Dehradun, September 14
Taking a serious note of the devastation spurred by the scaling of water level from 820 to 830 meter in the Tehri Dam by the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation (THDC), Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, who visited the most-affected area, Chinyalisaur, today, blamed the THDC for triggering the mass-scale destruction in villages situated around the dam. He has asked the Central government and the THDC for a compensation of Rs 450 crore and to expedite the relief and rehabilitation work.

He also gave an indication of taking action against two officers of the THDC in the matter. Nishank though admitted that the THDC upped the dam water level as per the permission taken by the Supreme Court to do so and keeping in consideration the THDC MoU, he held the corporation fully responsible for the losses to the properties and risk posed to human lives, because of its reckless action.

It is after the THDC raised the water level to 830 meter in the dam reservoir, many houses and shops of two villages situated around it got partially and wholly submerged. Irrigation Minister Matbar Singh Kandari, who visited the affected area a day before, blamed the THDC for behaving in an arbitrary manner and keeping the state government in the dark about it.

Chief General Manager of the THDC A L Shah had said the state government was fully aware of the situation as the case had been going on in the Supreme Court for many years, and the THDC raised the water level with due permission of the Supreme Court. Shah had also added that they had released the due amount of Rs 2 crore for the affected people, and the rest of Rs 88 lakh was to be released in a couple of days.

He directed the SDM to take stock of the situation at the Panchayat level and asked the District Magistrate and Commissioner to keep a watch on the developments. Kandari, Commissioner (Garhwal) Ajay Nabiyal, DM (Tehri) Radhika Jha, Chief Development Officer Ashish Joshi and Shah were present.

Nainital, September 14
The Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court, Justice Barin Ghosh, has stressed upon the need to continuously promote the process of legal learning among the entire legal fraternity. Justice Ghosh was speaking at a function organised by the Bar Council of Uttarakhand to launch its newsletter “Law and Justice”.

He advised the lawyers practising in the various courts to ensure that they should keep in mind the interests of the entire community while filing and contesting cases. Justice Ghosh said in clear terms: “We must keep in mind that we are not serving one client but the entire community”. The entire progress of a nation depends on the effectiveness of its judicial system. Referring to the concept of the ethics of lawyers, he said: “The most important factor is how responsible he is not to the case but to society”.

Justice Ghosh talked at length on the issue of legal learning. Welcoming the decision of the Bar Council of India for holding of a bar examination before students start practising, he said: “It is a very good step”. He advocated the need for having refresher courses for the lawyers after they spent some time in the legal profession and pointed out that all these were reasons to make law uniform. He expressed the hope that soon there would be a provision for lawyers to go back to the college to refresh their knowledge.

Referring to the attempts by the Bar Council of India in the past to have an institution of its own for imparting legal training to its members, Justice Ghosh expressed the hope that it matures in the near future.

Appreciating the efforts of the Bar Council of Uttarakhand to bring out the newsletter, he said the council must ensure that it was brought out regularly. Justice Ghosh asked the senior lawyers to write for it and particularly pen down why they were not able to accept a particular judgment. “It is not criticism. Law develops only when we open our minds. This is how legal learning process will be updated,” he said. Law is nothing but a perception and underlined “we are not to commit any mistake in lending justice”.

The president of the Bar Council, Razia Baig, in her address said the council was working hard towards ensuring the welfare of advocates in the state along with promoting constructive developmental activities among the fraternity. Referring to the newsletter, she said: “We will be publishing important judgments of the High Court and the Supreme Court in it besides write-ups by senior lawyers on various aspects of the judiciary”.

Dehradun, September 14
Former City President Mamta Gurang, along with other women members of the Congress, burnt an effigy of BJP government at Astely Hall here and chastised the state government for failing to give adequate relief measures to the affected and not being able to maintain the derailed infrastructure inflicted by the rain calamity in the state.

She said in these couple of months, the Nishank government had not been able to provide the required succour to rain victims under the Disaster Management Programme. “Financial help of Rs 2,000 has not reached the entire spectrum of the affected. Roads had broken pits that had deepened, houses had got damaged, grain got rotten, ailments like dengue and eye flu were on the rise, but the state government has miserably failed to take effective measures to deal with these problems,” she said. If the government did not take any timely action, she would give it a befitting reply.

Those who participated in the protest were Anrudha Tiwari, Devika, Bhageshwari, Ritu Thapa and Leela Sharma. 

Nainital, September 14
With rivers and streams across the region flowing in spate, three more persons have reportedly been washed away in the Kosi and Phika rivers. In addition to this, two deaths on account of dengue and lightening have also been reported.

According to the information, two youths, identified as Mohammad Fahim and Mohammad Hashim of the Banfodan locality of Kashipur, were washed away while they were bathing in the Kosi river. They had accompanied a group of friends to Garjia, near Ramnagar, and had descended to the river bed for taking a bath when they were swept away. It is learnt that they had ignored appeals by local people not to take the risk of entering the river.

In another incident, Mohammad Aslam of Navigarh Rehad village on the Uttar Pradesh border was washed away in the Phika river when he was returning home with his cattle on Sunday evening.

Rajendra Singh of Pulkoti Tok village at Kapkot of Bageshwar district reportedly died on Monday after being struck by lightening. Azim Quraishi of Khatadi in Ramnagar died of dengue while being treated in a hospital in Haldwani.

Meanwhile, Cabinet Minister Prakash Pant said the state had received thrice its average annual rainfall.

There has been a loss of Rs 3,500 crore to the government property. In addition to this, 106 villages have been badly affected and the people need to be rehabilitated at a cost of Rs 1,500 crore. He said despite repeated requests, no aid had been sanctioned by the Centre till now.

Nainital, September 14
Coming out in the defence of his government on the issue of recent controversy over a power project on the Alaknanda in Srinagar, Cabinet Minister Prakash Pant has stated that the state government is for scientific use of water resources in the state and asserted that the government is not in favour of the closure of the power projects that have already been started.

Referring to the Alaknanda project, he once again clarified that the work on the project had been temporarily suspended to probe the issue pertaining to the submergence of the Dhari Devi temple and it had not been shelved as had been wrongly conveyed in some quarters.

He also raised the concerns over the Centre’s decision to abruptly shelve the Lohari Nagpala project after making a heavy investment on it.

Talking about his portfolio of Planning, he expressed satisfaction over the utilisation of funds by districts in the state following a quarterly review of the situation. Talking about the District Plan allocations, he said 84.75 per cent of the budget had been released to the districts in the first quarter of the current financial year and out of this 41.24 per cent had been spent till now.

“We have started quarterly reviews to ensure that the money allocated for public works is spent properly and on time unlike the previous years when money was only being allocated and spent towards the end of the financial year”.

Pant also claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) tenure in the past three years has been marked by the decentralisation of administration and efforts to usher in all-round development. He said the government was doing its best to make the Mukhya Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojana a success as it was aimed at connecting all villages through roads even if they had a population between one and 250 persons. He claimed that the Atal Adarsh Gram Yojana would prove to be a milestone in the development of the state.

On being asked on the failure of the government to come up with a clear cut transfer policy for its departments, he claimed the policy had been put in place and would be implemented in letter and in spirit from this year. However, he accepted that there had been a delay in its implementation with regards to the Education Department. It is pertinent to note that the issue of transfers of teachers is one of the most contentious issues in the political domain of the state. 

Dehradun, September 14
Experiencing motherhood at the age of 58 years may be frowned upon in India, but not in western countries, and women from small Indian cities are helping their sisters living several miles away fulfil that craving by renting their wombs. Though renting a womb comes with a price tag, often varying between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 10 lakh, absence of any regulations, including ban on paying surrogates, leaves enough room for poor deserted women to become targets of exploitation.

Leading a hand-to-mouth existence, when Usha (name changed) from a nearby village was approached by an NRI family, originally from Dehradun. The only thing that made sense was the amount that she would receive instead of the child at the end of the pregnancy, which is the usual practice. However, the procedure failed and the required money promised did not come her way.

“There is a lot of uncertainty as only 30 per cent of the cases are successful. The climate of the uterus of the surrogate mother may not be compatible and the results may not be achieved during the first or even second attempt. It is a traumatic experience, but those in need of money go for it. Besides, there are no social organisations that can take up the case of the surrogates. Everything is done in a great secrecy here. Things do turn sour when doctors are not in the picture. In Meerut and other cities things are organised,” said Dr Menu Vaish, a Dehradun-based infertility expert.

The consent of a mother to go through the entire exercise is very important. “For the past one year, stimulated embryos from abroad are being transported to India and implanted in women here. Mostly poor women from small cities, who, because of lack of information, become sitting ducks for these kind of arrangements, as western women way past their child-bearing age are increasingly going for assisted reproduction techniques,” said Dr Vaish.

Though still in the infancy stage, surrogacy is increasingly being explored by couples desperately seeking a child of their own, and in Dehradun, the results will be visible only after a year. “Usually, for them it is a last resort and only those with big bucks can really afford to go for surrogacy. Mostly industrialists, who have money to spare, can afford it. I have been indirectly involved in one such case. The effort to select a willing woman who has children of her own is indeed difficult and takes time. In Dehradun, there are no organisations that have a data bank of women willing to rent their womb. They have to be approached individually. Here an IV treatment could cost between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, while the cost of surrogacy could go up to Rs 10 lakh,” said Annu Dhir, obstetrician and gynaecologist and president of the Gynaecologist and Obstetrician Society.

However, experts say that renting a womb can soon become a completely legal and hassle-free exercise as soon as the draft Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Bill slated to be tabled in Parliament becomes a reality.

Dehradun, September 14
With the police failing to nab original floaters of fake currency, the Police Department is contemplating having a separate wing to deal with cases of counterfeit currency.

A police team, which was sent to the Khatoli area of Muzaffarnagar to trace the main accused who had allegedly given counterfeit currency to the four persons nabbed with counterfeit notes worth Rs 11,400 in Rishikesh last week, has failed to find any clue of the main perpetrators of the crime.

According to sources in the police, usually those who have been handed over the counterfeit currency got arrested and not the main perpetrators. Thus, need of a separate cell is felt to deal with all such cases.

While speaking to The Tribune, Inspector General of Police (IGP), Garhwal, MA Ganapthy, opined: “A small cell should be opened either in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) or the Police Head Quarters (PHQ) to deal with all cases of counterfeit Indian currency. If not this then all such cases should be handed over to the Special Task Force (STF) to investigate”.

The IGP added a long chain had to be followed while pursuing such cases and the police, due to a lot of other criminal cases, couldn’t fully concentrate on them.

“I have asked the officials to check whether the bogus currency cases here are organised or it is just that somebody is making them sitting at a computer somewhere. If these are organised cases then we will give them to a particular wing that will deal with all fake currency cases,” state Director General of Police (DGP) Jyoti Swaroop Pandey said.

It may be mentioned that the state police had recovered a total fake currency of Rs 2,80,500 from 26 accused in 2008, which rose to Rs 6,93,080 last year from 38 persons. While this year till August, 18 persons have been nabbed and a total counterfeit currency of Rs 2,82,800 has been recovered from their possession.

This is no secret that due to proximity of Uttarakhand’s borders with Nepal and Bangladesh the state becomes vulnerable to such activities. The police sources said the production of counterfeit Indian notes is done in Thailand while these are smuggled through the borders of Nepal and Bangladesh.

Dehradun, September 14
The Raipur police arrested two car thieves from the Maldevta Road during its last night patrolling. The cops also recovered two cars and two daggers from their possession.

As per the police, the two have been identified as Deepak Pandey, resident of Bhaniawala, Doiwala and Pradeep Kumar Jaiswal, resident of Gharat Gali, Doiwala.

The police recovered Santro car (UA-08-C-0099) and another car (DL-9-C-8965) from them. A case under Section 411 of the Indian Penal Code has been registered at the Raipur police station.

Dehradun, September 14
Close on the heels of a boycott call given by pharmacists in the state, nurses and medical officers are also preparing to go on strike.

Even as the four-hour boycott of OPDs by pharmacists is getting out of hand, nurses and medical officers are ready to go on strike to press for their long-pending demands.

The secretary of the Provincial Medical Health Services (PMHS), Dr DP Joshi, said ultimately the government had to look into their demands and any deviation by the government would force them to strike work.

“We had only postponed our stir after the government gave us an assurance about fulfilling our long-pending demands but so far there has not been any action on this front. Most of our doctors awaiting allocation of Uttarakhand cadre have been disappointed. Other demands too have not been met,” said Dr Joshi.

He said in case the medical officers go on strike, it would be ensured that it have a minimal impact on the common man. “This time round our strategy would be little different. The strike will be launched in such a manner that it directly affects the VIP patients and the government,” he said.

Anjana Bhowmick, secretary, Nurses Association, said: “In the larger interest of our patients we had taken back the stir. But, there are several demands that have not been met yet”.

Meanwhile, due to the four-hour boycott call given by the pharmacists, distribution of medicines could only take place after 12 noon, resulting in long queues at the medicine counters.Also rabies injections could not be administered to patients during this period as the pharmacists did not report for work.

Mussoorie, September 14
The much-awaited Self-Employment Development Centre for Women constructed by the Nagar Palika, Mussoorie, which was shrouded in controversy, was finally inaugurated at the Camel’s Back Road here today. Chief guest Mussoorie Nagar Palika President OP Uniyal inaugurated the centre by cutting the ribbon and unveiling the plaque on the occasion.

Addressing the women in the audience, he said the centre would be run by the Nagar Palika in which women from weaker sections would be provided essential training in stitching, knitting and preparing other household goods. He said the Palika would also support the centre by buying environment-friendly products from them.

Member of the BJP, NGO wing, Vishal Sharma also addressed the women folk and said the centre could change the lives of marginalised women in the town. He also said the women after forming self-help groups could work on various projects like preparing furniture and organic colours from Lantana and thus saving the state from the onslaught of the deadly weed that had been a bane for farmers and forests alike.

However, certain groups among the women were not satisfied with the centre and said it was not spacious enough to start any worthwhile project.

Member, NGO Nav Jyoti Seva Samiti, Namita Kumain alleged that earlier Uniyal had assured them of providing for the centre, but later retracted under the pressure of organisation run by his near and dear ones. She further said, “We have 82 members in our organisation and how they will be accommodated in such a small area remains to be seen”.