Chandigarh, September 5
Haryana Governor Jagannath Pahadia, on the occasion of Teacher’s Day today, gave away awards to 34 teachers for outstanding performance.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda earned a big round of applause from the teaching community for enhancing the award money from Rs 11,000 to Rs 21,000.

Addressing the teachers after giving away awards, the Governor said the teachers must set an example in honesty and truthfulness so that the students could follow the same.

He said there had been reports in the media on teachers favouring some students and being involved in the bungling of welfare projects like the mid-day meal scheme.

This should be checked with an iron hand, he said.

Paying tributes to former President Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the Governor said the Haryana government had implemented a number of schemes to bring about qualitative change in the education system. The Chief Minister said Haryana would become an educational hub of international repute within the next five years.

The government had introduced “revolutionary” schemes to ensure quality education, he claimed.

Hooda said the teachers, entrusted with the task of moulding the future of the children, deserved much more and announced a hike of Rs 10,000 in the award money. Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal said the selection of teachers for the award had been made in a fair and transparent manner.

Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Education , Surina Rajan, and Director, Secondary Education, Vijender Kumar, also addressed the gathering.

The awardees are: Hari Pal Singh, Meham (Rohtak), Jaldhir Singh (Jhajjar), Sunita Nain, Panchkula, Sapna Jain, Karnal, Ram Kumar, Sisar Kharbala, Vinod Kumar Sharma, Balri (Karnal), Rajwanti Rathi, Faridabad, Shri Bhagwan, Thana Kalan Kamla Devi, Gohana Mandi, Desh Raj, Nand Ram Pur Bass (Rewari), Rohtash Singh, Jhojhu Kalan (Bhiwani), Satinder Jit Singh, Karnal, Om Parkash, Jatwara (Sonepat), Lahana Singh, Panipat, Sushil Bansal, Gohana Mandi, Usha Verma, Bhiwani Bhiwani, Satpal Singh, Nissing,, Arvind Kumar, Bachhod (Mahendragarh), Kesho Ram, Bagthala (Rewari), Rudra Datt, Bhanakpur (Faridabad), Ajaib Singh Sandhu, Goriwala (Sirsa), Rajesh Kumar, Karnal, Roshani Devi, Dujana (Jhajjar), Krishana Devi, Bhiwani, Nirmal Mor, Gohana , Partap Singh, Charkhi Dadri Ganesh D. Sharma, Panchkula, Sushila Phogat, Charkhi (Bhiwani), Bhim Sen Sharma, Pai (Kaithal), Ravinder Kumar, Faridabad, Silak Ram Bawani Khera (Bhiwani), Deepak Sharma, Ateli (Mahendragarh), YK Sharma, Sehatpur (Faridabad) and Sujita, Birhi Kalan (Bhiwani).

Sirsa, September 5
Internal strife in the Congress came to the fore today when the party organised a function for the installation of newly elected district president Malkiat Singh Khosa and other office-bearers of the district Congress.

Several senior party leaders, including former district president Hoshiari Lal Sharma, former minister LD Arora, former MLA Bharat Singh Beniwal, former MP Sushil Indora, minister Gopal Kanda’s brother Gobind Kanda, former MLA Lal Chand Khod, Rahul Setia and Kuldeep Gadrana, abstained from today’s function.

Predominantly a show of Sirsa MP Ashok Tanwar, the function was, however, attended by several senior leaders, including Ranjit Singh and Jagdish Nehra, former ministers, KV Singh, a former aide to the CM, block Congress president Bhupesh Mehta and District Mahila Congress president Shilpa Verma.

Factionalism in the district Congress surfaced last month when AICC general secretary Oscar Fernandes annulled the newly elected bodies of Sirsa and Fatehabad districts after an objection by Tanwar.

In the list of office-bearers released later, Hoshiari Lal Sharma, a long-time confidant of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, was replaced by Khosa, a confidant of Tanwar.

Though Sharma assigned no reasons for abstaining from today’s function, sources close to him said he was unhappy at his unceremonious exit after his formal election.

Similarly, Gobind Kanda, whose confidants Rajinder Gujjar and Rani Randhawa did not figure in the list released after Tanwar’s intervention, preferred to remain away from the party’s function today.

Gujjar was elected Sirsa (Rural) block president and Rani Randhawa was elected general secretary of the district in the list released earlier.

Bharat Singh Beniwal’s confidant Inder Sain, who was elected president of the Chopta block of the Congress in the first list, failed to figure in the list released after Tanwar’s intervention.

A senior party leader, requesting anonymity, said the MP’s main objection to the first list was that it was prepared through nominations, but the subsequent list prepared on his intervention, too, was made without any election.

Rohtak, September 5
Following reports that the elected representatives of the Haryana state Assembly were planning to put up their demand of hike in their pay and allowances in view of the revision done by Parliament for the MPs, a delegation of former MLAs of the state will soon meet the Chief Minister, demanding revision in pension.

Disclosing this, two former MLAs from Rohtak - Krishan Murti Hooda and Subhash Batra - said here recently that they were all set to take their demand to the authorities concerned.

Admitting that while the state government was yet to hike the salary or benefits of the sitting MLAs, they said they just wanted to make the government aware that similar benefits must also be given to former MLAs in case the government goes ahead with any decision for the serving legislators.

The pension of a former MLA, which was 
Rs 13,500, must be raised to at least Rs 25,000 besides other benefits in view of the growing
inflation.They said former MLAs in all neighbouring states had been getting over Rs 20,000 at present.

It was the Hooda government, which had raised the pension of former legislators from Rs 5,000 to the present level in its first tenure a few years ago.

Fatehabad, September 5
Three women were killed while 16 other persons were injured when the jeep they were travelling in overturned after its front tyre burst near Dariyapur village in this district this morning.

The victims were coming from Kathura village in Sonepat and were proceeding towards Sirsa to mourn the death of a kin there.

As the speeding vehicle approached Dariyapur, the front tyre of the vehicle burst following which the driver lost control over the jeep and it overturned.

Villagers rushed to the spot to rescue the victims. A police party also reached the spot and took out the victims from the badly damaged vehicle.

Sabo Bai, a sexagenarian woman, died on the spot, while Ram Pati (45) and Ram Ratti (50) succumbed to their injuries in the general hospital, Fatehabad, where they were shifted for treatment. The injured have been shifted to the general hospital in Fatehabad where their condition is stated to be stable.

Faridabad, September 5
The wheels of justice seem to have picked up speed in the state. A young judge (Judicial Magistrate-First Class), Lokesh Gupta, heading a special court to deal with cheque bounce cases and financial disputes, dispensed 123 cases in a day at a Lok Adalat.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Vimal Sapra settled a total of 142 cases.

Of the 123 cases cleared by Gupta, 93 were settled in a lok adalat, while Sapra settled all cases in a lok adalat. Ninety-three cases settled by Gupta were solved by way of compromise between the warring parties. The remaining cases were regarding offences under the Motor Vehicles Act, which invited fines.

As many as 120 of the 142 cases cleared by Sapra were under the “summary” category.

The remaining were of civil and miscellaneous nature and complicated.

Of the 93 cases decided by Gupta under the Negotiable Instruments Act, what was significant was that these were solved once and for all, with no party getting a chance to move the higher court.

The High Court had created two special courts in Faridabad more than two months back to deal with the high number of cheque bounce cases and other financial disputes in this industrial hub. 

Panipat, September 5
The DAV management committee has embarked upon an ambitious project to set up an all-women university in the state.

This will be the second all-women university dedicated to providing quality education exclusively to girls - the first being Bhagat Phool Singh Women University (BPSWU), which was set up at Khanpur Kalan in Sonepat district.

Revealing this here recently, secretary of the DAV college management committee, which is a wing of the DAV Education Board, Vijay Sabharwal said the new university was a part of a long-drawn strategy of the DAV management committee to take quality education in areas that had remained bereft of it.

He said the committee had selected Yamunanagar to set up the university.

He said the committee would also establish two more all-women universities - one at Noida in Uttar Pradesh and the other at Jalandhar in Punjab. 

Sirsa, September 5
The police today claimed to have unravelled the mystery of a blind murder in Sirsa town with the arrest of three persons. The prime accused, Neeraj, is a kin of the deceased and he is alleged to have executed the murder through paid miscreants.

The victim, Subhash Soni (50), a goldsmith, was coming to his house on his motorcycle with son Vikram on August 26, when some motorcycle-borne miscreants attacked them with iron rods.

Both father and the son were injured and later Subhash succumbed to his injuries at a private hospital in Hisar on August 28.

The police today nabbed Neeraj of Hisar, Jasbir of Panihar Chak and Vikram of Kishangarh for the murder.

SP Satinder Kumar Gupta said the four other accused, who actually executed the crime, had also been identified and would be arrested soon.

Neeraj has done his MBA from Guru Jambeshwar University, Hisar, and is brother-in-law of victim Subhash Soni’s daughter Poonam.

The police said the victim and Neeraj’s family had once contemplated the marital prospects of the accused with the victim’s younger daughter, but the idea was later dropped.

Neeraj hired four miscreants to attack Subhash. He had already paid Rs 19,000 to them. Neeraj claimed that he had sent the miscreants only to beat up the victim, but they killed him instead. He alleged that the victim had created a rift in his family and was also creating hurdles in his marital prospects by misleading those who came with proposals.

Karnal, September 5
The Directorate of Wheat Research has identified 11 new varieties, nine of wheat and two of barley, for different agro-climatic regions across the country under its Vision-2025 aimed at increasing wheat production to 119 million tonnes by 2025.

The varieties included HS 507, bread wheat for timely sown irrigated/rain-fed conditions of northern hills zone, PBW 621 and DWB 50 for north western plains zone, WH 1080 for north western plains, HI 1563 for north-eastern plains zone, MP 3288 for central zone, NIAW 1415 for peninsular zone and PDW 315, WHD 943 for durum wheat in north-western plain zones. DWR 73 for 2-rowed malt barley for north-western plain zone and UPB 1008 for 6-rowed feed barley for northern hills zone.

All varieties have been recommended to the Central Variety Release Committee for notification.

The Indian wheat programme had globally been recognised as a success story that led to record production of 80.71 million tonne, third record breaking production in a row, said directo DWR SS Singh. The contribution of north-western plain zone, especially Punjab in this respect was remarkable, as it produces 20 per cent of the country’s wheat and contributes 60 per cent of central buffer stock from the 1.5 per cent area under cultivation.

He said incredible progress has been made in national wheat production, since the initiation of All-India Coordinated Wheat and Barley Improvement Project in 1965 and the growth rate of more than 3 per cent had been achieved during last five year. 

Chandigarh, September 5
At the Teacher’s Day function here today, Governor Jagannath Pahadia was at pains to explain that his speech, delivered at the opening ceremony of the Conference of Vice-Chancellors at Panjab University on Saturday, had been misquoted.

He had been quoted as saying that his position was that of a “signing machine”, the entire system having been politicised.

He had hinted that political considerations were behind awards given on Teacher’s Day. Flanked by the Chief Minister and Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal, the Governor said that while speaking at the conference, he had explained how he had felt when the University Amendment Act was brought to him during his tenure as Governor of Bihar.

He hastened to add that the situation in Haryana was different. 

Gurgaon, September 5
With a view to enabling eminent cardiologists share their experiences and guide upcoming ones, an international conference on trans-radial angioplasty was organised here yesterday.

Cardiology experts from renowned institutes of the country and abroad participated in the twin events, World Radial Meet and Live Trans-Radial Angioplasty Workshop, which were conducted under the aegis of Fortis-Escorts Heart Institute and Escorts Kalyani Heart Centre.

The workshop was organised to showcase the innovations in trans-radial angioplasty, a medical procedure in which angioplasty of blocked blood vessels is done through a small blood vessel in the wrist.

This, according to experts, can reduce mortality as compared to the conventional trans-femoral technique. The workshop presented live trans-radial angioplasty cases. The experts also gave tips on how to prevent heart attacks during a panel discussion.

Padma Shri Dr Ashok Seth, chief cardiologist, Fortis-Escorts Heart Institute, New Delhi, said: “As compared to the traditional treatment procedure, this one (trans-radial angioplasty) ensures greater safety, less bleeding complications, more patient comfort and early discharge.”