Chandigarh, February 16
The process adopted by the Haryana School Shiksha Pariyojna Parishad to purchase books for government schools has left publishers at their wits end.

The tender for purchasing books was first issued last December. The publishers were asked to furnish a security of Rs 20,000 each. It was decided that book fairs would be organised in each district from December 19 so that the schools concerned could select the books according to their requirement.

Meanwhile, a new officer took over as the project director of the parishad and has cancelled the previous tender. Under the new tender, a security of Rs 1 lakh each was sought from the publishers. The parishad also held a meeting with the publishers on February 8 to answer their queries.

However, their queries remained unanswered in the absence of a person who could take decisions as all the officers present at the meeting were juniors.

The publishers say on February 14, the last date for submitting the security, they were informed after banking hours that the security amount had been reduced to Rs 20,000. By that time, all publishers had left for Panchkula. Many of them had come from outside Haryana as well. In the evening, they were again informed by the parishad that it had now been decided that the security amount would be Rs 50,000.

One particular clause of the terms and conditions, which the publishers find “impracticable”, is clause 14.

The clause states that the publishers will bring their books to the book fairs to be organised in each district, which will be attended by students of the primary, middle, high and senior secondary classes. The students will visit various stalls and bring the books of their choice to a common platform, one for each category. Thereafter, students of particular schools will select books placed on the common platform for their schools.

The publishers say they have to exhibit only those books at the book fairs, which will be approved by the parishad. The parishad has received about 8,000 titles, which are to be scrutinised within two or three days. The parishad will put holograms on the approved books, which will be given to the publishers.

The book fairs are to start from February 21. The publishers are yet to get the approved samples from the parishad.

The publishers say since these are exam days, not many students will come to the book fairs. Since the parishad has already taken the samples, the final selection of the books should be made at the headquarter itself. The list of approved titles can be circulated to various schools, as was done in the past. The schools can place the final order according to their requirement.

Fatehabad, February 16
Health authorities have decided to get tough with dentists using un-sterilised instruments. The decision comes in the wake of a large number of cases of hepatitis C, a disease transmitted through blood, during the ongoing survey in Ratia these days.

While use of the same hypodermic needles on more than one patient has emerged as the biggest reason behind the spread of hepatitis C in Ratia, use of un-sterilised instruments by some dentists is also being cited as one of the reasons.

“We will first educate the dentists on this issue. But if the use of contaminated instruments continues, we will take suitable action against them,” said Dr Suraj Bhan Kamboj, Civil Surgeon, Fatehabad.

Ratia town has five dentists, out of whom two are qualified, the rest being quacks, said Dr VK Jain, Senior Medical Officer of the Community Health Centre, Ratia.

Meanwhile, more persons infected with the disease have been detected during a survey by the medical teams.

Jain said 150 new cases were found yesterday, while 220 out of the 740 blood samples taken today had tested positive by the evening.

Two survey teams covered the remaining parts of Ratia town, while 21 teams spread out across 21 villages of the area.

The results, the health authorities admit, were quite disturbing and the number of infected people is much more than what they had anticipated.

Karnal, February 16
The Fight for Justice Club of India (FFJC) has expressed grave concern over high pendency of cases in the Indian courts, which was over three crore at present and urged the Union Government to bring “radical judicial reforms” and increase the number of judges to provide speedy and quality justice.

“The pressure on judges is affecting the quality of judgement and the target oriented disposal of cases can prove the dictum ‘justice hurried is justice buried’ true,” said president of the club, Harish Arya, suggesting that five days a week should be observed in subordinate judiciary on a pattern of the high courts and the Supreme Court.

The justice should be on a line of King Vikramaditya and undertrials booked for petty offences should not be made to languish in the jails for indefinite periods, he said and cautioned that situation would become grave with significant increase in the number of cases instituted every year with people going to courts for minor violations like in the west.

The number of cases pending in various courts was over three crore with 56,383 cases pending in the SC and 42,18 lakh in the HCs and the present trend of disposal and institution of cases is any indication, it would take 320 years to clear the backlog, he added.

About 74 per cent cases were less than five-year old while 20,334 out of the 56,383 pending cases in the apex court were less than one-year old but the situation was worrying in some states where pendency of cases in lower courts was running into lakhs.

Disclosing that the number of undertrials languishing in jails was about 2.5 lakh and 2,069 undertrials were in jail for more than five years and neither pronounced guilty nor acquitted, Arya demanded setting up of special courts for petty offences and all cases where maximum sentence was less than three years should be disposed within six months.

Chandigarh, February 16
The employment exchanges in the state are bursting at the seams with over 8.55 lakh registered as unemployed. With over 70,000 registered unemployed youth, Bhiwani district has the highest number of job seekers through the employment exchange while Panchkula, with 11,379 registered applicants, has the least number of them.

Data revealed that Faridabad district has the second highest number of registered unemployed applicants (66,467) followed by Karnal (63,340), Mewat (14,783) and Fatehabad (22,305).

Meanwhile, the number of unemployed in other district employment exchanges was Ambala (47,813), Yamunanagar (43,951), Kurukshetra (36,987), Kaithal (33.347), Panipat (32,512), Rohtak (51,962), Jhajjar (56,861), Sonepat (46,782), Jind (62,219), Gurgaon(24,456), Mehendragarh (44,194), Rewari (40,160), Hisar (48,152), and Sirsa (37,573).

Official sources conceded that in the wake of the downsizing of government departments, the number of jobs at the disposal of the state government has come down drastically over the years. Since government jobs are still the first preference among the youth, a large number of job seekers, employed in the private sector, also continue to be on the registers of employment exchanges, a senior official added.

Panipat, February 16
Moved by the plight of the Pakistani nationals who had lost their close relatives in the Samjautha blasts five years ago and who had been denied visas to visit the graves of members of their family at Mehrana village in the district on the ground of inadequate back balance, an Indian lawyer has decided to take legal recourse to get visas issued to them.

The relatives besides paying tributes to their family members on the fifth anniversary of the blasts, which falls on February 18, also intend to pursue their monetary compensation claim cases in the Railway Tribunal.

Momin Malik, who is the counsel for relatives of both Indian and Pakistani victims and who had claimed the monetary compensation that had been announced by the Indian Railways after the blasts, said as of today relatives of Pakistani nationals, Mohammad Vakil, Sayed Iftikar Ali, Rajiya Sultana, Ijhar Hasan and Jarina, who had been killed in the blasts, were denied visas as they did not have a sufficient bank balance.

He said after repeatedly writing to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad and the Union Ministry for External Affairs, he had now decided to move a petition in the Delhi High Court seeking legal directions to the Indian authorities in Pakistan to issue visas to the relatives of the victims, who wanted to come here to pay tributes at the graves of their loved ones and also pursue their claims cases in the Railways Tribunal.

He said in case no legal proceedings were pending against the relatives of the victims, the Indian High Commission should have considered their cases on compassionate ground as denying visas to them for visiting the graves of their relatives was a clear-cut case of human rights violation.

He said by denying visas, the authorities were also hindering the process of law by which the victims’ relatives had full right to come here and pursue their monetary compensation claim cases.

Hisar, February 16
More than 150 youths participating in an Army recruitment rally here have been caught trying to clear the physical tests after consuming performance-boosting banned drugs. In an early morning swoop by officials of the Military Intelligence here today, 20 youths who were camping at Mahabir Stadium were caught with banned drugs and syringes. A large number of energy-boosting drugs were also recovered from them.

One aspirant was found in possession of a white powder-like substance. The drug was handed over to the police for examination in its forensic science laboratory.

Military Intelligence sources said they raided the stadium around 4 am as this was the time the aspirants consumed drugs to boost their performance in physical tests scheduled a few hours later.

Use of energy boosters and performance-enhancing drugs is strictly banned as this could lead to recruitment of physically unfit persons in the Army. Such recruits would seriously risk their own life during training.

The use of dope on this large scale for clearing the physical tests has been detected for the first time.

As many as 10 aspirants have so far been caught trying to get recruited on the basis of fake certificates. While three were detected day before yesterday, seven were caught today.

Army officials overseeing the recruitment rally that began on February 9 and would continue up to February 21, said the names and details of all aspirants caught using drugs or faking academic qualifications had been forwarded to the Army Headquarters for further action.

Hisar, February 16
Education Minister Geeta Bhukkal said here today that educating women was the best way to empower them. Addressing the inaugural session of a national seminar on “Scenario of Women in Agriculture and Future Projections” at the College of Home Science of Haryana Agricultural University here, she said despite several schemes launched by the government, rural women were still not being given proper education.

She said rural society had to change its mindset and believe in equal treatment to boys and girls in every sphere including education. The world was changing fast and the role of women was not just restricted to homes, she said, adding that women must be empowered to play a proper role.

The Vice-Chancellor, Dr KS Khokhar, said the rural women were being discriminated against in access to better health facilities, education and nutrition. In spite of 70 per cent involvement in agriculture and 80 to 90 per cent in animal-related activities, they had no say in decision-making and were not getting their due credit and share.

He said women were given lower salaries than men. Their personal needs were neglected by the family and society. There was a need to change the mindset of society.

Over 300 delegates are attending the seminar.

Kurukshetra, February 16
Dr Pradeep Chauhan and Dr Parmesh Kumar have been re-elected president and general secretary, respectively, of the Kurukshetra University Teachers Association (KUTA)

Dr Chauhan won by 87 votes, defeating Dr Bhagwan Singh Chaudhary while Dr Parmesh Kumar defeated Dr Rajpal Saharan by 28 votes in a triangular contest.

While Dr Surinder Singh was elected joint secretary, the post of treasurer was won by Dr Manish Gupta.

As many as 416 of the 430 teachers cast votes for the 16-member executive committee of KUTA.

The 16 members elected to the Executive Council were Prof Hawa Singh, Prof SS Boora, Prof CR Darolia, Prof Ashok Aggarwal, Dr Mahinder Singh, Dr MS Jaglan, Dr CR Jilova, Dr Lalit Nagpal, Dr Jasbir Dhanda, Dr Ram Avtar, Dr Abid Ali, Dr Sanjiv Gupta, Dr Amrit Singh, Dr Dilip Kumar, Prof. Madhu Bala and Dr Urmila.

Fatehabad, February 16
Officials of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today raided a house in the Model Town area of Fatehabad and seized large quantity of drugs stored there without any licence.

A team of the FDA comprising Adarsh Goyal, Senior Drug Control Officer, Hisar, and Rajnish Dhaliwal, Drug Control Officer, Fatehabad, has sealed the drugs under the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. Goyal said the drugs belonged to Naveen Garg, who had stored these in a rented house in the Model Town area. He said the FDA would proceed against the owner under the provisions of the Act.

Sirsa, February 16
The police has arrested Suraj Mani, head of a dera based in Pilibanga in Rajasthan, in connection with the desecration of scriptures of Sikhism.

A case had been registered after local residents recovered the book from Tejakhera minor near Dabwali in this district.

The police produced him before a court in Dabwali and sought two-day police remand for his interrogation.