Chandigarh, April 3
The Core Committee of the SAD has decided to send a team of leaders to Delhi who will take up the issue of the death sentence to 17 Indians in Dubai.

The committee decided that Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who would lead the team, would call on the Prime Minister on April 7 and appeal to him to take steps to resolve this issue.

The meeting, which was chaired by SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, expressed concern that steps that were expected to save the lives of the 17 persons were not being taken by the Centre.

Leaders present at the meeting emphasised that if the US President could himself go to Korea to save the life of a woman journalist of his country then it was the duty of the Indian Government to take serious steps to save 17 precious lives. The meeting was surprised on how 17 persons could be convicted for a single murder.

Giving details of the meeting in a statement party secretary and spokesman Daljit Singh Cheema said the issue of the non-lifting of wheat by the Centre was also discussed.Members were of the view that the Centre had deliberately adopted this lacklustre approach thereby damaging the crop of Punjab peasants.

Members expressed concern that if the Centre failed to lift the present stocks, it would be very tough to store the new crop.The Core Committee asked the Centre to shed this approach and take steps immediately to lift the crop stored in godowns.

Cheema further said the meeting also deliberated upon the celebrations of the coming centenary of Baba Banda Singh Bahadur on May 14 and the welcoming of the nagar kirtan that had started from Takht Sri Hazur Sahib. A five-member committee comprising Gurdev Singh Badal, Balwinder Singh Bhunder, Jathedar Tota Singh, Sewa Singh Sekhwan and Prem Singh Chandumajra was formed to look after the arrangements for the same.

He said the issue of the coming elections to the SGPC was also discussed and duties were assigned to streamline all wings and the organisational set-up and increase their activities.

Chandigarh: Punjab Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia on Saturday claimed that the death sentence awarded to 17 Punjabis by a UAE court was another example of racial discrimination meted out to Indians in foreign countries lately.

In a statement here, Kalia said a legal garb had been given to a decision which defied any logic, saying nowhere in the world had 17 persons been awarded the death sentence for one murder.

The BJP leader said it was not possible for the affected families to fight out this kind of discrimination and that the Indian government should come out in their support immediately. He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should wake up to the seriousness of the issue and personally take it up with his UAE counterpart.

Kalia also demanded that “super PM” Sonia Gandhi should take note of the fact that the trial in the case was going on for one year and that the Indian government as well as its Ambassador in the UAE did not do anything to ensure the best possible legal aid to the affected Indians.

Batala, April 3
Has the Batala BJP MLA Jagdish Raj Sawhney resigned from his post as the Chief Parliamentary Secretary (Excise and Taxation)?Since morning the grapevine in this industrial township had it that Sawhney had resigned as Batala MLA. However, his family members scotched these rumours and later sources confirmed that Sawhney had actually sent his letter of resignation as the Chief Parliamentary Secretary (Excise and Taxation) to the Punjab BJP President, Ashwani Sharma.

In his one-page letter dated April 2, Sawhney has said, “Most respectfully I beg to state that due to my health condition, it is very difficult to work as Chief Parliamentary Secretary and I request you to please let me quit this post. I shall be thankful to you.”

Sources reveal that Sawhney had been having differences with a senior BJP minister which led to his “resignation”.

Sawhney’s daughter Ambika Khanna, who is also the President of Batala Municipal Council, refused to comment on the issue, which has caught the locals with surprise.

Ludhiana, April 3
The allotment of 6,000 liquor vends in the state has been completed smoothly and there is no cartel now with introduction of the lottery system.This system was introduced by Capt Amarinder Singh in 2006. Earlier, liquor vends were captured by bigger liquor contractors who formed cartels. 

Even now, bigger liquor contractors manage to procure a big number of vends but only through a transparent draw of lots. Their method is simple: file a large number of applications.

The state government has adopted a system of making groups or what is known as zones in all cities and towns. Each zone consists of five to six vends and in some cases, the number went up to seven vends in a zone.

A Venu Prasad, Commissioner, Excise and Taxation Department, claims that on an average the zone comprises five to six vends and application forms for allotment were also received at the rate of each zone. This year a record number of applications, 95,000, were received and the department earned a revenue of Rs 150 crore.

While talking to The Tribune, Venu Prasad also denied that there was any monopoly allotment of vends to a particular group.

However, inquiries made by The Tribune have revealed that Deep Malhotra Group, Amrik Singh Dhillon Group and Singla Group of Panipat have got the maximum number of groups (vends) all over the Punjab state. They have been able to get groups of vends in major towns like Ludhiana, Patiala, Jalandhar, Bathinda, Sangrur and Ferozepur.

Singla group has a sizeable share of vends in Haryana too. Another group known as A to Z group of liquor trade from Rajasthan also got some vends at Bathinda and Ludhiana.

According to Venu Prasad, the state government has received Rs 400 crore as advance money for the first quarter of April to June.

Liquor baron Ponty Chadha has gradually withdrawn from the state. 

Ludhiana, April 3
Cooperative milk producers of the nation have demanded a subsidy package for the cooperative milk industry in India if a white revolution is to be brought about.

The cooperative representatives of the country put forth their demands before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Minister Sharad Pawar during a recent meeting in New Delhi.

The delegation led by Chairman of Verka Milk Plant, Ludhiana, Avtar Singh Bhagpur, shared with Pawar the problems being faced by cooperative milk producers across the nation.

They sought a subsidy package for the cooperative milk industry on the plea that the private milk producers compensate their losses by concealing or evading the payment of taxes to the government. "Whereas the cooperative milk producers have to pay all the taxes," said

Bhagpur, talking to The Tribune. He said the delegation also demanded amendments in the Cooperative Act, subsidy on cattle feed, 4 per cent VAT on all products related to the dairy industry and loans to dairy farmers at the rate of 4 per cent.

"If our demands are fulfilled by the government, it will be the first step towards bringing about white revolution in the country," Bhagpur added.

He also revealed that the cooperative milk producers have demanded from Pawar that the money collected by means of taxes from the Cooperative Milk Plants be planned to be invested on the welfare of the cooperative milk producers of the nation. "We have also asked for a package to extend relief to the dairy industry at the earliest," Bhagpur remarked.

The milk producers have appealed to the government to provide 200 bulk milk coolers to the milk plant at Ludhiana under the RKY Scheme.

Bhagpur said the Prime Minister as well as Pawar have assured all possible help to the cooperative milk producers at the earliest.

Also present during the meeting were Balister Singh Mann, Chairman of Milk Union, Faridkot, and Darshan Singh, Chairman, Milk Union, Ferozepur.

Khanna, April 3
In view of storage problem in government godowns, the District Food Supply Controllers may store wheat in various flour mills across Punjab.

The government officials said government procuring agency Pungrain would store the procured wheat in flour mills and all modalities in this regard have been completed. However, the process would be adopted only if problem of wheat storage arises.

Anticipating the problem, the officials said the wheat stored could be used for making flour under the atta-dal scheme.

Various flourmills have been grinding wheat to meet with the requirements of poor people under the scheme.

It depends upon the flour mill owners if they would like to purchase the wheat at government price or not. Last year, the farmers faced problem in stocking their wheat produce for sale in grain market and it was glut like situation that persisted for more than a week. Farmer bodies also staged dharnas to expedite the lifting process, as procuring agencies failed to lift wheat from the grain market on time.

State president of the Punjab Roller Flour Mills Association Naresh Ghai stated that a delegation of their association met with the government officials recently in 
this regard.

He, however, said this was just a proposal at the moment and everything depends upon the government to implement the decision.

Market committee secretary at Khanna Grain Market Kuldip Singh said last year on the same day 230 quintals of wheat arrived till date. However, only 50 or 70 quintal wheat has arrived so far this season.

He said if the government uses flour mills to store wheat then storage problem could be solved this time. The government agency that stocks wheat in flour mills, procures 20 or 21 per cent wheat from the total produce in the state, he said. The officials said nearly 25,000 quintal wheat was supposed to be stocked in every flour mill as per the agreement.

Dhanaula (Barnala), April 3
At a time when everything is going hi-tech and technology is changing the face of the world, this dusty little town in the Malwa region of the state still takes pride in retaining its worldwide fame in the production of wooden toys.

As you enter the town of Dhanaula, sights of colourful wooden toys, displayed in multi-deck stalls on both sides of the state highway, welcome you.

The toys, replica of tractors, jeeps, trucks, trailers, cars and combine harvesters, are so attractive that it forces one to halt and have a glimpse of the beauty and elegance of the handicraft of the carpenters whose artistry is on display here.

The beeline of stalls displaying attractive toys, prices ranging between Rs 150-1000, is itself an evidence of people's propensity for them. The love for these toys transcends the boundaries of rural areas and even people from the metros lap them up.

Considering the change in the taste of buyers, especially children, the carpenters have become quite flexible. Besides a number of traditional toys like tractor, truck, bus, jeep, they are now coming up with toys of new shape depicting the modern vehicles.

“Earlier, children used to ask for a car with no specifications but now they ask for the model of the car. The villagers too have become choosy. They ask for specific brand and model of tractors, like some want Swaraj, others want Farmtrac, HMT, Mahindra and Escort,” said Ranjodh Singh.

It may be the reason why the business has flourished to such an extent that the number of stalls has increased, unlike in the past, when people thought it to be as leisure activity.

More than a dozen families are engaged in this trade and it is not only local carpenters but also a number of outsiders who had migrated there and followed the trade.

"Earlier, the toys were sold only in retail but with an increase in demand and expansion of the trade and its followers in far-flung places, now many of us deal in wholesale trade also," said another carpenter Gurpreet Singh.

"Though we had adopted the trade as a medium to express our art, but with change in time, the scope of supplementing one's income has superceded the original view," the carpenters concluded, saying gradually their fraternity had started competing with each other not only in terms of quality but also in the pricing of the toys that could harm their reputation by deflecting the attention from artistry to monetary considerations.

Jalandhar, April 3
From now on, several options will be available to engineering diploma holders to improve their qualifications. Punjab Technical University (PTU) has been told to change the rules to allow the polytechnic diploma holder students to take admission straightway in the second year of the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA), BSc (Engineering) and other degree courses.

Decisions in this connection were taken at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the PTU held under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary, SC Aggarwal.

Under the lateral entry scheme, such diploma holders were eligible only to take admission in the second year of the engineering degree courses after passing the diploma course. The PTU has been told to earmark 10 per cent seats over and above the seats sanctioned by the All-India Council of Technical Education for the BBA, BCA, BSc (engineering) degree courses in the colleges affiliated to it.

There are about 40,000 sanctioned seats for the BBA and other degree courses.That means 4,000 seats will become available to diploma holders to join degree courses of different streams. The students become eligible to join three-year diploma course after passing the matric examination. In case they opt to do some degree course, they will complete it in five years after passing matric.

The government has also written to the vice-chancellors of Guru Nanak Dev University and Punjabi University to make such a provision of lateral entry in the BBA, BCA and other courses on their campus and in the colleges affiliated to them.

Amritsar, April 3
In what could be good news for homemakers, the prices of sugar have registered a sudden dip, though they have nothing much to cheer themselves up as prices of other household items of daily use like pulses, tea leaves and elaichi have registered a hike which is bound to upset the budget of the common man.

What has hit the consumers hard is the hike in the prices of green cardamom and big cardamom.

While the decline in sugar prices is said to be due to a decreased demand in the post-festival season coupled with an increased flow of the commodity in the market following the release of quota sugar, the hike in the prices of pulses is being attributed to “large scale” and “calculated” hoarding by big traders across the country.

Sugar, market sources pointed out, has come down to Rs 34-35 a kg from Rs 37.50 a kg about a week ago. The wholesale price of sugar is Rs 3,425 a quintal. It was selling at around the highest price of Rs 48 a kg till about a month ago and its price had kept fluctuating between Rs 40 and Rs 48 a kg during the festival season amid allegations of large-scale hoarding.

“What is use of cribbing when even large-scale protests have failed to attract the attention of the government, which has failed to curb inflation despite it being a ‘sarkar of aam aadmi’? We have stopped asking for the price of pulses as I know that every time I go to the shop, I will be getting them at higher prices,” said Asha Kumari, a teacher. She said pulses and vegetables have become luxuries.

The price of chana dal has increased from Rs 32 to Rs 34 a kg and that of kala chana from Rs 33-34 to Rs 36 a kg during the past one month. Moong dal has registered the biggest hike in pulses as its price has increased in retail from Rs 88-90 to Rs 105 a kg during the past three days and from Rs 82 to Rs 97 a kg in the wholesale market. The price of safed chana, however, has declined from Rs 70 to Rs 60 a kg, market sources pointed out.

If a kilogramme of chhoti elaichi was available at Rs 925 a kg a month ago, it was available for Rs 1,240 a kg now. Similarly, the price of moti elaichi has gone up from Rs 400 to Rs 600 a kg, a neat 30 to 50 per cent hike. The price of a 985 gram packet of Tajmahal tea has increased from Rs 280 to Rs 345 in about a month, while a 950 gm packet of Red Label tea was now available for Rs 240 as against Rs 187, its price last month. 

Patiala, April 3
In the wake 17 Punjabi youths being sentenced to death in UAE, various student organisations have threatened a stir to protest against the UAE government.

Terming the entire incident as unfortunate, these bodies have asked the Centre and the state government to immediately intervene in this matter. They said any delay in this matter would force them to stage demonstrations against the injustice being done not only to these 17 but to the entire nation.

President of the Student Organisation of India, Gurpreet Singh Raju Khanna, has appealed to all politicians to jointly fight for the release of the youths. “It is not just a matter of Punjabiat or injustice against a single community but it’s a matter of national importance. Giving death penalty to 17 persons is the height of cruelty. The Central government must take immediate stand for their safety. It’s high time that the entire nation joined the hands to fight with the families of the convicts against the death penalty,” he added.

Students of Punjabi University have also shown resentment over the verdict. Extending their support to the affected families, they stated that they would do every possible thing to fight against this decision.

SSF president Parmjeet Singh Gazi said their organisation wanted the Centre and the state government to do the needful to prevent their execution. “About 139 countries have abolished the death penalty, in law or in practice. Moreover ‘reformation’ and not the elimination of the offender is the popular theory of punishment at the international level,” he added.

Chhat (Banur), April 3
The animal adoption scheme at Mahendra Choudhary Zoological Park has found corporate giants like Reliance and Aircel making a beeline to adopt animals and publicise them. Multinational companies have made queries to adopt animals in the zoo and taken details of modalities, benefits and expense to adopt an animal.

Officials at the zoo said so far these companies were only interested in big wild animals like lion, tiger and elephant. “Their motive is to popularise their brands and company name under which they may demand installing boards and nameplates in front of the animals they adopt,” sources at zoo said.

At present only a deer has been adopted by the DSP from Lalru last month. The Animal Adoption Scheme was introduced last October during the wildlife week by the zoo.

The officials said people had been enquiring about the scheme, which was already being publicised by the department and boards, with banners and pamphlets been distributed among visitors during the past few months.

Under the scheme, people would be at liberty to adopt any wild animal of their choice by paying their food costs.

Zoo director Tushar Kanti Bahera said people could adopt any bird or animal from a minimal cost of around Rs 500 to more than Rs 10,000. Besides adopting a wild animal, they can also opt for birds and other small animals and people could enquire about the day-to-day diet and health, hygiene and medical care of the animals.

Kharar, April 3
The country’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi never leaves a chance to work with the grassroots, especially the women. In her latest initiative, Bedi aims at empowering women.

Through her NGOs Navjyoti and India Vision Foundation she has launched a woman-for-woman programme in New Delhi.

“Working with people at the bottom of pyramid, we realise the sacrifice a working woman makes to bring up her children and care for elderly in the family. Keeping this in mind, we will run this programme wherein unemployed women would be trained to perform these tasks and lend helping hand to other working women,” revealed Dr Bedi.

Trainees would get job through NGOs. They would also be provided with uniforms and registration numbers in order to leave no scope for exploitation in the hands of employers, added Bedi whose NGO was awarded the NGO of the year award today at a function held in New Delhi.

Appreciating the government’s decision on providing women with more opportunities in armed forces, Bedi observed “All of us are equally competent to work and in today’s times gender is certainly not an issue,” she said.

Talking about the maligned image of the Punjab Police, Bedi said the need of the hour was to instill responsible leadership at the top-most level. “In policing, trust of masses should not get diluted. An accountable leadership can do wonders for policing and government should realise it,” she said.

Calling Punjabi youth to unite against drugs, former top cop Dr Kiran Bedi, asked them to raise voice for women rights as well.

Bedi, who was attending the annual function Of Chandigarh Group of Colleges, Landran, as as chief guest, said students are future of nation and their personal moral growth along with professional education is a must.

Talking about her successful TV show Aapki Kachehri, Bedi said the third season of the show may also begin. Not only Indian but international audience too wants more out of it, she said.

Australian filmmaker Megan Doneman has made a documentary on Kiran Bedi’s life story, Yes Madam, Sir, a non-fictional inspiring feature film which has already won awards at Adelaide International Film Festival 2009 and many other international festivals.

Fazilka, April 3
Gurmeet Singh of Kamal wala village of the district was allegedly murdered by his girlfriend Balwinder Kaur and her uncle Kulwinder Singh when the accused came to know that the deceased was planning to get married to someone else instead of Balwinder.

Gurmeet Singh (22) was done to death late last night in the house of Balwinder Kaur.Balwinder Kaur and Kulwinder Singh allegedly killed Gurmeet and then threw out his body. It was found lying in front of the house of Balwinder Kaur.

Though DSP Paramjit Singh Parmar claimed that on preliminary investigation it was found that it was not a case of honour killing, possibility of the same could not be ruled out completely.

He added that Balwinder was having an affair with Gurmeet for the past three years. She called the boy to her house yesterday and killed him with the help of her uncle to take revenge as the deceased was going to get engaged to someone else.