 |
|
|
Kabaddi World Cup
CM’s cancer relief fund
Politicians visit us only for votes: Villagers
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
15 Bathinda villages get Nirmal Gram Puraskar
Punjabi film screened at Central University
PSEB JEs stage protest
|
|||||||||||
|
Kabaddi World Cup
Bathinda, November 22 A Punjab Police member and the driver of the bus carrying the Indian team were killed in the accident. Later, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal had ordered an inquiry the mishap. The officials in the district administration said a declaration was made only in principle and that the officers have not got any written communiqué from the state government. Deputy Commissioner KK Yadav is on leave. Bathinda SDM Sandeep Rishi had also been on leave and joined the office today. Rishi said his office had not yet got any orders from the government about investigating the accident. While the Punjab Government had been making tall claims of promoting a rural game, kabaddi, it has forgotten the pain that the tragedy brought to the Indian players. During the semi-final match, Indian kabaddi team coach had complained that while the government and its officers did not refrain from attending the lavish party thrown at Badal village on the day of accident (November 17), the players were left to fend for themselves. Overcoming the pain, women team not only lifted the cup but also proved their prowess on the field. “Had the cause of accident been found on time or even some responsibility was fixed, we would have felt that our pain was shared. But the government has no time. Kabaddi was only a grand 20-day feast for them,” said a disgruntled player from Ludhiana, not wishing to be named. She quipped that in a gleaming kabaddi cup, the government perhaps forgot to issue a letter to Bathinda district authorities to conduct an inquiry into the accident. Accused arrested, released on bail The Bhuchho police said the accused Lal Bahadur, lance havildar, unit 122, Sata Regiment, was arrested and later, released on bail. The accused was handed over to the Army authorities. What happened on that fateful evening....
|
|
CM’s cancer relief fund
Bathinda, November 22 According to the details available, the district health authorities have received around 150 applications since June 13, 2011, wherein cancer patients in the district sought financial aid. Of these, about 145 applications had already been sent to the Cancer Control Cell, Punjab. However, only 57 patients have been provided with the financial benefits of up to Rs 1.50 lakh so far while five cases were rejected on account of incomplete application forms. One of the main reasons behind the delay in the payment of medical bills to the hospitals concerned where patients get treatment is the lengthy process of approving the case and making payment to the hospital concerned. Due to this, many patients or their relatives have to repeatedly visit the office of Civil Surgeon to know the fate of their case. In every case, the process is completed almost in two to three months. Under the scheme, financial aid up to Rs 1.50 lakh is paid directly to the hospital where the patient gets treatment. District Nodal Officer of the Cancer Cell Dr Raghubir Singh Randhawa said several cancer patients were facing problems in getting financial aid from the CM's Cancer Relief Fund, as private hospitals or institutions, especially situated outside Punjab, did not provide proper documents regarding the nature of treatment given to a patient and the break-up of the total expenditure of conducting chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, disease-related investigations and hospitalisation of the patient. They only gave in writing the total amount of the expenditure to be incurred on the treatment of patient even as break-up of the treatment expenses was required, Dr Randhawa added. Darshan Singh, son of Gurjant Singh, a patient from Jassi Pau Wali village, said they had submitted the complete application to the Civil Surgeon's office in mid-September to get the financial aid, but no money had so far been sent to the Max Hospital, Bathinda, where his father was getting treatment. He said they had already spent over Rs 2 lakh. Moreover, his father had also undergone chemotherapy after the application for grant of aid was submitted. He said they had visited the Civil Surgeon's office four-five times, but have not yet received a positive response with regard to the payment to the hospital. On the other hand, a patient from the local Dhobiana Basti, Deputy Krishan, whose hospital had been paid Rs 1.50 lakh from the CM's Cancer Relief Fund for his treatment, said it was good that the state government thought about cancer patients. However, he asked the government to expedite the process of making payment. He added that he had applied for the aid on July 27 but the payment was made to the hospital on October 7. |
|
Politicians visit us only for votes: Villagers
Gobindpura (Bathinda), November 22 Residents of the village said that the political leaders notice their village only during the election time as it has the highest number of voters under the Sangat block. "There are more than 5000 votes in the village and it has two panchayats due to its high population. Another village has been carved out recently, named Harrangpura," said Harbans, a village resident. "Both the sons of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and former CM Captain Amarinder Singh visited our village during the last Vidhan Sabha elections. This is third time that a leader has come to address a rally in our village," said Sewak Singh, another resident of the village. Both Raninder and Sukhbir promised to change our lives during the previous Vidhan Sabha elections, but nothing has been done so far," he added. He pointed out that many houses built in the centre of the village are being damaged due to the continuous seepage of water from a village pond. "The dirty water coming out from the houses accumulates in the pond and the houses built in the vicinity have been damaged. Despite repeated requests and raising a hue and cry over it, nothing has been done in this regard," he said. The villagers said that politicians come out of their burrows only during the elections to seek votes but never turn up later
to enquire about their problems. People are down with dengue, suffering from asthma due to the dust and the village lacks potable drinking water facility, the villagers said. Village sarpanch Gurpal Singh, who was not present during Manpreet's rally, when contacted over the phone, said, "There are many problems in the village including that of stagnant water in the pond which could not be resolved with the paltry sum of money released by the state government." He added that the Member of Parliament Harsimrat Kaur Badal had released a grant of Rs 8 lakhs around six months ago. The entire amount was spent on constructing village streets, drains, repairing the dharamshala and the village hospital. "We require more than 50 lakhs to carry out the pending developmental works," Gurpal Singh said. Sidelights of the rally
|
|
15 Bathinda villages get Nirmal Gram Puraskar
Bathinda, November 22 The project is being implemented to promote healthy practices among the villagers and ensure that defecating in the open is brought down to zero. For this, the government is providing NABARD assisted funds for the construction of toilets in the villages. Earlier, a year ago, a team from Delhi had visited all the villages that have been declared winners. These villages were profiled on the basis of total cleanliness, garbage disposal and knowledge of self-hygiene amongst the villagers such as washing hands after visiting the toilet and before the meals. Under the division number 1 of the public health department, villages Sekhu and Chak Ruldu Singh Wala have been awarded. While sewer has become functional in Chak Ruldu Singh Wala, it is being laid in village Sekhu. The villagers are being given funds by NABARD for the construction of individual household latrines. Similarly, under the division number 2, villages of Burj Mansa, Rayia, Gill Khurd, Harkishanpura, Khokhar, Nandgarh, Bangi, Deepa Singh, Gurusar Jagga and Nasibpura have been awarded. Under division number 3, villages Rajgarh Khurd, Burj, Dhan Singh Khana, Mari, Ramgarh Bhunder and Poohli have been awarded. The panchayats have been conferred cash awards. The amount given as incentive to each gram panchayat ranges from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakhs depending upon the population of the village. The cash award given to the villagers will be used for the further development of the ongoing projects. Fact file
|
|
Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan
Bathinda, November 22 The principal of government in-service training centre, Khushbir Singh, under whom the programme is being run at the district level, said: "It is a 10-day programme. During the first five days, teachers are taught the communication skills and the next five days are dedicated to text book section, which deals with making even the most monotonous class interesting." Teachers of classes IX and X at all the schools in the district are being given lessons under the project. Currently, four batches of 35-40 teachers each are taking lessons. Master trainers, some of whom include lecturers of government schools, are imparting the training. The British Council had earlier trained them at circle offices in the month of April at Kotkapura and in May at Faridkot. These master trainers will be paid an honorarium of Rs 300 per session. In the district, teachers are being taught at Des Raj School in Bathinda, Government Senior Secondary School (Boys) at Bhuchho, Government Senior Secondary School at Rampura and Government Senior Secondary School (Boys) at Talwandi Sabo. Teachers are being educated that they should make the English language communicative rather than dwelling on its technical aspects. "We are asking the teachers to encourage students in conversing in English in the classroom, even if they are grammatically incorrect. Teachers have to do away with the archaic practice of understanding the basics in the forms of tenses and other grammatical nitty-gritty," one of the master trainers told TNS. He added that earlier, while teaching English, the mother tongue of students, Punjabi, was being used as a medium. Under this project, teachers are being taught that Punjabi as a teaching medium should be replaced with
English. Fact file
|
|
Ministerial staff go on mass casual leave
Bathinda, November 22 As they are observing the mass casual leave for three days i.e. on November 22, 23 and 25 and November 24 will be a holiday, the normalcy in the government offices is likely to return on Monday. Their demands include a pay scale of Rs 10,300-34,800 with Rs 4,600 as grade pay for clerks, pay scale of Rs 10,300-34,800 with Rs 5,400 as grade pay for senior assistants and pay scale of Rs 10,300-34,800 with Rs 6,600 as grade pay for superintendents. Due to the mass casual leave, the people, who visited the government offices, faced problems in getting their work done while many of them had to return home empty handed. For example some persons, who visited the District Treasury Office, here today for purchasing the stamp papers and for payment of the refund orders issued by the courts etc, could not get their work done. Meanwhile, the members of the ministerial staff held a rally on the premises of the Mini-secretariat here. They also took out a protest march on the road around the mini-secretariat and raised slogans in support of their demands. The protesters were led by the district president of the union Sukhpal Singh Sidhu. Sidhu said the state government had been misguiding the people by saying that it had given huge benefits to the employees. Besides, the government had also been trying to create split among the employees by giving higher scales to some categories and denying the same benefits to the other equivalent categories. District general secretary of the union Kewal Bansal said the state government had been adopting step-motherly attitude towards the employees causing resentment among various categories of the employees. He said due to the mass casual leave, the works in the tehsil offices, excise offices, treasury offices, civil surgeon offices and even the branches of the deputy commissioners' offices had also affected in the state. Bansal said if their demands were not met by Sunday then the union would chalk out its further course of agitation to continue the stir. The employees were addressed among others by Sukhpal Singh Sidhu, Kewal Bansal, senior vice-president of the union Natha Singh, Balwinder Singh (DC office), Amarjit Sharma (Public Health) and Ram Singh (Education). |
|
Punjabi film screened at Central University
Bathinda, November 22 The CUP vice-chancellor, Prof Jairup Singh appreciated efforts by the filmmakers and spoke on the relevance of serious cinema in contemporary times. Prof Paramjit Ramana, Centre for Comparative Literature, introduced the film as a groundbreaking work of art, representative of serious, issue-based cinema. The film, juxtaposing the ancient dignified ways of life and contemporary selfishness and self-serving individualism, mirrored the corruption prevalent in society and the need to be morally strong to start a fight against corruption and injustice. The faculty and the students enjoyed the screening. Director Rajeev Sharma in his discourse spoke about falling standards of commercial Punjabi cinema. He said that his film was inspired by a literary character. It also imbibed real incidence involving sexual harassment and subsequent suicide by a student due to a senior police officer twenty ago back in Chandigarh. He stressed upon the need to create a dialogue through his film to bring about social change of any stature. Producer, Tejinder Dhir, spoke about commercial aspect of film and the lead actor, Samuel John, a renowned street theatre artiste, discussed hypocrisy and detachedness prevailing in contemporary media and cinema. He laid stress on need to be socially and morally involved in order to fight injustice. There was a discussion and interaction session after the screening, during which the faculty and the students actively commented on various aspects of the film including its moral stance, its open ending and its commercial viability. |
|
|
Students get tips on personality development, soft skills
Bathinda November 22 Apart from the students of Punjab, the students of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh also participated. This was organized under the ongoing IRG scheme of the government. On Monday, a farewell party was organised for its successful completion. The certificates of this programme were distributed among students by principal Yadwinder Singh. Speaking on the occasion, the principal gave good wishes to all the students and said all the students need more soft skills to work in Canada. He said the central government also organised Community Development through Polytechnic (CDTP) which is successfully going on nationwide. The purpose of these schemes is to sharpen the skills of less educated youth of the villages so that they can make more employment options for themselves. |
|
PSEB JEs stage protest
Bathinda November 22 Speaking on the occasion, the leaders of the council demanded that the JEs should be given the cost of petrol as Rs 30 litres per month and their pending promotions should be done as soon as possible. They threatened that they would intensify their agitation, if their demands were not fulfilled. They said that the whole junior engineer cadre would implement work to rule from November 23 to November 27. They said that all the JEs and AAEs would go on mass leave on December 2 in support of
their long pending demands. Zonal president of the council Surinder Pal Singh Gill and others addressed the rally. |
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
"Only the influential and well connected villagers manage to get their work done and enjoy the benefits of various government schemes while the poor fail to even get their ration cards," said Nachhattar Singh.