Rohtak, October 12
The Commonwealth Games has boosted the image of Haryana due to the brilliant performance of its players.The state government will continue its efforts to provide the best possible infrastructure and support to sportsperson, said Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda while speaking to mediapersons here this morning.

The government would honour the winners with cash rewards at a special function at Sonepat on November 1, he said.

The results at the games were overwhelming. Though the population of the state was just two per cent of the total population of the country, a major share of medals had been won by sportspersons of Haryana.

The Chief Minister said some credit for the success went to the government’s sports policy.

His government had recruited 11 sportspersons to the DSP rank in the past six years. Haryana had recently launched a project named “Play for India” under which young talent had been identified and selected for training for competitions at the national as well as the international level.

Also, it was commitment and dedication on the part of sportsmen of the state that had resulted in their super performance at the Games.

The state government had constructed as many as 117 sports stadia in rural areas in the past few years and would try to set up sports academies in the districts too.

While those winning the gold medal would be given a cash reward of Rs 15 lakh, the silver and bronze medallists would get Rs 10 and Rs 5 lakh, respectively. The coaches would also be honoured with cash rewards of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 3 lakh on Haryana Day.

Karnal, October 12
The first-ever Commonwealth Games double gold medallist from Karnal, Harpreet owes his feat to the Indian Navy. He has now set sights on gold in the Asian Games slated for later this year and wants to better his performance.

“All I have achieved today is only because of the unflinching support of the Navy, which identified the shooter in me, helped me hone my skills and prepared me for competitive national and international shooting events,” said Harpreet who arrived here to a rousing welcome by his family members, friends and supporters. An emotional Amarjeet Kaur could not keep back her tears as she hugged her victorious son.

“I loved guns since childhood and had a keen desire to join the armed forces. I joined the Navy and for the first time in 1999 I pulled the trigger at Chilka in Orissa during training. My scores were impressive and was picked for the Navy team and won gold.

“There was no looking back. I was selected for pre-nationals, nationals and now international events. Each time I have performed better and better,” he said.

Harpreet, who has lost count of national medals won by him, said he had a long way to go. Asked how he felt while competing on the home turf, he said there was cerrtainly some advantage as “we were already acclimatised and cheering by the home crowd served as a morale booster.”

Harpreet said Haryana had immense talent but shooting was an expensive game and a standard shooting range was a pre-requisite. “I would urge the state government to start shooting clubs in all districts,” he said. Asked about his future plans, he said he wished to open a shooting academy in Karnal after retirement. Harpreet is posted at Coimbatore as senior petty officer. 

Chandigarh, October 12
Trust politicians to find opportunities to play games any time. Even the winning of medals by Haryana sportspersons at the Commonwealth Games has become a political agenda with the ruling Congress and the main Opposition, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD).

Leaders of the Congress claim that the good performance at the Games is because of the sports policy of their party’s government in the state. But INLD leaders counter the argument, saying the Haryanavi sportspersons have brought laurels to the country and the state because of the sports policy formulated during their regime.

Not satisfied with the claims and counter-claims, the two parties have now decided to honour medal winners. Interestingly, the two functions will be held on the same day, November 1, Haryana Day.

The Congress function will be held in Sonepat. The INLD will honour the sportspersons in Gurgaon.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has deputed his trusted men to visit the houses of medal winners to invite them for the Sonepat function.

His political adviser, Prof Virender, today visited the Karnal house of shooter Harpreet Singh, alias Goldy, and invited him to Sonepat.

INLD leaders accuse the Congress of playing politics. Their president Om Prakash Chautala claims it was the INLD which had first announced that it would honour the medal winners at Gurgaon where the party had already planned a state-level rally.

The Congress, Chautala maintains, planned a similar function only after the announcement by the INLD. 

Special praise for athletes

Chandigarh: Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda has congratulated Krishna Poonia, Harwant Kaur and Seema Antil on winning all three medals in discus throw.

Complementing Poonia, Hooda said she had created history by breaking the 52-year-old Commonwealth Games gold medal jinx in athletics by winning the gold in women’s discus throw. Hooda said the achievements by their women athlete have made the country proud. Poonia won the gold by throwing the discus to 61.51 m, Harwant came up with an effort of 60.61 m, while Seema Antil threw the discus to a distance of 58.46 m. — TNS 

Holiday on Oct 14

In view of the concluding ceremony of the 19th Commonwealth Games, the union as well as the state government have declared a public holiday in Gurgaon on October 14.

The centre and the state government have issued separate notifications for the same. — TNS

Chandigarh, October 12
A realisation has dawned upon the authorities of Punjab and Haryana to coordinate with each other in formulating disaster management plans following the recent floods, which hit the people of the two states hard.

A joint meeting of senior officers of the two states was held here today under the chairmanship of Haryana Financial Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management, Naresh Gulati. The Punjab team was headed by his counterpart Romila Dubey.

Gulati said our country was prone to multiple natural disasters, such as floods, earthquakes, droughts, landslides and cyclones.

Hence there was a need to adopt a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach and also to incorporate risk reduction in developmental strategies to reduce the impact of disasters.

Joint Secretary, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Amit Jha said the Disaster Management Act - 2005 sought to institutionalise mechanisms at the national, state and district levels to ensure a swift response to both natural calamities and man-made disasters.

He said the setting up of the NDMA had given the right impetus to the country's vision for a paradigm shift from response to prevention, mitigation and preparedness in addition to response, relief and rehabilitation.

Each state was required to constitute a state disaster management authority (SDMA) headed by the Chief Minister. It would be assisted by the State Executive Committee headed by the Chief Secretary. 

Chandigarh, October 12
About two months after Haryana Janhit Congress president, MLA Kuldeep Bishnoi, sought disqualification of MLAs defecting from his party, Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker Harmohinder Singh Chatha today said the writ petition was not maintainable.

In a reply filed through Additional Solicitor-General of India Mohan Jain, the Speaker held that the disqualification petitions were pending adjudication. As such, the writ petition was not maintainable. In the reply, Jain referred to an Apex Court judgment to say the issue had already been settled by a Constitution Bench.

Quoting the judgment, he said judicial review was not available prior to the Speaker’s decision. Also, the court would not interfere at the interlocutory stage of the proceedings. The Constitution Bench’s decision had been consistently followed in many other Apex Court and High Court judgments.

Jain also said the Speaker, being the constitutional authority, had been vested with powers to decide the disqualification petitions and was bound to afford reasonable hearing opportunity to the affected members before deciding their disqualification.

This, he added, was in tandem with the principles of natural justice.

He said in terms of the law settled by the Supreme Court, directions could not be issued to the Speaker by the court for deciding the petitions within three months, as prayed for.

Seeking their disqualification from the membership of the Vidhan Sabha under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution , Bishnoi had earlier levelled allegation of malafide against Chatha, accusing him of trying to shield the “defector” MLAs.

During the assembly elections in October 2009, six members were elected on the Haryana Janhit Congress ticket.

In November 2009, the five members submitted applications to the Speaker saying the “legislators of Haryana Janhit Congress have decided to merge the party with the Indian National Congress”. On the same day, the Speaker without notice to the HJC president, passed two orders accepting the “merger.”

Sirsa/Fatehabad, October 12
Doctors here are baffled over the spread of a mysterious fever that has all symptoms of dengue, but serological tests do not confirm what the symptoms suggest.

A large number of patients have been visiting doctors for the past several days in various towns of Fatehabad and Sirsa districts, where the platelet count of patients has shown a sharp decrease, a condition reported in dengue.

“We have been receiving patients, who come with complaints of fever and their platelet count starts falling drastically,” said Dr HC Dahiya, a physician from Fatehabad.

Dr Sunil Sethi, a physician from Tohana, said the symptoms in these patients were like dengue, but serological tests confirmed that these were not cases of dengue.

The patients, he said, started recovering after a few days and their platelet count, that came down to below one lakh from the normal three lakh or more, started improving gradually.

In some instances, more than one patients from a family have visited doctors with this complaint within a short period, suggesting that the fever may be vector borne.The number of patients with such symptoms has been quite high during the past one month, though there has been some decrease in the cases in the past two days, maintain doctors. Doctors in Sirsa and Ellenabad also said the same thing.

“The platelet count can come down in any fever, including viral fevers. Serological test is the only test that confirms dengue,” said Sheel Kaushik, Deputy Civil Surgeon (Vector-Borne Diseases), Sirsa.

She said they had only one suspected case of dengue in the district so far, though the report of his test was still awaited.

The patient, she said, belonged to Dabwali and was treated in Punjab.

Meanwhile, she said 980 cases of laboratory-tested malaria had been detected in Sirsa so far. In Fatehabad, the figure was slightly less at 926. Kaushik claimed that the cases of malaria were on the decline now and would further come down with the change in the climate.

Panipat: Alarmed by the increasing number of cases of dengue in adjoining areas, the district health department has decided to inspect all government and private buildings to ensure that measures to check breeding of mosquitoes were in place.

Dengue cases in the district have been few, but those of malaria have gone up to 200. The health department maintains that fogging operations carried out in various parts of the district had helped contain the situation.

Civil Surgeon SS Punia said special teams would visit government and private buildings to ensure that these were not breeding mosquitoes carrying the dengue virus.

The department could challan the building owner for proper health standards, he added. — TNS

Kurukshetra, October 12
In a subtle move that can further aggravate the tension between the HSGPC (ad hoc) and Amritsar-based SGPC, the latter today laid the foundation stone of its sub-office in Kurukshetra.

Laying the foundation stone of the sub-office project spread over 3 acres near Pahli Patshahi, SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar dismissed the demand for a separate SGPC for Haryana and chided the HSGPC leaders for misleading Haryana Sikhs.

The project envisaged construction of parks, gardens and parking on 1 acre, SGPC sub-office on equivalent area of land and employees’ residences in the remaining 1 acre.

SGPC Senior Vice-President Raghubeer Singh Virk revealed that six new schools would be opened by the SGPC at Damtam Sahib, Jind, Pinjore, Jagadhri, Kurukshetra and Karnal while the school in Kaithal would be inaugurated on November 20 next and 100 more persons would be recruited on managerial posts in the state.

Attacking HSGPC president Jagdish Singh Jhinda for launching the “jail bharo” agitation, Makkar alleged that the HSGPC and the state government were hand in glove and the police was arresting the HSGPC agitators and later letting them free.

Kurukshetra is the nerve centre of HSGPC activities, where an abortive attempt was made to take over Chhevin Patshahi in September last year and the “jail bharo” agitation is also continuing here.

The SGPC move to open its sub-office here is aimed at sending a clear message that it will take the HSGPC head-on in its own bastion.

Ridiculing the move to open the sub-office, Jhinda said it would only be a “post office” for correspondence with Amritsar with no powers. There was no question of abandoning the movement for a separate gurdwara committee and the agitation would be further intensified, he added.

Kaithal, October 12
An accused, who was arrested in an NDPS case in 2001 and subsequently went underground after seeking bail from the court, was rearrested by the police. He was declared 
a proclaimed offender 
in 2006.

The accused was booked in a fresh case of contempt to court and was produced in a local court, which sent him to judicial custody.

SSP Sandeep Khirwar told mediapersons here today that Laftain Singh, alias Bittu, of Daban Kheri village was arrested by a police party near Daban Kheri village when he was carrying poppy husk in a bag on September 26, 2006.

He was put on trial, but he obtained bail from the court and went underground.

He was declared a proclaimed offender in February 2006.