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AMRITSAR
SGPC’s green drive: The SGPC has announced that Gurta Gaddi Diwas of Guru Har Rai on March 14 would witness a massive plantation drive to augment the green cover across the country. In a statement released here, SGPC chief Avtar Singh said, “Guru Har Rai was a champion of environment conservation and there could be no better way to celebrate his Gurta Gaddi Diwas than by planting saplings.” In another development, he announced that the SGPC would organise an international gatka cup to coincide with the celebrations to mark the foundation of the Khalsa Panth at Anandpur Sahib in April.

Batala
Seminar on water: The R.R. Bawa DAV College for Girls organised a seminar on “Water - Elixir of life” on the initiative of Prof Sheetal Aggarwal under the aegis of the Eco Club here on Friday. The chief guest was Dr Saroj Arora, Head, Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences, GND University, Amritsar.

Annual function: Baring Collegiate Senior Secondary School organised the annual prize distribution function here on Friday. The chief guest was Rt Rev P.K.Samantaroy, Bishop, Diocese of Amritsar. Officiating Principal of the school Dr Rajan Chaudhary read out the annual report and presented a vote of thanks.

Bathinda
Rampura boy excels in MBA: Ankur Garg of Rampura has excelled in the Management Aptitude Test (MAT) scoring 97 percentile. MAT is an all-India test conducted by the All India Management Association (AIMA) for admission in various reputed MBA institutes. His father Ghanshyam Dass, a businessman, and mother Rekha Rani attributed the success of their son to his hard work. Sony Goyal, Director, My Career Experts, Bathinda, and an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus said students like Ankur can attain great heights in career provided they get proper guidance on time. Ankur praised his institute and mentors for helping him achieve success.

Online Olympiad on computer knowledge today: The top students for the first level will appear for the only online Olympiad to be held all across the country on Sunday (February 6). The online test of computer knowledge will be of 30 minutes duration. The exam centre for the Malwa region of Punjab is Reliance Web World, The Mall, Bathinda. The test will begin at 10 am. Students taking part are from the Dashmesh Public School, Kotkapura, Baba Farid Public School, Faridkot, West Point School, Kotkapura, Royal Convent School, Nihal Singh Wala and Akal Academy, Muktsar. Area coordinator of Science Olympiad Foundation, New Delhi, Gurjinder Singh Brar informed that the result will be declared by March 2011. The second level will be held on February 20.

Blood donation camp held: A blood donation camp was organised at the local Malwa College in association with the Goodwill Society on Thursday. The camp was inaugurated by Rekhi Ram Singla, father of Sewak Ram Singla, the chairman of the college. Fifty-four units of blood were donated by teachers and students. Principal of the college NK Gosain and chairman of Goodwill Society Vijay Bareja also addressed the gathering.

CHANDIGARH
Cheema is mandi board vice-chairman: President of the Punjab Arhtiya Association Ravinder Singh Cheema has been nominated as vice-chairman of the Punjab State Mandi Board with immediate effect. The nomination was made by the CM on Saturday. An official release here said the CM also nominated Indermohan Singh Qadian as chairman of the Market Committee, Ludhiana. He also nominated Thakur Jagdish Singh and Master Gian Singh as chairman and vice-chairman of the Market Committee, Dinanagar, respectively. Meanwhile, the CM also gave an approval to appoint Jagseer Singh as OSD to the Deputy CM.

Computerisation of land records: Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday directed the DCs of Nawanshahr, Tarn Taran, Kapurthala, Moga and Mansa to pull up their socks to implement governance reforms at the grassroots level. Holding a meeting of the DCs here, the Deputy CM said most DCs had computerised land records but some districts were still lagging behind and needed to set things right. It was informed that out of the 155 fard kendras, 99 had been computerised and the remaining 56 would be computerised by March 31.

Justice Gill gets extension: Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday gave approval to grant an extension for a term of another two years to the chairman of the Punjab State Law Commission, Justice Amarbir Singh Gill. His present term was slated to expire on June 20.

Appointed: Punjab youth leader and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan vice-chairman Amarjit Singh Cheema has been appointed a member of a high-powered national committee for the promotion of social and economic welfare. Former Chief Justice SP Bharucha is chairman of the committee. Other members of the committee include former billiard world champion Micheal Ferreira, verteran trade unionist Veena Singh and a former minister, Dr K. Kamalanathan from Tamil Nadu.

Gurdaspur
Career counselling: The Pt Mohan Lal S.D College for Women organised a seminar on career counselling here today. The topic of the seminar was ‘media as a career’ and ‘job perspectives for students undergoing graduation in science subjects.’ The main speakers were Prof S.C Khurana, former Vice Principal of DAV College, Jalandhar and Dr Rashmi Khurana, Programme Executive, AIR, Jalandhar.

Ludhiana
Doc honoured: Dr Manish Munjal, a senior consultant at the department of ear, nose and throat, Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), was awarded a "senior consultant gold medal" at the recently-held annual national conference of otolaryngologists (ENT surgeons) AOICON 2011 in Chennai. Dr Manish Munjal was honoured for his exhaustive research in the field of ear ailments and adoption of indigenous microsurgical techniques. A question-answer session was held during the conference in which Dr Munjal emerged the winner.

Mionwal
3 booked in dowry case: On a complaint lodged by Hardish Kaur, the police has booked her husband Jaspal Singh, father-in-law Ravinder Singh and mother-in-law Harinder Kaur of Mionwal village on the charges of demanding dowry. No arrest has been made so for.

NABHA
Female foetus found: A female foetus was found abandoned in a drain in front of the local cinema here. It was first seen by a passer at 1 pm, who reported the matter to the police. According to Dr Harjinder Singh, a forensic expert, the foetus aged about 8 months. He said a post-mortem examination would be conducted on Monday.

Nawanshahr
Red Cross Mela: Aimed at raising funds for helping the suffering humanity, the District Red Cross Society organised the Red Cross Mela at JSFH Khalsa Senior Secondary School here today. Representatives of the different NGOs, educational institutes and students participated in the mela. Different educational institutional, departments, trade organisations had put up their stalls at the mela.

25 donate blood: A voluntary blood donation camp was organised to commemorate the death anniversary of former Improvement Trust chairman and MC president Sita Ram Taneja at Arya Samaj Mandir here on Thursday. Punjab Youth Congress president and MP Ravneet Bittu inaugurated the camp. As many as 25 units of blood were collected.

Awareness rally: The Village Education Development Committee of Government Senior Secondary School took out an awareness rally in the town to make people aware of the infrastructural facilities as well as the qualitative improvements being implemented in the government schools. The rally was flagged off by school principal Dinesh Kumar. Committee chairman Kulwant Kaur and schoolchildren participated in the rally and mobilised the people to admit their wards in government schools for availing themselves of the benefit of various facilities.

VC opens seminar: A seminar on ‘Innovation and Creativity’ was organised by the Doaba Group of Colleges at its Chhokeran complex here on Thursday. Dr Rajneesh Arora, Vice-Chancellor, Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar, inaugurated the seminar. Dr Arora also released three books --- Applied Chemistry II by Prof Rajeev Sharma, Applied Physics II by Prof Puneet Chandel and Dipali Chandel and Applied Mathematics II by Prof Neeraj Prabhakar.

Grant for village: PPCC member Gur Iqbal Kaur presented a cheque of Rs 37,500 as part of the second instalment to the gram panchayat of Kahma village here on Friday. The grant was released out of the MPLAD fund of former Rajya Sabha member Dharam Pal Sabharwal for carrying out development works. She said on the occasion that her late husband, Parkash Singh, former Parliamentary Secretary, was instrumental in mobilising grants from the MPLAD fund for the development of the area.

Phagwara
Shopkeepers attacked: At least six armed assailants attacked and wounded two brothers and ransacked their mobile shop near Nimma Wala Chowk on Friday night. Both Sahil and his brother Sunil were admitted to the local Civil Hospital. The assailants decamped with a cash of Rs 30,000, two mobiles phones and a gold chain. The police has registered a case.

Stagnation: SDM visits locality: Phagwara SDM Amarjit Paul has taken a serious note of stagnation of sewer water in the streets of several localities of the town. He visited an affected locality of Santokhpura Mohalla today and instructed the Nagar Council officials to act quickly to redress the problems of the residents and to prevent an outbreak of water-borne diseases.

Jewellery stolen: A jewellery maker, identified as Rajeev Kumar, has run away with gold ornaments, worth Rs 1.5 crore, belonging to several jewellers in the town. According to six jewellers, who have lodged a complaint with the police, Rajeev, alias Raju, a migrant from Maharashtra, was in the jewellery making and repairing business for the past four years in the town.

Property case: Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate Arun Aggarwal has issued summons to brothers Parmal Kumar Ohri, Vinod Kumar Ohri and Surinder Mohan Ohri in a case of attempt to grab seven properties of their grandmother by preparing a forged will. The brothers have been asked to appear before the judicial court, Phagwara, on April 5 in this case, registered under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120B of the IPC. The case was filed by their cousin Amit Ohri.

PHILLAUR
Goods gutted: Goods worth Rs 3 lakh were destroyed in a fire that broke out in a grocery shop at the nearby Uppal Jagir village in the Phillaur sub-division on Thursday night. Electric short-circuit was said to be the cause of the fire.

SANGRUR
Foundation stone laid: The state government is determined to enhance power production in the state on a large scale. This was stated by Gurbachan Singh Bachi, Director Administration of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited while laying the foundation stone of a 66 kV grid sub-station in Chatthe Nanhera village near Sunam here. He said to make Punjab a power surplus state, three power plants had been allotted to private companies. He said the PSPCL was making elaborate arrangements to give uninterrupted power supply to the people of Punjab during the coming summer season.