Dehradun, March 26
The police finally picked up fasting Tehri Congress MLA Kishore Upadhayaya after the doctors advised the authorities for providing him immediate medical care taking into account his deteriorating health.

Upadhayaya has been on an indefinite hunger strike outside the Vidhan Sabha for the past three days in support of his demands.

Dehradun SP (City) Ajay Joshi disclosed that Upadhayaya was picked up from the site of the dharna and admitted to the Doon Hospital on advice of the doctors.

Earlier in the day, the House expressed concern over Updhayaya’s indefinite hunger strike. Congress MLAs Dinesh Agarwal and Pritam Singh asked the government to accept the demands raised by the Tehri MLA. Even BSP legislature party leader Shahzad Ahmed expressed concern over the Tehri MLA’s indefinite hunger strike.

Conveying his concern, the Speaker said he was getting regular medical reports that so far were normal. He said the last report received by him at around 9.45 am had showed that Updhayaya was normal.

The Tehri MLA on Thursday had received a tremendous boost with veteran environmentalist Sundarlal Bahuguna and former Chief Minister ND Tiwari reaching the dharna site and expressing solidarity with Updhayaya’s cause.

Pitthoragarh, March 26
As the Uttarakhand Government has ordered an inquiry into the alleged misappropriation of 21.72 hectares, belonging to a mission, at Chandak village in Pitthoragarh district by the land mafia and politicians, local social activists, who had been running a campaign against the misappropriation of the village land for the past one year, have expressed satisfaction over the order. “Our organisation had been demanding a probe into the matter. Now, the loot of this precious land could be stopped,” said Mohan Singh Rawat, president of the Nagar Sewa Samiti.

“The Uttarakhand Government on Thursday ordered an inquiry into the matter by the Commissioner of the Kumaon region. He will enquire into all the aspects of the matter raised in the Assembly,” said Parkash Pant, Parliamentary Affairs Minister.

Congress MLA from the Kanalichina Assembly segment in Pitthoragarh district Mayuk Singh Mahar raised the issue in the Assembly, alleging that some BJP leaders of the district had grabbed a portion of the said land.

The land, which is situated at the pristine tourist place of Chandak, near Pitthoragarh town, had been leased to the Leprosy Mission in 1872 to set up a leprosy home there. The mission built a hospital there and had run it for the next 100 years.

“After the mission completed its work of leprosy eradication and lepers’ resettlement, it abandoned the land in 1996. After that the real loot of the land began. Taking advantage of the weakness of the trustees of the mission, the local land mafia started grabbing the land,” said Rawat.

“The local land mafia started grabbing the land by taking the power of attorney from the managers of the mission and when the Pitthoragarh District Administration intervened and instituted an inquiry into the matter by the SDM, the land was found to be given on lease,” said Kheem Raj Joshi, a Congress leader.

According to Joshi, the SDM had opined that the said land be declared as forest land, but the inquiry report was not accepted and another inquiry was ordered under the Tehsildar, Pitthoragarh, allegedly with an aim to delay the matter.

“Mahar had apprised the Assembly that the land worth Rs 500 crore had been grabbed by the local land mafia for only Rs 7 crore in connivance with the trust managers,” said Joshi, adding that this land also has a forest of 4,000 conifer trees.

Pant said: “Even the payment for a portion of government land given to the Power Grid Corporation of India to construct a power sub-station has also been taken away by the officers of the trust whereas this money should have gone to the government exchequer,” said Pant.

Dehradun, March 26
The Maidan Kranti Dal has demanded the inclusion of Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar and Bijnour districts of Uttar Pradesh in Uttarakhand.

In a statement issued today, Central Officiating President, Maidani Kranti Dal, Harshbir Mehta said these districts shared borders with Uttarakhand and could be important contributor towards strengthening of Uttarakhand. He said Uttarakhand was heavily dependent on the Centre for financial assistance.

Mehta said Uttarakhand continued to put allegations on the Centre for rendering step-motherly treatment to the state. He said in order to make Uttarakhand financially viable, it was important to include these three districts in Uttarakhand.

Mehta said a convention was slated to take place in Dehradun on April 17 that would try to create a public opinion in favour of the inclusion of these UP districts into Uttarakhand. He said political activists, social workers and intelligentsia would be participating in the convention. He said street plays would be held in every district to make people residing in the plain districts aware of the conference.

Dehradun, March 26
Following in the foot steps of his predecessors, Mahant Devinder Dass dressed in traditional robes undertook a parikarma of old areas of the city this morning. He was accompanied by a large number of pilgrims, tourists and locals. The parikarma is held a day after the hoisting of the Jhanda Sahib.

The group started at 9 am and passed through the Jhanda Sahib, Khurbura, Prince Chowk, Bhandari Bagh and Matawala Bagh, covering a distance of 10 km. A nagar kirtan was held at the Bindal Bridge.

“The practice was started by Guru Ram Rai, who took a round of the areas as though measuring his empire that was under his control. The tradition has been kept alive to this day. The Mahant freely mingles with the people, accepting their greetings,” said VP Nautiyal, coordinator of the Darbar Guru Ram Rai.

At the Clock Tower, a silver ‘mukut’ was presented to the Mahant by the Paltan Bazar Shopkeepers Association. The Mahant also paid obeisance at the samadhi of Guru Ram Rai near the Matawala Bagh.

Dehradun, March 26
A weeklong training session by the pharmaceutical industry at Dolphin PG College concluded here today. The programme was held in collaboration with APITCO Limited and was organised under aegis of the Uttarakhand Drug Manufacturing and Academia Forum.

Eminent technical experts from different fields like pharma, food and beverages, chemicals and students from various institutes participated enthusiastically.

In charge, Monitoring Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSME), north zone, KL Sarkar expressed his views on the Small Industry Development Bank.

Mussoorie, March 26
The 15th National Convention of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Pratishthan began on the Library Gurdwara premises here today and was attended by more than 100 delegates from around the country.

National President AK Asthana and BJP state General Secretary Dhan Singh Rawat inaugurated the first session. They offered floral tributes to Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.

Asthana read out the presidential address and commended the efforts of the members of the organisation for working strenuously in achieving the goals set out 15 years back. Asthana recalled that it was on September 25, 1995, when the need was felt by the party stalwarts like former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee to form an organisation that could promote and propagate the philosophy propounded by Deen Dayal Upadhyaya.

Asthana further said the organisation had been successfully observing the birth anniversary of Deen Dyal Upadhyaya as “Balidaan Diwas”, opened a publication in the name of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya to spread the message of the great philanthropist in the country.

Asthana said other major achievements of the Pratishthan was that it was able to connect with the dormant members from the Sangh parivar and provide them platform to carry forward the social activities and bring solidarity among the families through various programmes.

Asthana said Upadhyaya was a devotee of humanity, who believed in harmony in the society and considered the poor and downtrodden next to the God. Asthana said their organisation had been working towards that goal where the focus was on education, economic upliftment, improvement in health standards, imparting education and women empowerment through various programmes being conducted in the country by the organisation.

Asthana appealed to the members to work hard towards upliftment of the Dalits and neglected sections of the society, so that they also join in the national mainstream and contribute equally in nation-building exercise.

Dhan Singh Rawat said there were a few organisations that were working at the grassroots level for the poor and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Pratishthan was one of them. He commended the dedication of the members and the executive committee and said the state government was also following in the footsteps of Upadhyaya by implementing several programmes for the women and the Dalits in the field of education, health etc.

State convener Vishal Sharma and Mussoorie President Ami Chand Mangla welcomed the delegates and said several new programmes would be formulated for the poor in this convention.

Later in the evening, a meeting on amending the Constitution was also held. Speaking to mediapersons, Asthana said, “The degradation of ethics among the politicians had risen in the last decade and led to surfacing of corruption on a daily basis, which does not augur well for the country.”

Mussoorie, March 26
A hacker or group of hackers, residing abroad, have managed to hack into the website of several political and social organisations, along with several media websites in and around Dehradun.

The modus operandi of the hacker it seems is to target the soft websites that do not have adequate staff to counter their attack.

Experts believe that these attacks on the websites are emanating from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. These hackers have also attacked the website of the Ministry of Saudi Arabia in the past.

The hackers, after breaking down the website, leave a message that reads “Welcome to real world. You have to smile. You know why? Cause Saudi Hacker hacked you”.

The websites on the radar of these hackers are the social organisations related to the BJP and print media sites at Dehradun.

The owners of the websites affected by the hackers have said they were working to get back the site very soon. They have also registered a complaint in various forums of cyber crime in the district.