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5 passengers electrocuted
Power cut hits water supply in Mussoorie
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On the ramp with newspaper dresses
nainital
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5 passengers electrocuted
Dehradun, July 24 All injured were admitted to a local hospital in Vikasnagar. One of them, who got critically injured, has been referred to Doon Hospital while the other two have been discharged. The deceased have been identified as Manoj, Dhan Bahadur, Shugram, Bam Bahadur and Sher Bahadur. All were between 17 and 23 years. As per Circle Officer (Vikasnagar) GR Bijalwan, only investigation will reveal whether the passengers were travelling on the roof of the bus or were placing their luggage at the time of the accident. However, circumstances indicated and eyewitnesses said the bus was overcrowded, thus some passengers were sitting on the roof of the bus and this was a routine thing in the hilly areas of the state. The incident occurred at 1:05 in the afternoon when the passengers travelling on the private bus (UK 07 PA 0622) came in contact with the 11 KV high-tension wire. Two of them were discharged later and the one who got seriously injured was referred to Doon
Hospital here. Meanwhile, Chief Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank expressed sorrow over the mishap. The CM prayed for the well-being of the injured and consoled family members of the victims. Nishank also asked the district administration to provide allowances to the families of the deceased and
the injured.
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Power cut hits water supply in Mussoorie
Mussoorie, July 24 Executive Engineer, Garhwal Jal Sansthan, PB Bhatt said the office yesterday received more than 50 complaints from various areas pertaining to a low-pressure of water supply. Following this, the department used stored water to distribute in the town after which the continuous water supply was restored. Bhatt said as water supply to the town was dependent on multi-stage pumping units in areas such as Bhilaru, Murray, Jhinsi, Kolti and Dobhi Ghat, it was impossible to use a generator to pump water to reservoirs during power cut, as it required a huge amount of load for a unit to function. Executive Engineer of Uttarakhand Power Corporation Limited MS Bisht said: “The power was disrupted due to a major fault in the feeder line yesterday. The damaged transformer at Library Bazaar has also been changed.”
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Common man Ruskin Bond’s inspiration
Dehradun, July 24 It was released by Gunmeet Bindra, Principal, Vidya Devi Jindal School, Hisar, while Shanti Varma, former Principal, Welham Girls High School, Dehradun, presided over the function. It was also a memorable day for the schoolchildren who specially flew from Hisar to meet the author. Children from the local schools and Bond’s fans gathered at the spot to get the autograph of the author. Almost all the copies of Bond’s new book were sold out within a few hours of its release. Bond happily signed on the students’ autograph books and also posed for pictures with them. Three of the students from Hisar, who shared their birthday with the writer, said they were on the top of the world. Ambica, an 11th standard student, while speaking to The Tribune, said: “I am delighted as I share my birthday with such a great personality.” Ankita, a student of Class XI, said: “I am speechless. It is one of the best days in my life.” While Supriya, who is a Class VIII student, said: “I feel honoured today. I realised that I share my birthday with the famous writer only when it was announced in the assembly one morning and today I am enjoying meeting with him.” “This step was taken by the school in order to promote reading among youngsters. Meeting with the author do inspire them. Thus we have organised a reading competition in the school. It was announced that whoever did well in the competition would get a chance to meet Ruskin Bond. Their meeting with the author will definitely motivate others too,” Bindra said. Bond also answered all the questions raised by the audience. Everyone was interested in knowing who was the inspiration behind his works. His reply for the same was a common man. “I do get inspired by each and every living as well as non-living thing on this planet. My characters come from real-life experiences of others,” he added. When one of the student asked him that she keeps on travelling but never gets motivated by anything, Bond, who started writing at very young age, said: “There is no need to search motivation as it comes by itself. If you are interested in others you will be able to write about the same. One needs to be self-disciplined in order to achieve anything.” On acting in the movie or writing any other script after the film, “Saat Khoon Maaf”, based on his short story, he said “Susanna’s Seven Husbands” did not do up to the mark. Bond said: “I am working on a few short stories and won’t mind if anyone wants to direct a movie on it,” he signed off.
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On the ramp with newspaper dresses
Dehradun, July 24 The contest was judged by Bahar Ratan (Ms. Uttarakhand 2010-11), Swati Ale (second runner-up, Ms. Uttarakhand 2007) and Parwinder Singh. Ian Anderson from England, who is currently in the country on an exchange programme for students from across the globe, was the chief guest. The evenly contested competition was won by girls of the Daffodil House who sashayed down the ramp in dresses made of newspapers and conveyed the message of eco-friendly dresses. The second position went to the Jasmine House. Impressed with the creativity of the students, two of the judges also wore the dresses made of newspaper and walked the ramp in order to inspire the budding designers. It was Saurah Karmakar and Renu Arora who inspired and guided the students for the newspaper dresses.
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Students plant saplings
Dehradun, July 24 The function began with a cultural programme presented by the students from Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. They sang folk songs. The students planted various saplings. The chief guest of the programme was Meenakshi Joshi, District Forest Officer, who appreciated the effort of the students and the members of the organisation. Former Principal of the institute JP Pokhriyal welcomed all the eminent guests present on the occasion and urged them to plant more and more saplings for environment conservation.
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Doon Civic Blues
“I have spent Rs 25-30 crore on various works so far. I want to carry out more works in the area, but in the absence of sufficient funds, contractors are not ready to work,” said Gaud. “After 25 years, I have got eight public toilets constructed in Balmiki Basti,” she claimed. She further said in the absence of streetlights, people of the area feel unsafe. “There is no proper place to dump garbage. Sweepers have also not been provided with rehris to pick up the garbage,” she said. Residents also complained of unhygienic conditions in the areas. They rued that as there was no proper place to dump garbage, people through it on roads or vacant plots. Ashok Kumar Sakhuja, a local resident, said: “Safai karamcharis never visit the area. We are being forced to live in unhygienic conditions. During rain, it’s a nightmare for us to come out of our houses.” Another resident, Vijender Rastogi, said: “We are facing water shortage. Earlier, there was a water tank in the area, but now a police beat box has been set up at that place.” Vipin Gupta said: “Besides people, sweepers also throw all waste at vacant plots, as the authority concerned has not allocated any place to dump the same.” Rajender Ahuja said: “Sweepers as well as locals throw garbage at a vacant plot in the front of my shop. Due to filth on roads, it becomes difficult for us to even walk.”
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nainital
diary
Even though the state government has conferred the Nirmal Nagar award on the Lake City, residents are far from convinced that it is a “nirmal” town. The award that comprises a cash prize of Rs 50 lakh had the functionaries of the local Municipal Council celebrating the achievement, but the residents have chosen to be skeptical about the issue.
The residents point out that while the sanitation in the town has improved over the years, it is far from satisfactory. With the recent withdrawal of the Lake Development Authority (LDA) from the Mission Butterfly project which was a pioneering effort in the direction of solid waste management not only in Uttarakhand but also across the country, the situation has once again started becoming bad. As per the arrangement made at the beginning, the project has now been handed over to the Municipal Council for execution in co-ordination with a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). The council authorities accept that there are certain minor problems with regard to the project being continued under the council, they are confident that the things will be sorted out over a short span of time. The people are also peeved at the fact that the council has not put up spittoons on the main roads of the town which are frequented by tourists who show utter disregard for civic sense and keep spitting wherever they feel like. The council has promised to put up the spittoons at 10 places on the Mall Road. When will the proposal become a reality, remains to be seen. Meanwhile, the council has decided to give 10 per cent of the prize money as incentive to those sanitation workers who have shown an initiative in keeping the town clean. It has also chalked out a plan to provide uniforms to the sanitation workers working under its banners.
Soccer fever
grips town
With monsoons, comes a fever of different sort to the Lake City. It is a not a physical fever, but a soccer fever. With the advent of monsoons, the Lake City starts organising a series of soccer tournaments at the football field on the Flats Grounds. This year too the season has begun with the starting of the Lando League tournament. This is said to be one of the oldest soccer leagues in the country where only the local teams participate. One can gauge the love the town has for soccer, which is otherwise defined as “the most beautiful game”, from the fact that from a town with barely a population of 30,000 people there are no less than 41 teams participating in the tournament that started from the first week of this month. With 15 members in every team, there are already 615 players participating in the league. With officials and organisers, the figure comes close to 700. There is active support from the people of the town who turn up in large numbers to cheer for their teams. The scenario is electrifying as the participants are all locals. They can be the local boatmen, hotel employees, shopkeepers, salesmen, students, businessmen among others. The names of the teams participating are also very interesting like the Sheela Mount, the Makkar, the Chasers, the Killers, the Funtoosh, etc. This tournament will be followed by a soccer tournament for children of the local schools which in turn will be followed by the Rampur Cup in which teams from within and outside the state participate. The town will be busy watching soccer over the next one month till the rains
Big relief for Nishank
Once again, the subservient media and the sleeping opposition parties have let the Dr Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank government walk away with no damage in an issue that could have turned out to be a major political imbroglio. The issue in question here is the High Court upholding the cancellation of 56 small hydro projects and ordering their allocation through a public auction. Besides the cancellation of the allotments, the person who had filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the matter had pointed out at several gross irregularities that the government had indulged in and had also sought a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the matter. The court while coming down heavily on the government on the issue of irregularities had not given the permission for a CBI probe. The subservient media, particularly the vernacular papers, known to have been well-managed by the Nishank government, decided to downplay the decision or give it a go by. They happily turned around the story and reported that the court had declined the demand for a CBI probe thus conveying the matter in an altogether different light. The main opposition party, the Congress, too decided to sleep over the issue initially when ideally it should have built a tempo on the issue. This once again gives strength to the perception that the Congressmen have been raising onl those issues where their personal interests are involved. Why the vernacular media behaved in this manner, is a well-known reality in Uttarakhand over the last one year!!!
Statue of Kargil martyr a dream
The residents of Nainital are seething in anger over the failure of the state government to install a statue of its martyr Major Rajesh Adhikary who had made the supreme sacrifice in the Kargil Operations. The government had promised to name the Lower Mall Road after the local hero and install his statue there. Till date, the promise remains to be unfulfilled. In fact, the women from the town, including some of the BJP workers and supporters, were agitated over the conduct of Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank in late December when Major Adhikary’s mother Malti Adhikary wanted to meet him on the issue but he refused to meet her. The aged lady had waited for hours so that she could have a word with Nishank and convey her grievances. Major Adhikary’s case has been that of promises being made to be forgotten and tall claims made at the time when people make extreme sacrifice for the nation being put on the back burner. People have seen this phenomenon so many times that its repetition does not surprise them any more. All it draws is a little more contempt for those in power. At a small programme held last year, his mother had made passing references about the government making a promise to erect his statue at a prominent place in Nainital. This year again, the friends and relatives along with the common people were painfully reminded of the unfulfilled promise on the anniversary of Kargil operations. People pasted the martyr’s pictures on social networking websites which drew lots of criticism for the
government. By Rajeev Khanna
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Dehradun, July 24