Amritsar, May 17
The District Science Wing of the Education Department will organise a science exhibition from May 23 to identify talent of schoolchildren and groom them.The winners would get ‘Inspire’ award.

Informing this during a press conference, conducted at Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Shivala, district science supervisor Kailash Sharma said as many as 439 students studying in Class VI to X, from different schools would participate in this exhibition.

This exhibition would witness around 5 per cent participation in both senior and junior wings from each district.

The junior wing exhibition would be held from May 23 to 28 while the senior wing would be held from May 26 to 28, at Government Girls Senior Secondary School, Shivala (Mahasingh gate).

“The exhibition would remain open from 8 am to 4 pm on the designated days. A total of 22 candidates (14 middle standard and 8 senior level) students would be selected to participate in this exhibition. “The prize money has been decided to be worth Rs 1,200 for the winners. We have done all the preparation regarding conducting the exhibition,” said Principal Davinderjit Kaur.

Elaborating it further, Kailash Sharma said the idea behind conducting such an occasion was to identify the children who have knack for science and technology. “The state government extends a package of Rs 5,000 to each identified candidate, out of which Rs 2,500 would have to be spent on developing a model or project to be placed in the exhibition while the rest of the amount would be used for miscellaneous expenses like traveling and refreshment”, he said. 

Amritsar, May 17
Various development works initiated by the government especially in Amritsar and Tarn Taran areas have taken a hit as different engineers’ associations continue to agitate against the alleged police inaction in arresting the accused who brutally beat up a junior engineer on duty on April 25.

Toughening their stand, the engineers’ associations, including Senior Engineers Association, Diploma Engineers Association, Hot Mix Plant Association and Ministerial Staff Association, today threatened to intensify their agitation and take the protest all over Punjab over the issue.

They were already on pen-down strike. Today, they held a protest dharna at Public Works Department (B&R) where they raised slogans against the Punjab Police and ignorant attitude adopted by the state government.

It is pertinent to mention here that Jatinder Pal Singh, a junior engineer, PWD (B&R), was brutally thrashed by 14 persons equipped with sharp edged and blunt weapons when he was performing his duty at Sohian-Fatehgarh Churian village road. Besides fractures in arms and chest, he sustained internal injuries at head, shoulder and stomach.

The Jhander police falling under Amritsar Rural police district registered a case of attempt to murder under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code against Kashmir Singh, Rakesh Kumar and Harkrishan Singh besides 11 unidentified persons in this regard. “Even after the registration of case, the police officials are deliberately not arresting the accused persons under the political pressure,” said Jasbir Singh Sodhi, general secretary, Engineers Association, Punjab.

He claimed that development works worth Rs 400 to 500 crores in Amritsar and Tarn Taran including eight-laning from Taran Wala Bridge to Bhandari Bridge, Beautification and six laning of Amritsar - Airport road, upgrading of Sohian - Fatehgarh Churian road, are being hampered due to the strike.

The speakers said the accused were roaming freely while the police have turned a blind eye and adopting dilly-dallying attitude in arresting them. Gurmit Singh Chauhan, SSP Amritsar rural police, said the accused were on the run since the registration of the case. The raids were being carried out on their possible hideouts and residences. (See picture on page 4)

Amritsar, May 17
With intense heat waves engulfing the region, unscheduled power cuts and shortage of drinking water have made the life miserable for the common man.

With the temperature hovering around 40°C, the people prefer to stay inside their establishments. The roads and streets wear a deserted look from afternoon till evenings. People could be seen with covered faces in order to avoid direct sunrays.

Gurinder Singh of New Amritsar area pointed out, “It’s like a double blow because of frequent power cuts. Neither you can stay in the house nor go outside for fear of being contracted with heat stroke.”

“I make it a point that me and my family should not eat outside due to unhygienic conditions prevailing due to hot summer days,” said Nirmal Verma of Guru Nanak Wara near Putlighar. Endorsing the views, Dr H S Ghai, Deputy Medical Commissioner said the people should refrain from eating outside these days.

“I would recommend the Amritsarians to have a check on their eating habits. Street foods would be hazardous to health because the food is prepared in open and obvious unhygienic environment would further spoil it,” he said. 

Amritsar, May 17
Rampant possession of illegal arms has become a nightmare for the police.

Recent incidents, including two robbery attempts outside Axis Bank by armed youths that claimed two lives, were carried out using illegal weapons.

Petty criminals reportedly procure country-made arms from illegal manufacturers, based in Uttar Pradesh.

Coupled with rampant drug addiction, these criminals become ferocious and don’t even hesitate to kill victims.

It was learnt that .315 bore illegal country-made pistols were used by culprits during the two robbery attempts.

The police has yet to find any clue in these two incidents.Earlier this year, two unidentified persons barged into a house situated in the posh locality of Basant Avenue. They took away cash on gunpoint and also fired in the air before fleeing.

Admitting this, DCP Amar Singh Chahal said the police has been planning to initiate action against persons who possessed illegal arms.

“We are specially focusing on identifying those persons who have been possessing illegal arms. Special teams were being constituted whose primary task would be to check import of arms from other states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which have been the favourite destinations for getting country-made weapons which seldom have any history. In such cases it becomes next to impossible to find the criminal for want of any record of the weapon,” he said. 

Amritsar, May 17
As many as 239 people, including 149 males and 90 females, lost their lives in 164 road accidents on the link roads and highways in rural areas in 2010.

Rash driving by youths is the prominent reason behind mishap deaths on highways, link roads falling in Amritsar rural police district.

According to the statistics available out of these victims, 158 of them were between the age group of 30-40 years while 38 victims were between 20-30 years and 35 victims were between 40-50 years.

“During investigations of these road mishaps, it was noticed that youths especially in rural areas are not trained enough to cope up with today’s high speed vehicles,” said Gurmeet Singh Chauhan, Senior Superintendent of Police, Amritsar rural police district.

“The volume of traffic especially of two wheelers on link roads has increased considerably. The high power and high speed two wheelers coupled with untrained young over speeding boys is resulting in the accidents,” said Chauhan.

He said youths in rural areas don’t have any exposure of safe driving. Lack of awareness is aggravating the problems. Though traffic awareness programmes in rural schools and areas are conducted regularly.

According to police records, various police stations have booked 101 persons in these mishaps barring hit and run cases wherein no culprit was identified.

Interestingly as per the data, majority of offenders - 47 in number - also fall in the age group of 30-40 years while 24 accused fall in the age groups of 40-50 years and 22 accused falls between 20-30 years. Three of the accused belonged to the age group of 10-20 while remaining accused belonged to other age groups.

As per details 88 mishaps occurred on main highway while 54 accidents happened on link roads and 22 to urban areas.

Amritsar, May 17
Abhinav Mahajan, a Class IX student of DAV International School, stood second in a tennis tournament, organised by All-India Tennis Association (AITA).

In the AITA Talent Series, held at Ambala in Under-14 category from April 25 to 29, Abhinav stood second in the doubles. There were 32 participants from all over India.

Amritsar, May 17
Anirudh Khetarpal, a Class V student in DPS, matched wits with 12,062 students of 16 countries in the world to win a gold medal in computer skills during the international assessment of students conducted by Australia’s University of New South Wales (UNSW).

The countries included India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Mauritius, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

In a letter, the university expressed its heartiest congratulations to the young computer wizard from Amritsar, who are just two students of Class V to have won gold in computer skills.

The letter by UNSW enlists the statistics and significance of this young student’s achievement.

It states that not only Anirudh topped IAIS (International Assessment of Indian Students) but also topped the International Assessment of Students by far, results of which were declared recently.

It states that only 10 UNSW golds have been awarded to Class V students in English, science, mathematics and computer skills.

As many as 199,362 students of Classes 3rd to 12th from 2,368 schools had taken tests in English, science, mathematics and computer skills in 2010 IAIS & IAS.

Two other students of the school --- Rajdeep Singh of Class IX won gold in science and Gurrein Kaur Madan of Class X bagged gold in English. Both won these medals at state level (Punjab), informed school principal. 

Every year, the UNSW gold medals are given to the topper in each subject at each class level. A test is set by the UNSW and is conducted through a private firm McMillan. The children sit in the exam under various categories like English, Science, Maths and Computer Skills etc. The test is conducted in the respective schools only and thereafter the answer sheets are dispatched to the University. Anirudh took computer skills test and scored 39 marks out of 40.