Dharamsala, October 8
The Dalai Lama today answered online queries from Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s supporters in the University of Western Cape, near Cape Town in South Africa. The Dalai Lama used technology to reach the South African public for the second day after being denied visa to visit the country. The South African government is under attack from Desmond Tutu and many others for allegedly denying visa to the Dalai Lama due to pressure from the Chinese government.

When Tutu asked why the global giant and main trade partner of South Africa feared the Dalai Lama, he said the Communist propaganda portrayed him as a demon. Taking a jibe, the Dalai Lama said, “I have horns”, drawing laughter from the audience viewing him.

The Dalai Lama also said Communist officials of China were afraid of him as he spoke the truth. The Chinese government should allow the Chinese people to hear him and let them judge the truth on their own. The Chinese judiciary must raise its standards to international law standards, the Dalai Lama reportedly said.

The Dalai Lama interacted with the South African audience from his house in McLeodganj today evening.

He also assured Tutu that he would attend his 90th birthday. The Tibetans here and Desmond Tutu have been maintaining that the South African government denied visa to the Dalai Lama under pressure from the Chinese government. Tutu peeved at denial of visa to the Dalai Lama despite his fervent appeals went to the extent of describing the present South African government as worse than the apartheid regime.

The South African government has, however, denied that the visa to Dalai Lama was denied. They have maintained that it was delayed due to incomplete papers. The Dalai Lama’s office has claimed that it had submitted complete papers to the South African Embassy.

The office had approached the South African Embassy in Delhi after receiving invitation from Desmond Tutu to attend his 80th birthday celebrations. Both Tutu and the Dalai Lama are fellow Nobel laureates.

Initially, as per the earlier practice, the office of the Dalai Lama had submitted a photocopy of his passport along with the visa application. The original passport could not be given with the visa application as the Dalai Lama was on a tour to the US. On his return, his office submitted the original copy of the Dalai Lama’s passport to the South African authorities. The Dalai Lama was to visit South Africa from October 6 onwards. However, after waiting for the visa till October 4, the Dalai Lama called off his South African tour. He then decided to deliver an address on the birthday on Desmond Tutu through Internet.

Nurpur, October 8
The proposed stadium of the town will be named after first Chief Justice of India (CJI) Mehar Chand Mahajan.

Talking to mediapersons here, local MLA Rakesh Pathania said Justice Mahajan, who hailed from the Nurpur area, was elevated to the posts of the Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

“The approval of the sports complex being built by the state Cricket Association is in the final stage and shortly its construction will be kickstarted and completed on a war footing. The first Ranji Trophy match will be held in March or April next year in the stadium,” he asserted.

Pathania maintained that his top priorities in the coming months would include starting the construction of the sports complex, the Finna Singh Medium Irrigation project, a new building for Arya Government College, a bus stand at Chogan in Nurpur and strengthening the health services in the local Civil Hospital. “Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal will lay foundation stones of these proposed development projects and inaugurate the newly built ITI building during his next tour of the area,” he added.

He said recently the government had earmarked Rs 8 crore for the construction of retaining walls for the protection of water supply schemes and the conservation of agriculture land in the area. “Apart from this, eight new mahila mandal bhawans have been sanctioned. During the past three-and-half years, 82 mahila mandal bhawans and 32 youth bhawans have been built in the area,” he claimed.

Solan, October 8
With the Ministry of Commerce and Industry refusing to fund the Rs 11-crore Transport Nagar project for the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial area, hopes of setting up a transportation facility to the over 7,000 trucks has received a severe setback.

The project has been rejected after one-and-a-half year of its submission to the ministry by the BBN Industrial Development Authority.

Various industry associations, including Himachal Drug Manufacturers Association and Nalagarh Industries Association, lamenting this, said had the project been rejected right in the beginning, other options could have been explored. This was despite the fact that the industry had been time and again assured by the two Union ministers from the state, including MSME Virbhadra Singh and Minister for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma about the project’s funding.

Despite having two ministers occupying crucial portfolios, the state’s interest had failed to be watched as the Central industrial package too had been untimely curtailed.

The state had earmarked 70 bighas at Sandholi, thus contributing its share of Rs 4 crore. The Central assistance was sought for developing the Export Infrastructure and Allied Activities scheme. A sum of Rs 7.5 crore, out of the total Rs 11 crore, was being sought from the Centre.

With nearly 50 export-oriented units situated in the BBN area, the setting up of a transport nagar where trucks could be parked along with other facilities is a key requirement. The proposal was crucial as it would have decongested the NH-21A where haphazardly parked trucks create a traffic snarl. Efforts are now afoot to float a project on the public-private partnership basis confided the industry’s Deputy Director-cum-Deputy CEO Tilak Raj Sharma.

Officials of the BBNDA are now trying to work out an alternative by expanding the existing parking places and trying to create small parking places in various places in the BBN confided Deputy CEO of BBNDA Hans Raj Sharma.

Bilaspur, October 8
Chowkidar Bidhiya Ram of Government Senior Secondary School, Samoh, near here, was badly mauled by a monkey. He was rushed first to the local Primary Health Centre and then to the Regional Hospital here for treatment.

He is said to be out of danger, but has received 12 stitches in one of his wounds. Besides, he had several lacerations and bite injuries of the monkey attack.

Bidhiya said he was working in the school ground when a monkey suddenly fell to the ground from an electric pole due to shock, but immediately thereafter, another bigger monkey attacked him suddenly.

He said before he could realise what had happened, this monkey had bitten him on several parts of his body. He was saved by neighbours as he shouted for help fearing attack of more monkeys.

Shimla, October 8
Faced with a threat of deduction in money to be received from the Centre under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) for undertaking the construction of pucca roads in villages, the state government has issued fresh directives not to undertake any such task which does not figure in the list of approved works.

Following the objection from the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) regarding the construction of pucca roads in villages, which did not form a part of the list of approved works to be undertaken under MNREGA, the Rural Development Department has issued directives to all its officials that in future works that do not figure in the list, must not be undertaken.

“Since it had not been specified whether roads to be constructed under MNREGA were to be pucca or kutcha, there was some ambiguity which led to this confusion,” admitted Jai Tam Thakur, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister.

He said now directives had been issued to all the officials that in future only connectivity be provided to villages by way of kuccha roads and no pucca roads would be constructed.

However, with the CAG objection regarding construction of pucca roads under MNREGA being made, senior officials of the Rural Development Department apprehend that the Centre might also make a deduction from the money to be given to the state for the number of days for which the work was undertaken on pucca roads.

Sources said this amount, running into several lakhs spent on the construction of pucca roads by way of labour and material, had been calculated and the state could suffer a major deduction from the amount paid by the Centre.

The minister, however, said since it was an unintended mistake, the position would be explained to the Centre so that Himachal did not face any cut.

Works worth Rs 332.27 crore had been completed under MNREGA in Himachal during 2008-09 and this sum shot up to Rs 556.55 crore during 2009-10. This amount had touched Rs 433.50 crore during 2010-11.

Maximum work has been undertaken in Kangra, Mandi and Chamba districts under MNREGA. During 2009-10, works worth Rs 144 crore had been undertaken in Kangra and Rs 130 crore in Mandi.

Chamba has done good work under MNREGA and in 2009-10 works worth Rs 90 lakh were undertaken.

Kullu, October 8
In the midst of international festival of Kullu Dasehra, the demand for Malana hashish, known as Malana cream among smugglers, has soared to dizzying heights with a price tag ranging from Rs 600 to Rs 800 per 10 gm.

This, in turn, has given the police sleepless nights as smugglers are on the prowl for the prized assignments in the valley that has emerged as an infamous hashish haven in the state.

According to inputs gathered from the Intelligence and police sources, the demand for hashish (charas) soared during Kullu Dasehra as the police destroyed cannabis on over 6,000 bighas of land during an anti-cannabis destruction campaign in the district.

Over 10,000 bighas, most of it on remote forest patches, was under illegal cannabis cultivation, the sources said.

Some notorious elements have deployed Nepalese labourers rubbing charas from the highly resin-baring cannabis plants that remained to be destroyed in remote inaccessible patches in Tosh Kotla, upper Waiching, Pinsu, Ougal Thatach and other hidden areas in the Upper Parbati valley in Kullu district, where the police team could not reach, they said.

The prices of charas in the valley has soared from Rs 150 to Rs 200 per 10 gm prevailing last year to whopping Rs 600 to Rs 800, depending upon the quality, the sources said.

The demand has soared in the metro as the charas has been in short supply due to the large part of cannabis, course of charas, has been destroyed during the anti-drug drives launched in the state, they said.

Though a good chunk is lifted by smugglers through couriers during and around the Dasehra festivities, the police and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) have failed to catch assignments during the peak season, indicating that smugglers enjoy patronage, the sources said.

It was for the first time that the local police, under the guidance of Kullu SP Abhishek Singh, launched the intensive anti-cannabis campaign for which he won the accolades of the NCB.

The campaign was launched in the region in 2003-04 under the then NCB Superintendent OP Sharma, who at present is working with villagers to grow alternative crops in the valley and outside, but so far with a little success.

Abhishek said the police had deployed its team in fields to keep a watch on drug traffickers as it suspect that the peddlers were on the look out to lift hashish during Dasehra as the demand has soared as its production has diminished.

“We have arrested over 150 Nepali cultivators during the campaign and destroyed illegal cannabis on 6,000 bighas and only accessible patches were left untouched,” he said.

Sharma said: “The police and the NCB and other enforcement agencies need to work in tandem with each other to crack down on the big-time smugglers. The cannabis and opium plants must be destroyed in the early stage.”