Nainital, March 15
The police has stepped up vigil across Kumaon and its personnel have been deployed at various religious places in the wake of attempts by miscreants to stir up communal trouble in areas bordering the Uttar Pradesh state.

Ever since trouble started in Bareilly following the arrest of Maulana Tauqeer Raza Khan, there has been an uneasy calm in townships bordering Uttar Pradesh. Timely intervention and foresight of the administration prevented the situation at Rudrapur from going out of control yesterday.

Trouble had started on Saturday night when some armed miscreants threw the carcass of an animal on the premises of a religious place in the Bhadaipura locality and fled from the spot.

This was followed by an agitated mob resorting to blocking of roads amid sporadic incidents of stone pelting on Sunday. The situation was brought under control by the police and additional deployment was done at sensitive spots.

Talking to The Tribune, IGP Jeevan Chandra Pandey said: “We have made adequate deployment at religious places. Any attempt to create communal trouble will be dealt with strictly and the miscreants will not be spared”.

With the Hindu festival of Chaitra Navratras starting from Tuesday, police personnel have been ordered to maintain a strict vigil around religious shrines.

The intelligence agencies have also been asked to be alert for any attempt to create trouble.

Referring to the unannounced protest march carried out by various Hindutva organisations in Haldwani a couple of days ago to protest the release of Maulana Taqeer in Bareilly, Pandey once again warned that such acts would not be tolerated.

The police top brass has been having a series of meetings to chalk out a plan to maintain law and order besides keeping a check on notorious elements trying to damage the social fabric in the region.

Pitthoragarh, March 15
After border towns of Dharchula and Munsiyari have been connected with mobile services, people of the Madkot area, a highly landslides prone area, are demanding mobile connectivity and for this purpose they have staged a demonstration in the district headquarters here today.

“More than 15 villages of our area, which is prone to natural calamities like landslides and earthquakes, need the BSNL tower which can range more than 9 km in its frequency, so that we can inform the district and sub-divisional authorities at the time of natural calamities unlike last year’s when due to this information gap officers could reach at calamity spot after 24 hours,” said Kailash Koranga, a student leader who led the demonstration.

The Madkot valley lies between two border sub-divisions of Dharchula and Munsiyari and is 10 to 66 km away from the mobile connectivity.

“When three years back Munsiyari sub-division headquarters was connected with mobile facility and Dharchula came in under this service some six month ago, the 15 backward villages of the landslide-prone Madkot valley were left out from this facility despite repeated record of landslide casualties in the area,” said Koranga.

Moreover, the Madkot valley is mainly inhabited by families of persons in armed forces as well as cash crop farmers who grow potatoes and beans and needs market communication from the traders in Pithoragarh and Haldwani.

“We have submitted our memorandum to the district and BSNL authorities. If they fail to comply it within this month we will bound to start a long-term agitation,” said Lalit Bhandri, another leader of the demonstrators. 

Dehradun, March 15
Stressing on the need to compile bio-registers for recording remedies, plants and herbs as part of the traditonal knowledge, renowned anthropologist Prof Kailash Malhotra today said as of now no work was being done on this front and each village settlement should have a bio-register as a proof of recorded evidence.

“At least 10 lakh registers can be made and only states like West Bengal and Kerala are making efforts for compiling our ancient indigenous knowledge. It will help in expanding the resource base of the tribals and also engage them in conservation and protection of valuable plant material,” affirmed Professor Malhotara, former head of anthropology, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.

He was speaking today on the concluding day of the international conference on “Mountain Biodiversity: Conservation and Sustainable Utilisation held at Doon University”.

Professor Malhotara, who has worked extensively in West Bengal and Orissa, said such an exercise would preserve traditional knowledge that traditional healers and herbalists possessed. “It needs to be preserved for posterity and also for others to read and use it for reference. Also to safeguard knowledge so that it does not fall into wrong hands. In such a scenario, the important details can be left out, because big multi-national companies too can utilise information surreptitiously for commercialisation. It is the knowledge of traditional healers that we need to protect,” said Professor Malhotra.

Professor Kailash said it would also help in identifying herbs for value addition and even could be sold at local haats. This knowledge had to preserved at any cost. Later, during the technical session too the reluctance shown by tribals to part with traditional knowledge was discussed. “Most of the tribals think that the knowledge that they possess will become ineffective if they share it with others,” said project assistant Meenakshi Bartwal, who is undertaking study titled “Ethno-medicinal plants used by Jaunsari tribe in Tons valley” and three sub-divisions comprising Kasli, Chakrata and Tyuni were surveyed. She said most of the villagers relied on these traditional medicines as the hospitals were ill-equipped and without manpower.

Dehradun, March 15
After the ruckus in the state Assembly over the issue of allotment of hydro-electric projects and conversion of industrial land for residential purposes to Sterdia Company against the BJP, Congress legislators today came up with another allegation of alleged favouritism against the state government.

Congress legislators Kishore Upadhaya, Karan Mehra, Manoj Tewari and Myukh Mehar at a press conference alleged that the state government had shown undue favour to a private company in giving land concessions and exemptions to produce power from natural gasses.

“Since a gas pipeline of the Gas Authority of India (GAIL) will be coming up at Kashipur, the state government has signed an agreement with a private company to produce 165 MW of power and than enhanced its capacity to 225 MW. The company has been given 46 acres at Kashipur,” said Updhaya.

He charged that the land, on which the plant would be set up, had been exempted from stamp duty and the plant categorised as an industry. “The land use pattern has been changed without any charge and the state failed to get royalty of the power to be produced from the gas-based project,” Kishore charged.

He further said the agreement was signed by the state government on November 4, 2009. “We will discuss the issue in the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting scheduled to be held tomorrow before the presentation of the Budget,” announced Karan Mehra, another Congress legislator.

Nainital, March 15
The BJP is aiming to collect signatures of 12.5 lakh residents of Uttarakhand, along with those from other states, for its memorandum on bringing down inflation, which the party proposes to hand over to President Pratibha Devisingh Patil on April 25. The party also plans to gherao Parliament on April 25.

This was stated by party leader Ravindra Bajaj while talking about the preparations for the party’s anti-inflation rally that is scheduled to be held in Haldwani on Sunday.

Bajaj said besides the top party leadership in the state, including Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank and party’s state unit president Bishen Singh Chauphal, Central leader Sushma Swaraj or party president Nitin Gadkari were expected to attend the event.

The party aimed to mobilise 40,000 people for the event.

Responding to the charge of the Congress regarding a scam in the allotment of power projects to the private parties in the state, he said the previous Congress governments in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh led by Capt Amarinder Singh and Virbhadra Singh, respectively, had given projects to the very same companies when they were in power.

He said all laid-down procedures had been followed in allotment of the projects and the entire exercise had been carried out in a transparent manner.

Dehradun, March 15
Under the aegis of the Uttarakhand Parivahan Nigam Mritak Ashrit Sangharsh Samiti, dependants of deceased from the three circles of the state, Kumaon, Dehradun and Tanakpur, staged a dharna in favour of their demands at the headquarters of the corporation here today.

The agitated complainants shouted slogans to support their protest for not providing service schemes since 2000.

However, Vijay Mamgai, general secretary of the Roadways Karmachari Sanyukt Parishad, said the administration had made an announcement of relaxing norms as in the form of employment to the dependants till 2005, but it hadn’t materialised yet.

On this occasion, senior Congress leader Suryakant Dhasmana was also present to boost the enthusiasm of the protesters.

He made his statement requesting the administration to look into the matter with any further delay, while state agitator Mohan Pathak also raised his voice in support of the protesters.

Others present during the protest were Ramchand Raturi, Dinesh Gosai, Narendra Luthra, Dinesh Pant, Anurag Nautiyal, Ravi Anand, Vijay Shingari, Anil Bisht, Rajesh Kohli, Mohan Vora, Om Prakash, Rajendra Bisht, Kapil Tripathi, Anup Kukreti, Sunil, Vipin, Rachna Bisht and Usha Rani.

Dehradun, March 15
Four years after the enactment of the Protection of Women under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005, the state has failed to appoint full-time protection officers in all districts and allocate a separate budget hampering the functioning of the cells.

In the districts, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Project officers have been entrusted with the additional responsibility of heading the cells.

The Act clearly states that a committee has to be formed at the district level and there should be a full-time protection officer, under whom the cases will be registered and filed in courts.

“But things have come to such a pass that women in the hills are taking the services of lawyers to file cases, as the protection officers appointed by the government are not legally educated nor do they have any expertise to handle such cases in full violation of the Act,” said Renu Thakur, a social activist.

These committees are chaired by District Magistrates and become functional only when the meetings are called. “In some districts, where the protection officers are active, their work is hampered by non-existent facilities and no-budgetary allocation. We are fund starved. I am forced to depend on the Cooperative Department to provide me vehicle for my tours. The cell should also have the services of a councillor or a psychologist and a service provider,” said Ramindari Mandarwal, District Protection Officer.

Meanwhile, Dehradun district tops the list with the number of cases being disposed of in 2009.

In 2009, there were 460 court cases regarding domestic violence; 427 cases were solved and 33 cases are pending solution.

About 318 cases were registered under the Protection of Women under Domestic Violence Act, 2005, followed by 22 cases in Pitthoragarh and 16 cases in Udham Singh Nagar. So far, a total of 392 cases have been taken up and only 62 cases are pending in the state, as per the data provided by the ICDS, Uttarakhand.

Mussoorie, March 15
Sachin Tendulkar’s wife Anjali was on a visit to Mussoorie while most of the mediapersons were on the lookout of her whereabouts.

It is believed that she is on a visit to her family friend Sanjay Narang accompanied by her son Arjun Tendulkar, away from the hullabaloo of the IPL. It is also learnt that Sachin is scheduled to visit Mussoorie as soon as he finds time from the IPL.

According to the sources, he will inaugurate a new hostel of Woodstock School on March 19. 

Dehradun, March 15
Mission True Biologists held a survey to locate the usage of polythene bags in the city on Wednesday.

Mahabir Singh Mehta, founder of the association, said, “We have done a survey randomly of 50 shops and found that approximately every third shop was using these toxic carry-bags even after their being banned. We have also collected samples and set an anti-polythene force to present our concern for the nation against this evil”.

He added, “We will present this data and samples in front of the state government, Pollution Control Board, Municipal Corporation and District Magistrate”.

Dehradun, March 15
The State Yoga Prasikshit Society demanded that yoga subject be made compulsory from the next session and all yoga teachers be appointed in a meeting held at the Gandhi Park here today.

Ganesh Bhatt, state president of the society, said the association had been protesting in front of the Vidhan Sabha since July 2009. The Chief Minister had also assured to the society to meet consensus, but nothing had materialised yet.

However, the agitated members of the society have given time to the administration to take an immediate action on this matter.

Dehradun, March 15
Six persons, including five women, who were coming back home from Haridwar after the Shahi Snan, died, while one got injured when the Max Jeep they were travelling in lost control and turned turtle at Totaghati, Devprayag, in Tehri district.

Five persons died on the spot, while one was declared brought dead at a hospital in Devprayag. The injured driver of the jeep had been referred to a hospital in Dehradun.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyak Nishank expressed grief over the death of the six persons. The CM has directed the district administration to give required financial help to the family members of the deceased and the injured. 

Dehradun, March 15
An eight-year-old boy was allegedly sodomised by a student of the city’s private deemed university here yesterday morning at latter’s residence at the Turner Road.

The police has arrested accused Muzim Rehmad. The victim was sent for medical examination and reports have confirmed the allegation.

The victim’s mother Kamlesh, who is working as a domestic help, told mediapersons that her son was alone in the house when the incident happened. She added that the accused enticed her child with some candy to sodomise him.

He then fled the spot and the child narrated the matter to his mother, who later lodged a complaint. The victim’s father works outstation and his brother was playing outside when the incident happened.

The victim is a student of class II at Love Day School. The accused is studying in Graphic Era University in Dehradun. The family of the victim and the accused were staying as tenants at the house of Mohsid.

The SHO of the Clement Town police station said they had arrested the accused today. He had been absconding after committing the crime. The police said the accused, who hailed from Bhavanipur in UP, had confessed to his crime.