Bathinda, May 15
Announcing the launch of a decisive battle against the Union government for getting ‘One Rank One Pension’ for the ex-servicemen here today, national president of the ex-servicemen wing of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Col Partap Inder Singh Phulka (Retd) called upon the ex-soldiers of North India to rise above party affiliations and join in support of the demand.

Talking to TNS here today Phulka said that in reply to a question regarding ‘One Rank One Pension’ in the Lok Sabha in April this year, the Union Minister of State for Defence had stated that in the light of various administrative, financial and legal implications, it had not been found feasible to consider the demand fully. He said it showed that the Union government had ended the matter.

Phulka made an appeal to all ex-servicemen to join the “Wangaar rally” of the ex-servicemen to be held at Sangrur on May 23 in order to convey a strong message to the Union government that all ex-servicemen were united on the issue of ‘One Rank One Pension’.

He said the ex-servicemen would continue their struggle in a big way till the Union government accepted their long-pending demand.

Phulka said the “Wangaar yatra”, which had started on May 7 from Chandigarh for Majha and Doaba regions, had got an overwhelming response in villages. He said the “Wangaar yatra” for the Malwa area would start on May 25 from Patran in Patiala district as a part of collection of one lakh signatures of ex-servicemen on the memorandum to be given to the President of India in Delhi. He said about 40,000 signatures had been collected on the memorandum so far.

District president of the wing Major Karnail Singh Gidder Windi (Retd) said a large number of ex-servicemen from Bathinda district would certainly participate in the “Wangaar rally” scheduled for May 23 to force the Union government to accept their demand of ‘One Rank One Pension’ at the earliest.

Bathinda, May 15
About 250 cases of domestic violence have been registered under “The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act-2005” in various parts of the state since March 2007.

Director of the Women and Child Development Department, Punjab Madhvi Kataria said here today that domestic violence had emerged as a social evil in the society. In such circumstances, the Act had been providing protection to the affected women. So, it was a need of the hour that every woman should have complete knowledge about the Act, she added.

Kataria further said all child development project officers (CDPOs) of the state had been appointed protection officers by the Punjab Government through a notification under the Act and they too should have complete information and knowledge about the Act.

She said if there would be lack of coordination among the CDPOs, the police, the NGOs, and the legal authorities then implementation of the Act would suffer to an extent. She said this was the reason that her department had been organising awareness workshops about the Act since March 27 in the districts. CDPOs, advocates, police officials, members of the NGOs and state legal authorities had been taking part in these workshops.

She was here today to attend such a workshop organised for two districts of Bathinda and Mansa, in the local Circuit House.

Among others, the workshop was attended by joint director of the department Nachhattar Singh, deputy director Rajnish Kumar, an advocate from Punjab and Haryana High Court Veena Sharma, secretary of the District Red Cross Society JR Goyal, District Programme Officer Shashi Tayagi, the CDPOs, the police officials and the local advocates.

Kataria also said any woman, facing domestic violence, could lodge complaint with the CDPO, the NGO concerned, the police, and the magistrate.

It was also told at the workshop that domestic violence against a woman might be on various grounds, like sexual, economic, social and emotional.

Bathinda, May 15
The police was today deployed for smooth functioning of various government high schools of Bathinda district that were locked by residents of the respective villages after these were brought under the Centre-sponsored Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA).

Local residents were protesting against replacement of regular teachers of these schools by contractual staff recruited under the RMSA.

The police raided the school in the Bhai Bakhtaur village near Talwandi Sabo and broke opened the lock on the main gate.

However, residents of the village protested and again locked the gate that was opened following an assurance of the SDM, Talwandi Sabo, that he would take steps to settle the issue on Monday.

Residents of the Kothe Chet Singh village took out a march to protest against the move to “privatise” the government school.

The police was also deployed in the school at Burj Bir Talab where the school started functioning normally.

The government has brought 70 schools in Punjab under the RMSA and six of these are in the Bathinda district.

Bathinda, May 15
As per joint decision of 17 farmer and labourer organisations of the state, farmers and labourers will boycott the electricity bills throughout the state by way of not making the payments against the bills, which have been issued after the reimposition of the same by the Badal government.

In a press note issued here today, general secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) Sukhdev Singh Kokri Kalan said the Badal government had reimposed the electricity bills on the tubewell motors by backtracking from its promise.

Kokri Kalan said the farmers and the labourers would stage demonstrations in front of the offices of the deputy commissioners on May 17 in the state to compel the government to withdraw its decisions regarding imposition of electricity bills on tubewell motors of farmers and domestic bills of labourers (upto 100 units); unbundling of the PSEB; and in favour of other issues.

Guru Har Sahai (Ferozepur), May 15
The sleuths of counter intelligence (CI) wing picked up two youths, one suspected to an agent of Pakistan's ISI agency, from this town, late last evening.

Though district police and senior functionary of CI refused to make any comment, information gathered by TNS revealed that two youths were picked up from the premises of tractor showroom, located at the outskirts of this town. One other youth, who was also wanted by the sleuths of CI, managed to escape their net.

Though senior officials of various other intelligence agencies functioning under the command of central government tried to solve the mystery behind this event, they could not do the same so far as all the related developments were being kept highly secret.

One of the eyewitnesses, who managed to reach on the spot, said that he had seen a senior functionary of the CI picking up a bag full of clothes from the premises of tractor showroom. He said that functionary had told him that he could not divulge the details of the operation as it was highly secret.

The owner of tractor showroom could not be contacted for his comments as his whereabouts could not be known.

R. N. Dhoke, DIG, CI and S. P. S. Parmar, SSP, Ferozepur, when contacted, said that they had no knowledge of any such incident taking place in Ferozepur district. 

Moga, May 15
The Excise and Taxation (ET) Department recovered the first instalment of licence fee amounting to over Rs 1.5 crore for April from all the liquor contractors of the district.

The disputed liquor group of Sadhu Singh, who shut-down his liquor shops last week, also paid the dues of Rs 32.21 lakh on Saturday, which has been deposited in the account of the excise department in a local bank.

Revealing this to The Tribune, SJS Bisla, assistant excise and taxation commissioner (AETC), said that there were certain hurdles created by some contractors in the process of the recovery but after the government decided to act tough against them, they had deposited all the dues.

After depositing the fee, Sadhu reopened four vends of IMFL liquor located at the district headquarters on Saturday while the fifth one would be opened by Sunday evening. It is learnt that he had tried to create undue pressure on the department by shutting down his vends trying to project that the contractors were running into losses due to 25 per cent hike in the licence fee, this year.

Bisla said that the department would also collect the interest at the rate of 1.5 per cent per day from all those groups who had delayed in paying the licence fee, the cut-off date of which was April 30, this year.

Abohar, May 15
Migrants from Rajasthan who had arrived here to arrange wheat by harvesting have shifted their makeshift huts to safer places from the new grain market following an attack by stray dogs on Friday. Stray dogs who roam around the unauthorised animal cremation ground located close to the grain yards dragged two-year-old boy on Friday besides eating up two calves. — OC