Jalandhar, January 6
With the higher reaches of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir experiencing snow and the city receiving first winter showers today, the mercury in this part of the region has witnessed a dip.

Following sudden showers, people were forced to stay indoors while those left in the open, especially the homeless, were left to fend for themselves. Clouds were hovering on Jalandhar skies since yesterday morning, but a spell rain has made things hard for the homeless. Destitute and the homeless were seen sitting around bonfires to keep themselves warm.

The homeless had a tough time looking for a shelter in and around the markets and shopping complexes in the city. A group of homeless sitting in a corridor of a shopping complex said: "Rain has aggravated our problem. The woollens we carried along are also drenched as it took us some time to find some place to sit."

A group of women were seen huddled outside a temple to keep themselves warm. "What can the poor do? We are left at the mercy of the almighty and some good Samaritans. There is no option for us but to brave this weather in the open," said one of the women.

Though it remained cold today, the mercury witnessed a slight increase. Adampur again remained the coldest in the plains with a minimum temperature of 6.4 degrees Celsius while the maximum was recorded at 20.3 degrees Celsius. While Amritsar recorded a minimum temperature of 7 degrees Celsius, Halwara saw a low of 8.1 degrees Celsius. State capital Chandigarh also recorded an increase in the mercury with the minimum temperature at 10.7 degrees Celsius.

The met department at the Adampur Air Force Station predicted a cloudy to mainly overcast sky with fog, mist and haze in the morning and the evening hours of the day.

Passengers seen waiting for a train at the Jalandhar railway station on Friday. Photo: Sarabjit Singh

Jalandhar, January 6
A thick layer of fog enveloping the region affected the rail traffic with several trains running behind schedule, putting passengers to inconvenience. The Jalandhar city railway station Friday was marked with unending announcements declaring the late arrival of various trains today. The enquiry counter at the railway station was flooded with queries and platforms were full of irked passengers.

While two trains were cancelled today, 11 were running behind schedule. Five trains were running three to seven hours late, said railway officials.

The railway authorities were clueless about the status of more than three trains, since their arrival details were not available to the station nearest to Jalandhar.

Karan Singh, a Sultanpur resident, student of a Jalandhar institute, said: "The Somnath Express, the train that I take daily, has been running late for the past many days. While its scheduled arrival is 1:30 pm, it arrived yesterday at 4 pm. Today, so far they say it's going to arrive at 2:10 pm. But you never know how late it might get. The trains have been running late since the mid of December and we don't expect any let up in the situation until the winters are over and the fog is gone."

Passengers of the Dadar Express were a frustrated lot as they were seen scurrying for an alternative train. The Dadar Express was found to be running late first by an hour and later by three hours.

The passengers were inconvenienced as some looked to grab seats on the Hisar-Amritsar Express, while others made frantic enquiries from the railway authorities. Since the Hisar-Amritsar express was running late, their problems were intensified.

Simar, a student in Jalandhar, looking to board the Dadar Express, moved to the Hisar-Amritsar Express, which was expected to arrive at Jalandhar city station at 7.30 am but got late by seven hours and finally left at about 2.45 pm, said: "This has become a routine. The weather is troublesome and everyday we have to wait for hours to catch our trains. Today, I was hoping to board the Dadar Express, but since it is very late, I will have to board the Hisar passenger train."

Given the severity of the weather, the conditions are expected to stay bad in the coming days. Till then, the railway station is expected witness inconvenienced passengers waiting for trains that are expected to be running late by hours.

Jalandhar, January 6
Where there is a will, there is a way. Probably this is how one can sum up the story of the budding brother duo, who have overcome adversities in life to pursue badminton as a sport and career.

Courtesy their determination to grow in life that Love Kumar (21) and Kashish Sharma (16) got a golden chance to pursue this sport at the Ratti Badminton Academy, which is being run at the local Raizada Hans Raj Stadium.

While Love Kumar scored first rank in the singles of the senior state badminton championship, Makandpur, his brother Kashish bagged second rank in the Punjab junior badminton championship also held at Makandpur.

Talking to Jalandhar Tribune, Love Kumar, who is pursuing BA-I from Lyallpur Khalsa College, said: "Pursuing badminton as a game was the best decision of my life. And thankfully, I got a good coach too, who not only shaped mine but my brother's life too," he said.

At present, both the brothers are undertaking free coaching, getting free boarding and lodging at the academy, which is being run by their coach Gagan Ratti. Owing to their top rankings in the state, the brother duo is also being sponsored by some good Samaritans.

Kashish Sharma, the younger brother who left for the school nationals to Pune today, said that he learnt the game during his schooling at Shakargarh DAV Senior Secondary School, Gurdaspur. He said: "I picked the game watching my brother play. He motivated me to take up the sport seriously and join the academy here."

Talking about their family in Gurdaspur, they said that financial constraints coupled with certain other adversities made them more dedicated in this game. Their father runs a vegetable shop in Gurdaspur and has a big joint family to feed. The brother duo said: "We are happy to have earned a little bit for our family also."

The brothers were all praise for their coach Gagan Ratti and international badminton player Sachin Ratti, who taught them the basics. "I idolize my coach, who is shaping up my life," said Love Kumar.

Now, Love Kumar would participate in the upcoming senior national badminton championship to be held at Bangalore from January 17 to 25. Both the brothers practice for at least three hours in the morning and evening.

Gagan Ratti said: "They are a great motivating source for each other. And the way they have excelled in the game, I am sure that they will soon make it big in this sport." 

Jalandhar, January 6
The Jalandhar traffic police on Thursday held a meeting with school and college authorities and directed them ensure that drivers of school buses follow traffic rules.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP), Traffic, Sukhdev Singh Sandhu urged the school and college authorities to follow the traffic norms to prevent the occurrence of fatal accidents. He said it was the responsibility of the education institution concerned to fulfil the safety norms of their vehicles. While giving the reference of guidelines issued by the Punjab and Harayna High Court relating to the safety norms in vehicles, he urged the managements to respect the court instructions.

Detailing about traffic police future plan of action, the ADCP said that from now, onwards, traffic personnel would be deployed outside educational institutions. Id the traffic personnel finds any violations of traffic norms, including overloading, lack of speed governor, having pressure horn etc, strict action will be taken on the spot, he added.

Gurdeep Singh, a traffic official, said school buses should have name of the school and if the buses are hired, the vehicles should have a board mentioning 'on school duty'.

Singh said traffic men would also be deployed on the main roads and on the traffic lights to check the traffic violations by drivers. He said strict action under the Motor Vehicle Act would be taken against the drivers if found guilty.

Meanwhile, the traffic police also fitted around 500 traffic reflectors on vehicles as a part of the ongoing road safety week. 

Jalandhar, January 6
A group of five Congress councillors, two former councillors and other leaders today opposed the candidature of former MLA Raj Kumar Gupta, demanding that he be replaced either with councillors Rajinder Beri or Jagdish Raja.

Congress councillors, including Beri, Raja, Kuljit Babbi, Gurnam Singh, husband of councillor Mandeep Kaur Multani, and Paramjit Kahlon, husband of councillor Manjit Kaur, held a press conference here today. The ex-councillors of the party included Balvir Singh and Mahinder Singh Gulu.

They gave an ultimatum of January 8 to the party, failing which they said that they would quit from the primary membership of the party and field another candidate against Gupta.

They showed old recordings of 2007 when Gupta had quit Congress to join BJP after the denial of ticket on the laptop. They said that Congress MP Mahinder Singh Kaypee had ditched them by getting ticket for Gupta. 

Jalandhar, January 6
Following the submission of the Koshiary Committee report on one-rank, one-pension in the Rajya Sabha on December 19, ex-servicemen have decided to work out a strategy to be adopted in the Assembly elections in the state.

Members of Indian Ex-servicemen Movement (IESM) released their agenda for the assembly elections today and said they would hold a rally in Batala on January 8 in this regard. The rally would be addressed by chairman of the IESM Lt Gen Raj Kadyan.

Addressing a press conference, convener of the IESM Brigadier Kuldip Singh Kahlon, who is also the president of the All India Defence Brotherhood, Punjab, said: “Our rally would be apolitical. But the number of ex-servicemen and their families would play a key role in deciding the fate of candidates seeking votes.”

Brigadier Kahlon had earlier also carried out massive district level rallies in Patiala, Sangrur, Ludhiana and Zirakpur and had been urging the ex-servicemen to support candidates with clean image only.

He said that despite repeated demands by the ex-servicemen to start a separate ex-servicemen commission on the lines of the NRI Sabha in Punjab and state government job quota for them, nothing was delivered.