Jalandhar, December 21
A cheque for Rs 5,600 might sound a small amount to many, but for Vishal Khan, a student of St Anthony Convent High School, Dheena village, near Jalandhar Cantonment, it means a whole world.

From giving financial assistance for the education of his elder sister to spending some on his books, this class X boy has already chalked his plans.

The son of a school bus driver, he was virtually on cloud nine after receiving the cheque in his name. “I am very happy today as the cheque has come at a time when my family required it the most. I will give it to my father who is making both ends meet with great efforts and still providing me the best education,” he added.

He was among the lucky few who received their first-ever Post-Matric Minority Scholarship cheque from District Welfare Officer Rajinder Singh at his school today.

While Puja, a class VIII student of the same school, said she would save the money for her study and tuition expenses. Daughter of a tailor in Jalandhar Cantonment, she did not hesitate talking about the financial status of her family. “My father is working as a tailor and at times it becomes difficult for him to manage the monthly finances. At least, I will be able to assist my father in my further studies. He will be very happy today,” she said ecstatically.

The Union Ministry of Minority Affairs recently released Rs 39,23,690 for 1,650 students under the pre-matric scheme for the year 2009-10 to the District Welfare Department. Another amount of Rs 39,07,050 has been given to 649 students under the post-matric scholarship scheme in the district.

District Welfare Officer Rajinder Singh said the grant was issued recently and disbursed in various schools and colleges. “The Union Ministry of Minority Affairs has further extended the date of submission of forms to December 25,” he added.

A total of 44 students from St Anthony Convent High School were given the scholarships today. Apart from this, other schools, which got the scholarships, include Mary Convent School, Bhogpur, St Francis Convent School, Kartarpur, St Taous Convent high School, Lama Pind-26, and St Mary Convent School, Gakhala.

Father Anthony, Director of the Navjeevan Charitable Society, and Sister Amla said it was after filing scores of RTI applications in this regard that the students had finally got the scholarships. “It is a good beginning and we would try to include as many students in the district under this scholarship,” they added.

However, president of the Pendu Mazdoor Union, who had been fighting for the rights of the minority students in the district, said the last date for submitting the forms should be extended as the schools were about to be closed for the winter vacations. “The date should be extended so that maximum minority students can avail themselves of the benefit. In fact, many students did not fill their forms this year as the previous grants were not released,” he added.

The students also thanked their teachers for creating awareness about the scheme and submitting the forms well on time. Abhilasha, a student of the same school, said, “Our teachers informed us and got our forms filled. I will spend this amount of Rs 5,500 for buying my uniform and books and help in reducing the financial burden of my parents,” she quipped.

Jalandhar, December 21
The first day of the Shree Baba Harivallabh Sangeet Pratiyogita began today at the Shree Devi Talab Mandir here. The fact that it was held at the Harballabh Bhawan - despite earlier being scheduled for the Shri Ram Hall - came as a pleasant surprise. Despite the fact that the hall currently is a mere concrete structure with painted walls and an unpainted ceiling, the hope - that the long wait of music lovers to see the building ready would soon be over - has been re-enforced with this move.

The classical vocal, non-percussion and percussion (junior category) competitions took place today.

Contestants from throughout India participated in the contest and the local kids reflected the style of their gurus, whom this city knows well.

Most of the contestants were kids who were not new to the field of classical and had been part of other esteemed contests or projects too.

Amandeep (Gurdaspur), who performed Raag Jog and played the taanpura herself, has also rendered her voice for a Punjabi movie which would be out soon. The 15-year-old was brought here by Bhai Gobinder Singh Alampuri, her music teacher.

Tanushree, who also stood first in the classical vocal category with her performance in Raag Jaunpuri, said, “ I have participated for the first time in the pratiyogita, but have been coming here for the past many years to attend the festival from Yamuna Nagar with my parents.”

She has been learning music for the past eight years. Her father Vimal Kashyap and mother Ambika Kshyap (a lecturer in instrumental music) are also associated with the field of music.

She has previously won titles like ‘Voice of Haryana’ and has performed for academies like the Saraswati Sangeet Academy and Triveni Kala Sangam.

Among other, she has been tutored by vocalist Pt. Ganesh Prasad Sharma.

The percussion competition was dominated by little home bred stars.

Jalandhar, December 21
Even as the state Local Bodies Department has engaged a private firm these days for the survey of volume of traffic at various points and scope of promoting public transport system in the city, the public is of the view that it is a wrong timing of getting the survey done.

They have given out the reasons for the same, “There are so many new bridges coming up in the city including the one at BMC Chowk, DAV crossing, Domoria Bridge and along National Highway No.1. The six-laning project on the highway and construction of new Kapurthala bypass via 120-feet road are also underway. As of now making the right judgment of volume of traffic across various intersections and roads is not possible”.

Sukhwinder Singh, a private firm employee, has pointed out, “Carrying out a survey at this point of time would only yield an incorrect result which could further lead to formulation of a wrong policy and wasteful expenditure on any infrastructure.” He suggested that the survey should be put off for another few months so that a better futuristic plan could be designed.

Another resident and a keen observer, Varinder Sharma, said, “Even if the survey is to be carried out at this point of time, the Bangalore-based consultants need to interact with the masses, officials of all local bodies and traffic police so as to know what all projects are in pipeline and which way the city is growing. But I personally opine that the survey should be somewhat delayed so that the diversion of traffic after completion of bridges can be known.”

Mayor Rakesh Rathore said that the survey was being done simultaneously in all the cities of Punjab. “The consultants have been taking a note of quantum of all types of vehicles going on various important roads. They are even doing a survey of pedestrians and cyclists.

“There is no current agenda for the same. It is just for record keeping so that it is readily available whenever any new scheme is to be implemented in the near future”, he made his point adding that construction of bridges would not make a difference.

ACP Traffic Diljinder Singh Dhillon said that such a survey was the need of the hour since the number of vehicles on road had been increasing each day. “It is high time that we promote the use of public transport or else traffic management would go out of control”, he said.

Jalandhar, December 21
Educational institutions in the city this year accomplished major milestones with the DAV College Management Committee laying the foundation stone of its first ever DAV University and the Government Arts and Sports College celebrating its golden jubilee.

With the city all set to become the leading education hub in the state, The Tribune takes a look at the city educational activities at the end of this year:

Government Arts and Sports College celebrates golden jubilee: The local Government Arts and Sports College celebrated its golden jubilee on December 13, during which old students under the Old Students’ Association (OSA) of the college, gathered after a long gap of around 50 years. A premiere institute of the country, the college has produced players of national and international repute.

DAV University, Jalandhar: Aimed at providing quality, industry-driven education and research, the DAV College Management Committee (DAV CMC) laid the foundation stone of the ambitious Rs 385 crore multi-disciplinary DAV University at Sarmastpur village on the Jalandhar-Pathankot road on October 22. The university would come into force from the next academic session 2011.

Spread in an area of 75 acres, the university would offer courses and research projects in engineering, management, sciences and language courses. The DAV CMC has already started the process of recruiting teaching and non-teaching staff for the varsity.

Khalsa College has centenary celebrations: The city-based Khalsa College celebrated ‘Jashan-e-Shatabdi’ on the completion of 100 years of its establishment. Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal was the chief guest on the occasion. From a small beginning at Lyallpur in Pakistan to its shift to Jalandhar post independence, the college has been a great learning ground for scores of leading national and international personalities.

Apeejay College wins youth festival: The city-based Apeejay College of Fine Arts made a record of sorts by winning the overall trophy in (Group A) in the zone C youth festival of the Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, for the 11th time in a row. The college won top positions in the individual as well as group events in the youth festival.

NIT Director becomes Pro VC of DTU: Dr. Moin-uddin - the Director of the Dr BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technology (NIT), Jalandhar, a deemed university - was appointed as Pro Vice Chancellor of Delhi Technical University (DTU) and moved to Delhi this year. Dr SBS Mishra is presently serving as the officiating director of NIT, Jalandhar.

DAVIET bags the PTU youth festival trophy: The local DAV Institute of Engineering and Technology (DAVIET) bagged the overall trophy in the PTU youth festival for the 9th consecutive time this year. Ever since DAVIET was established, the college has been taking the lead in the PTU youth festival. The college was adjudged the best in almost all the major individual as well as group events.

Jalandhar, December 21
Even as several changes made in the functioning of the Punjab Technical University (PTU) helped improve its overall set-up, there are many more milestones that are yet to be achieved.

Several major decisions were taken during the current calendar year, including the scrapping of the Common Entrance Test (CET) for entrance to B.Tech.

The Punjab government, in its bid to save the students of an additional burden, has given its nod to a change in the admission pattern, according to which the admission to PTU’s engineering colleges will be done on the basis of the students’ state rank in the All India Engineering Entrance Examination (AIEEE), instead of CET.

A big examination reform came in the university with the dispatching of question papers online to the examination centre just minutes before the commencement of papers. The system has been followed to rule out any chance of leaking of question papers.

PTU made yet another major stride by expanding its staff strength with the appointment of several officer-rank employees.

Several posts of assistant professors, associate professors, placement officers, assistant registrars, deputy registrars and deans have been filled up this year. Several officers, from within the university, were adjusted by being given promotions and regular jobs.

Many of these appointments, at the same time, have run into controversies, especially on the issue of pay packages, eligibility of candidates and failure on the part of the authorities to have followed proper procedure for the purpose.

Another issue that remained in the headlines throughout the year was the implementation of the Punjab government’s fee waiver scheme in PTU colleges.

While the university authorities tried to follow the Punjab government’s fee waiver scheme in true spirit, a lobby of private colleges did not let this happen.

Students had to virtually fight for it for more than three months but still did not get the seats of their choice.

The university authorities also failed to resolve the three-year old deadlock over the Caparo School of Excellence. The university wanted to take over the campus after compensating the Caparo group for the investment they made, but the group, it is learnt, has been demanding more amount than what the PTU has offered.

For the same reason, the decision to start M.Tech classes in the same building remains pending.

A major lacuna in the working of the university is that it still holds the role of an examining body. The university is yet to switch over its role to primarily become an academic institute.

Jalandhar, December 21
These days, there is a rapid progress in healthcare technologies for better healthcare facilities in India. Everyday new sensors and devices are being explored with new sensing materials to provide better health 
care systems.

These thoughts were expressed by Dr VR Singh, Fellow-IEEE, Chairman-IEEE, Delhi, during an international conference on ‘Biomedical Engineering and Assistive Technologies’ (BEATS-2010) at the Dr BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technologies (NIT), Jalandhar.

The function was presided over by Professor SBS Mishra, Director, NIT Jalandhar.

He was delivering a talk on ‘Ubiquitous Healthcare Technologies.’ The three-day-long conference, which started today, has been conducted jointly by the department of instrumentation and control engineering and electronics and communication engineering and will conclude on December 19.

“In order to ensure better healthcare of old patients, online health monitoring systems are required. Not only this, tele-monitoring also plays a pivotal role for people living in hilly areas and for soldiers at the border or during a war like situation”, he added.

He highlighted the various advancements in technology, nano-systems and said efforts are on by the scientists to provide a ubiquitous health environment to people.

As many as 250 researchers, academicians and other professionals from the areas of science, engineering and technology participated in the conference.

Professor Vinod Kumar head of the department of electrical engineering from IIT, Roorkee, inaugurated the IT Park on the premises of NIT, Jalandhar and spoke at length about the current status of healthcare systems in India.

Addressing students and professors, Professor Vinod said the Indian healthcare sector is expected to become a US$ 280 billion industry by 2020, with spending on health estimated to grow by 14 percent annually, according to a report by an industry body.

“Healthcare has emerged as one of the most progressive and largest service sectors in India, with an expected GDP spending of 8 per cent by 2012 from 5.5 per cent in 2009. It is believed to be the next big thing after IT,” added Professor Vinod.

He also highlighted that the field of biomedical engineering and assistive technologies is playing a very prominent role to counter the health care challenges in the ever increasing population of the world.

“The domain of biomedical technology pertaining to automatised diagnostic tools and gadgets have continuously evolved through the interaction of engineers, physicians and scientists to develop better methods for diagnosing and treating various diseases,” he maintained.

“The ever-increasing significance of computational sciences, bioinformatics, visualisation, telecommunications and robotics has promised new clinical devices and procedures which would further revolutionise the medical practice”, added Professor Vinod.

Jalandhar, December 21
In an order to give boost to the sale of subsidised medicine from the counter of the Jan Aushdhi located at the Civil Hospital here, the authorities of the Punjab Health System Corporation (PHSC) have ordered to close down the chemist shop being run by the Red Cross on the hospital premises.

Reason: The presence of the Red Cross chemist shop is cutting down the profit rates of the existing Jan Aushdhi by giving tough competition in the sale of medicines.

However, the worrisome factor, which is rendering the staff concerned uneasy, is the fact that the Jan Aushadhi, which is also being run by the Red Cross, usually remains short of generally prescribed medicines, including the life-saving drugs, almost round the year.

Although, on the orders of the Red Cross authorities, both the shops can issue free medicine to the poor patients, the facility becomes irrelevant in case of Jan Aushdhi due to scarcity of the medicine stock there.

Conforming the development, Dr Ajay Sahni, Deputy Medical Commissioner, said the orders to close the Red Cross shop had been given by the senior authorities of the corporation around 10 days ago.

“Being within the premises of the hospital, a large number of patients purchase medicine from the Red Cross shop. The moot idea to shift the shop out of the premises is to promote sale of the subsidised medicines from the Jan Aushdhi store,” he added.

However, when quizzed regarding the chronic shortage of medicines in the Jan Aushdhi, he said availability of the medicine would be streamlined in the coming days.

“As medicines to the Jan Aushdhi store is supplied by various state-run pharmaceutical companies, the procedure includes numerous departmental formalities. However, in case of the Red Cross shop, the medicine is procured through local purchase and the stock is kept available almost round the year,” said a Red Cross employee.

Medical Superintendent Dr Avtar Chand also confirmed the scarcity of the essential medicines in the Jan Aushdhi store and said the issue had been taken with senior officials in state-level meetings.

Jalandhar, December 21
Recovering from the jolts given by recession, the Jalandhar industry remained upbeat this year with the volume of exports and business in the domestic market gradually advancing towards attaining the pace of the pre-recession years.

However, labour shortage and continuous depreciation of the US dollar are proving to be major challenges for the local industry.

Although recovering, the industry is still far from achieving the export levels equal to those during the booming years.

Jalandhar, December 21
The proposed amendments to the RTI Act limiting an application to just 250 words and to one topic only and charging the applicants for the cost of supplying information would defeat the very purpose of enacting the landmark legislation.

In a letter to UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi, RTI Activists Federation president Sanjay Sehgal, said the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) would take away the benefits of the common man’s tool to seek information if any tinkering was done with the Act. The changes include levying charges on RTI applicants for money spent by a public authority on hiring a machine or any other equipment to supply the information. The rules will be a modification of the present RTI (regulation of fee and cost) Rules, 2005.

The DoPT has sought the comments on these changes from public on email id, usrti-dovt@nic.in, by December 27. It seemed the government had made up its mind to push through these amendments, otherwise why would objections be invited on the Internet. The time frame of just two weeks for doing so was very less, he added.

This development has created a furore among RTI activists in the country who feel that such amendments would effect semi-literate and illiterate people who are the main users of the law.

Moreover, such people were not learned enough to appreciate these restrictions, nor were they experts in precise writing skills, which would be mandatory if the amendments came through, he pointed out. This would also become a handy excuse by PIOs to reject most of the RTI applications on these grounds, he added.

One failed to understand the rationale of this change when the same set of questions in different languages would require different word usage. People from rural areas, who did not have access to Internet, would be unfairly deprived of sending their views on the subject, he said.

Similarly, the proposal to charge the actual amount on supplying the information from the people would scuttle the RTI Act itself as the government was committed to provide entire infrastructure for this purpose, he said.

“The Act is one of the most significant achievements of the UPA and Sonia Gandhi had voiced her concern at diluting it and advised that the government should refrain from accepting or introducing changes in the legislation,” he said.

She had said lack of training of government staff, inadequate record maintenance and harassment of applicants and lack of awareness needed to be addressed at the earliest, he added.

Jalandhar, December 21
CT X-mas family carnival was organised at the playground of CT Public School, Maqsudan. The main attractions of the gala function were family dance, family modelling, family games and baby show.

Jalandhar, December 21
Jalandhar city got a major infrastructural boost this year, with the opening of two new railway over bridges - one near Lyallpur Khalsa College and another at Maqsudan bypass.

Another new flyover at the BMC Chowk got started this year with work going on at a swift pace.

The six-laning project of the Jalandhar-Amritsar highway also began on a war-footing.

Several new shopping malls got started including Bharti Walmart, Saffron Furniture Mall, Viva Collage with Big Cinemas multiplex and Chunmun got started this year.

Within city, the roads, streetlights and other basic facilities have largely remained in a maintained status throughout the year. The issue over the much-disputed Model Town park, where a parking lot had earlier been proposed, is being spruced up.

However, several projects taken up by the Municipal Corporation have turned to be damp squibs. The Nehru Garden project has almost been a non-starter. The garden in the most prime area of the city is almost a dug-up ground these days, with no place to sit. The old MC building near the garden is also being demolished for the construction of a food kiosk. The tenders floated thrice for the purpose have not yielded any results so far.

A project, to promote non-motorised vehicles by creating special lanes, has also fallen flat.

Another one, for ensuring lifting and disposal of domestic waste hasn’t even started.

This year, none of the various local bodies, including Jalandhar Development Authority, Jalandhar Improvement Trust and Municipal Corporation, Jalandhar have introduced any housing scheme for the city.

The politicians representing the MC have been currently gearing up for the by elections after the death of BJP councillor Anita Dhir, who represented ward number 19.