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STET Candidates’ Stir The police arrests the youth who attempted self-immolation
in Rohtak on Sunday. Photo: Manoj Dhaka
Star power for Abhey
Bollywood actor Sunil Shetty campaigns for Abhey Chautala in Ellenabad on Sunday.
Photo: Amit Soni |
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Ellenabad bypoll stokes fire of regionalism
Kanda violated poll code, says EC
Byelection leaves hotel industry smiling
‘Franchisee system being introduced to repay loans’
API-based Rating
Association elections on Feb 5
‘Top students to form country’s knowledge hub’
Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan takes a look at Fermentation Technology Research
Centre, The Energy and Resources Institute, in Gual Pahari village of Gurgaon on Sunday. TERI Director-General RK Pachauri is also seen.
A Tribune photograph
Separate SGPC
What an Idea
Panipat thermal plant trips again
Jats hold protest, demand quota
CM, Guv mourn Basu’s death
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Youth attempts self-immolation
Bijendra Ahlawat Tribune News Service
Rohtak, January 17 Though the protest ended without a clash, the police booked one of the youths who attempted self-immolation near the Chief Minister’s residence. Though a spokesperson of the agitating candidates claimed that the police had tried to disrupt their movement while they were on their way to submit a memorandum of the demands to the Chief Minister, police officials said one of the youths, identified as Ramesh Khokar of Sonepat, poured kerosene on himself in order to self-immolate in support of the demands. The youth was taken into custody and booked under Section 309 of the IPC, SSP AK Rao said, adding that the protesters disrupted the movement of traffic on the main road near the residence of the CM, the police avoided any action that could have flared the issue. The protesters earlier assembled at Mansarover Park here and then marched towards the camp office of the CM. “Hundreds of youths who had cleared the STET were not given any preference in appointment against the posts of teacher,” claimed Dalip Bishnoi, convener of the joint action committee of the protesters. Demanding an end to the contractual appointment of guest teachers by March 31 and a move to give a chance to all candidates who had passed the STET exam for appointment on regular basis, the protesters submitted a memorandum to the state government. The association had held a demonstration at Jind a few days ago on the issue.
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Star power for Abhey
Ellenabad, January 17 If Abhey Singh Chautala of the INLD was helped in seeking votes by Bollywood stars Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty, for Bharat Singh Beniwal of the Congress, the star was Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Tomorrow, the Congress will provide its share of “Bollywood tadka”, when actor Raj Babbar arrives in a rally to be addressed by Hooda at Ellenabad. The Bollywood stars moved around on the roads of Ellenabad with a big cavalcade of vehicles, while Hooda campaigned in his “Vijay Rath”. The police and paramilitary forces also organised a big show of strength on the roads of the Ellenabad Assembly constituency with over 40 vehicles moving around in a flag march. The INLD’s road show started from Darba, the native village of Beniwal, and covered 29 villages of the constituency. Men, women and children waited for “Munnabhai” and Sunil Shetty on roadsides for hours and burst into cheer as the two appeared on the rooftop of a bus fabricated to give it the shape of a “rath”, and Sanju greeted them with “Ellenabad wasion ko Munnabhai ka salaam.” Sunil Shetty greeted people by saying “Ram-Ram” and the two actors appealed people to vote for Abhey Chautala. Hooda’s “Vijay Rath” reached Darba village almost at the same time, when Bollywood stars started their road show from there. “Elect one; get one free” was the message of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who campaigned in 18 villages of Ellenabad on his “Vijay Rath.” “If you vote for Beniwal, you will elect two MLAs as I will also be there to watch your interests,” said Hooda, seeking votes for the Congress candidate. He said the Congress was the only party that believed in all-round development of the country and took all communities along. HPCC president Phool Chand Mullana, Public Health Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, MP Ashok Tanwar, Ranjit Singh, KV Singh. Prahlad Singh Gillankhera and several other leaders accompanied Hooda. “The purpose of organising a flag march by the security forces is to instill confidence in people of Ellenabad,” said Shrikant Jadhav, SSP, Sirsa. He said five companies of the BSF, three from the CRPF, two from the ITBP and five from the Indian Reserve Police had already arrived in the constituency, he said.
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Ellenabad bypoll stokes fire of regionalism
Ellenabad, January 17 Abhey Singh Chautala, who is contesting on the INLD ticket, claims that the voters of Ellenabad will vote for him because “I am one of them”. The electorate has seen how their area was neglected by the Congress government during the past five years. All development that took place here was during the INLD regime. The Congress has given a step-motherly treatment to Sirsa district. The Congress strongly denies the allegation and reels out figures to support its contention that that its government spent almost double the amount spent by the INLD on the development of Sirsa. Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda points out that while the INLD spent about Rs 850 crore in its six-year regime on Sirsa, the Congress gave about Rs 1,442 crore in its four-and-a-half-year rule. Of this, about Rs 258 crore was spent in Ellenabad alone, besides an economic stimulus package of over Rs 58 crore. Hooda says various schemes worth about Rs 150 crore have been sanctioned for Ellenabad, work on which will be completed before the end of the next financial year. He says there are many schemes like free 100 sq yd plots to the Scheduled Castes and below poverty line families and waiving of electricity arrears of farmers, under which all eligible beneficiaries spread across the state have been benefited. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala, who also holds the charge of the Public Health Department, says during the Congress regime, 165 drinking water schemes were completed in Sirsa district. These include 18 canal-based waterworks, of which six are in Ellenabad constituency alone. He claims that 81 more drinking water schemes worth about Rs 3,867 crore are under execution in Sirsa district. Another allegation Abhey Singh levels against the Congress is regarding the denial of government jobs to residents of Sirsa district. Hooda denies the allegation vehemently and says a large number of residents of the district have got government jobs, including in the police, the recruitment to which is on the district basis, during his regime. How many persons of Sirsa got government jobs during the INLD regime? Abhey Singh is sharp enough to immediately understand that the question is ticklish. He asks the questioner to resort to the Right to Information Act to seek this information from the present government. Then he quickly adds that under the INLD regime, all government jobs were given on merit. Abhey Singh also alleges that the canal water to the area for irrigation has been slashed and the farmers are angry over it. Hooda produces records of Assembly debates to point out that while outside the Assembly, INLD president Om Prakash Chautala opposes the construction of the Hansi-Butana link canal, on the floor of the House, Chautala endorses the construction of the canal, which will ensure equitable distribution of canal water to all areas of the state. It is unfortunate that for their narrow political interests, politicians are stoking fires of regionalism.
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Kanda violated poll code, says EC
Ellenabad, January 17 The INLD had also provided a CD to the authorities to substantiate its allegation. Munish Nagpal today wrote to Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer A Sreenivas that the nodal officer, who inquired the complaint, had found that police vehicles provided by the headquarters had been noticed in the CD, but their use had been stopped now. Nagpal said in his letter that this was violation under the poll code and the chief electoral officer was empowered to recover expenditure for the same.
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Byelection leaves hotel industry smiling
Sirsa, January 17 The hotel industry in Sirsa town has benefited the most. It is doing brisk business these days. With hundreds of political workers and leaders descending here for campaigning in the politically crucial and sensitive Ellenabad Assembly byelection, there is no vacancy in the town hotels. The media interest in the bypoll has further added to the mad rush for hotel rooms. Since there are no suitable staying arrangements elsewhere near Ellenabad, most of the leaders prefer to return to Sirsa late in the night and stretch their legs in the comforts of the town hotels. Due to the imposition of the modal code of conduct, government rest houses are out of bounds for politicians. Even Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has to stay in a marriage palace. The Chautalas of the INLD have no such problem. They have their palatial houses in the town. Till about a decade ago, the town had only a few establishments offering staying arrangements, which were just an apology for hotels. But after the Chautalas came to power, the town witnessed a mushroom growth of hotels. Sanjay Goyal, owner of a posh hotel here, says there are more than two dozen hotels in the town of about two lakh population. There is not even a single room in any hotel which is vacant today. A particular political party has booked one entire floor of Goyal’s hotel for the past 20 days. Visiting newsmen are finding it difficult to find a place to stay. Director-General of Jannayak Devi Lal Vidyapeeth KS Dhindsa has turned out to be a gracious host for the newsmen, offering them rooms in his institution’s guest houses. The hotel industry alone is not the beneficiary of the byelection rush. Some enterprising young men in villages have found a novel method to earn a few quick bucks. Whenever a heavy-weight leader visits a village to seek votes for his party, a lot of persons hug or shake hands with him. Young men, wielding small digital cameras, quickly click as many photographs as possible. Then they approach those who may be interested in having their photograph with the VIP, to be adored on the walls of their drawing rooms. Poorly-printed visited cards are handed over to all prospective customers, so that they can collect their photographs later after paying a suitable fee.
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‘Franchisee system being introduced to repay loans’
Panipat, January 17 Addressing a meeting in protest against the state government’s move to hand over the distribution system of Panipat and Gurgaon to private players, RS
Dahiya, president of the Haryana Power Engineers Association (HPEA), said the power utilities were misleading the state government about the factual position prevailing in these utilities. As of today, the loan against the power utilities was 7,099 crore and this was likely to touch the figure of 10,000 crore by June, he stated. The power utilities had no funds to repay the loans and thus had been proposing the franchisee system. The money earned by way of franchisee system would then be used to repay the loan, Dahiya added. The meeting was attended by over 1,600 workers and engineers drawn from all constituent organisations of the Joint Action Committee, including the Haryana Power Engineers Association, HSEB Workers Union and the All-Haryana Power Corporation Workers Union. Dahiya said there was a shortage of 52 per cent staff in power utilities. In case the work was handed over to a franchisee, the private company would have the option to bring back its employees and this would harm the interest of present employees. He alleged that money was being spent on non-productive works rather then bringing about efficiency in the system to curtail losses. The president of the union said commercial as well as line losses in discoms were increasing due to
privatising, outsourcing and contracting policies adopted by the state government. He said due to acute shortage of staff, engineers and workers of power utilities were putting in more than 12 to 14 hours a day in order to reduce the line losses to a considerable extent. He said if vacant posts were filled,
privatising, outsourcing, contracting policies were dumped and suggestions of the committee were implemented, the AT&C losses could be reduced further and better services could be provided to the consumers in the state. |
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KUTA resents UGC guidelines
Bhanu P. Lohumi Tribune News Service
Kurukshetra, January 17 Criticising the guidelines, KUTA president NS Kaushal demanded that all issues should be thoroughly debated with the stake holders rather than arbitrarily imposing them on the teaching fraternity. He said under the new system, promotions would not be based on seniority and experience, but the teachers would be required to obtain specific number of points under various heads such as teaching, learning and evaluation-related activities, co-curricular, research and academic contribution. The new score system would, thus, force the teachers to be mechanically-oriented towards score building rather than ensuring their commitment to the profession and due merit to actual job would not be given, he added. Maintaining that the teachers were already engaged in teaching, research and co-curricular activities, Prof Kaushal said the pre-condition to “seek a specific score within specific duration as a means for recruitment and promotion would be self-defeating and counter-productive”. Bhagwan Singh Chaudhary, executive council member, Kurukshetra University, ssaid the undue weightage to point system for promotion would lead to mushroom growth of journals and books from private publishers/academic mafias by taking money from the teachers who would be desperate to get their research article published for promotion. The teachers’ body reiterated the demand for 10 per cent of basic salary as academic allowance for all categories of teachers.
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Association elections on Feb 5
Kurukshetra, January 17 The present body of the KUTA, which spearheaded the agitation for revised UGC scales, had an eventful tenure as most of the demands of the teachers were accepted. KUTA president professor NS Kaushal and executive council member Bhagwan Singh Chowdhary thanked the teachers for their active role and sustained support during the agitation for implementation of revised UGC scales, payment of 40 per cent of arrears as interim relief, promotions under career advancement scheme (CAS) and confirmation of teachers appointed under the self-finance scheme (SFS). The agitation for implementation of revised UGC scales in accordance with UGC guidelines and notification issued by the Union Human Resource Development Ministry raised the status of the KUTA leadership to the national level, they added. The general secretary of the KUTA said while the annual contingency of the teachers had been increased from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000, all pending interviews under the career advancement scheme had been completed and revised pay scales had been implemented, the KUTA had been continuing its struggle for issuing a comprehensive notification to cover issues like enhancement in retirement age and had taken up the issue of removal of other anomalies with the UGC also. Chowdhary regretted that the government was discriminating with the teachers within the state on the issue of rising the retirement age and pointed that the retirement age of teachers of Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Rohtak, is 65 years while it was 60 years for other university and college teachers. The KUTA had been waiting for notification of revised UGC guidelines and would agitate the retirement age issue from next week. |
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‘Top students to form country’s knowledge hub’
Gurgaon, January 17 This was disclosed by Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan at the inauguration of Fermentation Technology Research Centre (FTRC) at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in Gual Pahari village of the district today. “The motive behind the programme is to promote the study in science as it helps in finding solutions to major problems of the mankind like energy, food and environment,” he said. Appreciating the cooperation extended by the oil companies in setting up of the research centre, the minister advised them to spend at least 1 per cent of their annual turnover on research and development. Director-General of TERI RK Pachauri said they had been working on basic as well as applied research for the development of cost-effective microbial technologies to check environmental pollution. “For this we use an indigenously developed microbial consortium called Oilzapper - the technology for which has been developed by TERI with the support of the Department of Biotechnology,” he asserted. The indigenously developed bacterial consortium can biodegrade different types of crude oil, oily sludge and other wastes generated by oil and gas industries and is environment friendly as the end product of bioremediation is carbon-dioxide, water and dead biomass. Owing to the increasing demand of this product for curbing environmental damage, the pilot-scale facility of FTRC has been set up with enhanced production capacity of two metric tonnes per month. This facility is funded by the Department of Biotechnology along with the IndianOil Corporation, ONGC, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Oil Industry Development Board and TERI. Terming TERI’s Oilzapper technology a total end-to-end solution, MK Bhan, secretary, Department of Biotechnology, and T Ramasami, secretary, Department of Science and Technology, pointed out that despite their best efforts, the oil and gas sector produces enormous amount of hazardous wastes that constitute a potential threat to the environment. |
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Be impartial, ad hoc panel urges Takht Jathedar
Manish Sirhindi Tribune News Service
Panipat, January 17 Reacting to a statement issued by Giani Gurbachan Singh in Kurukshetra yesterday, in which he had stated that a separate SGPC would not be allowed to be formed in Haryana, general secretary of the body Didar Singh Nalvi said the Jathedar’s statement appeared to be politically motivated and partial. He said the issue of a separate body for Haryana was a political issue and not a religious one. Therefore, the Jathedar should not have issued any such statement. Nalvi said they had recently appeared before the Akal Takht and urged the Jathedar to call a meeting of the representatives of the SGPC, the Punjab government and representatives of the HSGPC to discuss the issue. He claimed that if the demand by the Haryana Sikhs had been unjustified, they would have readily withdrawn it. However, the Jathedar instead of giving a satisfactory reply to the request put up by them, went on to issue a statement that was not acceptable to the Haryana Sikhs. He said it was not apt for the Jathedar, who occupied the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, to issue statements that were detrimental to the interest of lakhs of Sikhs of Haryana. Nalvi said Sikhs of the state had every right to have a separate body which was their fundamental right and no one could deny them of this. He stated that the statement issued by the Akal Takht Jathedar violated the Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966, which had empowered the state Sikhs to have a separate body. He said despite all tactics being used by those who were against the demand of a separate SGPC for Haryana, they would continue with their struggle in support of their demand.
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Caller tunes to greet power consumers
Raman Mohan Tribune News Service
Hisar, January 17 The nigam has tied up with Idea mobile service for providing a specially composed caller tune for all official mobile phones of its staff. The caller will now hear “Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam Mein Aapka Swagat Hai” and “DHBVN welcomes you” rendered melodiously with a suitable background musical score. The caller tune has already been introduced on Idea mobile phones provided to the officials in Sirsa, Fatehabad, Hisar, Bhiwani, Mahendragarh and Rewari districts. Officials A spokesman for the DHBVN said here recently that the purpose of the caller tune was to greet consumers courteously. The caller tune would also further the corporate identity of the DHBVN which was the first public undertaking in Haryana to introduce a special caller tune. While the caller tune will ensure a good greeting, what may follow it is anybody’s guess given the penchant of Haryanvis for rude talk in the garb of jocularity.
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Panipat thermal plant trips again
Panipat, January 17 Unit Nos. 1, 2 and 4 of the thermal plant tripped at 1.30 am which even lead to the disruption of supply to the Railways for a couple of minutes, which was restored promptly by giving supply from 220 kV sub-station in Safidon. The authorities of the Panipat thermal plant gave “reference supply” to the three units which got disrupted at 8.29 am due to some snag. Though the authorities here managed to bring back units 1 and 4, but unit number 2 of the plant could not be restored till the filing of this report. Sources at the Panipat thermal plant said the three units, of 110 MW each, stumbled due to the tripping of two 440 kV ICTs of the BBMB at Sewah. This was the fourth time in the past few days that a snag at the Sewah (BBMB, Panipat) sub-station caused outage of generating units at the Panipat thermal power plant, which could even have lead to the collapse of the northern grid. However, the system collapse situation was averted due to timely action by the Haryana Power Utilites in co-ordination with Northern Region Load Dispatch Centre by load regulation and voltage control. The sources said the matter had already been taken up by the power utilities with the BBMB authorities to initiate corrective measures to prevent any such happening again. |
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Jats hold protest, demand quota
Bhiwani, January 17 Earlier, Jats assembled here to attend the Jat sammelan and decided to continue their agitation till they were included in the OBC category. Former Chief Minister Hukam Singh, who was the chief guest in the sammelan, said in view of the dilapidated conditions of the farmers he had implemented reservation on the basis of Gurnam Singh Commission report on February 7, 1991, and reservation had also been provided to the Ahir and Saini castes besides the Jat community. In the report it had been mentioned that the condition of the Jat community was worse than the Ahir and Saini community and so it should be registered under OBC , he said. Later when Bhajan Lal became the Chief Minister, he deprived Jats of the reservation, Hukam Singh said. Jat leader Subedar Rajmal, who presided over the sammelan, said the Jat community could not be mislead and it would avail its right of reservation’ at any cost. He called upon the community to reach Delhi on February 8 to attend their rally and said the government would not accept their demand until they showed their unity. State president of the Akhil Bhartiya Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti Hawa Singh Sangwan said: “We were not included in reservation category due to carelessness of few Jat leaders and today’s gathering was just a trailer to show the government that the Jats could not be misled. They will not let go their right of reservation.”
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CM, Guv mourn Basu’s death
Chandigarh, January 17 In a condolence message issued here today, they said the country had lost a seasoned politician and able administrator in Basu, who was a strength of the poor. They said he was popular among all parties and had carved a niche for himself in Indian politics. With the death of Basu, an era in the annals of history of the CPM had come to an end. The void left by his death was difficult to fill in the years to come. They sent condolences to members of the bereaved family and prayed that the departed soul rest in peace. ROHTAK:
The Haryana state committee of the CPM has expressed grief over the demise of veteran Marxist leader comrade Jyoti Basu. The red flag at the state party office in Rohtak and throughout Haryana was flown at half-mast. A condolence book was placed besides Jyoti Basu’s portrait. In a condolence message, party state secretary Inderjit Singh said the CPM, Left Front and the entire democratic movement in the country had lost the tallest leader of the common masses who dedicated his entire life first for the cause of independence and then for a social transformation in favour of workers and peasants. |
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The agitation by the candidates who have cleared the State Teachers’ Eligibility Test
took a serious turn today with hundreds of youths assembling here and resorting to antics that could have ended with an untoward incident.
Ellenabad, January 17
With a view to developing India as a hub of innovations, the Centre is planning to create a knowledge pool in the country.
