Amritsar, October 22
The applicants thronging the District Transport Office (DTO), for various purposes like getting driving licences, their renewal, getting duplicates and other facilities, are peeved at the facilities being offered by the department.

Their deprivations are accentuated since there is only one photographer to cater to the enormous number of applicants. As per the DTO, photographs of nearly 150 persons, on an average, are clicked on a given working day.

The toughest part in getting the licence issued is to wait endlessly in the serpentine queue to get pictures clicked. The queue in turn winds through a narrow and dingy verandah which does not have any source of air.

After traveling nearly 23 km from Lopoke village, to get his licence issued, Nishan Singh found that the procedural walk ahead was as bumpy as the ride in the bus from his house to the dusty office.

He said he had been waiting for his turn for the past two hours with no success in sight.

Amritsar, October 22
Even though number of dengue cases in Amritsar stands at meagre 36, the disease has spread panic in a large section of people.However, the health authorities claimed that the situation is not alarming and is very much under control.

“There is no need of panic. With the onset of winter season, the number would scale down while the majority of patients who were suspected to have dengue were suffering from viral fever having very similar symptoms of dengue,” said Dr H S Ghai, Deputy Medical Commissioner.

More of the fear is created by the private hospitals as they declare even the viral fever as dengue after conducting ‘Rapid Screening Test’, which is easily available at private labs and hospitals. However, this test is not approved by National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD), New Delhi, for authentic confirmation, said Dr Ghai.

The NICD has approved ‘Mac-eliza’ test for confirming the disease which is at present is available at the Department of Microbiology, Government Medical College here.

The Government of India has provided special kits to all civil and government hospitals for conducting test. The family of the patients could collect the reports within couple of days.

He said the viral fever spreading in the region has very similar symptoms to dengue such has high grade fever, headache, backache, pain in the eyes, rashes etc. The count of platelets decreases in every viral fever but the doctors say that the real panic situation arises when there would be need to transmit the platelets when the count comes below 10,000 or in case of bleeding from any part of the body.

At present approximately 290 patients have been tested for suspected dengue out of which 36 cases were confirmed as suffering from deadly disease. Out of these 36 patients, 11 were admitted at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital, 9 in Civil Hospital and 16 patients are admitted at various private hospitals, said Dr Ghai. All the patients belonged to urban or semi urban areas of the city. 

Amritsar, October 22
Even as the district administration had claimed to finish the work on setting up a rose garden-cum-environmental park-cum-recreational centre in 30 acres at Sector E, Ranjit Avenue, within six months, but after the lapse of over a year the project is nowhere near completion.

Local Bodies Minister Manoranjan Kalia, under whose jurisdiction the Improvement Trust comes, had laid the foundation stone of the park, named Amrit Anand Bagh, on September 2, 2009.

The park was said to provide another green lung to the city, which is bursting at it seems and concrete structures of all shapes and sizes coming up in all its directions.

Though there are big and popular gardens in the city, the recreation activity is somehow limited because of several reasons. Considering all these factors, the district administration along with the Amritsar Improvement Trust proposed to offer the holy city another green lung - rose garden-cum-environmental park - with all embellishments to provide an exquisite recreation centre.

At present, the work is going on at snail’s pace in the park. The land of the park falls under the Improvement Trust’s 97-acre Ranjit Avenue scheme. However, it is located along the GT Road and as per the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court all are prohibited from raising any structure within 100 m of the highway. Hence, the district administration and the Improvement Trust decided to set up the park and it was duly included in the vision paper released in the beginning of 2009.

The Chairman, IT, Sanjeev Khanna, said for many reasons the project was delayed and out of them one was late submission of design by the company. A Bangalore-based concern had prepared its plan. He added that all reasons of delays were before his joining the office couple of months ago.

He claimed that after joining the office he took up the project on priority and currently its boundary wall was being raised. He said the trust did not want to offer a hurriedly raised garden, but a unique feature to the city.

He informed that the park would include recreation centre, open theatre, herbs plants and bushes and a secluded zone. He added that for maintaining the park entry fee would be charged and eating joints would be set up. He said probably it would take another six months for the garden to come up.

Bangalore-based Messers Beyond Built (architect-cum-landscape consultant) has been given the responsibility to develop the patch of land into a park, to be developed at the cost of Rs 4.5 crore.

Amritsar, October 22
It’s elegant, creative and most importantly durable.Creative Line Inc has come up with an exhibition to showcase Assam-made collection of cane furniture in the holy city.The articles on offer includes sofa set, dining table, garden set, chairs, hanging lamps and flower pots.

Talking to The Tribune, Assam-based Komal J. Kaur, proprietor of Creative Line Inc, says the furniture has been made from two types of canes.

The one with white tinge is made up of imported cane and its USP (Unique Selling Proposition) is its finish and durability. The other collection in red tinge has been made up of Indian cane, which has comparatively less finishing but is equally durable.

Though there is almost double the difference between the price of an imported cane-made and an Indian made, yet the both have their unique qualities. A five-seater sofa set made up of Indian made cane would cost anything between Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 whereas the foreign made cane sofa set with the same capacity would cost you for nothing less than Rs 45,000.

To top it all, this furniture would not be infected with termite as the cane weaved would be treated, processed and varnished with minute detailing to deal with the problem, the proprietors claimed.

Unlike traditional wooden furniture, this new collection is easy to wash and easy to maintain. “You can even wash them just as you wash your car with splash and nothing would go wrong with it. No chemical or washing substance is required to remove the dust as its grooves would be cleaned with the splash of water only. This implies that no dust particles would be stayed on them”, she said, while terming this collection as eco-friendly.

Another plus point in this type of furniture is that its theme can be changed frequently after spending a small amount. “Just pay Rs 5,000, and change your clothing or the leather material made seats, your sofa would be like a new one, whereas there would be no such easy and economical provision with the traditional wooden sofa,” she said.

Another advantage of keeping this furniture is that it is very light in weight and can easily be pushed aside, while brooming in the rooms.

About its uniqueness, Kamal told that these articles have been made from Assamese craftsmen only and it is a time consuming exercise to weave in the design. “It is hard to believe but true that only one single craftsman would weave in the whole set and this is done to maintain the continuity and weaving rhythm. That’s why a sofa set would be made in a time span of over three months. This furniture is built by special experts which would be available in Assam only as it is their ancestral art and they would not be ready, at any cost, to shift to other states,” she told.

The exhibition is on till October 31.

Amritsar, October 22
The problems of relations between India and Pakistan are complex and multi-dimensional. They are historical, geographical, social, cultural and psychological, opined VK Sibal, former Foreign Secretary of India, while delivering a lecture on Indo-Pak relations, under the aegis of the Ministry of External Affairs, at the Guru Nanak Dev University, here, today.

“Pakistan has no historical basis, it only has a political one. If the case was that two distinct people - with their own clear sense of history, had been forced to cohabit against their will and at an opportune moment - had separated as independent entities, reconciliation would have been be easier in principle.

But if the division is made because of political expediency, distorted narratives and geo-political reasons, the cut and paste separation remains incomplete and the wounds of partition will fester,” he said.

He said the two-nation theory lost meaning with millions of Muslims staying on in India in 1947. It was further eroded with the creation of the independent Bangladesh. Pakistan is obsessed with the idea of parity with India, which is based on the notion that Muslims are a superior martial race than Hindus and long standing encouragement by western powers, interested in balancing India.

Sibbal laid emphasis on the fact that the claims of insecurity from the Indian side are false. They raise this bogey only to draw attention of the western world towards themselves and gain benefits out of that.

Sibbal categorically stated that there is no political force in India which advocates an unstable Pakistan.

He said India has ceased to assert its legal claim over Pakistan Occupied Kashmir in the interest of peaceful resolution of our differences.

“The thrust of our policies is to settle the Kashmir issue on the basis of the actual line of Control (LOC). 

Amritsar, October 22
Officials of the state Special Operation Cell today nabbed a notorious drug peddler, Maghar Singh, resident of the Anngarh area.He was caught from near the railway station when he was waiting of a party to deliver the consignment, claimed a police official, adding that 1 kg of smack was seized from him.

According to details, he was part of the notorious gang of drug peddlers, headed by Rockey, alias Sikandar, operating in 
the Maqboolpura and Anngarh areas.

Manminder Singh, SP, Anti-smuggling Wing, said the contraband was part of a bigger consignment brought by Rockey, who used to smuggle these narcotics from Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. He said manhunt had been launched to nab Rockey, who was on run after the arrest of Maghar Singh. Maghar was recently released on bail. He was in jail for two months on similar charges.

A case under Sections 21, 25 and 29 of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act was registered. The police also recovered a motorcycle (PB02AQ-Temp-8252) from Maghar.

Amritsar, October 22
The Amritsar College of Engineering and Technology, Amritsar, organised a Fresher’s Function to welcome new comers in the B.Tech, MCA and MBA courses, of the session 2010.The function was organised in the college auditorium.

It was inaugurated by HL Sharma, Chairman-ACET, by lighting the lamp before Goddess Saraswati. Amit Sharma, Managing Director-ACET and Dr RS Bawa, Director-ACET were also present during the function.

Amritsar, October 22
Dr Arvind D Sabharwal from the Department of Physics of Guru Nanak Dev University has been selected to present his research work at the International Conference on Environmental Radioactivity - New frontiers and Development in University of Rome, Italy from October 24 to 28.

He has been provided a travel grant by the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics to present his work at the University of Rome.

Always passionate about teaching and research, Dr Sabharwal started his career in teaching at school level in 2001 at Patiala an started his research work in March 2004 as a PhD student in the field of nuclear and radiation physics at Nuclear Science Laboratories at Physics Department, Punjabi University, Patiala.

He was guided by learned persons Dr B.S. Sandhu and Dr Bhajan Singh Professor, Physics Department, Punjabi University, Patiala. Recently, Sabharwal was selected by empowered committee of Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Government of India (GOI) and was given prestigious Dr D.S. Kothari Fellowship award in February by UGC, New Delhi.

Under this fellowship he is working in the field of environment and health physics for, “Investigations of Uranium and its decay products in air, soil and water in Malwa belt of Punjab” with eminent scientist Dr. Surinder Singh, Professor, Physics Department, and Dean Acedemic Affairs Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.

His investigations are linked with the cancer problems in this region and his thrust areas are Mansa, Fridkot and Bathinda while working in whole Malwa belt of Punjab. This research work is carried out by using latest modern techniques like laser fulorimetry and Inductive Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS).

Prior to this conference he was selected by Department of Science and Technology (DST) for travel grant and had recently presented his research work in July 2010 at University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Dr Sabharwal is a member of International Radiation Physics society (IRSP) and several other renowned scientific societies and has number of research papers in journals of International repute.