Chandigarh, October 14
Haryana has emerged as a gold mine, with its players winning 15 of the 38 top medals for India at the Delhi Commonwealth Games. The authorities say that rewards and incentives to groom budding athletes had borne fruit.

"There are a lot of incentives and rewards which we have been giving to our sportspersons. The Sports Talent Hunt Scheme to search and groom budding sportspersons in the rural and urban areas has paid off," Haryana Olympic Association president, PV Rathee said today.

Besides winning 15 gold medals, Haryana athletes bagged eight bronze and four silver at the Games.

Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said the players from the state had performed exceedingly well in the CWG and made the country and the state proud.

The state is set to honour its CWG medal winners and their coaches at a function in Sonepat on Haryana Day on November 1.

Most victors come from nondescript villages in the state. Hooda said: "As many as 171 stadia are being set up in rural areas to groom rural talent and provide them suitable infrastructure."

The players winning gold, silver and bronze medals would be given a cash award of Rs 15 lakh, Rs 10 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, respectively, by the Haryana government.

Rathee said the HOA had requested the state government to open a special academy at Madhuban to train players who had won medals at the Delhi CWG and other promising players for the 2012 Olympics.

"We intend to hire foreign coaches for the proposed academy so that our players can win medals at the Olympics," Rathee said.

"We also intend to launch a sports university soon in the Jind-Sonepat-Bhiwani belt as maximum talent comes from that area," the HOA chief said.

The Haryana players won most of the medals in wrestling, shooting and boxing. Krishna Poonia broke over five- decade-old medal jinx in athletics, winning the gold in women's discus throw, becoming the first woman athlete from the country to win a CWG medal.

Wrestler Manoj Kumar's village in Kaithal erupted with joy after he got a medal in the 64 kg category. People in his village remained glued to the television, cheering for him all the way. "He has made his village, district, Haryana and the nation proud," his father Sher Singh said.

Celebrations have been going on at shooter Harpreet Singh's home in Karnal after he won double gold while boxer Paramjit Samota's village Dinod in Bhiwani never looked the same again after his gold winning feat. "He has brought laurels for Haryana and India. I hope he will bring more," his father Pradeep Samota said. Three players in the men's hockey team, Sandeep Singh (Kurukshetra), Sardara Singh (Sirsa) and Bharat Chhikara (Jhajjar), also belong to Haryana, though there was disappointment as the team lost to Australia in the finals. — PTI

Chandigarh, October 14
Haryana is often in news, unfortunately for the wrong reasons. In the recent past, the state has been associated with honour killings, draconian khaps diktats and anti-women fatwas. This popular perception about the state will certainly change now after the Commonwealth Games with the “chhoris” and “chhoras” of Haryana contributing to the country’s medal tally in a big way. The icing on the cake on the final day of the Games came with Saina Nehwal winning the gold in badminton. She is not the alone girl from the state to bring laurels to the country and the state.

Two sisters, Gita and Babita, won the gold and silver for the country in the wrestling. In the same discipline, Anita won the gold, while Nirmala Devi and Suman Kundu won the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Anisa Sayyad, “bahu” of Mewat, one of the most backward areas in the country, has won two gold medals in shooting. Anu Raj Singh, who is settled in Faridabad like Anisa, also won a gold in shooting. Krishna Poonia and Seema Antil won the gold and bronze in athletics.

Anita, Seema Antil and Nirmala Devi are employed with the Haryana Police. Gita and Babita come from Bhiwani, while Suman Kundu belongs to Rohtak. Congratuling the medallists, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda said 54 players hailing from the state represented the country in the Games and two-third of them won the medals. Haryanavi chhoris and chhoras have, indeed, done the state and the country proud with their outstanding performance. 

Rohtak, October 14
Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda announced here today that the state would increase the sports outlay to promote sports and sportspersons.

“The sports budget has already gone up to Rs 3,200 crore this year from Rs 1400 crore in 2005,” Hooda told media- persons at the local canal rest house. Expressing satisfaction over the performance of players from the state in the 19th CWG, he said Haryana had emerged at the top with its players getting almost 40 per cent of the Gold medals and about one-fourth of the total medals in various events. Hooda appeared in high spirits following the victory of Saina Nehwal in badminton.

He said his government would spare no effort to seek additional support from the Centre to expand and upgrade the sports infrastructure. — TNS

Chandigarh, October 14
Soon after Haryana Vidhan Sabha Speaker Harmohinder Singh Chatha claimed that a writ petition filed by Haryana Janhit Congress president Kuldeep Bishnoi for disqualifying five MLAs from his party for defection was not maintainable, Bishnoi today made clear his intentions of having the matter heard expeditiously.

As the petition came up for hearing before Justice Permod Kohli of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, Bishnoi’s counsel Dheeraj Jain said the petitioner had no intention of filing a rejoinder to the replies and sought directions for the matter to be heard today itself.

After hearing him and the other side, Justice Kohli fixed November 1 as the date for hearing for arguments.

Already, a written statement on behalf of the Speaker has been filed through counsel-cum-additional Solicitor-General of India Mohan Jain. Written statements have also been filed on behalf of the five MLAs through senior advocate Harbhagwan Singh.

In his reply, the Speaker has asserted the disqualification petitions were pending adjudication. As such, the writ petition was not maintainable. His counsel referred to an Apex Court judgment to say the issue had already been settled by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.

Quoting the judgment, Jain 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.

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.

The election to Haryana Vidhan Sabha was held 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.”

Karnal, October 14
At least six persons of Dyalpur village, who got their eyes operated upon at a private hospital under the Below Poverty Line (BPL) scheme last year, have alleged that they lost vision after the operation.

Nathu Ram, who got his eye operated upon at a private hospital, alleged that he lost vision due to an infection while his wife, Taravati, complained that the doctor operated her right eye in place of the left eye and she turned blind.

The story of Kamla and several other villagers was no different and they also claimed that their vision got impaired after they underwent an eye operation and blamed the hospital.

Village sarpanch Amarjeet Kaur said it was a serious matter and threatened to sue the “erring” doctors, whose alleged “negligence” cost villagers their eyes.

Civil Surgeon Vandana Bhatia said a complaint was received from Nathu Ram and an inquiry was ordered that absolved the doctor and affirmed that “right treatment” was given to him. There was a possibility of one patient in a hundered getting infected and besides this case, no other complaint was received, she stated.

Dr JK Bhatnagar said the complainant, Nathu Ram, was operated upon on September 13, 2009, along with his wife and five other persons and none of them had any infection or other complication.

He claimed that the patient came to the hospital three days after he was discharged with the same bandage, full of dirt and dust. He was under treatment in the hospital till January 2010 and all that was humanly possible was done and even his cornea was changed to save his eye. The dirt and dust could be the cause of infection and if the hospital was at fault, other patients who were operated along with him would also have got infection, he said.

Dr Bhatnagar alleged that the patient had come to him along with an advocate and demanded money which we flatly refused as “we are not at fault and ever since he has been after my reputation”.

“We have treated more than 280 patients under the BPL scheme and there has been no other complaint,” he said.

Sirsa/Fatehabad,October 14
Hundreds of guest teachers working in government schools of Sirsa and Fatehabad today held demonstration in support of their demand.

The guest teachers are demanding the regularisation of their services.

The agitating teachers assembled in Town Park at Sirsa under the banner of the Haryana Anubandhit Adhyapak Sangh and raised slogans against the government.

“Our members were appointed as guest teachers throughout the state on merit in 2005-06. The services of guest teachers appointed in similar manner in Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh have already been regularised by the respective governments, but in Haryana, our fate has been hanging fire,” alleged a leader of the sangh.

He said the guest teachers would start dharnas at the district and block level from October 18, in case their demand was not met by that time.

In Fatehabad, the agitating guest teachers today assembled in the mini-secretariat and raised slogans against the state government.

Raghubir Singh, district president of the Haryana Anubandhit Adhyapak Sangh, alleged that the state government had been dilly-dallying on their demand for long.

He alleged that their representatives had been called several times for meetings with the government, but no result came out.

He said their colleagues had been sitting on dharna at Rohtak since September 19 and in case the government did not regularise their services by

October 22, guest teachers from other districts, too, would reach Rohtak and sit on an indefinite fast.

Hisar, October 14
Students of Guru Jambheshwar University, Government Polytechnic and the Government College for Girls situated on the byepass on the National Highway No. 10 have to spend an average of two hours every day waiting for buses to take them home.

They say that while they are able to reach their institutions from their villages in the morning, drivers of long-route buses do not stop buses in the evening to take them back to their homes.

As a result they have to wait for hours on the roadside or have to walk down to the main bus stand for their return journey.

The students said a few months ago the transport authorities had posted a Haryana Roadways’ employee to force drivers to stop buses in the evening. They had also issued special passes for them for travel in these buses. However, after a few weeks the employee was posted elsewhere. Since then the problem had aggravated.

The students on Tuesday forced several buses to stop by squatting on the highway to highlight their problem. They said the delay was affecting their studies as more than two hours were wasted on the roadside. Besides, they had to travel by auto-rickshaws, which cost them heavily. 

Rohtak, October 14
Protect environment or perish was the common refrain at a national-level conference on “Environmental and health issues in a changing climatic scenario” which commenced here at Maharshi Dayanand University).

The Department of Environmental Sciences of the university are the hosts of the two-day meet.

Inaugurating the conference, Dr GV Subrahmanyam, Adviser, Ministry of Environment and Forests, said there was a need to protect environment for the well-being of mankind.

He called for effective conservation and management of living resources. Cautioning that climatic changes had widespread socio-economic implications, he gave a clarion call for adopting 3 Rs-recycle, re-use and reduce.

Dr SD Attri, Director, India Meteorological Department, Ministry of Earth Sciences, said environmental degradation had affected the human immunity system.

He called for effective measures to combat environmental degradation.

He said an instrument known as sky radiometer would be installed on the university campus to monitor environmental pollution.

Prof SS Sangwan, Vice Chancellor, Pt. BDS University of Health Sciences (Rohtak), said over-consumption, materialistic lifestyle and blatant misuse of resources were the reasons behind ecological and health problems.

He said sedentary consumptive lifestyle was a major health issue today. Prof Ravi Prakash suggested joint efforts by the Faculty of Life Sciences of MDU and Pt. B.D.S. University of Health Sciences to create awareness on community health and environment protection issues. He said students of Life Sciences could act as effective health communicators in rural areas, provided they were imparted suitable training in this regard.

The Dean, Faculty of Life Sciences, MDU, called for a massive eco-awareness drive to sensitise the masses on the environmental cause. The Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences also spoke. The meeting has been sponsored by the Directorate of Higher Education,Haryana.

Rohtak, October 14
“An amount of over Rs 3.51 crore has been recovered as fine from traffic violators in the district during the past three years, while 58,362 challans have been issued by the police and the traffic department in the district during this period,” said SSP Satish Balan here today.

He said the police was strictly dealing with all kinds of violations on the road and had not spared anyone found guilty.

He was reacting to reports in a section of the media that Rohtak was among those districts where no fine had been realised from traffic rule violators since 2005.

Stating that over Rs 3.51 crore had been recovered by the police through challans since 2007, he claimed that this amount was among the highest fines collected in the state.

He said there had been no let-up in the drive against traffic offenders and the police had been directed to deal strictly with the violators in the district.

However, Yoginder Dahiya, a social activist, alleged that the police and the local administration had failed to check the movement of unauthorised vehicles in the city. He claimed that hundreds of three-wheelers and private maxi cabs, which had “no registration number”, had been plying on the road with impunity.