dr Ashok Kaushal were serving in the
same hospital. According to Hamirpur ASP Gurdev Sharma, “Dr Ashok, who returned home after his night duty in the morning at Hathli khud, looked for his wife in the house. After getting no response from her, he went to the bathroom and found her hanging from a hook in the roof with a plastic rope.” He later informed the police and the CMO about the incident. The deceased was alone at the time of the incident as both her daughters, Mridul, a student of class II, and Akshita, studying in class VIII, had left for the school. Meanwhile, the ASP said they had not found any suicide note from the site and that the police was investigating the case. |
||
|
Four more bodies found
Manali, November 25 Most of the Rohtang Pass victims were migrant labourers from Jharkhand who were stranded in Lahaul valley due to early and heavy snowfall on November 9. The rescue team had again launched a search and rescue operation today and retrieved these four bodies. Manali DSP Ashish Sharma said the retrieved bodies were brought to Manali by a rescue team this evening. He further said the bodies could not
be identified so far and the post-mortem would be conducted tomorrow. |
||
|
Charas seized
Solan, November 25 The police said the contraband had been procured from Rohru and was being taken to Punjab to make an easy buck. Since it sold for almost Rs 1 lakh a kg and gain worth lakhs was involved, Dalbir had been allured to make a second attempt at selling it. He had managed to smuggle it successfully in the past. A case under the NDPS Act has been registered. It was alarming to know that Rohru, which was considered a far-flung area of the state, was fast getting associated as a charas-supplying area.
|
||
|
Govt keen to rope in big names
Pratibha Chauhan Tribune News Service
Shimla, November 25 Groups like the Taj, Hyatt and JP are being invited for setting up of five star hotels, which the state lacks except in the state capital. Sites will be offered to these groups at various places all over the state, which would include setting up of spas and health resorts. Even though the government is open to the proposal of handing over some of the properties of the Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) to the private sector as part of its disinvestment plans, the proposal might not take shape immediately. Though the Taj group was keen to take over two properties of the HPTDC in and around Shimla, with that possibility not working out, they could construct their own hotel in the near future. At present, it is only the Oberoi group which has two five-star hotels, the Wildflower Hall and Cecil, in Shimla. “We are keen that other big names like the Taj, Hyatt or JP too make their presence felt in Himachal as the state has all that it takes for a mega tourism project to click,” said Arun Sharma, director, Tourism. He said the government would act as a facilitator and offer sites to these groups to develop them as resorts. Some of these sites had been offered by the government at the Tourism Conclave held during the Congress regime but nothing materialised even though offers from some very good firms had come in. Meanwhile, the government, at its own level, is trying to ascertain the exact extent of losses for the various services provided by the HPTDC. A large number of 55 units owned by the HPTDC are incurring heavy losses and there is a proposal to hand them over to the private sector as part of the disinvestment plans. The HPTDC has about 1,700 employees, who are strictly opposed to any disinvestment plans by the government. “The offer by Magnum group to take over all units of the HPTDC and invest Rs 300 crore annually is still pending before the government. However, owing to pressure from various quarters, it is unlikely that it will come through,” said a senior bureaucrat. It remains to be seen to what extent the government will succeed in attracting private investment for the setting up of five-star hotels in the state.
|
||
|
Nepalese youth murdered
Solan, November 25 The body of the deceased, who worked as a conductor in a truck (HP-64-5372), was found lying inside his vehicle at Deonghat this morning. SP Prem Thakur said three Nepalese youth had been identified to have committed the gruesome crime and two of them---Sarabjit and Tilak---had been rounded up while the third was likely to be arrested soon. A police team had left for his native place at Bhojnagar to arrest him. According to preliminary investigations done by the police, the deceased took his dinner at a roadside dhabha at Deoghat around 11.30 pm. He was accompanied by the driver of another truck Gopal Singh. After taking meals, Gopal Singh, along with his conductor, returned back to sleep in their truck while Monu got into an altercation with three other Nepalese youth, including Sarabjit and Tilak. The altercation took an ugly turn and the trio brandished some sharp weapon and stabbed him in his neck, back and eyes. They then dragged his body and placed it inside his truck while leaving the doors open. According to the police, while all this was on, one Bittu, who was sleeping in another truck parked nearby, was awakened by the noise and saw the trio directing each other to drag the deceased inside the truck. It was the beam of light, left on accidentally, which made Bittu recognise the trio. The post-mortem examination conducted at the local regional hospital could not ascertain the actual cause of death and it has now been referred to the IGMC, Shimla. The deceased had been working as a truck conductor since the past some time and
his father and brother resided in Shimla. A case under Section 302 of the IPC had been registered and further investigations were underway. |
||
|
Single women living in ‘no-man’s-land’
Dharamsala, November 25 The affected single women include Himachali girls who were married outside the state but had to return back to their own state after divorce or death of their husbands. As the revenue officials are now not considering them as permanent residents of Himachal, they virtually find themselves in no-man’s-land. About 200 such women, residing in Una district, have formed an organisation named “Akal Nari”. They recently met Una Deputy Commissioner KR Bharti to register their grievances. Most of these girls do not own property in Himachal because, according to the tradition, the paternal property goes to male members of the family. One such widow Sunita has been residing at her paternal Haroli village in Una district for the past 14 years. She returned to her village after the death of her husband and runs her own small family unit with her children. However, despite being born in Himachal and staying here for her entire life, but for a few years of her married life, she is not being considered a permanent resident of the state by revenue authorities. She has been denied bonafide certificate as well as a BPL ration card just because of the fact that she was married outside the state. Another single lady Santosh, a resident of Dhimandari village, was remarried in Himachal. She also had a son from her first husband. However, the revenue officials refused to give bonafide certificate to her son as he was not from the state. The DC, while talking to The Tribune, said revenue officials could not be blamed entirely for the problem. The law for making bonafide certificate was very strict. “There are two categories of bonafide certificate. In the first case, the resident should have been living in the state from generation to generation. In the other category, he or she should have been staying in the state for the past more than 15 years. Another direction is also clear that a person cannot be bonafide resident of two states at a time. In view of such directions, revenue officials cannot take decision on their own. We will now write to the Financial Commissioner Revenue (FCR) to get clear directions in case of single women,” the DC said. |
||
|
Police tightens grip around drug peddlers
Mandi, November 25 The police is finding it difficult to handle “habitual drug peddlers or offenders” around schools and colleges. They are taking the law for a ride as they are arrested time and again with small quantities of drugs, but are bailed out each time, according to
the police. The PIT and the NDPS Act provides for stringent provisions, including death penalty, attachment of property made out of illicit drug trade activities and preventive detention of offenders for one year or so who repeat the same crime, officials asserted. The police had seized and attached properties of
illicit drug traders in a few cases in Kullu, Sarkaghat and Bilaspur so that it
acted as a deterrent, the officials added. The Act also provides for a “review board” of the central and state governments in case of preventive detention and death penalty. However, if it is satisfied, the offenders can be arrested under preventive detention, the sources said. Studies on drug addiction and unofficial surveys painted a gloomy picture of how young students, both boys and girls, are getting hooked to drugs as petty drug suppliers and peddlers are having a free run in towns like Shimla, Mandi, Kullu, Bilaspur, Dharamsala and Solan. The peddlers frequent schools and colleges but go scot-free as they are bailed out time and again, the police added. Talking to The Tribune, Anurag Garg, DIG, central range, said “We are keeping a strict watch on peddlers around schools and colleges and even illicit opium poppy and cannabis cultivation in the Mandi and Kullu areas.” |
||
|
Eye surgeons meet at Palampur
Dharamsala, November 25 Spokesperson of the conference, while talking to The Tribune, said the conference was meant for teaching new skills to eye surgeons in the field of retinal diseases. Faculty at the conference includes Prof Claus Eckardt from Germany, a pioneer in performing difficult retinal surgeries with the use of sutures. The technique has led to early and better healing of wounds and improved surgical results. Prof Paul Mitchell from Australia will deliberate on the latest techniques for the management of age-related macular degeneration that is the most common cause for irreversible blindness in the elderly. Dr Rajat Aggarwal from the US will discuss techniques for development of artificial retina for people who have lost sight due to various reasons. Dr SK Sharma, director, Rotary Palampur eye hospital, said their institution was the first to introduce the facility for Vitreo-Retinal surgeries in the state. It conducts about 6,000 surgeries in a year in different parts of the state, he added. The Dalai Lama would inaugurate the afternoon session of the conference tomorrow at the conference hall of the Institute of Himalayan Bio-resource Technology. |
||
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
