Moga, October 25
Swami Vedantananda, a renowned saint of the modern times, has died of prostate cancer at Moga on Tuesday. He was 88 years old. The cremation would be performed here on Thursday, said a close aide of the saint.

He was the founder of the Gita Bhawan, an architecturally well-designed temple and a school at Moga, besides the famous Pawan Dham at Haridwar. A local social thinker and Arya Samaj activist Ajay Sood, who was close to the deceased, said, “Swami Vedantananda was a great liberal and visionary saint, who was respected by all the communities.”

He started his religious life as a Jain saint named Abhey Muni, a disciple of Muni Raghuwar Dyal, who was a renowned Jain guru, who travelled barefoot in the northern India along with other saints, Ram Muni, Bahadur Muni, Adarsh Muni and Satish Muni from where he got acclaim as a saint. He had a great impact on the masses through his simple religious discourse in Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. He was born in the remote village of the Meerut district. During his childhood, his family moved to Delhi where they started their own business at Chandni Chowk.

As a youth, he started his business of clothes on his advice of his parents. At that time, his name was Ashrafi Lal.

He was a successful businessman but left it and entered as a ‘muni’ in the Jain sect inspired by Swami Ram Thiratha and Swami Vivekananda’s teachings.

However, he soon left Jainism and followed Vedanta Darshan. He came to Moga in the early 1960s and founded the famous Gita Bhawan Temple in the year 1965, here. As time passed, Gita Bhawan became one of the famous religious places in the entire northern belt of the country.

Abohar, October 24
The Police DAV Public School (Jalandhar) clinched the overall trophy while the hosts LRS DAV Senior Secondary Model School were declared runners-up in the All India MHR Aryan Tournament for Punjab zone.

A Ranji Trophy player and former wicket-keeper Virender Brar was joined by the DAV College, Jalandhar, principal Dr BB Sharma, principal Dr Venita Singh, principal Kusum Khungar and the local management chairman Dev Mittar Ahuja in honouring the winners. The winners would compete during the national tournaments to be held at Haridwar and Patiala.

Anuj Singh and Kirandeep Kaur, who were adjudged the best athletes, are the students of the DAV School, Nabha.