Tribune Impact
Saving heritage buildings; tourism board to take loan
Amritsar, April 11
Taking note of a report published in these pages on April 9, the Punjab Heritage and Tourism Promotion Board has decided to invest funds to conserve precarious buildings and structures of historic importance on the route of the Heritage Walk.

Anti-polio drive from April 15
Amritsar, April 11
As many as 3.51 lakh children would be administered polio drops in the district during the three-day Pulse Polio campaign beginning April 15.

Cong rebel demands judicial inquiry into fake cases
Amritsar, April 11
Sukhjinder Raj Singh (Lalli) Majithia, who unsuccessfully fought the assembly elections from Majitha as a Congress rebel, has demanded a judicial inquiry into the “fake” cases registered against Congress workers.

Amritsar, April 11
Mystery shrouds the death of a newly-married woman Shivani (28) who was found dead at the residence of her in-laws on Jamunawali Road near Lawrence Road area here today. The police has taken the husband of the victim Varun Arora into custody. The family of the accused claimed the death was a suicide. The preliminary investigations have revealed that the victim was strangled to death.

The case is being probed on charges of death due to dowry harassment, the police officials said. The victim has been identified as Shivani (28). She belonged to Pathankot and got married to the accused about six months ago. The incident took place at 6 pm today.

The family of the accused said in the evening they found Shivani's room bolted from inside. When she did not open the door they entered the room after breaking the window of the room. “We got information about the death at 7.30 pm. Initial investigations have found no evidence suggesting that the victim had committed suicide by hanging herself as claimed by the family members of the accused,” ACP Gurnam Singh said. He said the girl had strangulation marks on her neck. “We will register a case under Section 304-B (dowry death) of IPC,” he said.

A medical board will also be deputed for the post-mortem examination of the body, he said.

Amritsar, April 11
An unidentified youth was killed when a truck ran over him near Guru Arjun Dev Nagar area near Chatiwind canal here late last evening.

The police has registered a case under Section 304-A, 279 IPC against unidentified driver of the truck (RJ-19-J-4560). The deceased is yet to be identified.

Gurbhej Singh, in-charge Kot Mit Singh Police Station, said the truck driver fled from the spot.

The police has registered a case on the basis of a complaint filed by Surjit Singh, a resident of Gujjar Pura, who runs a kiosk near the accident spot. Surjit said the victim who was in his early thirties died on the spot. Gurbhej said efforts are on to identify the deceased after the registration of a case.

Amritsar, April 11
A South Korean national Joen Sunja was robbed of her purse. The motorcycle-borne accused snatched her bag while she was going to the railway station after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple early in the morning today. The incident took place near Regent Cinema.

The accused escaped easily as the otherwise busy area was not crowded as usual at the time.

She told the police she had her passport, 200 US dollars besides credit card and a phone book in her bag.

The police has registered a case under Section 382 IPC at Kotwali police station here.

Amritsar, April 11
Taking note of a report published in these pages on April 9, the Punjab Heritage and Tourism Promotion Board has decided to invest funds to conserve precarious buildings and structures of historic importance on the route of the Heritage Walk.

Officials said the Board will use the loan from the Asian Development Bank for the purpose. However, they did not specify the schedule to undertake this conservation work.

MC commissioner Dharam Pal Gupta said the matter of tampering with the heritage structures while carrying out the repair work has been taken a serious note of.

He said he plans to visit Chitta Akhara near Harmandar Sahib and Thakurdwara Dariana Mal, near Patel Chowk next week.

Amritsar, April 11
A two-storey godown of electrical goods was gutted in accidental fire here late last night. The godown is opposite Power Colony at Majitha Road.

Two fire tenders were pressed to service and it took them a few hours to douse the fire. Short circuit is said to be the reason behind the accident.

Deepak Mahajan, the owner of the shop, said the shop was closed at 11.30 pm and at 2 am they received a call from their neighbour Happy that smoke was coming out of the shop.

“The material stored in the godown had turned to ashes within minutes when we reached the shop. We could not muster the courage to open the shutters as the flames came out of the shop,” he said. He said the loss in the fire is yet to be ascertained.

Amritsar, April 11
The Director General of School Education (DGSE) has sought a report taking cognisance of a news item carried in Amritsar Tribune on March 15 which said that only 163 schools out of the total of 872 private schools in Amritsar have approached for affiliation under the Right to Education (RTE) Act till December last.

District Education Officer (Elementary) Jaspal Singh said repeated release of advertisement in newspapers and adoption of other measures have elicited slow response from these schools.

He said the department had permitted the office here to accept the applications even now and submit the same to the head office.

He said even CBSE schools have to seek affiliation under the Act. Section 18 of chapter four of the RTE Act said besides government and local bodies school, all other schools have to register themselves under the Act.

The Act, enacted by the state government in 2009, said all private schools were given three-year time to affiliate under the Act, make infrastructural and other arrangements accordingly. Private education institutions have to reserve 25 per cent of their seats to students from underprivileged sections of the society.

Majority of the private schools are shirking from implementing the Act.

Amritsar, April 11
The land of five rivers has run out of pure water. Water table is not only going down, it is unfit for human consumption as well. The city is no exception when it comes to the demand for RO filtered potable water, which has increased with the onset of the summer season.

Various city-based companies are minting money by supplying cans of potable water to commercial establishments and shops in upscale city markets.

These firms claim they supply RO purified water, but little do the ordinary consumers realise that these units are violating the Food and Safety Act 2011. The Act makes it mandatory that no consumable product can be sold in the market without a brand.

Civil Surgeon, Amritsar, Dr Manjit Singh Randhawa, said irregularities in a product or cannot be fixed on a product or its owner if it is not a brand. He said the health department will conduct checks on these plants to verify the hygienic standards maintained and the quality of water being sold. He said customers also need to be vigilant to check the quality of water.

These business houses are supplying one 15-litre can of water between Rs 20 and 25. They deliver these cans to the shops in the morning. PC Chopra, a shopkeeper on Lawrence Road, said in the fast paced life of today, buying potable water is easier than buying packaged cold water which is more expensive. Also engaging a person to ferry water is not a feasible option, he said.

Nirmal Singh, another shopkeeper, said procuring potable water was akin to outsourcing a job. Earlier, shopkeepers engaged a person to bring ice stock and clean water container everyday.

Amritsar, April 11
New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) releasing negative results in March after testing 16 major food brands, including Nestle's Maggi noodles, McDonald's, KFC, Haldiram's aloo bhujia and PepsiCo's Lays potato chips, has not resulted in any decline in the footfall at junk food outlets nor there is any impact on the sale of food products in the city.

The CSE in its study had claimed these products of these brands contain high level of harmful trans-fats, salts and sugar, which can lead to diseases like obesity and diabetes.

The CSE through the tests claimed that companies give misinformation and indulge in wrong labelling. Companies claim their products contain 'zero' trans-fats. And some companies don't even bother to mention how much trans-fats they have.

Meanwhile, school managements here too have been extra cautious when it comes to providing junk foods in their canteens.

Neera Sharma, principal of DAV School, Lawrence Road, said Pizza Hut located near the school often offer us lucrative schemes, but we decline its offers.

"Although we don't keep junk food in our canteen, following CSE's study we circulated a notice to all our schools to make sure that junk food of any sort is not served in the schools canteens. Also we keep very few brands of cold drinks as these help cure dehydration," he said.

But the parents seemed helpless in this matter. Kiranjeet Kaur, a mother of two daughters, said children felt attracted seeing frequents advertisement of these brands on television, newspapers and magazines.

"The government, if it is serious in putting a cap on the junk food, should first impose a ban on advertisements. Parents too should make an effort to prevent children taking to junk food", she said.

What do companies say?

Amandeep Singh, manager with McDonald's, said their products contain no harmful ingredient. Rajesh Kr Maini, general manager, Corporate Communications, McDonald's India (North & East), said, "We are in the process of examining the CSE's test results and their testing methodology. And we have also sent our products samples for testing for trans-fats at independent international as well as domestic labs. This is being done to verify the results that we already have with us which indicate that our products are free of trans-fat. Our products are of world-class quality and are absolutely safe. We use RBD Palmolein Oil for cooking in which trans-fats are so low and are virtually undetectable."

As far as sales are concerned, we have not seen any drop in sales or in footfall in our restaurants.

KFC spokesperson Ruchika Gupta said, "We are committed to provide the highest standards, meeting stringent prescribed international and national guidelines as well as the laws of the country. We have 'zero added' trans-fats in all our products across our brands. The nutrition analysis of our products done by reputed independent laboratories did not detect any trans-fats," she said.

Amritsar, April 11
As many as 3.51 lakh children would be administered polio drops in the district during the three-day Pulse Polio campaign beginning April 15.

Dr Manjit Singh Randhawa, Civil Surgeon, presided over the meeting of district task force at Circuit House here today, said on April 15, children would be administered polio drops at booths set up by the health department in the district. And in in remaining two days, the immunisation teams would undertake door-to-door campaign.

"As many as 1,485 booths will be installed for the immunisation programme in the district. The health department has formed 2,816 teams for administrating polio drops for door-to-door campaign," said Dr Randhawa.

He also appealed to NGOs to play a vital role during the campaign to eliminate polio from the country.

This is the third round of the polio immunisation drive in which all the rural and urban localities would be covered. The health department had earlier conducted two rounds, one for the general areas and second for the slums and industrial establishments.

Dr Randhawa said about 5,940 vaccinators have been put on job for the immunisation drive. The health department has formed 60 transit teams besides 21 mobile teams which would work under the supervision of 285 supervisors, he added.

Amritsar, April 11
Sukhjinder Raj Singh (Lalli) Majithia, who unsuccessfully fought the assembly elections from Majitha as a Congress rebel, has demanded a judicial inquiry into the “fake” cases registered against Congress workers.

Addressing a press conference here today, he termed himself a true Congress worker whether he was out or inside the party. He said he would raise his voice in support of Congress workers who were being victimised by the SAD-BJP regime.

Lalli Majithia said, “The coalition government has intensified the repression against the Congress workers in Majitha town after returning to power, which he termed as vendetta politics.”

He said as he contested against Bikram Singh Majitha in 2007 and 2012, he and his supporters were being implicated in false cases. He claimed that over 13 false cases have been registered against Block Congress Committee president Balwinder Singh, resident of Mararri Kalan, during the past five years of the SAD-BJP rule.

Balwinder’s daughter Harleen Kaur claimed that her father was “abducted” by five persons, including one in police uniform, from his farmhouse on April 8. She alleged that members of her family were threatened to leave the Congress and join the SAD.

She said they came to know about her father’s exact location when his uncle Milap Singh, Balwinder Singh’s elder brother, got a call from SHO police station Kamboj that Balwinder Singh was with them and asked him to reach the police station.

Then the family came to know that Balwinder has been booked under Section 307 and other sections of the IPC along with Jagwinderpal Singh and later sent to the Amritsar Central Jail.