 |
|
|
Is BMC Chowk flyover’s design faulty?
‘Court Martial’ enacted in a natural way
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Without power connection for a year, villager cries foul
Awareness drive launched by pensioners’ association
Class XII CBSE Exam
Sewage Blues
Valuables worth Rs 10 lakh gutted
|
|||||||||||
|
Is BMC Chowk flyover’s design faulty?
Jalandhar, May 24 Claiming that the concept of single lane had now become non-viable keeping in view the increasing volume of traffic, they said it had not come up with a long-term vision and appeared to be a sheer wastage of public money. The SE, Jalandhar Improvement Trust, Mukul Soni, confirmed that there were single lanes on all the sides. The width of the road on the Apeejay School side is 10.5 m (including a lane for either side and a central verge), 6 m on the Radisson Hotel side and 16.5 m on the bus stand side, he said. Demanding a probe into the matter, Virinder Kumar, a resident, said no flyover could be of less than three lanes on each side, especially after the six-laning of the national highway. “After all, flyovers are not constructed every year,” he said. A qualified civil engineer, he points out that six roads converge on BMC Chowk with main traffic congestion towards the courts side but this side had not been taken care of. “Further, even after the flyover would be readied, all six sides would remain functional even on the surface roads with the need of traffic lights becoming more important due to pillars hindering the view. I fail to understand as to why the politicians have wasted crores of rupees?” he asks. “The flyover will harm the utility of the double-lane Khalsa College flyover also since traffic coming from that side will slow down at the single-lane BMC flyover.” He said he had been raising the issue ever since the flyover was being planned but to no avail. “A roundabout with traffic lights would have been the best option,” he said. Lakhbir Singh, president of NGO Pahal, also raises concern, “There seems to be a technical fault on the part of designers for having gone towards Mahavir Marg, which is just 90 feet wide. The width of the flyover has been reduced just because of a turn that side. It is a common observation that a very few commuters coming from the bus stand take this turn as they prefer to take in-roads which save more time. Had the flyover gone straight ahead towards Hotel Leo Fort with at least two lanes on either side, at least one third of the traffic could have got covered.” “We live in a poor state and we are not here to construct a flyover after every 10 years. Why do politicians not realise this? Why is the society not reacting?” he seemed upset. The SE, Soni, however, refuted claims of faulty design. He said single lane should not be a problem as surface roads would still exist and traffic would move on swiftly. DAV College ROB’s opening put off
While Mayor Rakesh Rathour announced this morning that the DAV College ROB would be formally opened on May 26 by Local Bodies Minister Tikshan Sood, the programme was later cancelled after the news of the demise of Surinder Kaur Badal, wife of CM Parkash Singh Badal, came in. |
|
‘Court Martial’ enacted in a natural way
Jalandhar, May 24 The play “Court Martial”, staged at Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Hall this Sunday, attempted to keep it natural, a pleasant change. Swadesh Deepak’s second play to be staged in a fortnight, “Court Martial” is the playwright’s saga about men in uniform. “Sabse Udas Kavita” staged by Rajdeep and his group was the first. Even though the play has been staged umpteen times in the city, theatre group Yuva’s attempt impressed. One of the reasons was the length (Yuva did the full two-and-a-half-hour version, while others had done shorter ones), but most of it was the feel. The story went like this. Court martial proceedings on a soldier (a ‘Sawaar’ to be accurate) Ram Chander, who shot at two of his officials (injuring one and killing the other), turned more scandalous than they seemed at first, when masks were ripped off the faces of the honourable officers who everyone thought were the victims. Jealous of the fast-footed soldier (belonging to a Scheduled Tribe) and eager to cover up uncomfortable domestic secrets, Captain B.D. Kapoor, along with his colleague, had constantly harassed and abused him; ultimately resulting in the shooting outrage. The final judgement: Belittled by bosses and subordinates, Kapoor committed suicide and Chander was sentenced to death. The best thing about the play was the effort to underplay. It was also the rare occasion when Ankur Sharma, the director, chose to act, playing defence lawyer Captain Bikash Roy. Many of the actors overacted (habit), but most kept it natural. Eyes, gestures and postures talked a lot. And there were some who religiously adhered to the I-will-not-raise-my-voice stance (like the characters of Captain Bikash Roy and subedar Balwan Singh played by Harish Chander), a rare thing to happen on stage in Jalandhar. Ram Chander (Sarvpreet) was stiff throughout, Bikash Roy’s know-it-all cocked brow and sly smile said a lot. The stealth in Captain B.D. Kapoor’s eyes (Vikas Anand), too, spoke volumes. Dressed in the olive green, the actors’ gaits were stiff and postures disciplined, Army-like. The play have a dig at men with a false sense of honour and talked about the marginalised fighters (here an SC Sawaar). There were pointing dialogues which ridiculed orthodox societal norms and were contextually valid in terms of the very city we live in. The play had its share of lows too: The stage was left empty for long periods of time (another typical city-theatre characteristic), too much attention being paid to little details (like salutations and repetitive dialogues) caused the play to drag at times and there were two or three instances of overlapping too. Golden moment: Kapoor’s guilty stares as Roy surveyed him after calling him to the witness box for the first time and the relief when he lets him go without questioning him. The actors said nothing but the audience clapped. |
|
Without power connection for a year, villager cries foul
Jalandhar, May 24 Kuljit Singh, a resident of Chuharvali village (Adampur) here, alleged that the officers of the Adampur sub-division of Powercom have denied him the 24-hour power supply connection for his residence, despite the fact that he had got an estimate passed in this regard and had already paid an amount of Rs 23,404 for the connection. Kuljit had lodged a complaint against Powercom SDO Gurmit Minhas with the Vigilance Bureau, some months ago, to get vigilance proceedings initiated against Gurmeet. He alleged that it was the reason as to why he had still not got a connection. Kuljit informed he had bought a house in the outskirts of Chuharvali village. When he applied to the Powercom’s Adampur sub-division for installation of a 24-hour power supply connection for the house, Gurmeet Minhas (who was SDO at that time) demanded a hefty bribe from Kuljit. After Kuljit’s complaint to the Vigilance Bureau, Hoshiarpur, Gurmeet was caught red-handed by the vigilance sleuths on July 23, 2010 and eventually suspended. Kuljit alleged owing to this incident, the former tubewell (electricity) connection to his house was snapped and his new-born nephew also died due to the sweltering heat. Kuljit alleged estimates regarding the connection
were sent to the Jalandhar sub-division (Brring station) from the Adampur sub-division twice (March 4 and March 9 this year) but were sent back by XEN Kashmir Singh Minhas, owing to some objections he had. The complainant said he also tendered a plea to LK Yadav, DIG, Vigilance Department, who instructed him to submit a draft of the due money of Rs 23,404. On April 11 this year, the estimate regarding the connection was finally passed by AEE, Commercial, Powercom, sub division 4, east division, Jalandhar. But they still did not get an electricity connection. When the draft reached the Adampur sub-division on May 5, 2011, the officials refused to accept it by issuing a notice, which simply said they had been de-barred from performing further action. Since, neither Powercom, nor the Vigilance Department has addressed the complainant’s woes, he now languishes in extreme heat conditions. “SDO (Gurmeet Minhas) says we can get the connection if we agree on a compromise with him, but we do not want that,” Kuljit said. Kuljit met NK Gandhi, SE, Powercom, Jalandhar, this Monday. “He said as per a new law we could not get the connection,” Kuljit rued. Gurmeet Minhas, when contacted, said, “The allegations of the complainant are baseless. When he had bought the house, it had a connection from the tube-well line in the name of the woman who sold them the house. They illegally shifted a 24-hour connection to themselves through private lines. This angered their neighbours who in turn, complained to the department and their connection was snapped. A junior engineer of the area, who was said to be supporting them, was also charge-sheeted. Then they applied for a connection when I was the SDO. They applied on July 21, 2010 and by July 23 they started alleging that they are being denied a connection and that we were charging money. And then they roped in vigilance guys. Is it possible to provide a connection at such short notice? Dragging my name is also a ploy for them to make their own case seem stronger.” When contacted, NK Gandhi, SE, Powercom, Jalandhar, said, “As per a new law, we cannot give connections to houses beyond a radius of 500 metres of the village firni (ring road).” When asked the reason for, he said, “Because connections are misused. The concerned party can get a tube-well connection but not a 24-hour electricity connection, due to their location.” When contacted, XEN Kashmir Singh Minhas, rather ambiguously said, “I am responsible for okaying technical connections not commercial connections (below 10 kilowatts).” |
|
Cashing in on melon seeds
Nakodar, May 24 People, majority of women, from different parts of the state are camping in the village these days and claim to make huge money in the season. Kamla Rani from Ferozepur, who comes here every season, said each year, she usually collects more that 100 kg of melon seeds from the waste melon fruit lying in the mandi and after extracting ‘magaj’ from the seeds, she sells it to the shopkeepers at Rs 200 per kg. Santosh Rani and Vijay Kumari from Muktsar said they have been coming here for the last five years and every year, they earn money by collecting melon seeds. “We have already collected more than 100 kg of melon seeds and after drying them, we will sell them in the market. Without extracting magaj from the melon seeds, we sell dried seeds in the market at the rate of Rs100 or Rs120 per kg,” they said. Paramjit Singh, Horticulture Officer of Shahkot, said to prevent the spread of disease from the waste lying melon crop, the authority has allotted a place to these women for dumping melons after extracting seeds. |
|
Awareness drive launched by pensioners’ association
Jalandhar, May 24 The Union Ministry of Pensions & Pensioners Welfare issued orders regarding this recently. It also asked various pensioners organisations to create awareness among unmarried, widowed, divorced daughters of government servants and pensioners for women empowerment and highlight social justice schemes as well. Patron of AICGPA, ND Shandil said that through the awareness campaign, lakhs of pensioners and their families would be made aware of streamlining pension system, new benefits and concessions. “On-line redressal of grievances of pensioners has also been widely publicised. Last year, a video conferencing workshop-cum-training program was held in which our association had filed 22 grievances. Only five of these were addressed till March 2011,” he said, adding that the five pensioners are presently drawing a minimum monthly pension of Rs5,250. Shandil also said that the association has notified that they would serve the widows and family of pensioners free of cost. “Pensioners can approach local office of the association and avail the services of the staff,” he added. General Secretary of the association, VK Jolly said that they are publicising the campaign through newspapers, radio and Doordarshan. “We have already declared to conduct pension adalats twice a year around January and July by different ministries and government departments,” Jolly said. The association also highlighted recent decisions taken by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, which included extension of scope of family pension to unmarried daughters of central government servants and pensioners; extension of family pension to dependents of disabled siblings of central government servants; inclusion of names of widowed, divorced and unmarried daughters, parents and dependent disabled siblings in Pension Payment Order. Jolly said that the ministry brought a major relief to the family pensioners of a government servant or pensioner, especially the personnel in the armed forces and the paramilitary forces. Family pension has also been granted to childless widow of a deceased central government employee after her remarriage, he added. |
|
Ludhiana school lifts trophy at shabad gayan competition
Jalandhar, May 24 Mahamandleshwar Swami Shanta Nand, president of the Swami Pritam Dass Udasin Adhyatam Trust, Gopal Nagar, attended the function. Gurcharan Singh Channi, Chairman, District Planning Board, was the guest of honour. In the senior category, Guru Nanak Public School, Sarabha Nagar, Ludhiana, clinched the first prize, Swami Sant Dass Public School, J.P. Nagar, Jalandhar, stood second and M.G.N, Public School, Urban Estate, Jalandhar, won the third prize. The consolation prize was awarded to Guru Nanak International Public School, Ludhiana. Special Prizes in the senior category for tabla playing and singing were awarded to Mansa Singh of Guru Nanak Public School, Preet Nagar, Jalandhar, and Gurjinder Singh of Mata Gujri Khalsa Modern School, Jalandhar, respectively. In the junior category, Guru Nanak Public School, Sarabha Nagar, Ludhiana, bagged the first prize, Guru Nanak Public School, Preet Nagar, Jalandhar, and Swami Sant Dass Public School, JP Nagar, Jalandhar, won the second and third position, respectively. The consolation prize was given to Guru Harkrishan Senior Secondary School, Amritsar. Special prizes in the junior category for playing tabla and harmonium were awarded to Jodhveer Singh of Guru Nanak Public School, Preet Nagar, Jalandhar, and Vineet Kaur of Guru Nanak Public School, Sarabha Nagar , Ludhiana, respectively. The running trophy was lifted by Guru Nanak Public School, Sarabha
Nagar, Ludhiana. |
|
Young World
Jalandhar, May 24 Chief speaker Dinesh Kumar, creator of many animated movies like “Nanhi Chidiya”, “Anti-Smoking” and “Female Foeticide”, discussed the scope of animation in the field of entertainment, computer games, mobile games, architecture, interior designing, education and web-based advertisement and much more. The students showed keen interest in cartoon characters, creative art, 3D films, game art, architectural designing and web designing. Class XII toppers
In the Indian School Certificate Examination (ICSE) Class XII results, declared last week, Jaspreet Singh bagged the first position with 92.5 per cent marks in the non-medical stream in St Joseph Boys Senior Secondary School. In the non-medical stream, Jaspreet Singh bagged the first position with 92.5 per cent marks in the school. Anju Cherian stood first in the medical stream and secured 73 per cent marks. In the commerce stream, Nityanshu Pandey bagged the first position by securing 75.5 per cent marks. Farewell function
Students of the CT College of Education conducted a farewell function for the outgoing students. The students presented a colourful programme. Principal of the school Dr Inder Dev Singh Nandra awarded certificates to the students in different fields. Renu was awarded the certificate of the best student. Anureet was declared “Miss Farewell”. Poem recitation
An inter-house English poem recitation competition was organised for the students of Classes III to XI at State Public School, Shahkot, on Monday. Members of four houses recited poems based on the theme of positive attitude, nature and patriotism. The aim of the competition was to develop intellectual and imaginative qualities among the students. Soft skills
Lovely Professional University is organising training programme on interview skills for the passing out batches of under-graduate courses. Students will learn effective communication skills, public speaking, presentation skills, international language for business and work place, industry awareness and preparing an effective resume. The students would be given tips on how to impress interview panel, telephonic interview, mock interview sessions, group discussions and so on. Well-versed trainers from across India have been hired to train around 6,000 students of the university. The training has been planned in two sessions during the months of May-June and July-August. Chancellor of the university, Ashok Mittal, said, “Now-a-days, the expectations of the industry have increased tremendously. It weighs presentation, communication and many other soft skills more than mere knowledge accumulation.” |
|
Class XII CBSE Exam
Jalandhar, May 24 Surnav Kalra, a student of commerce, stood first in Police DAV Public School by securing 94.6 per cent marks, while Aditya Sood stood first in the medical stream and secured 89 per cent marks. In the non-medical stream, Gaurav Bansal stood first with 91.6 per cent marks. Nidhi Gupta, a student commerce of Shiv Jyoti Public School, bagged first position in the institution and secured 92.2 per cent marks, followed by Salil Malhan, who stood second with 90.6 per cent marks, and Divya stood third with 90.2 per cent marks. In the non-medical stream, Harpreet Singh stood first with 88.8 per cent marks, followed by Abha Jyoti who secured 88 per cent marks and Pallika stood third with 87.4 per cent marks. Sanju stood first in the medical stream with 83 per cent marks, followed by Diksha and Sunaina Saini, who jointly bagged 82.8 per cent marks. The third position was bagged by Chittesh Madaan, who scored 82.2 per cent marks in aggregate. The humanities group saw Himanshi bagging a highest percentage of 79.6 per cent marks, Daisy stood second with 78.4 per cent marks and Namita stood third with 77.4 per cent marks. Jaskirat Arora from medical stream of CT Public School attained 91 per cent marks and stood first followed by Digvijay Kaur, who secured 88.2 per cent marks. Hardeep Kaur from non-medical stream secured 88 per cent marks. In the commerce stream, Sajan Sachdeva stood first by securing 90.6 per cent, Jasmine Kaur Verma stood second by securing 82.6 per cent marks and Nindiya Mahendru bagged the third position with 82.4 per cent marks. Meanwhile, in Saffron Public School, Phagwara, Hitesh Pabbi of non-medical stream secured the first position in Phagwara by scoring 89 per cent marks, while Tushar Behl and Nischay Mishra bagged second positions by securing 87 per cent marks. Principal Sandeepa Sood congratulated the students and their parents on their success. In Swami Sant Dass Public School, Phagwara, Nitika Manchanda stood first in the commerce stream by bagging 87 per cent marks. Sunaina Bhopal stood first in the science group by securing 85.6 per cent marks. |
|
Sewage Blues
Phagwara, May 24 The residents’ dharna in front of the NC office did not go unnoticed. SDM Amarjit Pal assured the protesters that dirty water would be drained out within next few days. It may be mentioned here that several cases of jaundice have been reported from different localities in the town in the past few weeks. Damage to water and sewerage pipes at several places had led to contamination of drinking water. The NC authorities had taken no notice of the problem. |
|
Valuables worth Rs 10 lakh gutted
Phagwara, May 24 “The loss is being estimated at more than Rs10 lakhs,” said Deepak Kohli, partner of the export house. Fire
tenders along with factory staff worked hard for two hours to control the fire. |
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
