Dehradun, November 11
Uttarakhand Congress President Yashpal Arya was given a tumultuous welcome on his return to the national Capital here today to start his second innings as state Congress chief.

Thousands of Congress workers laid siege to the Dehradun railway station this afternoon as the Shatabdi Express chugged in carrying senior Congress leaders, including Arya, Satpal Maharaj and Vijay Bahuguna, both MPs, and party co-incharge Bhola Pandey.

Interestingly, Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Harish Rawat and his supporters were conspicuous by their absence during the entire show of strength.

In a clear message to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), enthusiastic Congress workers welcomed Arya at more than a dozen places en route from railway station to the Congress Bhawan. Hundreds of vehicles in the procession took two hours to reach the bhawan clogging the entire traffic of Dehradun city. There were long traffic jams as policemen tried to divert traffic from the main Rajpur Road and Clock Tower area where the procession proceeded.

Addressing Congress workers, Arya in a belligerent tone termed the state BJP government as “inefficient and corrupt”. He alleged that the wheels of development in Uttarakhand had got completely derailed as ruling BJP leaders were involved in petty factional fights ignoring the needs of the common people of the state.

On the issue of disaster relief, Arya said the state government had utterly failed to provide succour to the affected population. “Uttarakhand is the only state which got the biggest package of Rs 500 crore from the Central government along with Rs 160 crore as relief as compared to any other state.

But Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has been alleging that the Union government has been biased against Uttarakhand. While on the one hand, the Chief Minister goes to the Central government to beg and on the other hand, on coming back, he accuses the Union government of injustice. We will expose this before the common people of Uttarakhand,” Yashpal Arya stated.

Satpal Maharaj, Pauri Garhwal MP, welcoming Arya, castigated the state BJP government for brutal lathi charge by the police on SSB guerrillas in Dehradun on Wednesday. “I will raise voice in Parliament, but the brutal lathi charge has shown the true face of the BJP government,” he said.

Haridwar, November 11
The postponement of the panchayat elections in Haridwar district, which were scheduled to be held post-October 20 when the five-year term of the panchayats got completed, has evoked a strong resentment from various political outfits.

While parties like the Congress and the BSP have resorted to public statements only, the issue is being strongly taken up by the Rashtriya Krantikari Manch that has a mass support of farmers and villagers, which was evident by participation in its rally here today.

People from urban areas of Roorkee, Laksar, Bahadrabad, Mangalore, Landaura, Iqbalpur and other areas also joined in the rally, which started from the BHEL intersection in Bahadrabad and culminated at the district headquarters in Roshanabad where manch leaders, village heads, district panchayat members addressed the gathering.

Accusing Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank of playing foul politics by cancelling the panchayat elections, founder of the manch Ambrish Kumar said the BJP government was scared of its imminent defeat in these elections owing to mass corruption in the past three years of the BJP governance.

“This state government has forgotten the woes of villagers, workers and the poor with from the Chief Minister to the party rank holders everyone is busy in filling their coffers. People from both plain and hill areas have fed up by this corrupt governance. Postponing the panchayat elections without any concrete reason is a deliberate step which has hampered the development in Haridwar at large,” he said.

Farmer leader Murli Manohar said the decision that had hurt the very principles of democracy. Demanding the appointment of village heads as administrators instead of Additional Development Officers (ADOs), he said within a stipulated time, the Chief Minister should declare the dates of the panchayat elections or instantly appoint village chiefs as administrators as it was affecting the development in villages.

Dehradun, November 11
The Uttarakhand Election Commission would distribute identity (ID) cards across the state on the National Voter’s Day on January 25, 2011. It was declared during the inaugural ceremony of the three-day photo exhibition and Voter ID card camp conducted on the Parade Ground here today.

The Election Commission of India will complete 60 years of its foundation next year in January. The camp is organised to provide assistance to the inhabitants of Dehradun district only, to get them registered on the voter list of Dehradun and seek voter ID card later.

The desired applicant of the voter ID card has to produce a recent passport-size photograph, along with address proof, to the assistance booth on the Parade Ground.

The camp maintains all required authenticity of proceedings as the entire camp is conducted under the supervision of the Chief Election Commission, Uttarakhand, while the exhibition is conducted under the aegis of the Ministry of Information and Broadcast, Government of India, DAVP and Films Division, Uttarakhand Chief Election Officer and Election Commission of India.

While talking to The Tribune, Mastu Das, Section Officer of State’s Chief Election Commission, informed, “The State Election Commission began a three-day drive for submitting the application forms to seek voter ID cards here today on the occasion of diamond jubilee year of the Election Commission of India”.

“The camp aims at creating awareness among people and providing assistance to the residents of the district. The draft of the existing voters in Dehradun will be prepared and published on November 15 at the respective polling booths of the state assembly constituencies while the names of the new voters will be published on November 30. The final voters list will be released by the state Chief Election Commissioner, Radha Raturi, in assistance with the District Magistrate,” asserted Das.

The forms at the voter ID card camp are categorised under the requirement of the applicants. Form 6 is to add name of the resident in the voter’s list of the state. Form 7 for deletion of anybody’s name from the voter list, Form 8 for any correction or amendment regarding name or address of the voter, Form 8 (A) for transferring of entry within the assembly constituency of the voter and Form 1 (B) to seek voter ID card, in case his/her name is already in the list.

Governor Margaret Alva inaugurated the photo exhibition and also released a documentary film by the Election Commission of India. She congratulated the commission for completing 60 years of its foundation next year and invited school as well as college students to visit the photo exhibition on the behalf of the state government. She even encouraged the masses to cast vote and utilise their right for electing apt representative for themselves.

Dehradun, November 11
A number of parallel scientific sessions focusing on agricultural sciences, botany, earth sciences like geology, geomorphology and glaciology, material sciences and nanotechnology, mathematics, statistics, pharmaceutical science and environmental sciences and forestry were held on the second day of the fifth Uttarakhand Science Congress here today.

In the session on earth sciences, Dr BR Arora, former Director of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Sciences, made a presentation on the precursory research on earthquakes.

Senior scientists from various institutions from all over the country attended the technical sessions.

In other brain-storming sessions, discussions were held regarding the development issues of the state.

The session on renewable resources of energy highlighted the role of renewable resources of energy in the economic uplift and electrification of remote villages. Experts in the session included academicians, researchers, individuals and the in-line departments of the state.

Innovators also presented their papers today before judges who will decide which of the five innovators will receive the best innovator’s award.

The innovation presentations included those on energy efficient lights by Hemendra Gupta, electricity produced from smoke by Rakesh Biswas and on toys made from waste used as tools for scientific and technological communication by BM Sharma.

In the past five years, the Uttarakhand State

Council for Science and Technology (UCOST) has been able to oragnise, besides the annual science congress, 500 small, medium and big programmes on science popularisation. In the first science congress, 185 research papers were presented. This year, at the fifth congress, 650 papers have been presented.

A joint initiative of Doon University and UCOST, the Uttarakhand Science Congress will conclude tomorrow with Vidhan Sabha Speaker Harbans Kapoor slated to address the valedictory session. 

Dehradun, November 11
Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank will inaugurate the reconstruction work of the government property, which was destroyed due to natural disaster on November 15, on the Pavilion Ground here. This was stated by Ajay Singh Nabiyal, Commissioner of Garhwal Mandal, here today while convening a meeting with officials. He said the Chief Minister would be inaugurating the same on November 15, which is also celebrated as the 10th state formation day.

Nabiyal, along with District Magistrate (DM) Sachin Kurve, Chief Development Officer Indudhar Bodai, District Development Officer Dr RS Pokhria, District Sainik Welfare Officer Anil Wadhva and the officials of the PWD and the Jal Nigam also visited the ground to investigate it.

The Commissioner asked the DM to ensure that the pandal, area layout, parking sign boards were made before the beginning of the programme. He asked to see that the bridge leading to the ground was completed and the visitors got clean water for drinking.

Pitthoragarh, November 11
District Magistrate (DM) NS Negi has appointed Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Vinod Giri Goswami to investigate into illegal mining cases in the Bishar area on the complaints of residents of the area.

“The investigation team after meeting forest officers and gram panchayat representatives as well as the leased holders, will trace if any violation of mining law or environment law has been committed there and if any violation will come to light, the guilty will be punished,” said Negi.

According to the ADM, three persons have given mining lease in the area and it is being investigating that whether they are involved in any violation of the forest and gram panchayat land. “I have called a meeting of stake holders of this matter on November 16, in which three lease holders have also been invited,” said Goswami.

According to villagers, the leaseholders of the area have abruptly violated the environmental law. They stated that doing unscientific mining involving heavy blasting had disturbed not only the local geology, but also the flora and fauna of the area which was once a dense forest. “The debris left by the miners after mining sub minerals, has now started flowing downwards creating heavy crisis in nearby three villages, fully covering their cultivable land,” said Damodar Bhatt, former district BJP chief and a resident of Bishar village. 

Dehradun, Novomber 11
The Roorkee police has intensified it’s search to nab the two robbers who had absconded after their robbery attempt at the Civil Lines yesterday was foiled by Anil Arora, an alert neighbour. The day-light robbery bid has left people scared as the robbers had even fired from their country-made revolver, injuring one person.

Special teams have been formed by SSP, Haridwar, Sanjay Gunjiyal to catch the accused as this group has been involved in a number of robbery cases at Saharanpur, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Roorkee and many other places. An SOG group from Muzaffarnagar has also started investigation in this case.

Nadir, one of the nabbed accused, was produced in the court today and has been remanded to judicial custody for 14 days, said Roshan Lal Sharma, SP, Rural, Roorkee.

The absconding accused have been identified as Furkan and Chand, all three hailing from Muzaffarnagar.

Anil Arora, the neighbour who had caught the robber, was awarded a citation and a shawl today by Gunjiyal at a function in Roorkee. The SSP lauded his bravery and said he had set an example of being an alert citizen. 

Dehradun, November 11
The Akhil Garhwal Sabha will hold a 
charity show on November 14, the proceeds from which will go towards the affected families in the landslide and cloud burst induced disaster.

Addressing a press conference yesterday, TS Aswal, president of the sabha, said the sabha had cancelled Kothigi to be held in October to show their solidarity with the affected families.

“But in place of Kothigi, we had pledged to organise a charity show for the families,” he said. Top artistes from the state will participate in the charity show which will be held at Meenakshi wedding point (near the Rispana Bridge).

Those present at the press conference included secretary of the sabha Roshan Dhasmana, Uday Shankar Bhatt, Santosh Gairola and others.