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Riots
in london leave impact in Amritsar
Lessons on disaster management for rural youths
TB centre to rope in NGOs for getting rid of disease
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Varsity to host hockey tourney
SGPC
poll
Small-scale industry for hike in investment slab
3 holidays bring cheer to residents
Staff stand losers as varsity ‘mismanages’ GPF, CPF
New York Film Academy to conduct workshops in India
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Riots in london leave impact in Amritsar Neeraj Bagga Tribune News Service
Amritsar, August 12 A commerce postgraduate Gurleen Kaur from Jandiala said she had postponed her visit to London to appear for an interview with a bank where her elder sister is already working. Keeping in view the outbreak of riots her sister advised her against visiting her at this time. Station Manager, Turkmenistan Airlines, Dinesh Kurl, said there had been consistent activity on the part of passengers, whether inbound or outbound, to postpone and cancel their tickets. He said there were many NRIs who immediately procured tickets to rush to London to be close to their families in the time of uncertainty. On the other hand, many passengers who had booked in these days to travel to London had either cancelled or postponed their visit. Currently, Qatar Airways and Turkmenistan Airlines are operating connecting flights to Europe from here. Qatar Airways has a regular Amritsar-Doha flight and its passengers board the connecting flight to London from there. Turkmenistan Airlines operates Amritsar-Ashgabad-London twice a week and Amritsar-Ashgabad-Birmingham and Amritsar-Ashgabad-Frankfurt both once a week. Officials of Air India said a little activity was being noticed on the cancellation, postponement and immediate booking of tickets to London. They opined that it was momentary and would subside with the ending up of riots. Following the withdrawal of Air India’s Amritsar-London-Toronto flight on October 30, the national carrier introduced the hub and spoke model by introducing four daily flights on the Amritsar-Delhi route with a connecting flight to London from there.
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Lessons on disaster management for rural youths
Safety on mind n
30 volunteers from the district are given training.
Amritsar, August 12 The Department of Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management in association with the National Disaster Response Force is providing flood rescue training to 30 district volunteers that started from August 8 and would continue till August 14. Rinkal Mahajan, project officer, has been entrusted with the job of coordinating the training sessions. The department is paying honorarium of Rs 450 per day to a trainee. Gurdev Singh Sidhu, secretary of Revenue Department and Director, Disaster Management, said this step was taken because Punjab faced the fury of floods every two to three years’ time. “This year the water-level of dams in Punjab is up to 30 to 40 feet high. Keeping this in mind, we have taken the initiative of training village youth and other stakeholders in every district to prepare them to tackle crisis situations,” he said. Deputy Commissioner Rajat Aggarwal said since the problem was more to occur in rural areas, the idea was to make villagers self-sufficient to cater to their own needs to meet any disaster-like situation as an immediate measure, before the administrative machinery arrive to rescue them. “These volunteers are being trained at the Swimming Pool, Gol Bagh. They will form a part of District Disaster Response Force who will actively work in case of emergencies such as floods and other disasters. There was a dire need to formulate a concrete strategy to at least reduce the risks as a result of various disasters and capacity building of various stakeholders especially empowering the youth was a step in this direction,” he said.
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TB centre to rope in NGOs for getting rid of disease
Amritsar, August 12 Patients, who have evaded completing their prior treatment or who have again suffered from the disease, come under the category-II patients. “We have given the responsibility of treatment of as many as 40 such patients to the local unit of the Indian Red Cross Society. It has shown very good results with 92 per cent success rate, which normally stands between 80 to 85 per cent,” revealed Dr Naresh Chawla, district TB Officer. “This has encouraged us to involve more NGOs and the department is in process of identifying more such NGOs, which have the zeal to provide treatment to TB patients,” said Dr Chawla, while adding that urban slum areas had more incidence of the category-II TB, besides having maximum number of TB patients. Under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control programme (RNTCP), the district TB centre in collaboration with the Red Cross Society opened a DOT centre in Dayananad Charitable Dispensary, Katra Safaid, inside the walled city here yesterday. The aim was to provide treatment to TB patients at their doorsteps as well as monitoring support to the DOT centre, informed Dr Chawla. Earlier, the centre involved ASHA, a Delhi-based NGO, to operate in the slum areas of Haripura in the Islamabad locality, Navi Abadi area, Rattan Singh Chowk and Sultanwind village. He pointed out that most of the health treatment was in the hands of private doctors, who cared a little to treat TB patients. Therefore, more NGOs would be roped in for operating in slum areas. Meanwhile, R.P. Verma, Project Director in the Red Cross Society, Punjab, assured that the Red Cross Society would leave no stone unturned to provide free treatment and human touch to the patients suffering from TB. He said this was the first time in the state that the Red Cross Society would provide relief to the needy TB patients.
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Varsity to host hockey tourney
Amritsar, August 12 Expected to start from September 22, the 11-day tournament would see participation of teams from India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Argentina. The state government has entrusted the Punjab Mandi Board to carry out the work. The hockey stadium would be converted into a day and night venue. The deadline for completing the work is August 31. The seating capacity would be increased from 4,000 to 10,000.
— TNS
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SGPC poll Tribune News Service
Amritsar, August 12 This was stated by Jagbir Singh Brar, former MLA from Jalandhar and senior leader of the PPP, who was here to hold a meeting with the supporters and leaders of the party. Interacting with the media, he said the party would not hold its supporters from casting their votes. Being Sikhs they were at liberty to exercise their franchise, he added. When asked whether the result of the SGPC elections would have any effect on the ensuing Assembly elections, he answered in the negative. “The SGPC polls would not have any impact on the Assembly elections,” he asserted. He alleged that the SGPC elections had also become a family affair as most of the tickets were either distributed by the ruling SAD to their close family members or to the favourite ones. Brar castigated the reported statement of Punjab Cabinet minister Upinderjit Kaur, in which she had stated that talks were on with Manpreet Singh Badal to bring him back into the party (SAD) fold and he had expressed his interest in it. He claimed that Manpreet Badal was determined not to go back to the SAD, while adding that Upinderjit Kaur should refrain from giving such baseless statements. “In fact we will welcome the Punjab’s Finance Minister, if she wanted to join the PPP,” he quipped.
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Small-scale industry for hike in investment slab
Amritsar, August 12 As per the ministry, industries are placed in different categories depending on investment. Units set up with the investment of Rs 25 lakh are categorised as micro whereas units with an investment up to Rs five crore fall under the small-scale category, between Rs five crore and Rs 10 crore is medium scale and above Rs 10 crore is a large scale. Last time, the ministry enhanced the investment slab for small-scale units in 2006. An entrepreneur, Kamal Dalmia, said in the past five years, the prices of all commodities had increased with rising inflation. Sarbjit Singh, proprietor of a screw unit, said investment in plants and machinery had increased manifold in the past few years. He added that prices of raw material like iron and coal had seen periodical increase. Surjit Singh, General Manager, Department of Industries and Commerce, Amritsar, said currently no incentive was being offered to small-scale industrialists and added that the 2009 policy dealt only with mega unit. Industrialists said if the next policy focuses on small-scale industry then it might be entitled to incentives too. Sarbjit Singh said incentives would encourage new entrepreneurs to invest in the small-scale industry. HS Makhni, General Secretary, Textile Manufacturers Association (TMA), said he had written to the ministry on the matter.
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3 holidays bring cheer to residents
Amritsar, August 12 While many plan to go out on a holiday trip, others want to relax at their homes or visit their relatives. Raksha Bandhan falls on Saturday followed by Sunday and Independence Day on Monday. Many institutions, especially educational ones, have three holidays. A businessman, Rajbir Singh, from Focal Point locality said his family had planned an excursion. “First we will go to Anandpur Sahib and then to Chandigarh,” he added. For Roshni of Joshi colony, Dalhousie is the location for their trip. “Moreover, I don’t have to follow the dreary schedule of a housewife.” Namrata, a teacher, said she along with her colleagues planned to go to Vaishno Devi shrine near Jammu.
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Staff stand losers as varsity ‘mismanages’ GPF, CPF
Amritsar, August 12 The teaching and non-teaching staff claimed that they were getting less returns on the GPF and CPF, which the university authorities invested in banks as fixed deposits at 7.58 per cent as rate of interest. Denying the allegations, the authorities claimed the whole process was transparent and proposed to put all the details on its official website soon. Citing an example, the staff claimed that the Punjabi University, Patiala, invested its teachers’ general provident fund (GPF) and contributory provident fund (CPF) amounts, rolling into several crores, with banks at higher rate of interest (10 per cent and 11 per cent) in the previous financial year. The GND varsity invested the funds in banks at 7.58 per cent rate of interest. “This is despite the fact that the rate of interest offered by various banks varied between 9.65 per cent and 10.25 per cent. The difference of 4 per cent comes to several crores. This is pure mismanagement that caused us losses of several crores,” they said demanding an inquiry into the matter. Registrar Inderjeet Singh said total transparency was observed while investing the money with the banks and all the decisions in this regard were finalised by the financial committee, which included representatives from teaching and non-teaching staff. The Registrar said as per norms all the funds were fixed with the nationalised banks only through an open bidding. “I don’t have an idea about what our university authorities do, but we rely only with the nationalised banks. We have even proposed to put all the details of funds on our website,” he said. In charge (finance and development) Sharanjit Singh Dhillon clarified that the funds were invested and diverted only after studying the rate of interest on quarterly basis and after seeking the consent of the financial committee. “The last deposit we made in July was at 10.01 per cent rate of interest. Likewise, as our fixed deposits get mature, we invest the amount after following the set procedure,” he said.
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New York Film Academy to conduct workshops in India
Amritsar, August 12 While talking to mediapersons here, Suniti Ghoshal, Director, Yellow Submarine Film Pvt Ltd, which is hosting the NYFA workshop in India said, “We have initiated our announcement of the workshop with the holy city because it has always been the favourite destination of Bollywood filmmakers, besides the fact that many film and TV artistes had their roots here only.” “This would be the first of its kind workshop being conducted by the NYFA for the first time in India,” she added. According to her, NYFA is perhaps the only film school that is so hands-on and intensive. The teaching methodology is as much practical learning as theory. The workshop comprises shoots on a daily basis giving practical insights to every aspect of the theory that is taught. “The academy boasts of one of the highest camera-to-student ratio as compared to any other film school in the world. Each student is exposed to the roles and functions of all crew members in a film shoot. A group of four-six students is assigned a camera. Each student of every group has to direct three films, which allows him or her to understand and execute the job of a film director. When the student is not directing his or her own film, the student is assisting his team members playing a different role each time,” she said.
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