Hoshiarpur, September 23
With the arrest of 10 persons, including five women, the Sadar police has claimed to have unearthed a prostitution den at the local Adamwal locality.

According to police sources, acting on a tip-off, the police raided the residence of Rohit at Adamwal last evening and caught Gopal Singh of Sheikhupur; Meena of Urban Estate, Phagwara; Ajay Kumar of local Mohalla Katcha Toba; Palak of Danish Manda, Jalandhar; Sahil Sharma of local Mohalla Prahlad Nagar; Neesha and Navjot Kaur of local Aslamabad locality and Sunil of local Committee Bazar red-handed. The police also arrested the owner of the house, Rohit, and his wife Rekha, for allegedly involving girls from various places in the flesh trade at their house.

All the accused have been booked under sections 3, 4, 5 and 7 of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act.

Gurdaspur, September 23
What does a nondescript township like Gurdaspur have in common with high profile foreign places like UK, Panama, France, Singapore, Russia, Mauritius and Dubai.

The answer is provided by scores of students - of the local Institute of Hotel Management, Catering and Nutrition - who, after pursuing their degree courses, are getting employment in top culinary institutes and hotels in these countries. A significant number of these students have also opened their own restaurants and Bar Training Academies abroad.

So much so, the Panama Carnival Cruize, the second topmost cruise liner of the world after Queen Mary-2, has short listed this institute for recruitment of students from the next session.

The reputation of the institute is also enhanced by the fact that Global Human Resources Development Centre (GHRDC) has ranked the Institute at No. 6, out of 53 such institutes all over the country.

The GHRDC has based its assessment on various complicated but elaborate parameters like infrastructure, faculty, programmes and placement in the tourism industry.

Navdeep Sharma, principal in charge of the institute, says, “The success of the institute is mirrored by students like Shruti Passi, who passed out last year and is employed as an air hostess in the Singapore airlines. Scores of our students are employed in top culinary institutes around the world. Many top drawer hotels are coming up in Dubai and Mauritius and some of my students will be going there soon. In fact a recent pass out Suraj Chauhan has been employed as main chef at the prestigious Great Kebab Factory in Dubai.”

Then comes into play the French factor. Tarun Rana, who did his BSc from the institute, is a brand ambassador for French wine maker - Monin. There are others, like him from the institute, who have been employed by the same firm.

Navdeep Sharma says, “One of my students, Vikrant Singh is a senior chef with the Panama Carnival Cruise and is in-charge of drawing up the main menu, which will be served in a recently acquired fleet of 20 ships. Many of my students are running successful hotels in UK and Australia. One of them is Dilpreet Singh Bagga, who has opened a restaurant in Adelaide and many Australians are trying to copy the infrastructure and menu of Bagga.”

Shariq Hussain Khan, a pass out of the institute, who was declared best bartender by international wine maker - Smirnoff, says, “Opportunities in the Indian hotel industry are fast dwindling. That is one reason why students seek greener pastures abroad. The other reason is that foreign hoteliers find Indian labour cheap.”

Priyadarshan Lakhawat, a lecturer at the institute adds, “The trend of foreign employers recruiting Indian students is a new one. The decision of the Panama Carnival Cruize coming to the city to recruit graduates from next year is ample proof of this.”

Hoshiarpur, September 23
To check the purity of water being supplied from water supply schemes in the rural areas of the district, three testing laboratories have been set up at the district level. Training is being imparted to laboratory technicians and they would start work after the completion of the training.

Disclosing this at a meeting of the District Advisory Committee held here today, Deputy Commissioner Dharam Dutt Ternach said under the Water Quality Programme, training was being imparted to five persons of each village to check the purity of water by organising block-level camps.

Training had already been given to 280 inhabitants of 169 villages and efforts were being made to ensure regular supply of potable water in 102 villages of the district. Schemes were being formulated to ensure the supply of required potable water in 67 villages. The DC instructed officials of the Water Supply and Sanitation Department to ensure regular required water supply in all villages where water was not available in required quantity and to repair or replace damaged pipelines. — OC

Amritsar, September 23
The Bar Association of Amritsar today criticised the reported decision of the Bar Council of India (BCI) under which the newly passed out law graduates would have to undergo a written test for getting requisite license to practice after completion of their professional courses.

The association, headed by Pardeep Kumar Saini, gave a clarion call to the entire bar councils of the state to gather at bar council in Chandigarh on September 28 to submit a memorandum to Chairman of the Bar Councils of Punjab and Haryana to be forwarded to BCI. The test would be conducted every six months.

“The decision would impact the future of approximately 60,000 law graduates and advocates all over the country and we strongly oppose it,” said Saini while pointing out that the decision would affect the seniority and future of the advocates.

He said the lawyers would hold no work on September 27 in protest against the decision. Saini urged the entire bar councils in the state to join hands and gather at a joint platform to secure the genuine rights of the young advocates.

Hoshiarpur, September 23
Senior citizen pensioners, who are being covered under the old age pension scheme of the Punjab Government, have showed deep concern over the meagre amount of their monthly pension of Rs 250 each.

In a joint representation to the Chief Minister, Punjab, Parkash Singh Badal; BM Rishi, Tulsi Dass Jagga and Devinder Kumar, all senior citizens of Dasuya town, stated that the present amount of monthly pension was so meagre that even a single person could not take two meals daily in the present scenario of price hike of essential commodities.

Majority of the pensioners, who are fully dependent upon this pension, are facing starvation as in majority of the cases, their kin do not care for them.

They urged the Chief Minister to at least enhance the monthly pension from Rs 250 to Rs 400, so that these helpless pensioners could manage to make ends meet. They further urged to get monthly pensions deposited directly in their accounts, either in banks or in post offices, to avoid unnecessary harassment.

Amritsar, September 23
Mystery shrouds the death of a 35-year-old man, here today. According to information, the victim Vinod Kumar was an employee with a local band party. Though the exact cause of the death could not be ascertained, the Sultanwind police has registered a case against unidentified persons.

The police is also questioning the owner of the band and his son. The victim was found to be severely injured, when his colleagues dropped him home last night. Later, he succumbed to his injuries, the police said. The family of the victim, along with residents of the area, gheraoed the police station, allegedly, for its inaction. After their persuasion, the Sultanwind police station started investigating the matter.

SHO of the police station Amrik Singh said he had some dispute with his colleagues over some amount of money.

“Nothing can be said at the moment but preliminary investigations have revealed that he had an altercation with some of his colleagues over some money matter last night but further investigation is on,” he said.