Shimla, October 10
Workers in the private sector will get wages on a par with those in the government sector with the state Cabinet granting approval to raise the minimum wage from Rs 110 to Rs 120 per day.

The Cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of Chief Minister PK Dhumal here today, also approved the proposal for enhancing the honorarium (samman rashi) of the freedom fighters in the state from Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 per month. It decided to formulate a scheme to honour officials involved in construction activities for the completion of projects ahead of schedule to encourage good performers.

The Cabinet decided to extend its agreement with Power Trading Corporation (PTC) India Limited for the sale of government power for another year from October 31 and authorised the Principal Secretary (Power) to execute the accord. The PTC will ensure 100 per cent scheduling of power with take-or-pay liability, obtain most competitive rates at 100 per cent scheduling, ensure optimal scheduling of power to minimise the impact of unscheduled interchange (UI) and undertake total accounting of government power.

The PTC will take upon itself the payment obligation of the state government towards the SJVN for equity power, long-term and short-term open access charges and the UI claims, besides ensuring fortnightly payment to the state government, irrespective of receipt or non-receipt of payment from the buyers, including the HPSEB.

It also decided to decentralise the power conferred under Section 8-A of the State Village Common Lands Vesting and Utilisation Act and authorise all the district collectors to change pool of land vested in the state in their respective jurisdiction to ensure expeditious transfer of such land. It accorded approval to the rates of high security registration plates in accordance with the Central Motor Vehicles Rules and Motor Vehicles (New High Security Registration Plates) Order, 2001. The registration plates will be tamper-proof, non-removable and can only be affixed by the approved manufacturer in the presence of the registering authority. The said scheme will be applicable to the new vehicles in the coming month and two years of grace period is allowed to old vehicles which are already registered.

It also approved an amendment to Section 27 of the Excise Act and promulgate an ordinance thereof so that reputed brands could bottle their produce within the state. It also decided to accord the Renukaji fair the status of an international festival and re-designate the post of the Chief Architect in the HP PWD as Architect-in-Chief.

Shimla, October 10
Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal flagged off the 13th Raid-de-Himalaya Motorsport Rally, the longest, highest and one of the most adventurous motorsport events in the world, here today.

The actual competition will commence tomorrow when the 162 participants will take off for Manali for the gruelling 300-km drive, to complete the first day of the six-day event.

Addressing the participants, Dhumal said the growing number of participants indicated that the hill state was emerging as a top adventure sports destination. Such events provided participants from the world over an opportunity to explore the unexplored virgin destinations in the interiors of the state and helped boost tourism.

The rally would pass through some of the most beautiful and challenging mountain ranges of Hiamchal Pradesh and the neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir. He appreciated the efforts of the organisers in following the highest standards of pollution control and even keeping the noise levels of vehicles within the prescribed limits.

The Chief Minister said the government had been encouraging adventure sports and various events, including para-gliding, winter sports, water sports, mountaineering and trekking, were being held regularly, giving new dimensions to adventure tourism.

Una, October 10
Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Virbhadra Singh’s three-day visit to Una district brought together all the warring factions of the Congress. It is for the first time that all factions of the Congress, including the Vidya Stokes group that usually keeps away from Virbhadra Singh functions, actively participated in various political rallies organised by the Union minister in various parts of Una district in the past two days.

Virbhadra Singh arrived in Una district yesterday. He addressed an impressive political rally in the Haroli area represented by his close confidant and sitting Congress MLA from Santoshgarh, Mukesh Agnihotri. The rally was also attended by other Congress leaders from the district, including Rakesh Kalia, Congress MLA from Chintpurni, a close associate of CLP leader Vidya Stokes. Kalia, in his brief address on the occasion, showered praises on Virbhadra and said the Congress would fight elections under him.

Today morning Virbhadra addressed political rallies in the Kutlehar Assembly constituency that has been a BJP stronghold for the past more than 15 years. The rallies were attended by all the warring factions of the Congress from the Kutlehar constituency. Ram Nath Sharma, former Congress MLA and Deputy Speaker, and Des Raj Gautam, who is seeking ticket from the constituency, were present. Des Raj Gautam, however, scored over his rivals in terms of welcoming the Union minister with posters and banners.

Today evening Virbhadra addressed a political rally at Dehlan village in Una. Both the warring factions of the Congress in the Una constituency, led by former MLAs OP Rattan and Varinder Gautam, were present. Though Varinder Gautam has been a staunch loyalist of Virbhadra for long, Rattan had been his bête noire. In case Rattan also tilts in favour of Virbhadra, it will be a big advantage for him Una district.

Sources here said a few other aspirants for Congress ticket from the Una Assembly constituency also met Virbhadra Singh.

A senior Congress leader, when asked about the overwhelming support for Virbhadra Singh from all factions of the Congress, said nobody wanted to annoy him as he had supporters in each constituency.

Meanwhile, addressing political rallies in various parts of the district, Virbhadra launched scathing attacks on the ruling BJP government. He accused the present government of selling land of Himachal to outsiders.

He also visited all the religious gurus in Una, including Baba Lal and Baba Rudrananda, who hold considerable sway in the district.

The Union minister will be staying in Una till tomorrow and visiting Chintpurni and Gagret areas.

Shimla, October 10
Alarmed at the theft of Nicholas Roerichs’ paintings from the Agriculture Research Institute, Delhi, former IAS officer and life trustee of the International Roerich Memorial Trust (IRMT) Shakti Singh Chandel has urged the state government to take immediate steps to ensure security of the valuable heritage at the art gallery in Naggar and also order a CBI probe into the affairs of the trust, which were in a complete mess.

He has also threatened to go on a fast if his demand was not accepted.

In a letter to Chief Secretary Rajwant Sandhu, he drew attention to the fact that the store stock-taking or verification had not taken place for the past 10 years and detailed inventory was not available.

He said he was in Moscow last month and Russians there expressed apprehensions that a lot of things might have disappeared from the IRMT, Naggar.

He requested the Chief Secretary to immediately convene a meeting of Indian trustees and officials connected with the working of the IRMT.

So far all his pleas had been ignored and if no action was taken in the matter he would go on a fast and get allegations investigated and working of the IRMT streamlined.

He has also referred to the 14-point charge sheet submitted by him to the Chief Minister regarding the irregularities in the IRMT in February.

Shimla, October 10
While the arrival of Formula One Grand Prix Event is expected to provide the much-needed fillip to motor sports in the country, those associated with the sport are not very enthusiastic.

“There are bottlenecks holding back the exciting sports and to put the country firmly on the international motor sports map, the constraints have to be removed. It has not been accorded the status of a sport as yet and as a result one has to pay an import duty of 300 per cent on sports vehicles.” says Manjeev Bhalla, Chairman, Rally Committee of Federation of Motorsports Clubs in India.

In case of other sports, equipment can be imported without the import duty and there are not many formalities to be completed. Only a recommendation of the sports federation concerned is enough to avail of the exemption in duty. However, the same is not true for motor sports which are kept in category D and after Formula One it has been shifted to the C category. Ideally, it should be brought under category A or at least B to encourage the sport, he explains.

The formalities to be completed for bringing a vehicle into the country even for participating in an event like the Raid-de-Himalaya have discouraged foreign participants. The number of participants has over the past 13 years increased manifold. As against 30 vehicles in the inaugural event held in 1999, this year there 158 four-wheelers and two-wheelers, including 82 in the X-treme category, but the number of foreign participants has not gone beyond six, laments Bhalla who is also the vice-president of the Himalayan Motorsport, which organises the annual event.

However, automobile companies like Maruti Suzuki have been supporting the event through sponsorship. Participation in the Raid-de-Himalaya provides the best field trials to test the toughness and insurances of vehicles and the feedback is being used for research and development to improve the design to suit the rough Indian conditions. The company has entered 10 vehicles and it has specially hired two professional drivers from Belgium for the event. This year Tata Motors (seven vehicles) and Mahindra and Mahindra (five vehicles) are also participating. 

Shimla, October 10
With indications of international drug smugglers being engaged in the illegal activity in the Kullu-Manali area, the Himachal police has finally decided to prepare a photo database of all offenders booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

The CID wing of the police has been entrusted with the task of getting the database prepared, replete with photos of those engaged in the illegal trade. It is on the directives of Director-General of Police DS Manhas that all 12 district police chiefs have been asked to get the information ready at the earliest.

Despite the Kullu-Manali area and parts of Mandi district gaining notoriety for production and trafficking of hashish and opium, the state police does not have any database of those engaged in this illegal activity. “Having a database with photographs of those who have been booked under various NDPS cases will help us track the cases more 
meticulously at any given time,” said Vinod Dhawan, SP (CID).

The district police chiefs have been asked to get the database of those who have been apprehended in more than one case and are habitual offenders ready at the earliest. Whenever there is any communication from the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) with regard to NDPS cases, the CID does not have any proper database, which results in problems.

Even though it is an established fact that some foreigners are engaged in the drug trade, the police does not have proper information about them or their links with the international drug mafia. The seizure of hybrid high-yielding varieties during destruction campaigns in higher reaches of the Malana valley also clearly establishes the fact that foreign nationals are peddling in drugs.

Vast tracts of government land, including forest land, are brought under cultivation of cannabis and poppy to extract hashish and opium, which fetch very high prices in the international market. In fact, many websites give information about the high quality Malana crème that is available from the Kullu valley. Hoards of foreigners come to the area every year, with a large number of them being engaged in narcotic smuggling.

During the past 10 years a total of 3,869 cases have been registered under the NDPS Act and this includes over 400 registered this year. A sizeable number of 1,320 persons booked under the NDPS Act have been acquitted while 676 have been convicted.

Solan, October 10
With almost 28 to 30 per cent of the patients suffering from low platelet count and three cases of dengue emerging in the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh (BBN) industrial belt in the past one month at the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) hospital, the state health authorities have been alerted about this alarming revelation.

The authorities were yet to wake up to initiate even awareness campaigns for migrant labourers.

Dr Ajay Raj Kamra, medical superintendent, ESIC hospital, Baddi, told The Tribune that since three patients have tested positive in the laboratory investigations conducted at Chandigarh they had been referred to Chandigarh for treatment. Since they did not have a blood bank facility at Baddi, these patients were receiving treatment at Chandigarh.

He said it was an alarming revelation that almost 28 to 30 per cent of the 400 patients visiting their hospitals had low platelet count and this was an indication of the dengue fever.

This fact came to the fore when they started screening the blood of those patients who were suffering from fever and a large number of them were found to have low platelets of less than one lakh.

Teams of health officials were now being sent to various jhuggis in the BBN area to educate dwellers about dengue and how to minimise the risk. The BBN area was dominated by migrant workers from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar who resided in jhuggis.

Ayurveda and Health Minister Dr Rajiv Bindal, when apprised about the number of dengue cases in the BBN belt, today directed Dr Joshi, joint secretary, who was looking after vector-borne diseases, to visit the BBN area and take stock of the situation.

Dr Bindal said officials would hold a meeting with the health authorities and take steps to curtail the spread of this disease.

Barru Sahib, October 10
A two-day International Conference on Nursing Informatics was inaugurated today by Dr Jaya Shree, Director, Research and Medical Education, Himachal, at the Akal College of Nursing, Eternal University, Barru Sahib.

Dr Davinder Singh, Registrar, Eternal University and also Secretary of the Kalgidhar Trust, welcomed the delegates and emphasised the importance of the nursing profession in today’s strifetorn world. He also reiterated the need to inculcate spiritual values along with the highest standard of professional training to the budding nursing professionals.

In his keynote address, an international delegate William G Rosky, Chairman, Computer Information Systems, University of Michigan, USA, emphasised the need of integrating nursing with computer technology and information systems so as to improve communication, efficient documentation and for paperless working by integrating all data. This will help provide efficient health services to patients at the click of a button.

Dr MS Atwal, Vice-Chancellor, Eternal University, also addressed the conference later.

Baba Iqbal Singh, Chancellor, Eternal University and President of the Kalgidhar Trust, said nursing profession was the noblest profession where a nurse’s role was not merely about giving physical treatment alone, it also involved being humble, compassionate with a strong moral value so that a spiritual healing touch could be given to ailing patients.

He further emphasised that education had become an industry, but the thrust of the Kalgidhar Trust 
was to impart value-based education.

Many international delegates Dr Marylou McHugh, Professor, Emiretia, Drexel University, USA, Dr Sandra Freidman, Clinical Professor, Drexel University, USA, Joan Teague Bicks & Mararet Louise, Colleges of Nursing, Wayne State University, USA, along with Principal and Deans of PGIMER, DMC, CMC, Ludhiana, also participated in the conference today.

Charanjit Kaur Brara, cardiology and nurse practitioner in the USA, spoke on the concepts of nursing informatics and Dr Marylou McHugh, Professor, Drexel University, USA, spoke on “Standardised Simulation Experience to prepare Nurse Educators - A Developmental Exercise”. 

Kangra, October 10
Enraged farmers of 15 panchayats, who had been agitating against the government decision to allot 943 kanals of government land located in the Tika Bohe Moza Charri in Shahpur tehsil for the establishment of the Border Security Force (BSF) Battalion camp, today called on Union Minister Virbhadra Singh and sought his immediate intervention for resolving the issue as the BSF authorities had pitched tents on the controversial land.

Disclosing this here today, Kewal Singh Pathania, Congress party spokesman, who is spearheading the agitation, said members of the Sangharsh Samiti, which had held a Maha Panchayat on September 18 at Bohai village, near here, were enraged over the pitching of tents by the BSF authorities and stationing a Deputy Commandant and 15 other BSF officers and jawans at the location, called on the Union minister today.

He said Virbhadra Singh assured the farmers that he would meet the Union Home Minister in this connection on October 13, after he returned to the national Capital. Pathania said the Union minister was informed that the state government was trying to hand over this land to the BSF in a hush-hush manner.

He said president of the samiti Dr Gurcharan Choudary charged the state government for allegedly suppressing the farmers’ genuine agitation by force.

Pathania said the BSF would keep a firing range in the area which would pose a threat to people living in the vicinity.

Bilaspur, October 10
Kanshi Ram, founder of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), spent his whole life devotedly in trying to uplift the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and weaker sections of society and after Baba Saheb Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar it was he who fought for the rights of these sections to give them a better place in the conventional Indian society.

This was stated by state vice-president of the BSP Sukh Ram Chauhan, a former Director of the Himachal Health Services, who was the chief guest, while addressing a gathering on the occasion of the fifth death anniversary of Kanshi Ram at Oel village, near here, last evening.

He said it was Kanshi Ram who first gave the idea that if these sections wanted to get a place of respect in society, they must strive to get political power. Kanshi Ram formed the BSP with this objective and was fortunate to see the concrete result as Mayawati was earlier and at present the Chief Minister of UP.

The function was presided over and also addressed by district BSP president Anoop Chand Bhatia and other leaders drawn from all parts of the district.

Kangra, October 10
The Department of Psychiatry of Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College Tanda, observed World Mental Health Day-2011 today and held a free mental health camp on the occasion.

Disclosing this here, Dr Munish Saroch, spokesman of the TMC, said the Department of Psychiatry organised a mental health camp in the psychiatry OPD today which was inaugurated by Dr Satya Bandu Sood, Medical Superintendent of the hospital.

He said 123 patients were examined by Dr (Major) Sukhjit Singh, HOD, Psychiatry, and free medicines distributed to all the patients.

He said the patients, their attendants and other visitors were enlightened about different forms of mental illnesses by showing them a documentary movie on schizophrenia, epilepsy and evils of tobacco and drug addiction.

He said about 1,000 pamphlets were distributed on positive mental health. People were also offered tea in cups bearing slogans “Mansik Rogon Ka Ilaj Sambhav Hai” (Mental Illnesses Are Curable).

Dr Preeti Sharma, Binod Pandey, Clinical Psychologist, Dr Gaurav Bhardwaj, Dr Ajay Jarial and Ajay Kumar participated in the camp.