Haridwar, April 5
The fire season has started and forest areas of Haridwar have got the first fire of the season with several hectares of forest fauna getting engulfed in flames. The fire in the Beriwada forest range’s Teera beat of the Raja Ji National Park forest was visible from Haridwar.

A major alert has been sounded in all beats of the National Park forest with park and Forest Department employees urging villagers and local residents to help in checking spread of fire.

According to Beriwada Range forest employees, the fire must have broken out due to leaving of a burning match stick or a cigarette in the forest and as summer is on dry leaves and twigs easily catch fire.

Fire fighters, after a major operation spanning six hours, controlled the fire late in the night only.

Forest officers have urged people to be extra cautious these days and not leave any fire-prone object in jungles. Also localites and villagers are being urged to instantly inform the forest and park employees of any fire incident that comes into their notice.

But on the other side, villagers put the onus on the Forest Department itself pointing out that such fires were a result of the nexus between department employees and wood smugglers. Some villagers allege that these fire incidents are a deliberate attempt so as to destroy the remains of trees that are illegally chopped by the wood mafia in connivance with forest employees.

Haridwar, April 5
Noted danseuse and noted exponent of the kathak dance form Shobhana Narayan showed the Kumbh city a slice of her talent enthralling everyone present in the auditorium.

The world-renowned danseuse made the atmosphere Lord Shiva oriented by her meticulous divine performances of “Omkar bindu sanyunktam nityam dhyanam cha yogin” and “Kamdam mokshaam damchum va omkaray namo namah”.

Her steps in sync with the music just cast a spell that the audience too dipped in the divine lyrical chants of Lord Shiva.

After this, the Padma Shri-awardee presented a dance-drama wherein the flow of the holy river Ganga and the tale of Lord Shiva’s different forms were effectively presented.

Similarly, her classical presentations of Mahabharata’s Draupadi episode and the prayer of the holy river Ganga were told with few words, but more movements.

In making Shobhana’s performance a classic one, there was the hand of Pandit Madhav Prasad who composed the music, while on musical instruments were Shakil Ahmed Khan, Mahaveer Gangani and Vijay Sharma. The co artistes who aided Shobhana were Dharmendra, Gautam, Mahesh Pawar, Sunil Lal, Jyoti Manral and Seema Malhotra.

Notably, Shobhana is the first dancer to have conceived, conceptualised and brought out a dance video on the philosophy and legend of the immortal Khajuraho temples called “Danceof the Temples”.

Shobhana is an extremely versatile personality as she has to her credit two M Phil degrees, one in defence and strategic studies and the second in social sciences and public administration. Add to it, she is a masters in physics and an IAS 1976 passout too. But kathak is where her heart lies and she is renowned not only in India but the world over.

Dehradun, April 5
A votary of cerebral feminism, writer and poetess Mamta Kalia, in her hey days had the effrontery to look in the eye and upset more than one convention. Her ever-widening narrative while celebrating intense experiences of love, marriage and motherhood, never forsook the bigger concerns affecting society.

The erosion of social values with the advent of consumerism will find expression in her new novel, tentatively titled, “Big Bazar”. “I am still working on the novel. Let’s see how it shapes up. Every advancement and economic development comes with a price and the economic development sweeping our country had a negative impact on women, who are viewed as commodities,” said Mamta, who participated in the Doon Readings held here.

Critical at the way the patriarchal society continued to view women, she said there was a deliberate effort to devalue women and bring them down to a poor joke if they fought or raised their voice against injustice. “The ruckus created in Parliament too over the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill recently springs from that viewpoint. There are a few editors even in publication houses who view women purely as objects of titillation. The cerebral aspect will always have an insignificant space. No wonder, seldom is there a real effort to accede space to women. Physical exhibitions fetch more money in mainstream films and even women are game for it,” asserted Mamta.

After debuting with her first collection of poems in English, Mamta was forced to embrace Hindi language as soon as she shifted to Allahabad, where she taught English literature for several years.

“I was sucked into the mainstream of Hindi literature as soon as I shifted to Allahabad. Not only did I continue writing poetry and novels in Hindi, but also began contributing to mainstream Hindi literature journals,” she emphasised. All this while she lent a distinct voice to women writings in India, with more than a dozen titles to her credit, both in Hindi and English language.

“As a writer I like to pay heed to my own conscience, rather than adding to the pulp market,” she said.

“I have never been governed by the dictates of the market. For the past several years there has been a deliberate effort to keep oneself away from the trappings of the market-play and yet come out with quality work,” said the writer.

Born and brought up in an invigorating environment, Mamta was highly influenced by her father Vidya Bhushan Agarwal, a scholar in his own right. In fact, her first collection of poems, “Tribute to Papa and other poems,” in English is dedicated to her father.

Among her eight Hindi novels, “Prem Khani” and “Daud”, continue to be very popular.

Pitthoragarh, April 5
Pancheshwar, where a major dam is to be built jointly by India and Nepal, has now become a haven for anglers. A four-member British angling team is at present stationed there for a camp.

“The team aims to study the Himalayan mahaseer fish in detail as to how it breeds, grows and what are the effects of global warming on this cold fish species?” said Christopher, team leader.

Rajendra Garkoti, an angler guide and chief of an NGO named Tiger Adventure, who is accompanying the team, said the anglers, who reached at the site on April 2, would remain there for the next 12 days during which the team would visit Nagrughat and the Kali river area which, are rich in mahaseer species to study it in detail.

“We are organising this camp for the past five years. During this time local, national and foreign anglers visit the site,” said Rajandra Garkoti.

According to the studies done by the Uttarakhand government, Himalayan cold water fish mahaseer had other breeding places in eastern Ram Ganga, Nayar and Saryu and in the Mahakali river.

These places are being identified for angling in order to create tourist hubs in the sate, said Ramesh Singh Chalal, an official of the Fishery Department in Champawat district.

“The Mahakali river, which is the biggest treasure of mahaseer in Uttarakhand, has other places for angling enthusiast where besides golden mahaseer, other varieties of the species like red mahaseer, silver mahaseer, copper mahaseer and black mahaseer are found,” said Chalal.

He said due to heavy blasts carried out at some places in Himalayan rivers, the mahaseer species is facing a serious threat.

Such camps are an effort to save the fish from getting extinct, he added.

Dehradun, April 5
Rakesh Negi’s brilliant knock of 116 runs in 77 balls went in vain as host Survey of India managed to handout a 50-run defeat to PDCA during the ongoing the Central Government Employees’ Welfare Coordination Committee (CGEWCC) Cricket Tournament at the Survey’s Cricket Stadium, here today.

The Survey of India set a target of 151 runs at the loss of seven wickets in 25 overs after deciding to bat first. The team had a very bad starting as it lost three of its main batsmen in the first two overs of the match on 14 runs

However, Ajay Kumar (29), SS Rawat (24) and VK Purohit (37) handled the innings of the hosts making a valuable contribution to set a fighting target.

For the bowling side, Devender Sharma picked two wickets. Also, Vimal Gularia, Ashok Rana, LK Dabhal and SS Gusain pocketed a wicket each.

Replying to the target, Rakesh Negi slammed 116 runs in 77 balls in which he hit two sixes and 16 fours.

However to his dismay none other batsmen could support him from the other end.

This resultant in the loss of the side as it could just score 199 runs in the allotted 25 overs.

For the winning team, Ajay Kumar captured two wickets while Jaswant Gusain, HS Rawat, BS Bhandari got a wicket each.

Dehradun, April 5
The Uttarakhand Police registered yet another convincing win over the 5th Garhwal Rifle to enter the semifinal of the 2nd BS Negi Memorial Football Tournament underway at the Dr BR Ambedkar Stadium here today.

It trounced the Garhwal team 4-1. The mighty Police already in full confidence with previous authoritative wins kept the pressure on its rival from the very beginning. Police’s Vir Singh scored first goal for the team in 22nd minute of the game.

Sher Singh (48th minute) struck the next one for the Police team. The first half ended with 2-0 in the winning side’s favour.

Though Balwant (63rd minute) of the Garhwal Rifle scored the first goal of the second half, but the Uttarakhand Police players kept the ball rolling striking next two.

Manoj Joshi converted a penalty in the 79th minute while Vikash Chettri scored a goal in the 88th minute. Deepak Kandari was declared man of the match.

In the second match, CT Young edged past Gorkha Rifle 4-3 in the tiebreaker to enter quarterfinal. Sandeep, Shashank, Anurag and Gaurav Sharma scored for CT Young.

While Sairam, Rohit and Buddha scored for 6/8th Gorkha Rifle. Sumit Pundir of the winning side was adjudged man of the match.

Meanwhile, MP of Tehri Garhwal Vijay Bahuguna who was the chief guest on the occasion announced a cash prize of Rs 5,000 to the team that plays fair play. He handed over the cash amount to the organiser of the event today.

Dehradun, April 5
Rajendra Sports got the better of Doon Boys’ Star by four wickets on the second day of the 2nd Late Shri Hukam Singh Under-17 Cricket Tournament being organised by the Uttarakhand Youth T20 Cricket Association on the Matawala Bagh cricket ground.

Doon Star won the toss and decided to bat first. Nitin (25), Sameer (12) and Pankaj (10) were the only players who made good scorers for the team. The team with much difficulty managed to score 100 runs losing all its wickets in 24.4 overs.

For Rajendra Sports, Sharuk did the maximum damage claiming three wickets. Deepak also got two wickets while Vivek, Rohit and Sonu each got one batsman out.

Batting second, Rajendra Sports achieved the target in 19.1 overs at the loss of six wickets. All-rounder Sharuk (30) and Himanshu (25) were the principal scorers for the batting side.