Jalandhar, July 13
Nearly 80 per cent Additional District Attorneys (ADAs)-cum-Additional Public Prosecutors (APPs) are working on contracts in different parts of Punjab.

Thanks to the decision of the Punjab government, which has been appointing ADAs-cum-APPs on contract for the last nearly four years.

Now, raising their voice against their appointments on contract, Punjab District Attorneys Association Secretary Harnek Singh stated that contractual ADAs-cum-APPs could not pursue the cases of different government departments effectively due to job insecurity as they were appointed on contract for just 11 months and were paid only Rs 18,000 per month. According to information gathered 
by The Tribune, nearly 150 of the total about 175 ADAs in all the districts of the state are presently working on contract.

Interestingly, now the Parkash Singh Badal led SAD-BJP government has started direct recruitment of DAs cum PPs and District DAs-cum-District PPs on contract, instead of adopting the prevailing system of promoting ADAs-cum-APPs and DDAs-cum-DPPs.

Confirming this, Harnek Singh said DA-cum-PP was recently appointed through direct recruitment in Sangrur.

Following the recent development of the direct recruitment of DAs-cum-PPs and DDAs-cum-DPPs, the Punjab District Attorneys Association decided to file a writ petition in SC against the direct recruitment of DAs-cum-PPs, DDAs-cum-DPPs and appointment of ADAs-cum-APPs on contract.

At the same time, the association President RS Bajwa and its Secretary Harnek Singh said they would first meet Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal to lodge their grievances. Besides abolishing the contract system in these appointments, the Deputy CM would also be urged to raise their pays and perks immediately, they added.

If their genuine demands were not fulfilled, they would be left with no option but to knock at the door of the apex court of the country, they added.

Kapurthala, July 13
Rajya Sabha member Avinash Rai Khanna motivated inmates at the district jail here to save rainwater for recharging the groundwater.

Addressing the prisoners in the jail this evening, he gave them tips to save precious water in their daily life and appealed to them to help the jail authorities save the rainwater for recharging the groundwater.

Nowadays on a mission to encourage every person to adopt the habit of saving at least one litre water daily, Khanna announced to give a special grant from his MPLAD fund for expenses incurred on tubewell bore and laying of pipes on the roofs of the jail for putting the rainwater into the tubewell bore to recharge the groundwater, which has been depleting at a very fast rate in the state for last several years.

The prisoners assured him to help the jail authorities by raising their hands.

Talking to mediapersons, the BJP MP said he had decided to spend his MPLAD funds on sponsoring the “save rainwater scheme” in all jails of the state and had so far launched the scheme in seven jails.

He said it was international concern to save water for future as only 3 per cent water was potable and the major portion was being wasted because of ignorance and bad habits.

He disclosed that 84 blocks had been declared as black zones in Punjab. Further, 11,849 villages in the state had been adversely affected due to depleting of underground water, he added.

Jalandhar, July 13
In the wake of recent incidents of fire in the old congested bazaars of the city, the Municipal Corporation is in the process of sprucing up its fire services for combating any such eventuality in future.

The agenda of the MC House meeting scheduled for July 15 has quite a few items on the matter. It has been proposed that two small fire tenders be built by fabricating two new Tata 407 trucks for easy entry into the narrow alleys.

The MC is also in the process of setting up a new sub-fire station at Paragpur village near Deep Nagar at a cost of Rs 25 lakh. There is also a proposal to appoint new staff, including four sub-fire officers, four leading firemen, four driver operators and 18 firemen for which there will be an extra burden of Rs 46 lakh for payment of salaries.

Phagwara, July 13
Although the Phagwara Nagar Council had constructed six water tanks to provide drinking water round the clock, all six tanks have been lying dry for the past more than 12 years and the residents are getting water supply from 30 tubewells from 3 am to 9 am, 12 noon to 2 pm and 5 pm to 9 pm.

The Tribune correspondent took a round of the town and found almost all water tanks lying in a deserted condition. Though two water tanks with a capacity of two lakh gallons each had been set up in the local Satnampura and Baba Gadhia localities, while two water tanks of one-lakh gallon capacity each were built in Hargobind Nagar and Town Hall. Besides two other small tanks of 10,000 gallons each were constructed in Model Town and the Industrial Area. But none of these water tanks could be filled even during the past 12 years and water was being provided directly from the tubewells.

It was learnt that half a dozen generator sets were purchased by the Nagar Council to run the tubewells, but not even a single generator could be run and the residents were deprived of drinking water during power cuts. The NC has deployed only 12 operators in rotation to run these 30 tubewells.

Nagar Council Executive Officer Adarsh Sharma said on Tuesday that water the level was receding day by day and due to low water table, tubewell water could not reach the water tanks. However, he said steps would soon be taken to make proper use of the water tanks.

Jalandhar, July 13
The local Sanskriti KMV School conducted its first outstation excursion of three days and two nights to Dalhousie, Khajjiar and Chamba during the summer vacations. As many as 27 students of class VII to X went for the trip.

Jalandhar, July 13
A two-day workshop on “Strengthening human values and life skills in education” was held under the aegis of the DAV Institute of In-Service Education, DAV College Management Committee, Delhi, at the local Hans Raj Mahila Maha Vidyalaya (HMV). The workshop was an initiative of the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.

The Deputy Director, Sainik Welfare Board, was the chief guest while the ADCP, Traffic, Gaganajit Singh, was the guest of honour. Addressing the gathering he said 
human values meant a disciplined life. He highlighted 4 P’s-Plan, prepare, practice and perform. “Apart from this, time management in life is another vital factor for achieving success,” he added.

The Assistant Director, DAVIIER, Rashmi S. Chari, Education Officer, Dr Chand Trehan, Principal, DAV School, Jammu, Dr Rakesh Sachdeva, Principal DAV Public School, Principal, DAV Public School, Chandigarh, and Dr Rashmi Vij, Principal DAV Public School, Jalandhar, were the resource persons.

Talking about good human qualities, Rashmi Chari said the focus of the workshop was performance-based learning. She said the price of excellence was determination, dedication and devotion. “Through this workshop planning, designing and evaluation of co-scholastic activities in schools would be done,” she added.

Officiating Principal of the college, Sarita Khullar, said only a better human being could become a better teacher and the objective of the workshop was to transform human beings into better human beings by teaching them life skills.

The Director, Public Schools, DAVCMC, Junesh Kackria, said the objective of the workshop was to train the teachers so that they could understand their students in a better way.

Earlier during the inaugural session, participants were divided into two groups and brainstorming discussion sessions were held on life skills orientation of teachers, planning and evaluation of life skills and attitude building.

Jalandhar, July 13
To create awareness among students regarding literature, language, religion, culture and history of Punjab, the Languages Department will conduct a district-level written quiz competition at Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Ladowali Road, on August 20.

July 23 is the last date for submitting the entries. “Interested students should send their entries mentioning full details signed by the principal. The applications should include details like name, father’s name, mother’s name, full address, school or college name, place and other details of the school”, said an official of the department.The competition would be held in three groups. In the first group, students till Class VIII could participate. In the second group, students from Class IX to XII could take part, while in the third group, the college students were eligible to participate, the official said.

Jalandhar, July 13
Seems like the city’s two-play-old dramatist has embarked on a new phenomenon with his third play - formula theatre - which reminds us of those formula movies that Bollywood is glad to have gotten rid of. Take a script, lace it with drama, action, comedy, throw in a rich girl-poor boy romance, sprinkle some sexy ladies and don’t forget the dance number tadka. Ta da! your perfect formula play’s ready.

Sukhwinder Sukhi’s “Daku Kab Ayenge” staged at Red Cross Bhavan recently was a cross between Bollywood’s stale formula entertainment and those cheeky (but funny) Pakistani plays that we used to watch on cable.

To be fair to Sukhi, who himself played the lead protagonist, the plot held promise to begin with, but was wasted as the play proceeded. The story of Shabash Ghai a clean-but-flop-movie-director - with a sensuous but nagging, dahej-from-mayka-drooling wife (Sonika Chauhan), aptly called Komalika and three daughters (two little ones and a good-looking-but-mentally-vacuous, servant-romancing elder one) - started off looking good.

The filmy servant (Ankush Dhawan) and sleazy, Baba Dang-voiced father-in-law added to the flavour of the situation.

A lot of laughs could be raked up but the opportunity was missed. Barring a few punches, the jokes fell flat. Most of it was owing to the fact that the script lost it’s consistency time and again. In the beginning it looked like the coming of the dakus - who Ghai ardently prays for stealing away Komalika’s dahej goodies - was what the play would essentially be about. But towards the mid, the play’s focus veered off to Ghai’s film career and his shift to making cheap flicks for a better reputation. The social message came across but the comic timing, unfortunately, didn’t.

In the end, the play almost jerked back to the daku theme, and till the time the dakus finally came in, the audience had almost lost patience. One could sense the effort involved and Sukhi’s attempt at places to say something meaningful, but it could have been saved with a taut, focused script and some intelligently executed jokes.

Jalandhar, July 13
A high drama was witnesses at Model Town when a police party intercepted an Indica car and nabbed its three occupants for allegedly “abducting” a schoolboy. The car occupants were reportedly trying to speed away with the boy after giving him a sound beating.

The incident occurred this afternoon when three youths spotted the schoolboy, Sawan Verma, resident of Basti Bawa Khel locality, near a religious building at Model Town and gave him a sound beating publicly.

Sawan was beaten up for teasing a sister of one of the car occupants, sources in the police revealed. The suspects have been identified as Ayush and his friends Ishu and Jatinder, claimed Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Paramjit Singh.

The ACP revealed that Sawan had been making phone calls to Ayush’s sister for a long time. The girl’s family had already warned Sawan to stop all this or face the music.

Today the relatives of the girl decided to teach Sawan a lesson and succeeded in locating him in the area and thrashed him.

A vigilant passerby alerted the police, following which a PCR vehicle chased the Indica car and managed to overpower its occupants near Masand Chowk.

The police detained Ayush, Ishu and Jatinder at Model Town police station. Family members of both the parties were camping at the police station till filing of the report.