Sirsa, October 9
Early commencement of exports of raw cotton by the Central Government and a delayed arrival of cotton crop due to rains in September, have put the cotton industry in the entire north in a quandary.

Cotton ginners in the entire North India are not finding enough crops to meet the increased demand in domestic market for spinning mills and for exporters.

This has sent the prices of cotton spiraling, a welcome situation for farmers, but an equally sticky situation for the cotton industry.

The Centre has commenced registration for the export of surplus 55 lakh bales of cotton from October 1 this year.

The official website of the Textile Commissioner, who registered the export applications, reveal that applications for 39.89 lakh bales have already been received in their office till 5 pm today, the seventh working day since the registration started.

Out of these applications, export authorisation registration certificates (EARC) have already been issued for the export of about 9 lakh bales till today.

Exporters have to ensure shipment of their consignments within 45 days, once the EARC is issued.

“This was not the appropriate time to commence exports,” complained Sanjiv Dutt, director, North India Cotton Industries Association.

“The government based its export figures on the cotton balance sheet for 2010-11. The figures read 40.50 lakh bales as last year’s balance stocks, 335 lakh bales as this year’s production and import of 7 lakhs bales of extra long staple cotton on the supply side. While on the demand side, it read 266 lakh bales for mills and non-mills consumption, 11.5 lakh bales for other requirements and 55 lakh bales for exports,” Dutt explained.

However, the catch is that over 60 to 70 per cent of the opening stock lies with a few big textile units and the real floating stock is barely 12 to 15 lakh bales.

Now, the daily requirement of the textile industry is about 75,000 bales given the fact that over 250 lakh bales are consumed in a year.

“The total arrival of the cotton at the moment is not more than 50,000 bales a day in the country as the arrival has started a month later then schedule due to rains in September,” maintained Dutt.

With the pressure from exporters, who are ready to purchase the commodity at any cost to honour their commitment in time, cotton ginners are hard pressed from both sides.

Gurpreet Singh Nagpal, a partner of Royal Cotgen and secretary of the Sirsa Cotton Association, said he was not able to get enough cotton to run his unit properly as there were many takers and a few suppliers of the crop at this moment.

“We do not have any reserved stock of cotton crop in our unit, which is now running on cotton purchases on daily basis,” Nagpal added.

Whatever the dilemma of the cotton industry, the cotton-growing farmers are happy with the situation, where prices of their produce are rising by the day.

“Cotton fetched Rs 3,950 per quintal on Wednesday, Rs 4,050 a quintal yesterday and it was sold for Rs 4,200 a quintal today,” said a trader at the Sirsa grain market. 

Karnal, October 9
It was a celebration time at the residence of 29-year-old Navy officer from Karnal Harpreet Singh, alias Goldie, who won the gold medal along with his partner Vijay Kumar in men’s 25m-centrefire pistol pairs’ event at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi today.

Residents burst crackers, distributed sweets and danced in joy to express their happiness.

Goldie was always fond of shooting and bursting balloons from an air gun was his passion, his elated mother Amarjeet Kaur recalled.

His sister, Jasmeet Kaur, said he used to shoot his targets without a single miss. His grandfather Sardar Gurdeep Singh was the spirit and the driving force behind his success and Goldie’s first-ever gun was also gifted by him, they added.

Recipient of several medals in national and international events, Harpreet, a pass out of SD Senior Secondary School, joined the Navy in 1999 after Class XII.

Harpreet and Vijay shot an impressive 1,159 to bag the top position, defeating Greg Yelavich and Alan Earle of New Zealand.

Harpreet had won three gold medals in various events in the SAF games held in Dhaka early this year and has also qualified for the Asian Games.

Fatehabad, October 9
Gorakhpur farmers, who have been sitting on dharna outside the mini-secretariat here for the past 54 days against the acquisition of their lands for the proposed nuclear plant being developed by the NPCIL, will hold a mahapanchayat here on Sunday.

Farmers have invited all parties and farmers agitating on land acquisition issues in other districts of the state to participate in the mahapanchayat.

“We have extended invitations to farmers fighting to save their lands in Sirsa, Palwal, Ambala, Rohtak and other places of the state and their representatives are expected to attend the mahapanchayat,” said Hans Raj Siwach, president of the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti.

He said leaders of various parties have also been invited in the mahapanchayat.

He said since senior leaders of almost all opposition parties had visited their dharna site during the past 54 days, they expected the participation of all parties in the mahapanchayat.

Siwach said the farmers of Gorakhpur and Bhodia Khera would give vent to their resentment against the government action in tomorrow’s meeting.

He said the Gorakhpur and Bhodia Khera farmers would fight to save their lands till their last breath and would not allow the government to take away their fertile lands.

Karnal, October 9
Facing allegations of torture and maltreatment levelled against him by his estranged wife Ano Hara (now Aarti), Manoj today brokered truce with his wife and agreed to stay with her.This was not for the first time that the couple had reached a compromise as such quarrels had happened in the past and only time will tell how long the peace would last.

The arrival of Ano Hara’s mother Ayesha Khatoon from West Bengal caused unease in Manoj’s village as a large number of villagers came to Karnal but Ayesha was adamant that either Manoj should take Ano along and promise not to ill-treat her or she would lodge a complaint with the police.

With all options closed, Manoj agreed to take Ano along and also agreed to the demand of Ayesha to visit her village in West Bengal and assured the relatives that their daughter was “happily married”.

Manoj refuted the allegations levelled by Ano and said she had been frequently quarrelling with him and misbehaving with other family members and even resorting to violence.

Villagers also sided with Manoj and corroborate his version but the fear of the police action weighed heavily on his mind.

Ayesha said Manoj had agreed to come to our village and take proper care of Ano and said she hopes that he would keep his promise.

She said her other daughter Saira, who had left the village, along with Ano, was happily married and was in constant touch with her. “Now I will be in touch with Ano and ensure that she was not tortured or ill- treated,” she said.

Faridabad, October 9
The youth wing of the INLD is alarmed over the police registering a criminal case against one of its leaders, Vikas Chaudhary.

Chaudhary’s name has been included in a FIR as per the complaint of president of Faridabad Rehri Association Deen Dayal Gautam.

The complainant alleged that Chaudhary was present, along with others, who attacked and injured him. For a fact, Gautam was attacked and injured by some persons.

A delegation of office-bearers of the district(Faridabad) unit of the INLD’s youth wing met the police authorities under the leadership of Rajeev Jaitly and told them that the statement of the complainant implicating their leader was contrary to facts as Chaudhary was in Malaysia since October 4 and would return to the country on October 12 as the attack on the complainant took place yesterday.

According to Jaitly, the delegation expressed apprehension before Faridabad Police Commissioner PK Aggarwal that the complainant may have named Chaudhary on account of political influence from some quarters.

Chandigarh, October 9
The Haryana Elementary Education Department has decided to allocate districts and schools for appointment of newly selected 8,401 JBT teachers through counselling.

A spokesman for the department said the counselling of such candidates would be held at the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) in Gurgaon from October 11 to 14.

He said the counselling of all women candidates belonging to Ambala, Faridabad, Fatehabad, Gurgaon, Jind, Mahendragarh, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Mewat, Palwal, Panipat, Panchkula, Sirsa and Yamunanagar districts and guest teachers employed in all districts, who had been selected in the list, would be held on 
October 11.

Similarly, all women candidates who were bona fide resident of Hisar, Bhiwani, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Rewari and Sonepat districts and those who reside outside the state would have to report for counselling on October 12 at 7 am.

He said the counseling of all male candidates belonging to Ambala, Faridabad, Karnal, Kurukshetra, Mewat, Palwal, Panipat, Panchkula and Yamunanagar districts would be held on October 13.

Similarly, counseling for all male candidates who were bona fide residents of Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Hisar, Gurgaon, Jind, Jhajjar, Kaithal, Mahendragarh, Rohtak, Rewari, Sirsa and Sonepat districts and those residing outside the state would be held on October 14.

More details could be seen at website www.harprathmik.nic.in.

Jhajjar, October 9
With the arrest of four youths, the Jhajjar police claims to have solved the case of Rs 30 lakh robbery from a vehicle and the murder of a security guard of the State Bank of India (SBI) within five days of its occurrence.

The police also recovered a gun, an axe, a country-made pistol and an Alto car from their possession. Jhajjar SP Sourabh Singh informed mediapersons here today that the arrested youths, identified as Ajay and Jai Singh Gujjar of Rohtak district, Kanwar Singh of Mandhothi village and Devender of Karoda village here, confessed to have committed robbery at gunpoint.

“All youths were nabbed near Silani village here following a tip-off when they were hatching a conspiracy of another robbery at a house here,” the SP added.

When the police raided the house, there were six youths. However, two of them managed to flee from the spot after giving the police a slip. Moreover, the youths also opened fire on the police during the raid, said the SP, adding that all accused were remanded in three-day police custody. An amount of Rs 30 lakh of the SBI was looted and a security guard was shot dead by robbers when the cash was being taken from the Rohtak branch of the SBI to Jhajjar on October 4. 

Chandigarh, October 9
The bridge on the Yamuna river at National Highway-73 on the Haryana’s border with Uttar Pradesh, which was closed to traffic, will be repaired within 15 days.

An official spokesman said after cracks were noticed at two points on the bridge, it was closed for traffic by erecting walls on its both sides. He said for smooth movement of vehicles, traffic coming from Kurukshetra had been diverted and sent to Uttar Pradesh via Karnal. Similarly, vehicles coming from Ambala were being diverted to Uttar Pradesh via National Highway-73A, Paonta Sahib. — TNS

Hisar, October 9
An employee of the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam posted at the Nangthla 33 kV substation was killed after he was allegedly attacked by a group of six men inside the substation late last night.The deceased has been identified as Bishambar Nath.

Another employee Pala Ram got seriously injured in the attack. He told the police that six men came to the substation last night and tried to steal the transformer oil from a spare transformer lying there.When they tried to prevent them, they were attacked with sticks. One of the men hit Bishambar Nath on the head, following which he died on the spot.

The attackers then hit Pala Ram, injuring him seriously before fleeing.The police has registered a case against unidentified persons. The Sarv Karamchari Sangh has demanded provision of adequate security at power substations located at remote places.