Dehradun, November 14
The Shikhar Eco Foundation has joined hands with the Forest Department, WWF India and Agora village community to clean the Dodital lake and trek route. The volunteers also brought back non-biodegradable litter left at the end of the tourist season.

A four-day expedition was conducted from November 7 to 10 during which 25 sacks of non-biodegradable garbage was brought to Sangamchatti for recycling.

This is the first time that an organised clean-up has been carried out in Dodital. Not only has ecology been taken care of in this programme, but guidelines are also being drawn to provide employment to skilled and non-skilled local youth in the tourism industry creating an example for others.

Rajiv Bhartari, Director, Eco-tourism, said, “Such campaigns aim at raising awareness about the vulnerability of the fragile Himalayan ecosystems and encourage tourists and tour operators to adopt responsible practices towards minimising the footprint of tourism.

“I want more and more professionals from the tourism industry to come forward and adopt these villages which are important from tourism as well as from an environment point of view and contribute towards their maintenance and development”.

A team led by Rajbeer Rana, Senior Manager, and Passang Sherpa, Instructor, Adventure Department, Shikhar Travels, with support from Dr Sanjeev Sharma, Senior Project Officer, WWF India, Himachal Pradesh, and 13 other village youth from Agora village cleaned the Dodital and trek route of non-biodegradable litter.

Dr Sanjeev Sharma said, “As many as 25 sacks of waste were brought on six mules hired for this purpose. Out of these, 15 sacks were collected from around Dodital, five from the camping site at Majhi and the rest from Bebra and Agora village.

“The waste included glass bottles, mineral water bottles, tin cans and polythene. Gutka packets were the maximum”.

The material will be segregated at Sangamchatti and sent for recycling.

It was during the Adventure Tour Operators Association of India’s meeting in Dehradun two years back that Capt Swadesh Kumar had expressed a desire to adopt a village for the promotion of rural tourism.

Swadesh Kumar, Chief Managing Director of Shikhar Travels, runs a resort Shikhar Nature Resort at Uttarkashi. He chose Agora - the first rural tourism village in Uttarakhand to be funded by the Ministry of Tourism, government of India, for this initiative.

Kumar went ahead and founded the Shikar Eco Foundation for this purpose. “Our foundation organised a two-day hospitality training course for these 21 youth from Agora, 11 of whom were lodge owners. We are in the process of chalking out plans to find jobs for all of them in the tourism industry before the beginning of the next tourist season,” said Kumar.

Dr Sanjeev Sharma of the WWF India is a specialist in solid-waste management and had previously organised similar clean-up operations in Chandra Tal and Mani Mahesh lakes in Himachal Pradesh.

He said, “The WWF India contributed in the cleaning of Dodital, given its earlier commitment to providing expertise in similar initiatives. It has also launched the ‘Saving Wetlands Sky High’ programme for conserving high-altitude wetlands above 3000m above sea level.

“The Green Hiker Campaign of the WWF has also been launched as part of this programme in the Himalayas covering the Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand”. This campaign was launched in Uttarakhand on the occasion of World Tourism Day.

The expedition has shown the need for introducing waste bins made of Ringal, a kind of bamboo wood found in the region, along the trek route to make collection of waste and transportation easier, placing more signage along the trek route and providing green bags to visitors at Sangamchatti to encourage visitors to bring back non-biodegradable litter with them.

Dehradun, November 14
On the occasion of Children’s Day, Margaret Alva, Governor of Uttarakhand, congratulated children and paid tributes to first Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru on his birthday here today.

(From left) Children perform at a function at the Raj Bhawan;; and students perform at the Tree Festival on Children’s Day in Dehradun on Sunday. Tribune photographs

The Governor also expressed heartfelt gratitude to the various members of the State Child Welfare Council and requested them to support the noble cause in the future too. She also launched the official website of the Bal Bhawan:www.uksccw.org.in during the ceremony.

Students spread green message

It was truly a Children’s Day at the Dehradun Tree Festival organised by the Citizens for Green Doon (CFGD) where tiny tots from local schools stole the thunder, each proclaiming loudly: “I am a tree, don’t cut me”. The children were dressed like trees.

Over 1,000 children from several schools participated in the function held on the grounds of St Joseph’s Academy. An on-the-spot-painting competition in which nearly 200 children participated was also held. Several organisations, such as ICICI Bank, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education at the FRI and Clover Organic Pvt Ltd, had put up their stalls. Another booth was set up by the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) chapter of the Society of Petroleum Enginers (SPE, International).

The highlight of the programme was an excellent skit presented by the Sangam Sanskriti Samiti which depicted an incident from the life of the founder of the Chipko Movement Gaura Devi. It showed how the women power in the hill villages confronted the forest mafia, who in connivance with forest officials, indiscriminately fell trees, and thus created a new movement that literally spread like a jungle fire.

The idea of the festival was to sensitise children on environmental issues. The noted theatre personality Alok Ulfat, in his remarks, underscored the importance of becoming conscious of our surroundings. “Keeping one’s own house clean and tidy is okay, but we must also keep our villages and towns clean, neat and green,” Ulfat said.

Earlier, competitions on poster making, declamation, slogan writing, essay and poems writing were conducted. The prizes to the winners of these competitions were presnted by Raj Kanwar, veeteran journalist and President of the DAV (PG) College Alumni Association.

A function dedicated to underprivileged kids

To mark Children’s Day, the Ascension of the Needful through Kittenish and Integrated Training (Ankit), a social welfare society, organised various competitions for underprivileged kids and child labourers here today.

The programme was conducted at their office located at Karanpur.

More than 72 kids participated in the competitions enthusiastically. Children thoroughly enjoyed playing musical chair where they have put in their best efforts to win the trophy.

The winners were also awarded for their achievements by chairperson of the institute Anu Duseja.

While congratulating kids, Duseja said: “The society aims at providing education, health aid, entertainment, vocational training and other facilities to the deprived section of slum dwelling kids.”

Children of Kewal Vihar show their sketches and paintings; and (right) Congress workers distribute fruits to inmates of Bal Vinita Ashram on the occasion of Children’s Day in Dehradun on Sunday. Tribune photographs

Weight programme launched for anganwaris

To intensify fight against malnutrition on Children’s Day today, the Health Department launched a weight day programme at all anganwari centres.

Now, every month children under five years of age will be weighed at the centres under the Child Tracking Plan and cooked food will also be provided to the mothers and children.

Besides, a health team will also visit schools to detect malnutrition among children followed by a quarterly assessment by the Director-General of Health.

As of now the percentage of malnourished children in Uttarakhand is 42 per cent and the Health Department plans to bring it down to 21 per cent.

St Joseph’s Academy alumni donate books

On the occasion of Children’s Day, St Joseph’s Academy alumni donated more than 800 books to an ashram for establishing a library here. The donated books were for children in the age group of 2-18 years. These included story books, dictionaries, computer education books, engineering books, course books for science, maths, English and general knowledge.

The alumni are in the process of setting up libraries at a juvenile jail and old-age home and books have been collected for that purpose.

Also present on the occasion were Neha Sharma, Rajeev Sachar, Surbhi Arora, Seema Sharma, Amit Mahajan, Isha Rawat, RK Verma, Nivedita Sheel, Deepanaji Shahi and Saurabh

Meanwhile, members of the Uttarakhand Pradesh Congress Committee distributed sweets and fruits among inmates of the Bal Vinita Ashram. The party congratulated all children at the ashram and encouraged them to make their country proud.

Kiddyland Preparatory School

With enthusiasm Kiddyland Preparatory School celebrated Children’s Day here. The day began with a spellbinding performance by students.

Sneh Dora, Principal of the school, narrated the significance of day. She told students about how much Chacha Nehru loved children and therefore his birthday is celebrated as Children’s Day.

On the occasion a student of KG was dressed like Jawaharlal Nehru to whom everybody gave roses. Moreover, underprivileged children of nearby slum area also participated in the programme and danced to the tunes of number “Bum Bum Bhole”. The function presented by each and everybody was thoroughly entertaining while teachers also danced on peppy Bollywood numbers.

The event concluded with Principal Dora congratulating all students on the occasion, followed by sweets distribution .

Universal Academy

Visitors look at paintings made by children at a painting competition in Dehradun on Sunday. A Tribune photograph

On the occasion of Children’s Day, Universal Academy celebrated its first Founder’s Day here. The celebrations opened with the lighting of the ceremonial lamp by chief guest of the function Satyavrat, DGP (Vigilance), Uttarakhand.

The school wore a festive look. The cultural programme included dances, songs and music. The school choir sang a welcome song followed by the Saraswati prayer. The highlight of the function was a sound-and-light show by senior students while toddlers also got appreciation of the audience.

Sunit Pal Agarwal, director of the institute, presented the annual report, outlining the wide gamut of student activities and congratulated meritorious students for their excellent performance in the academic year.

The programme culminated with the vote of thanks followed by the national anthem. Other dignitaries presented on the occasion were Sharad Agarwal, MD, EISML, Uma Maheshwaram, senior VP, Mass Education, EISML, and others.

Kewal Vihar Welfare Committee

On the eve of Children’s Day, the Kewal Vihar Welfare Committee organised various competitions for children of the society members here on Saturday.

The competitions were divided in class-wise categories as painting and drawing competition was for students of Classes I to IV, English and Hindi essay writing for students of Classes V and VI, letter-writing competition for Classes VII and VIII and general studies for students of Classes IX to XII.

Apart from various competitions, children also presented cultural activities. Women and children sang the Saraswati prayers, bhajans and other songs.

Dr UVS Teotia, president of the committee, and Dr Vipin Srivastava, secretary, later awarded the winners.

The winners of the painting and drawing competition of Classes I and II were Sidhi Uniyal, Ananya Joshi and Khushi Madan as first, second and third, respectively, and of Classes III and IV were Aryan Bhardwaj, Anurag Bhardwaj and Shaksham Tiwari.

Utkarsh Tiwari, Rudraksh N Sharma and Muskan Madan were declared winners in the Hindi essay-writing; Shreya Uniyal, Arindam Sharma and Riya Sharma in letter writing, while Shanjali Sharma, Ujjwal Nath and Lakshya Uniyal were the winners of the general science competition.

1,000 examined at eye camps

Mussoorie: On the occasion of Pt Jawharlala Nehru’s birth anniversary, which is also celebrated as Children’s Day, more than 1,000 students from various govt schools underwent free eye checkup organised by the Uttarakhand Ophthalmological Society. More than 30 eye surgeons from Dehradun conducted the checkup camps at various schools where they also operated upon a few students.

A lecture on the importance of yoga in life of the children and adolescent problems was also delivered by experts and gynaecologists from Dehradun. Around 10 schools, including Sanatan Dharm Inter College, Ramadevi Inter College, Ghanand Inter College, Nirmala High School, and St Lawrence School, under the programme.

Students having deficient vision were referred for further checkup at Mussoorie. Dr Gopal Agarwal, talking to The Tribune, said the objective of the camp was to find out undetected eye problems in children all over the world as 55 per cent of schoolchildren were affected by defected vision but were unaware of it. Dr Agarwal also said around 10 students were detected with eye problems for which another such camp would be organised where all these students will be provided necessary treatment.

School teacher Aarti Goel Agarwal, at the Sanatan Dharm Inter College for Girls, emphasised that students should follow the healthy traditions of the country instead of aping Western culture blindly. Aarti also said women were no less than men and they should not consider themselves as vulnerable beings and should work hard with full confidence to achieve their goals.

The renomination of Yashpal Arya as the Uttarakhand Congress chief last week has failed to quell the internecine war within state Congress leaders. After a long agonising wait, party chief Sonia Gandhi renominated Arya as the Uttarakhand Congress chief despite a stiff opposition from one of the most powerful Congress stalwarts and Union Minister of State for Labour and Employment Harish Rawat. The position of the state Congress chief was important for the various factions of the state Congress due to the forthcoming assembly elections scheduled to be held in early 2012. It was hoped that the Congress would do well in the Assembly polls and a virtual war had started between the Congress stalwarts of the state to be in a position to become the next Chief Minister.

Rawat, who is also the Lok Sabha member from Haridwar, is a front runner for the post. A shrewd politician and one of the best political organisers, Rawat is a Congress leader who has following across the state. He missed his chance to become the Chief Minister of the state after he led the party to victory in the first-ever Assembly elections held in February, 2002. At that time, the party high command ignored his claim and installed veteran politician ND Tiwari as the Chief Minister, much to his chagrin. During five years’ of Tiwari regime, Rawat was state Congress chief, but acted virtually as an Opposition leader in the absence of any worthwhile opposition from the main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

After the defeat of the Congress in the 2007 Assembly polls, Rawat was replaced by Arya, a Dalit leader and a protégé of Tiwari in 2007. It was in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections that the Congress did exceptionally well winning all the Lok Sabha seats in the state. Rawat, who shifted his home constituency of Almora to Haridwar, also did a miraculous feat by winning the Haridwar Lok Sabha seat for the Congress after nearly 25 years.

But, in the run-up to the nomination of the state Congress chief, Rawat, realising the importance of the position, wanted his own person as state Congress president. However, the party high command rewarded Arya who was credited with organsing Dalits and Muslims back to the fold of the Congress in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, to counter balance Rawat, all other factions, including three Lok Sabha MPs, namely Satpal Maharaj, Vijay Bahuguna and KC Singh Baba, threw their weight behind Arya.

Arya, after becoming the state Congress chief, was given a tumultuous welcome by party workers at Haldwani, his home town, and capital city of Dehradun. Thousands of enthusiastic Congress workers mobbed him as cavalcades of vehicles carrying party workers and leaders led to huge traffic jams in both cities.

Interestingly, at both these functions, neither Rawat nor anyone of his supporter legislators were seen. It seems that it was a deliberate decision by the Rawat group to boycott his felicitation functions giving a clear signal to party bosses and to their detractors that the fight for the post of president has ceased with Arya in the saddle but the war for the next Chief Minister is hotting up with each passing day.

Dehradun, November 14
Graphic Era University (GEU) is now recognised as a nodal centre for conducting the Open Learning Programme in Entrepreneurship (OLPE). Students will be awarded a one-year diploma in business entrepreneurship by the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII). Two batches for this programme have been enrolled, while 84 students have already been registered.

This course is offered by the EDII, sponsored by Friedrich Naumann-Stiftung Germany and supported by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), DST, and government of India.

Raman Gujral, Regional Coordinator, EDII, Central region, conducted the second three-day contact programme from November 12-14. He said, “A good business plan is required before starting any business as it helps get the essential financial support from various financial institutions. This contact programme was completely dedicated for the preparation of a business plan”.

He further explained to the students the importance of a sound business plan and said, “It reflects the first impression on your bank or any financial institution that helps you in easy funding for your project”.

On the occasion, Prof (Brig) RP Nautiyal, Head of Entrepreneurship, said Graphic Era University had always been a pioneer in educational innovation and creativity. To help in the fast and strong development of Uttarakhand, the state required young entrepreneurs who would become catalysts for development.

“GEU has taken on the task to identify, develop and nurture such entrepreneurial talent. The university took the initiative by starting an entrepreneurship-focused course in association with the EDII. These students are required to put in two-three hours of extra work every day. The focus is on application and practical experience to prepare them adequately to meet the challenges of the business world. Those students who successfully complete the course on entrepreneurship will be awarded a diploma in business entrepreneurship,” asserted Nautiyal.

The programme is open to all graduates and they can register for the one-year diploma. Interested candidates are required to deposit a fee of Rs 10,250 with the EDII through GEU, attend two contact programmes of three days each at GEU. The enrolled students will also be required to submit a business plan at the end of the year and appear for a written exam at the GEU nodal centre.

Dehradun, November 14
The DAV College Alumni Association will hold its annual prize-distribution function at Doon International School on November 26. Manisha Panwar, Secretary, Education, will be the chief guest.

This decision was taken at a meeting of its executive committee held under the presidentship of Raj Kanwar. The prizes will be awarded to the winners of an inter-school essay contest held in September. The subject of the essay competition was, “Is caste system good for India?”. Over 200 entries were received from senior school students. The writer of the best essay will get a cash prize of Rs 5,000, while the first and the second runner-up will receive Rs 3,000 and Rs 1,000, respectively. Ten students will be awarded consolation prizes.

The association will also award prizes to two toppers of Class X examination. Names of these toppers have been received from various schools. The association also decided to hold its annual function towards the second half of December at which a Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to a distinguished alumnus of the college. Chairman of the State Bank of India OP Bhatt has been invited for this prestigious award.

President Raj Kanwar said a special souvenir was being brought out to synchronise with the annual function. The souvenir will carry the names and brief profiles of all Principals of the college, beginning with Dr RN Saxena, as also the names of the presidents of its Students Union. It may be recalled that the first elections of the Students Union were held in 1948-49 when Raja Ram Uniyal was elected president. He was followed in later years by Chandra Mohan Joshi and Nityanand Swami. The souvenir will also published short profiles of some of its more distinguished alumni.

The meeting also passed a special resolution praying for a speedy recovery of Nityanand Swami who has been ailing for quite some time. Swami is the first Chief Minister of Uttarakhand and is also the chief patron of the association.

Dehradun, November 14
The winners of an inter-school competition held under the aegis of the Indo-German Cultural Society at Vivekanand School last month were awarded with books here yesterday. Dr AK Dubey, Managing Director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, was the chief guest.

The programme commenced with a Saraswati prayer followed by the lighting of the ceremonial lamp. Riya Yadav of Doon International School bagged the first position in the Hindi debate, Sneha Devli of Presidency School stood first in the English debate. In the junior section, Richa Rai of Drona International bagged the first position in an essay competition, Yash Sondhi of Brightland School was declared the first among seniors.

Dehradun, November 14
The Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association, Dehradun, will celebrate the Sir Syed Day on November 15 at the Officers’ Club, Yamuna Colony. The occasion marks the birth anniversary of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, founder of Aligarh Muslim University.

Besides paying obeisance and respect to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, a fellowship dinner, honouring the senior member of the association, release of the magazine “Clarion-de-Alig”, a cultural programme and prize distribution function will be the highlights of the function.

IPS Alok Shukla, an old boy of the university, will be the chief guest on the occasion, according to Dr Sajid Jamal, general secretary of the association.

Dehradun, November 14
A 10-member Uttarakhand civil services badminton team was selected today during the trials here at the multipurpose hall of the Parade Ground.The team has been selected for the forthcoming All-India Civil Services Badminton Championship that is scheduled to be held from November 23 to 28 at Panchkula in Haryana. All administrative department personnel (excluding police/military) of the state can participate in the event.

The trials were conducted by badminton coach Deepak Rawat. He said the team would be accompanied by a coach and a manager at the championship in Panchkula.

Sixteen draws were made during the trials and out of them, 10 players got selected. Rawat said that as the players were informed late, the number of participants was less, but it was expected to rise next time.

“We have a good team for the upcoming championship and we are confident of doing well in the competition,” said the coach. District Sports Officer and District Badminton Secretary were also present on the occasion.