Ludhiana, April 21
Wedding celebrations turned sour after a pick-up truck ferrying 11 members of a marriage party rammed into a stationary truck near a resort on the Alamgir road here today.

Out of 11 persons who were injured in the accident, eight were women. Five persons who sustained serious injuries were rushed to the Civil Hospital while those who suffered minor injures were admitted to a private hospital.

The injured have been identified as Satti (30), Seema (20), Reshma (25), Gulam Rasul (65), Heeran (45), Laddu (20), Darai (26), Baano (50), Hasham (30), Shama (18) and Pari (60). The victims are residents of Ahmedgarh Mandi.

The condition of Gulam Rasul and Reshma is stated to be critical. Rasul sustained severe head injury while Reshma sustained a broken jaw.

The incident took place in the wee hours of today when the marriage party was returning home after attending a wedding ceremony in Phagwara.

Laddu, a victims, said the driver of the vehicle, Sukha Singh, lost control of the steering wheel after his eyes were hit by a bright light from the oncoming traffic. The vehicle collided with a truck after hitting a divider.

Onlookers claimed that the driver of the truck was drunk and rammed into a divider. The driver fled the scene following the accident.

An ambulance reached the spot and rushed the victims to various hospitals.

The Dehlon police said the Tata 407 had collided with the truck, which was stranded on the Ludhiana-Malerkotla road, near here, at about 3.30 am.

Ludhiana, April 21
Desks in schools and colleges often turn into canvas for students to doodle, engrave and write. Students at SCD Government College have turned desks and walls into “reading material”. Some sneak in examination rooms some time before the examination and jot down points on desks for copying during the exam.

Desks in some of the classrooms at the PTA block of the college have been particularly “defaced” by students. Most of them have used permanent markers for writing long answers on the desks. They have written reams on table tops and even walls have not been spared.

“This is turning into an annual affair, particularly during final exams,” a faculty member said on the condition of anonymity.

“It is expensive to paint the desks, but even private students coming from outside show scant respect and ruin the desks, an official said.

“Students pursuing higher education should be more responsible, but they act like children,” another faculty member remarked.

This raises questions about why rooms are left open before examinations. Principal Jasbir Kaur Makkar said the classrooms had to be opened a bit early for writing the roll numbers. Students these days do not have a sense of belongingness with the college and spoil the desks otherwise also, she said“We have to get them cleaned every year,” she added.

Prof DS Chahal, controller of examinations at the college, said examination rooms had to be opened half-an-hour prior to the exam. During this period, superintendents are deputed at the entrance so that no person with fake roll number could enter the exam room. Students might be using that time to write the answers, he said.

An official said at least two examiners should be deputed in the exam rooms to check this practice and anyone caught writing on the desks should be debarred from the examination.

Ludhiana, April 21
An Akali MLA and a councillor are at loggerheads over the inauguration of a tube well in the New Shakti Nagar area. MLA Ranjit Singh Dhillon had inaugurated the tube well yesterday while councillor Daljit Singh Grewal inaugurated the same tube well in the evening.

Both Dhillon and Grewal have been at loggerheads since the recently held Vidhan Sabha elections. Before the elections, they both were SAD councillors from Ward Nos. 2 and 8, respectively. Dhillon had successfully contested the elections on SAD ticket from the Ludhiana East constituency while Grewal contested as an Independent from the same constituency. He was then expelled from the party.

New Shakti Nagar falls in Ward No. 8, which is represented by Grewal. However, the ward falls in the Ludhiana East constituency, which is represented by Dhillon.

Dhillon claimed that a few days ago, residents of New Shakti Nagar had complained to him that they were not getting potable water. “I immediately took up the matter with MC officials from the operations and maintenance cell. They visited the spot and told me that there was some problem with the bore of the tube well. I got an estimate of the development work prepared and got it approved from senior MC officials.

The work started and I inaugurated it in the presence of the MC officials concerned. I wonder why Grewal visited the site later, when he did not even know about the actual problem,” claimed Dhillon.

On the other hand, Grewal said he had got the estimate of the work prepared and managed to get the orders for its execution. “The tube well was installed in street number 3 of New Shakti Nagar about 18 months ago and I had got it installed under my quota.

When I came to know about the problem, I took up the matter and managed to get the work started.

Dhillon visited the spot at around 9 am and at that time, the boring machine, with which the work had to start, had not even arrived. The MLA just got his pictures clicked and left, while the work actually started when I reached there,” he claimed.

Ludhiana, April 21
The police has arrested two persons for allegedly duping residents of money on the pretext of providing them with government jobs. The accused, identified as Nirmal Singh and Hardeep Singh, were running Jan Seva Society in the Shimlapuri area.

Besides important documents, the police seized nearly 182 demand drafts sent by jobless youths from the possession of the accused.

The investigating officer said the society was not registered and the duo was placing advertisements in vernacular dailies to lure jobless youths. After the youths came in contact with the placement agency, the duo used to take huge amounts of money from them on the pretext of getting them a job in some government department.

The accused used to change offices every few months.

Ludhiana, April 21
A government schoolteacher from Tarn Taran district is running from pillar to post to get the best treatment for a student whose right eye was damaged from herpeszoster (a viral disease) last year.

Jaswinder Kumar, a teacher at Government Elementary School, Rampur Narottampur, said: “Kamlesh is studying in Class II in my school. He got admission here only after my persuasion on April 1 this year. A few days ago when I was teaching in the class, I observed that he was trying very hard to see the blackboard. I learnt he had visibility problem after he suffered from herpeszoster. He has two younger brothers and a sister. His parents hail from Bihar. His father is a labourer and was unable to get him treated. I thought of helping him as he has a long life ahead of him.”

Jaswinder Kumar contacted eye surgeons at the PGI, Chandigarh, who advised him to get the child operated after a few months.

Jaswinder said: “It was in March when I visited the PGI along with Kamlesh and doctors told me that he would have to undergo three procedures in one surgery.

These include cornea transplant, lens replacement and removal of cataract. And the surgery should be done within five-six months. I contacted Dr Ramesh, medical director of an eye bank, for a second opinion today.

He told me the cornea transplant would be done free of cost. I have already collected Rs 15,000 from some donors. But I am yet to decide about the surgery. Funds is not a big problem for me. The child should be healthy.”

Teary eyed, Jaswinder said Kamlesh was very good at studies and wanted to be a maths teacher. He wished he could fulfill the boy’s dream.

Ludhiana, April 21
The Punjab state tops in per-cow milk production in the country; however, the increased milk production has predisposed the animals to certain diseases called production diseases. Related to increased production, in the past few years, declining fertility of the livestock has infact, become a matter of concern among the state dairy farmers.

The poor expression of heat and wrong time artificial insemination was a major problem with the buffaloes, while hormonal imbalances were identified in high yielding cows, which reduced their fertility rates.

The experts at GADVASU said that perturbed over the sudden diseases, many dairy farmers even thought of closing their ventures. Dr PS Brar, professor at GADVASU said that with the support of Rashtrya Krishi Vigyan Yojna, the standardised protocols have been applied at farmers’ doorsteps.

Giving details, Dr Brar said that at Rehpa Buffalo Centre, SBS Nagar, SS Dhindsa an NRI had kept about 250 buffaloes, the fertility of animals was improved by 27 per cent due to certain adopted techniques.

The farmer feels that with controlled breeding of buffaloes, he can devise models for regular inputs and economic evaluation of the farm", said the expert.

Similarly, HS Randhawa, owner of Randhawa Dairy Farm, Kapurthala, and Pritipal Singh of Kotli village, Ludhiana, who had once planned to almost close their dairy farms, had now put 100 per cent animals under controlled breeding programme and their production and fertility was improved.

Under the standardisation programme, a group of animals was brought to oestrus through hormonal interventions at a specified time, as convenient to the farmer and inseminated with semen from bulls of high genetic potential. This protocol not only alleviated the problem of heat detection but also improved the conception rates and genetic potential of the dairy animals.

Dr Brar said that the average cost of one time treatment was about Rs 500, which was roughly equivalent to the milk yield of two days. With expected conception rates of 65 per cent, the cost per conception came out to be nearly Rs 800. Missing one-oestrus cycles of 21 days costs farmer more than Rs 2,500. In buffaloes, the situation was much serious with 20 per cent buffaloes conceiving after a year of parturition. "It makes the buffalo rearing highly uneconomical. The dairy buffaloes should be given nutrition matching their production and even if the buffaloes and cows, who do not conceive by day 90th and 60th, respectively, should be put to hormonal protocols for early conception and round the year production of milk", said Dr Brar.

Ludhiana, April 21
Last time the 2010 elections of the Knitwear Club had become the talk of the town as high drama was witnessed after the declaration of the election results. The matter took days to be solved. But this year the members have decided to unanimously pick their candidates.

Today, during a meeting, the members of the club unanimously decided that Vinod Thapar will be the chairman of the club. Talks for the post of president are still going on. "Darshan Dawar’s name is being proposed but no name has been finalised yet. We will try that the members are elected unanimously," said Vinod Thapar.

At present, Vinod Thapar is holding the post of president and Darshan Dawar is the vice-president of the club.

More powers have been given to the chairman this time bringing them on a par with that of the president. "Now, the chairman will not be a silent spectator but has been given the power of signing authority as well," said Thapar.

Thapar is a founder member of the organisation and has been leading this club since 2000. He said at today's meeting, efforts were made that all the members are elected unanimously. "We want the elections to be a peaceful process. Although candidate for the post of chairman has been finalised, talks are still going on for the post of president, general secretary and other ones," he said.

The Knitwear Club was formed way back in 1984. It was the vision for mutual progress that brought together the knitwear and allied industry to a common platform. The club made a humble beginning with 110 members and now has over 1,000 direct and indirect members. With single-minded devotion to the growth of the knitwear industry, problems related to policy, fiscal, technical or commercial issues are voiced and pursued with the respective government agencies. Seminars, lectures, training programmes, exhibitions and workshops comprise the activities of the club.

Ludhiana, April 21
As the Municipal Corporation elections are nearing, the politics of poaching has started among different parties. A fortnight after CPI councillor Sarabjit Lal joined the BJP, now BSP leader Varinder Sharma, who had contested the last MC elections on the BSP ticket, has joined the BJP. He joined the party in the presence of BJP district president and senior deputy mayor Parveen Bansal yesterday.

Varinder Sharma, alias Koffy, had contested the last MC elections on the BSP ticket from ward number 1.

Speaking to The Tribune, Parveen Bansal stated that Varinder Sharma was the district vice-president of the BSP.

“During a recent meeting, he showed his willingness to join the BJP and finally, he joined the party today. He has joined the party without any pre-condition and decision that whether or not he would be contesting the June 10 MC elections will be taken at a later stage and after consultation with senior party leaders,” claimed Bansal.

Before Sharma, MC councillor from ward number 26 Sarabjit Lal had joined the BJP on April 6. He had won the last MC elections of 2007 on the Communist Party of India (CPI) ticket and was the only councillor from the CPI in the 75-member MC house. Both Sarabjit Lal’s and Sharma’s entries into the BJP have been possible due to Parveen Bansal’s effort. Bansal has recently become the BJP district president.

Ludhiana, April 21
High drama was witnessed near the Bharat Nagar chowk here today when a wrongly parked bus belonging to the transport company run by a political bigwig was impounded.

The incident took place here this evening when the traffic police indicated the bus driver to move the vehicle and not to create traffic jam on the road.

But, the driver rebuffed the orders and reportedly told the police that the bus belonged to politicians.

This led to a heated argument and the matter was brought to senior traffic police officers’ notice. Taking swift action, the bus was impounded and taken to the Police Lines.

It was later during the evening that the bus was released following instructions that the drivers would not use politicians’ name in order to escape unpunished for flouting traffic rules.