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War of words over pension slabs
CM announces awards for women
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CM: May reconsider suspension on request
MINE BLOWING - I
Now, bungling in HCS selections
Untie knot within week, couple told
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War of words over pension slabs
Chandigarh, March 8 Col Raghbir Singh (INLD) sought to know whether there was a proposal to grant equal pension to senior citizens across the board and why the government had felt the need to bifurcate the pension into slabs of Rs 500 and Rs 700 per month. To this Bhukal rattled out statistics stating that the pension scheme began with a mere Rs 15 per month in 1964. Even as an insistent INLD, not satisfied by the minister’s reply, repeated the question, seeking to know the reason for the two slabs, Naresh Sharma of the Congress stood up to counter them. Soon, it was a free-for-all as members of the treasury benches and those of the Opposition engaged in a war of words. Speaker HS Chatha managed to bring sanity to the proceedings again after which Bhukkal replied that having two pension slabs “was the prerogative of the government” and those getting Rs 500 per month would reach the Rs 700 slab in four years since the former were entitled to an increment of Rs 50 a year. INLD MLA Ram Pal Majra sought to know if the minister was aware of any scam in the disbursement of pension in the state while INLD state president and MLA Ashok Arora wanted to know if there was any proposal to raise the Rs 500 slab to Rs 700. To this Bhukkal said wherever any anomaly had come to light in the disbursement of the pension, the government had taken action. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala reminded the INLD that their party had announced a hike in pension from Rs 200 to Rs 300 a month but it was the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government which had honoured that promise in 2005. Earlier, to a question by Ram Pal Majra on details of over-loaded substations and upgrading of three substations, Power Minister Mahendra Pratap Singh began his reply from scratch, stating that the Hooda government had done for power generation in five years what the successive governments in the state had not done in 40 years. Unwilling to be caught in “unnecessary” detailing, Majra said he was not interested in generating statistics but wanted to know the fate of three substations only. To this, Mahendra Pratap urged them to listen to him patiently. Finally, after much tossing around, the Speaker asked the minister to reply only on the status of the three substations.Finally, Mahendra Pratap said there were 175 substations which were overloaded and despite technical problems, a plan to upgrade these was being considered. Surjewala informed the House that the two-lane railway over-bridge proposal on the Hansi road had been upgraded to four-lane and had been sent to the Railways for consent. To another question, the government said there was no proposal to set up a human rights commission in the state. Other question pertained to irrigation, compensation to farmers and education. |
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CM announces awards for women
Chandigarh, March 8 Hooda, who was speaking at a state-level function to honour outstanding women of Haryana, said the first award carrying a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh will be known as Indira Gandhi Mahila Shakti Puraskar. The second award will be known as Kalpana Chawla Shaurya Puraskar comprising Rs 51,000 in cash. This award had been instituted in the memory of Haryana-born astronaut Kalpana Chawla and the third one would be named after the first woman Speaker of the Haryana Legislative Assembly, Shanno Devi, with a cash prize of Rs 51,000. Hooda said it was encouraging that a women of Haryana, namely Dr Sunita Devi, a hostel warden at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, was being honoured by President Pratibha Patil by conferring Rani Lakshmi Bai Puraskar upon her in New Delhi today. Hooda announced to give Rs 51,000 to Dr Sunita Devi, in absentia, so as to honour her. The award was conferred upon her for uplifting women and children despite her own physical disability. Three other women who were honoured with Stree Shakti Puraskar included Somwati of Balasamand village, Hisar district, Neha Sharma of Sagarpur village, Faridabad district, and Sister Thresa Wegas of Mandi Dabwali. All three got Rs 11,000 in cash. Arjuna Awardees and Mamta Sauda of Kaithal were honoured for sports and adventure sports, respectively. The three Deputy Commissioners of Jhajjar, Gurgaon and Faridabad were honoured by giving them rewards of Rs 5 lakh, Rs 3 lakh and Rs 2 lakh for securing first three positions, respectively, in improving the sex ratio for 2008-09. Sadhna Mittal of Sirsa was honoured with a cash award of Rs 11,000 for preventing 10 child marriages. Women entrepreneurs, three Sakshar Mahila Samoohs, ANMs and rural women, who won state-level sports events, were also
honoured. |
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College girls choose ‘Disha’
Sirsa, March 8 Over 50 students pursuing Bachelor of Education and Masters in Education today visited “Disha”, a vocational and rehabilitation centre for the disabled. Led by their teacher Poonam Miglani and Sushma Hooda, the students spent several hours with the girls and interacted with them to know their difficulties. The special children too enjoyed the company of students and chatted with them for hours, showing them their toys and belongings and sharing their happiness and sorrow. “Women are considered underprivileged and those suffering from disabilities from amongst them are further lesser privileged. We observe International Women’s Day every year to celebrate the achievements of women in different spheres of life, but we often forget those, who are born differently abled,” said Miglani. She said the students came to know about the hardships faced by special children in the day-to-day activities and came back as better human beings. The students also donated funds to the institute for purchase of toys. Geeta Kathuria, Director of Disha, showed the rehabilitation training being provided to special children. The differently abled girls also performed dance and some other cultural items to celebrate the day. Meanwhile, the district unit of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) organised a protest against the “poor plight of women” due to poor policies of the government. KARNAL: Loans amounting to Rs 7 lakh were distributed amongst 14 women self-help groups (SHGs) on the occasion of International Women’s Day at Kailash village here on Monday. The importance of women in all spheres was emphasised at the district-level function organised by Punjab National Bank with the help of NGOs. The circle head of PNB said the bank had advanced loans to the tune of Rs 2.60 crore to women for agricultural purposes in Karnal district and also started a campaign to open accounts. He said so far the bank had succeeded in opening 4,100 accounts out of which 2,300 had been opened by women. SONEPAT: BPS Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, Khanpur Kalan, celebrated International Women’s Day here on Monday. The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Dr Pankaj Mittal, presided over the function that was co-organised by the departments of social work and English. A play - “Ek Nai Shuruat” - was also organised on the occasion. It threw light on the issues of women discrimination, female foeticide, dowry and girl education. The School of Engineering in the university celebrated the day by organising a talent hunt programme that included slogan making, poetry recitation and debate. |
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CM: May reconsider suspension on request
Chandigarh, March 8 “Heavens would not have fallen if the ruling party had allowed a discussion on our adjournment motions, which were on the important public issue of price rise,” they said. Gurjar said the Opposition attempt to raise its voice outside the House had met with lathis. Now, when they had tried to do so inside the House, its members faced suspension. Ashok Arora said the Opposition had merely sought that the House unanimously passed a resolution urging the Centre to withdraw hike in the prices of petroleum products and fertilisers. On the other hand, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the conduct of the Opposition was “unfortunate and condemnable”. He said the House was left with no other alternative than suspension with efforts to restore order repeatedly aborted. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Randeep Singh Surjewala said it was wrong on the part of the Opposition to allege that the members had been suspended from the House for the first time. He said whenever the INLD was in the Opposition, it had not allowed orderly conduct of the House. In the past too, the House had suspended INLD legislators. Finance Minister Ajay Singh Yadav said when the INLD was in power, it never allowed any of the adjournment motions moved by the Congress to be admitted. Hooda said the Congress was not averse to reconsidering the suspension if a request came from the Opposition. However, Chautala said they would not make such a request. Rather, they would adopt other democratic methods to express their views. |
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MINE BLOWING - I
Chandigarh, March 8 Instead of reining in the wrong-doers, these officials connive with them. No intelligence is required to guess why. Frequent changes in policies, dictated by whims and fancies of political and bureaucratic bosses, lack of coordination among various departments dealing with mining, forests and environment, and little knowledge on intricacies of various aspects of mining have added to the chaos. The lack of foresightedness on the part of the state in enforcing the Union Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOEF) notification of September 14, 2006, has further confounded the confusion. The notification requirs prior environment clearance before undertaking mining of minor minerals in an area of 5 hectares or more. A similar notification issued by the ministry on January 27, 1994, made prior environment clearance mandatory for major minerals only. From past experience, the mines department should have known that environment clearance is a time-consuming process. When the Supreme Court banned mining in Faridabad district on May 6, 2002, it told the lessees that they could resume mining only after obtaining clearance from the environment ministry under the 1994 notification. It also asked the ministry to dispose of applications for environment clearance expeditiously. Still the clearance came only in 2006. As soon as the 2006 notification was issued, the state government should have immediately asked the departments of mines, law, forest and environment to sit together and formulate a long-term policy so that sustained development was not affected. Instead, the government tried to short-circuit the notification by trying to find out loopholes in it.
— To be concluded |
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Now, bungling in HCS selections
The same marks have been given by the examiner with “red ink/pen”. In sociology
answersheet, “different type of ink has been used for awarding marks
He did not even mention any note regarding attachment of map in the sheet”.
It bears no signature of the
examiner….”
Chandigarh, March 8 Mincing no words, the SP has asserted: “The answersheets were inspected by the special investigation team in the presence of Punjab and Haryana High Court joint registrar-general (judicial) from September 8, 2009, to September 11, 2009. Many irregularities were found in the 54 answersheets of 35 candidates.” The report contains details of almost all candidates, including Sarita Malik and others. A public interest litigation seeking CBI probe into the alleged irregularities has jointly been filed by former minister Karan Singh Dalal and two candidates. The case was initially argued by former advocate-general Mohan Jain, now additional solicitor-general of India in Delhi. The report asserts: The special investigation team has taken 198 answersheets of 101 candidates in possession from the Haryana Public Service Commission, in which there were major irregularities in the answersheets, including overwriting, cuttings, cutting in marks, decrease or increase in marks and use of different inks/pens. It adds: The pages were left blank and thereafter the remaining questions were solved. Analysing the results, the report adds the records of 195 candidates called for interview was examined. It was found that 60 candidates, awarded 75 per cent to 92 per cent marks in the interview, had scored 41.7 per cent to 71.47 per cent. “It shows that maximum marks in the interview have been awarded to them. “It is further submitted that 14 candidates have been awarded 13 per cent to 26 per cent marks in the interview, whereas they obtained 62. 93 per cent to 74.40 per cent marks in the written exam.” After going through the documents, the Bench of Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Jasbir Singh have granted nearly four months more for the completion of probe. |
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Unfazed, Bishnoi holds protest
Chandigarh, March 8 Amid tight security, the protest passed off peacefully and Bishnoi left for New Delhi in the evening. He, along with four other party leaders, will hold a silent protest against the incidents in Chandigarh at Parliament House tomorrow. In Chandigarh, party workers will continue to sit on strike till the Vidhan Sabha session ends on March 16. Besides Bishnoi, former minister Dharampal Malik, former MLA Rann Singh Mann and Shashi Sharma, who contested the assembly elections unsuccessfully from Panchkula, went on fast today. A number of HJC workers, including Bishnoi, were injured in a lathicharge on Friday as they protested against the “merger” of four Independent MLAs with the Congress. His fractured in a plaster, Bishnoi reached Sector 25 at 9.30 am today and declared his partymen would continue to protest against state “repression”. He would demand Rs 5 crore as compensation from the administration for damage to vehicles and the injuries inflicted on his party workers, he said. On the future strategy, Bishnoi said they would file an application in court seeking a judicial inquiry. He said the police refused to register the complaints of the injured HJC workers. Instead, they slapped criminal cases against them. |
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Untie knot within week, couple told
Bhiwani, March 8 Shri Bhagwan, son of Randhir Singh of the Legha gotra, is married to the daughter of Azad Singh of Makdani village of the Faugat gotra. A panchayat of Kamod, Loharwada, Khatiwas, Samaspur and Makdani villages was held last Tuesday. It decided that the two families be summoned and the couple told to opt for divorce. In response to the panchayat’s decision, Randhir Singh called a panchayat of Faugat 19 khap at Swami Dayal Temple, Charkhi Dadri, under the chairmanship of a former CM Hukam Singh yesterday. Representatives from 19 villages including Samaspur, Khatiwas, Loharwara, Kamod, Ravaldhi, Dhani Faugat, Modi, Balkara, Ramnagar, Maharana and Patuwas participated. The panchayat said it would be forced to convene a mahapanchayat of Faugat khap if the marriage was not dissolved within a week.Bhim Singh Mehrana, Sumer Khatiwas, Jai Singh Samaspur, Dharmbir Khatiwas, Bhim Singh Dhani Faugat, Yogender Bholu were among those who spoke. |
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