Sirsa, December 24
The Indian National Lok Dal will field Abhey Singh Chautala, a former MLA from the Rori Assembly seat, as its candidate in the January 20 bypoll for the Ellenabad Assembly seat.

Though the party is yet to make an official announcement of his candidature, well-placed sources in the INLD said the party had taken the decision to field him from Ellenabad the moment his father and INLD supremo Om Parkash Chautala resigned this seat after winning from both this and Uchana Kalan seat in the October 13 elections.

Chautala will make a formal announcement about Abhey Singh’s candidature on January 1 and the former MLA will file his nomination papers on January 2, the last date for the filing of nomination papers, said the sources.

Earlier, the state executive of the INLD had authorised Chautala to select the candidate for the bypoll at its meeting held in Chandigarh on December 22.

Abhey Singh, the younger son of INLD supremo Om Parkash Chautala, has once been elected earlier to the state Assembly in a byelection held in May 2000.

Like this time, in the general election held in February 2000, Om Parkash Chautala had won from two seats --Rori and Narwana.

The byelection for the Rori seat held on May 26, 2000, was necessitated by Chautala’s resignation and Abhey won that election by a record margin of 86,011 votes getting 93,402 out of the total 10,3233 polled votes.

Meanwhile, the INLD has already intensified its campaign in the Ellenabad constituency.

Now, Tarlochan Singh, Rajya Sabha MP and a former Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities will be touring the Punjabi-speaking villages of Ellenabad seat from December 26 to December 28.

A release issued by the INLD said the Rajya Sabha MP would campaign in the Kotli, Kutabarh, Rattakhera, Himanyukhera, Shekhukhera, Kripalpatti, Maujukhera, Partapnagar, Amritsar Kalan and Talwara villages during his visit.

Contenders for the Congress, meanwhile, have reached Delhi for lobbying today, where Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is camping.

Panipat, December 24
Staying away from the media glare, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi held an in-camera interactive session with students of Bhagat Phool Singh Women University and later met youth party workers here today.

No mediapersons were allowed inside the campus of the university while Rahul Gandhi accompanied by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and his MP son Deepender Singh Hooda spoke to the girls and the party workers.

According to sources, no one was allowed inside the room where Rahul interacted with the university students. Rahul discussed issues related to education and youth in Indian politics during the interactive session.

Later, Rahul addressed a gathering of youth Congressmen, who were called on invitations. There he spoke about strengthening the party with the youth support.

Without revealing the reasons as to why Rahul was kept away from the media, Sonepat Deputy Commissioner told mediapersons that all proceedings were being held in-camera and none of the mediapersons were being allowed to cover Rahul’s visit.

Meanwhile, villagers were quite disappointed by Rahul Gandhi, who did not meet the locals during the visit. A large number of locals could be seen sitting along the roads that lead to the varsity.

Elaborate security arrangements were put in place to ensure Rahul’s safety.

Kurukshetra, December 24
The prolonged agitation for implementation of revised UGC pay scales by teachers dominated the academic activities in Kurukshetra University during 2009, which saw the university making serious endeavours to go hi-tech from next year.

The teachers launched the agitation before the assembly elections and finally got the scales after the Lok Sabha elections. However, the struggle is still not over and the UGC guidelines for promotions under career advancement scheme (CAS) are yet to be implemented.

The agitation resulted in loss of several teaching days and teachers voluntarily offered to take extra classes and forego holidays to make up for the loss.

Streamlining the administration and bringing efficiency through computerisation and IT-enabled services remained on priority and the examination results were computerised and made available online.

The university has prepared a plan to completely computerise the examination system from next year that will help in reducing the period for declaration of results by 15 days, eliminate errors and ensure 100 per cent accuracy.

The university introduced the semester system for 46 professional courses for postgraduate and all professional undergraduate courses, which helped it in doubling the number of seats to optimally utilise the existing infrastructure.

However, the teachers were not enthusiastic about the move as it will further increase the volume of answer sheets to be evaluated from existing 5 lakh and shortage of teaching and non-teaching staff could result in mess. The university, which has been declared as Grade “A” university by the NAAC, did not make any serious efforts to fill 400 odd vacant posts of the non-teaching staff and posts of teachers kept lying vacant for several months.

The new Vice-Chancellor, Lt-Gen Devendra Dayal Singh Sandhu, directed the examination wing to advance the examinations from January 5 to December 30 and the examinations under the semester system will now be held as per the new dates.

The university followed the new UGC guidelines for PhD registration and imposed condition on the students desirous of perusing PhD to clear NET and also undergo a semester course.

The Vice-Chancellor got Rs 1.20 crore projects sanctioned for providing Wi-Fi connectivity on the campus spread over 450 acres.

The total computerisation of the examination wing and also making the university library hi-tech will be major components of the Wi-Fi project and state-of-the-art facilities would be made available.

The university secured the third position in inter-university sports meet organised by the Association of Indian Universities (AIU). As many as 240 teams participated in the meet.

The university also organised the youth festival while the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication held a seminar on topical issue of “FM radio and roll of media in polls”.

The university staff was unhappy over outsourcing of 75 examination works and considered it as a tacit move towards privatisation.

Karnal, December 24
A sub-way under construction on GT road near Traveri turned out to be death-trap for four labourers who were buried under the debris as the earth caved in.

The tragedy struck the hapless labourers this morning when a huge mound of the earth excavated for constructing the sub-way loosened and filled the dug up area, burying the labourers who were at work inside the hole.

The buried labourers could be taken out of the hole after removing the debris after hard labour of more than one hour and JCB machines and a crane were pressed into service to recover the injured labourers.

The labourers were immediately rushed to the trauma centre at the Civil Hospital at Karnal where the doctors declared them “brought dead.”

The deceased, identified as Ramru (45), Irma (30), Bogara (50) and Laxmi Devi (45), hailed from Andhra Pradesh.

The labourers were faced with language problem as the locals were not familiar with their language and vice-versa and the local administration did not even bother to visit the site, exposing the apathy of officials to human tragedy.

The attitude of the administration was apathetic as the victims were “poor people with no influence,” said a labourer, who was shocked at the sudden death of his four co-labourers.

Yamunanagar, December 24
Union Tourism Minister Kumari Selja today inaugurated the second Haryana International Film Fesitval at the DAV College for Girls this evening.

She regretted that Haryana had not progressed much in film-making, saying somehow the state did not perform well in cinema while other states especially southern states had achieved much in the field. She assured the college of every possible help in promoting such events, which, she added, provided the students and locals international exposure through cinema.

“Cinema has become an integral part of our life and a medium to spread the culture and arts of any region. Such film festivals inculcate positive thinking, spread love and brotherhood in society. I will do my best and also discuss with the Chief Minister to promote the art and culture of the state through movies,” the minister said.

Expressing pity over the state of cinema in Haryana, renowned producer, director and writer K Bikram Singh said Haryana was still only known for agriculture despite its rich culture.

“The state has failed to do any major work in the field of art and culture. This festival is a unique effort and also forces many to think of the need to hold more such festivals in the state,” said director and writer Ranjit Kapoor.

Dr Sushma Arya, Principal of the DAV College for Girls, said despite all difficulties they had maintained the standard of the festival, this second time also.

Fatehabad, December 24
A team of officials of the Drugs Control Department today raided a private premises on the Kharaitikhera Road and seized 500 bottles of a cough syrup misused for intoxication.

The drugs authorities had received a tip-off that Tek Chand, a resident of the local Canal Colony, brought drugs from Delhi and sold these to local retailers without any licence from the authorities.

A team comprising two senior drugs control officials Narender Ahuja and LC Mittal and Drugs Control Officer Rajnish Dhaliwal laid a trap and sent a decoy customer to Tek Chand for purchasing drugs, who asked the customer to reach near the old DAV School on the Kharaitikhera Road.

The team members pounced upon the accused, when he delivered bottles of cough syrup to the decoy customer and on his information recovered 500 bottles of the drug.

The drugs control officials informed that the medicines seized from him were bottles of a cough syrup used for a high by youths.

The team members have taken samples of the medicine and informed the police about the seizure.