Chandigarh, January 25
In a major blow to one of the city’s prominent colleges, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has withdrawn affiliation of its popular master of computer applications (MCA) course at the GGDSD College, Sector 32. Currently, the MCA course has an intake capacity of 60 students.

In a letter dated January 15, 2010, addressed to the member secretary of the college, the council has pulled up the college for providing “false and misleading information”. It also mentions that, following a visit by its inspection committee, it was found the college had not fulfilled the stipulated norms. Even a subsequent inquiry committee, set up after the college enrolled students without affiliation, was not “satisfied by the response” and “recommended withdrawal of the course”.

According to AICTE guidelines any institution or college that runs other general and nonprofessional courses, including BCom, BA, BBA and BSc, is not authorised to hold classes for either MBA or MCA courses as it lowers academic standards. A separate institution has to come up in order to open these courses, the norms say.

This withdrawal of affiliation has also raised doubts on the procedure adopted by the committee members who were sent by Panjab University to inspect the college for this course.

AICTE has pointed out in its letter that on a visit to the college its inspection committee rejected the course on the grounds that-the built up area, infrastructure and the qualifications of the director are not as per AICTE norms. Also, the letter said an unapproved course was being run in the campus and mentioned a dearth of books and journals.

Subsequently, on November 27, 2009, the council had issued a ‘show cause’ notice to the college seeking explanation on certain issues. Despite sending a response to AICTE through a letter (December 8, 2009), the council was not satisfied with it.

However, college principal AC Vaid, who is yet to receive the letter, pointed out the college administration had already rectified the anomalies pointed out by the council. “The unauthorised course being talked about is our formal tieup with the University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia. We will invite the inspection committee again and are confident we would get the affiliation,” Vaid added.

Chandigarh, January 25
Even as eyebrows are being raised at the disbursement of over Rs 22 lakh as honorarium to officials of the Chandigarh Administration related to the election work for the May 13 Lok Sabha elections, certain officials, "not related" to the poll process, were also sanctioned the honorarium.

In fact, these six officials, including Joint Secretary (Home), a senior HCS officer, are among 41 officials, who are yet to receive the honorarium amounting to over Rs 3 lakh even after over eight months after the conduct of the election for the Chandigarh parliamentary seat.

Interestingly, among these officials is an IAS probationer officer and 17 daily wage workers. While the IAS officer is waiting for an amount of Rs 21,650, the HCS officer is yet to get an amount of Rs 34,900.The daily wage workers are yet to receive Rs 1,500 each for the work they did for the enforcement staff during the poll.

A careful look at the information obtained under the RTI Act by Sector 27 resident RK Garg revealed that besides the HCS officer, other officials "not related" to the election work included a superintendent, a senior assistant, two steno typists, a junior assistant, a jamadar and gestetner operator.

The official reason for the non-payment is cited as "non-availability of sufficient funds".

It may be mentioned that the administration had spent about Rs 1.38 crore - more than the official amount spent by all contesting candidates - on the holding of the May 13 poll. A substantial part - over Rs 41 lakh - has gone for the payment of the remuneration to the polling parties and honorarium to the staff for election duty.
(To be continued)

Chandigarh, January 25
Sudhanshu Shekhar Srivastva, the UT SSP, has been awarded the Police Medal for his meritorious services.

An MBA from Punjabi University, Patiala, he joined the Indian Police Services in 1994 in the Punjab Cadre. He remained posted in various districts across Punjab and was selected for the UN Mission Kosovo for peacekeeping duties from September 2003 to September 2004.

During his tenure in Chandigarh, the CIPA project was put into action in all the police stations and all the police stations got the ISO:9001 certification. He was instrumental in setting up an ultra modern police control room with GPS-based automatic vehicle tracking system (AVTS).

Srivastva has been instrumental in formation of the “Tricity Contingency Crisis Management”. The Chandigarh Police has solved a number of cases under his supervision, including the sensational German woman rape case, kidnapping for ransom of an eight-year-old boy and several murder and robbery cases. 

Chandigarh, January 25
DIG, Central Bureau of Investigation, Chandigarh Zone, Mahesh Kumar Aggarwal will be awarded the Police Medal for meritorious service on of the Republic Day.

Aggarwal is a 1994-batch IPS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre.

He hails from Bathinda. He joined the CBI in 2006 and was posted as the SP, anti-corruption branch, Chandigarh.

In May 2009, he was promoted as the DIG and took charge of the Chandigarh Zone.

During his tenure, the Chandigarh branch of the CBI achieved 80 per cent conviction rate.

Chandigarh, January 25
DSP (CID) Satbir Singh and Ashwani Kumar, SP, CBI (HQ), Delhi, will be awarded the President’s Police Medal for their distinguished services on the Republic Day.

As the in charge of the Special Crime Investigation Cell, Satbir Singh was instrumental in the arrest of wanted criminals in Chandigarh. Under his supervision, the UT Police extracted vital information from a gang of highway robbers, arrested Dalwinder Singh, alias Whiskey, in the murder case of a financer, nabbed Baba Pritpal Singh and Davinder Singh Babla, who remained elusive for months. Apart from this, his team solved many blind murders and other heinous crimes.

Satbir Singh joined the Chandigarh Police as an assistant sub-inspector on April 27, 1979. In the Bent Singh assassination case, he arrested accused Lakhwinder Singh, a constable in the Punjab Police, and Gurmeet Singh, an engineer of the BPL, along with other members of the police party. He was promoted as the DSP in 2007.

Ashwani Kumar, SP, CBI (HQ), Delhi, who will also be awarded the President’s Police Medal for distinguished services on the Republic Day, has already received the Indian Police Medal for meritorious services in 1996.

Ashwani Kumar has handled a number of cases while during his stint in the anti-corruption branch in Chandigarh. He hails from Jalandhar and is now settled in Chandigarh. 

Chandigarh, January 25
Air Cmde SRK Nair has been decorated with the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM) for distinguished services of an exceptional order. He had served as the Air Officer Commanding (AOC) 12 Wing here for about two years before being nominated for the National Defence College course last month.

It was during his tenure at the Chandigarh Air Force Station that the IAF squadron based here had operationalised three advanced landing grounds close to the Line of Actual Control in eastern Jammu and Kashmir to beef up defence capabilities in the sector. This included the first-ever touchdown by a twin-engine aircraft at Daulat Beg Oldie, the world’s highest landing ground.

He was earlier deputed as the team leader in Exercise Indra-07 in Russia. His achievements include the pioneering flight to the North Pole during which he also established an endurance record on the IL-76 aircraft.

Gp Capt JX Israel, who had commanded 25 Squadron here, has been awarded the Vayu Medal for distinguished services. He also recently moved out from Chandigarh on completion of his tenure.

The squadron, popularly known as Himalayan Eagles, operates a mix of AN-32 medium and IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft and undertakes many strategic tasks, including overseas missions. 

Mohali, January 25
The Municipal Employees Union today held a gate rally in protest against the deployment of solely Municipal Council employees for election-related duties, which adversely affected work at the civic body office.

The union leaders struck work for an hour to hold the rally and demanded that three employees who were working at the office of the SDM for the past many months should be relieved. The protesters demanded that employees from other departments should also be put on election-related work instead of deploying employees of the civic body only.

Krishan Kumar Saini, president of the employees union, said on January 22, a driver of the council, Sukhwinder Singh, was called to the SDM office for election-related work even when the civic body was facing shortage of drivers. Three employees of the council were deployed on election duty before the Lok Sabha elections and had not been relieved till now. One of these employees, Ashok Kumar, was a telephone operator with the fire brigade. He said staff of the essential services could not be put on such a duty and moreover, he had not been discharged so far.

Now four more employees of the council-stenographer Satwinder Kaur, superintendent Rajesh Kumar, computer programmer Krishan Joshi and junior assistant Sher Ali had been deployed on duty for the byelections for municipal ward number 22.

Saini alleged that employees who worked as supervisors and BLO’s during the Lok Sabha elections had still not been given their payments in this regard.

SDM Ravinder Pal Singh said he had only requisitioned the driver of the council, as he needed help for the byelections that would be held soon. The other three employees were called against some earlier orders and not by him. He said four employees of the civic body had only been asked to prepare lists of voters for the byelections and would not be playing any role in the conduct of elections as such.

Chandigarh, January 25
The water supply to various parts of the city remained disrupted yesterday due to some technical fault at the main waterworks in Sector 26.

The supply was restored in some areas, while others continued to reel under the water shortage.

Holding the Public Health Department responsible for the crunch, residents alleged that the authorities made no alternative arrangements for them.

Resentment prevailed among residents against the apathetic attitude of the MC authorities towards their problems.

The water shortage affected the normal life of residents.

Chandigarh, January 25
While UT administration may have strictly prohibited government teachers from taking private tuition classes, many continue to violate the rule blatantly and run full-fledged coaching institutes.

Though this fact is yet to be officially acknowledged by the UT education department, many such centres continue to thrive in Sectors 20 and 34 and parts of Mohali.

These centres are either owned by or have roped in ‘known’ teachers from various model schools of the city and are even catering to children of various high-ups of the UT administration.

The department has made a provision for teachers to take extra classes of weak students only at schools, but this has failed to yield results as these teachers justify their actions.

“When I teach at school, I have to cater to a minimum of 40 students. Some may want special attention to score high or average students may wish to catch up. We can hold classes at school, but do we continue there till 5 pm? Will the education department give me some extra money for this,” said one of them.

“What is the harm in it? My institute does not hamper my teaching at school. Do others not have a part-time business? At least I am doing some good to some students,” said another.

When contacted, DEO Chanchal Singh said there was no way to ascertain what a teacher did after going back home.

He maintained that they had not received any complaint so far and thus, could not act.

The response perturbed CBSE officials, who considered this trend a great obstacle to its new evaluation system.

“When we are out to give 80 per cent of evaluation in teachers’ hands, how can it be transparent if they take tuition classes? What is the guarantee that they will evaluate students impartially and not favour students they teach during tuition classes as well? Government teachers have to be barred from it so that this system does not backfire,” said a Delhi-based official.

Home Secretary Ram Niwas said he would immediately ask school heads concerned to ensure that no teacher continued with tuition classes and those found guilty would be dealt with sternly.

Many a time, teachers had been asked to file affidavits and there was a proposal to constitute a checking committee, which apparently had been shelved.

Chandigarh, January 25
Moti Ram Arya Senior Secondary Model School, Sector 27, celebrated the Republic Day with a great fervour and enthusiasm today.

Various cultural items, which included an array of patriotic songs, marked the event.

Chandigarh, January 25
Hundreds of schoolchildren today participated in a rally organised to spread awareness about oil and gas conservation.

The rally was organised by the state-level coordinator oil industry, Chandigarh, as a part of the oil and gas conservation fortnight celebrations.

The rally comprising 250 students was flagged off from Gyandeep Model High School. The students carrying placards with the message of oil and gas conservation went around various places in Sector 20 and on the Dakshin Marg before returning to the school.

As the part of the celebrations, an LPG conservation clinic was also organised at Government Central Craft Institute, Sector 11.

Abhinav Sethi, a senior official of Hindustan Petroleum, conducted the clinic and explained the safe practices for the use of LPG equipment and techniques for saving LPG. A quiz contest was also organised for the students of the institute. Later, the students pledged to work for the conservation of oil and gas.