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Minister’s PA on the run
Remove Ranike from Cabinet, demands Cong leader
Ranjit Singh Goldy addresses a press conference in
Amritsar. A Tribune photograph |
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Corporation prepares action plan to tackle monsoon ailments
Amritsar-Delhi-Toronto flight
New IIT entrance norms fail to enthuse educationists
Flick clicks
Crowd-puller Huge rush outside a cinema hall where ‘Jatt n Juliet’is being screened in Amritsar on Sunday.
Photo: Vishal kumar
Quack arrested with narcotics
Camps for issuing licences to food traders from tomorrow
AAI asked to tone up public services at Amritsar airport
‘India’s Got Talent’ auditions held at Khalsa College
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Minister’s PA on the run
Amritsar, July 1 "Even as Rozam has been claiming innocence during police investigations after his arrest, the probe so far has pointed out his involvement in the case," said Pawar. The police officials said with the investigation progressing, more heads are likely to roll. The personal assistant of a Cabinet minister, who is accused in the development fund scam, is on the run. The city police has issued a lookout notice against accused Sarabdyal Singh, who is the personal assistant of Minister for Animal Husbandry Gulzar Singh Ranike. Sarabdyal and Om Parkash Rozam, manager, Bank of Maharashtra, have been indicted in a Rs 1.15-crore scam. The police investigations were carried out by the three-member special investigating team (SIT), headed by Amrik Singh Pawar, ADCP (City-II). Sarabdyal Singh, a resident of Chatiwind, was absconding since the registration of a case against him for misappropriating funds released by the Minister to various villages. The case dates back to November last year (during the SAD-BJP coalition government’s previous regime). The police has booked the duo under sections 406, 419, 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC. It has been learnt that the investigating team has found more funds, which were siphoned off by the PA in connivance with the bank manager. Police Commissioner RP Mittal said raids were being conducted at the suspected hideouts of Sarabdyal.
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Remove Ranike from Cabinet, demands Cong leader
Amritsar, July 1 He alleged that the PA is being made a scapegoat for the fraud committed by the minister and his family. In a press conference held on Saturday, Goldy demanded that Ranike should be removed from the Cabinet. “We also demand that the SGPC should suspend membership of Ranike’s son Gurinder Pal Singh Lali,” said Goldy. “If these demands are not met, I would seek help from Anna Haraze to launch a protest against the family involved in corruption,” he added. He said the inquiry of the scam should be entrusted to the CBI as the local police cannot be expected to conduct the inquiry in a free and fair way. Goldy recently contested the MC polls after the SAD refused him a ticket. Son of the former Deputy Mayor Lakha Singh, Goldy had recently joined the Congress.
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Corporation prepares action plan to tackle monsoon ailments
Amritsar, July 1 This is the first step to ensure that there is no confusion in the diagnosis of mosquito bite-related ailments during the monsoons. The health department has also taken precautions to keep the mosquito breeding under control. Extensive pest-control measures, like fogging, will be taken up during the rainy season. MC Commissioner Dharampal Gupta said the health wing of the corporation is fully geared up to ensure the well-being of city residents. The civic authorities have chalked out a plan, wherein special squads have been formed, which will go in the sensitive areas of the city and help in diagnosis, investigation and treatment of diseases in collaboration with the health centres falling in the area. The campaigns will spread awareness on various monsoon-related diseases including jaundice, cholera, gastro and malaria. Eight teams would spray medicines in 65 wards. Already four rounds of spraying job have been carried out. Similarly, eight other teams have been told to look after the walled city area, including the Bhaktawala dumpyard, which is the most sensitive point. "We are also into procuring drugs to make additional provision," he said. The health department has planned to conduct a survey in all the nodes of the city to keep a check on the number of people falling ill and suffering from such diseases. Dr Ashok Goyal, senior professor at Government Medical College, said besides bringing respite, the showers also bring in many diseases. "Water contamination due to unhygienic conditions is the common cause of monsoon ailments. Water-borne diseases like gastroenteritis increase during these months. Asthma and arthritis also aggravate because of excessive humidity. This is because the first showers bring with them obnoxious gases as well as air-borne germs which accumulate in the stagnant water and filthy places," he said. Precautions one must take
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Admn all set for a ‘ramp’ show
GS Paul/TNS
Amritsar, July 1 Officials say all its extensions would be made operational by August 1 and would ease the traffic to over a dozen destinations. The construction of the much-touted elevated road project on Jalandhar-Amritsar GT Road is going on for six years and the project has cost Rs 200 crore. Except for two main stretches-one from Maqboolpura Chowk to Bhandari Bridge (3.5 kms which was made operational in 2011) and the second phase of elevated road (1.5-km-long zig zag ramp opened in November last), the construction work moved at a snail's pace. Even as the elevated stretch up to the Bhandari Bridge point and the Golden Temple parking lot has given some respite to tourists coming to pay obeisance at the shrine, there has been no end to traffic chaos in the city in the absence of other extensions. Once opened, these ramps would not only facilitate traffic coming from Jalandhar towards Maqboolpura Chowk, but would also connect the commuters with the on-way destinations falling on either side of the GT Road. The connecting destinations would include - Rani Bazaar, Hussainpura, Sharifpura, Tehsilpura, Bus Stand, Ram Talai, Golden Avenue, Mall Mandi, Chawrang Road to Maqboolpura, Focal point, Vallah Mandi, Pratap Nagar and New Pratap Nagar. Presently, in the absence of ramp routes, commuters hailing from the above said areas, have to cover the whole stretch of the elevated road to reach their destinations on the GT Road. This, indeed, amounts to excess fuel consumption, besides the wastage of time. Naresh Johar, a resident, said as the ramps have yet not been completed, large chunk of commuters have to take a longer route via Ram Bagh and Hall Gate, thereby wasting a lot of fuel and time. This also hit traffic flow in areas of Ram Bagh, Hall Gate and Bhandari Bridge. Official speak
I am monitoring the progress of the project to avoid any further delay. We have done with over 90 per cent of the job. I can assure that all the ramps of elevated roads would be thrown open by the end of this month. Actually, we had to work hard on plans to make alternate routes of sewerage, electricity and water supply lines because we could not afford to disrupt these essential services even for a day. It was a time consuming exercise which resulted in some delay in the
project. — Dharampal Gupta, MC Commissioner
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Passengers demand early resumption
Neeraj Bagga Tribune News Service
Amritsar, July 1 Amritsar-Delhi-Toronto flight was temporarily suspended because of the strike by pilots of national carrier Air India over a month ago. Though Air India is gradually restarting flights on international routes, there is no official word on this sector. An official with the national carrier said they were not aware of the fate of this flight as there was no further instruction for its resumption yet. Hence, he said, no new bookings were being made. Sarbjit Singh, an NRI, said the flight should be resumed as a majority of the passengers boarding this flight were from Punjab. He said the direct connection between Punjab and Canada, where about 2 per cent of the population was Sikh, would open new channels for both the sides. Amritsar Vikas Manch patron Dr Charanjit Singh Gumtala, who frequently travels on this route, said agri-economy of the region needed expertise to switch over to industry to overcome the saturation in agriculture, dwindling income and landholding. He said a developed country like Canada and the people of Indian origin settled over there could provide ample resources to this developing state. He said Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh’s announcement regarding downsizing Air India’s international operations had triggered apprehensions that the flight might be altogether withdrawn. He said the government had to understand that air connectivity was must to bring growth. Jayant Malhotra, a travel agent, said in extremely competitive aviation sector, withdrawal of a flight meant a golden opportunity for other airlines to claim their share. He said after Air India had withdrawn its Amritsar-London-Toronto flight on October 30, 2010, the passenger share was split between Qatar Airways and Turkmenistan Airlines. To cater to passengers travelling to London from Sri Guru Ramdas Jee International Airport, Qatar Airways increased the frequency of its Amritsar-Doha flight from four days a week to throughout the week. Coinciding with the withdrawal of AI’s Amritsar-London-Toronto flight, Turkmenistan Airlines had introduced Amritsar- Ashgabad-London twice a week, Amritsar-Ashgabad-Birmingham and Amritsar-Ashgabad- Frankfurt, both once a week. Gunbir Singh, who owns a travel firm, said air travel charges had gone up considerably because of the uncertainty looming large over Air India and Kingfisher. Besides flight cancellations, high travel cost was adding to the passengers’ woes. Following the withdrawal of Amritsar-London-Toronto flight, Air India had introduced the “Hub and Spoke Scheme” under which passengers were taken to the international airport in New Delhi in a 321 aircraft and then flown to London and Toronto.
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New IIT entrance norms fail to enthuse educationists
Amritsar, July 1 Dr Sarvjit Kaur Brar, principal, Khalsa College Public School, who is looking after super-50 students from the rural areas for preparing them for IIT and other reputed engineering institutions of the country, said the newly framed rules for admission to IITs would bring back the focus towards schools. “Of course, students will be more serious towards schools, which were actually becoming redundant over the years for IIT aspirants,” she said. She does not feel that the new format will diminish the stress level among students as they will have to prepare for two tests now to make it to IITs. Moreover, they will also have to ensure that they must come in the top 20 percentile of the successful candidates of their boards. She said this rule might debar some of the ambitious students to appear in the entrance test to IITs. Dr Dharamvir Singh, director, Sri Guru Harkrishan Public Schools, while welcoming the new format of entrance test, said it eventually ended weeks of disagreement over a common entrance test for admission, which was not sending positive signals to teachers, aspiring students and their parents. He said the move was a step towards introducing uniformity in the entrance tests, which would also bring in more transparency. Dr Neelam Kamra, a senior educationist, said the move was in good direction but the condition of only those students to be admitted to IITs who are placed in the top 20 percentile in board exams needed to ponder over. She said the evaluation system and the format of boards are different. Citing the example of CBSE, she said the number of objective questions was more and marks of different activities were also counted in the final score. Neera Sharma, principal, DAV Public School, said: “The students who performed well in one or both stages of the examination will have to wait for the board results before they will know their fate. This will be stressful for the students till they learn whether they are placed in the top 20 percentile of their respective boards or not. Therefore, I feel that, if possible, these exams should be held only after board results are declared”. Rajeev Sharma of Senior Study School said the top 20 percentile system would consolidate the school education system. He said as per a study conducted by CBSE, the top 20 percentile in CBSE was 78 per cent, whereas it was 63 per cent for the same category for UP Board examination. Earlier, there was only objective test ability, but from now the entrance exam would also have a component to test the analytical ability, which means there would be subjective questions also. Jatinder Singh, a mathematics teacher, said the new criterion for appearing in the JEE advance test meant that a student had to be in the top 1,50,000 students of JEE main test, while also in the top 20 percentile of board examinations, which according to the statistics was 78 per cent and above for CBSE. The change in the new pattern of JEE is that after appearing for board examinations students would have to appear for JEE mains, which includes physics, chemistry, mathematics and after qualifying it, they would have to appear in JEE Advance test. Akshit Bhatia, an IIT aspirant, said this new system would put more responsibility on students as they could not afford to ignore schools.
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No stopping love stories: ‘Jatt n Juliet’
rains success at box office
Neha walia Tribune News Service
Amritsar, July 1 But it seems that the simple formula is raining success and moolah at the box office. ‘Jatt n Juliet’ even before its release became the most-awaited Punjabi film and post release has lived up to its hype. Getting 100% opening and earning Rs 1.02 crore on first day, the Diljit Dosanjh and Neeru Bajwa starrer romantic comedy has seen packed houses for all its shows this weekend, even beating The Amazing Spiderman. The rollicking romantic comedy about a rouge yet lovable desi Jatt and a modern Punjabi ‘kudi’ has impressed the audiences with its witty confrontations between the on screen pair and entertaining pills of laughter provided by actor Jaswinder Bhalla. “This has been one of the best Punjabi films I have ever seen. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie, songs and everything and Diljit and Neeru have given their best performance till date,” shares Sukhman Gill who took out her gang of friends to enjoy the film. Youngsters from nearby villages thronged the cinema halls in the city to catch the slick entertainer. Preetpal Singh from Wadali especially came to watch Diljit in action. “He will rule the Punjabi film industry after this movie. The film has good songs as well,” he said. Romit Kapoor another fan who came with his family to watch the film agrees, “Diljit is known for his dynamic and energetic songs and he delivered the same in Jatt n Juliet. Songs like ‘Kudiye Mind Na Karin’, ‘Fatto’ and ‘Hi-Fi Juliet’ are instant hit but Sherry Maan's song ‘Pooja Kime Aa’ is the center of attraction.” “The film’s story was very tight and the scenic beauty of Canada was amazing on the screen,” said Anita Rai Khanna who came to see the movie with her 16-year-old daughter Ridhima. It seems like film director Anurag Singh has done his homework on love stories. The movie is a hit outside Punjab as well. It opened to an excellent response in Delhi even with limited release and is running to packed houses in Australia and New Zealand.
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Quack arrested with narcotics
Amritsar, July 1 The investigations carried out by the anti-narcotic cell revealed that earlier he used to work as compounder in medical shops and during this period he developed his contacts with persons who used to supply intoxicating substances to various medical stores in the rural areas. "He used to procure the intoxicants and habit-forming drugs from unidentified persons who used to deliver the consignments outside the village," revealed Sanjiv Kumar Sharma, investigating officer and in charge, anti-narcotic cell. "The phone number provided by Gurjit Singh during the interrogation was found to be switched off. May be the persons who used to supply the drugs got the wind of his arrest," he said. A case under Sections 21, 61 and 85 of the NDPS Act has been registered against him, he added. In another major seizure, the police nabbed a grocery store owner, identified as differently abled Sanjiv Kumar, alias Sunny, and recovered 200 grams of narcotic powder from his possession. As he was handicap, he used the sympathy factor to sell habit-forming drugs in the area, revealed the police after its preliminary investigation. “Sanjiv used to procure narcotic drugs from his two brothers running medical stores in the Tangra area. Investigations revealed that his brothers were already facing similar charges in couple of cases," he disclosed. Taking the sympathetic view, the respectable of the area also used to intervene. He said a case under Sections 21, 61 and 85 of the NDPS Act has been registered against Sunny.
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Camps for issuing licences to food traders from tomorrow
Amritsar, July 1 Sondhi said the department would be accompanied by bank officials so that all the formalities in registering and issuing licences were completed on the spot. The department had earlier created awareness among
traders through meetings and advertisements, but despite all efforts, only around 400 traders responded to the
repeated calls. “We have divided the city into five parts. In the first series, we will hold one camp in each part. Later, we will also organise camps at the sub-division and block levels in the rural areas,” said Sondhi, adding that the camps would be helpful in bringing more traders under the ambit of law. The Food Safety and Standards Act, which came into force earlier this year, had so far failed to draw any big response. Even the government had to extend the deadline once in order to give a chance to traders to respond. As per the guidelines issued by the state government, businesses with a turnover of less than Rs 12 lakh were required to get themselves registered with the office of the district health officer, while those with a turnover above the limit were required to obtain a licence. The guidelines were also binding on those engaged in activities related to manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, distribution, import and even catering. Further, temporary stalls and “karyana” stores selling food ingredients were required to register themselves, said Sondhi. Officials of the Health Department had claimed that the procedure would help them keep an eye on food sellers and manufacturers to ensure good health of residents. The instructions are issued under the Food Safety and Standards Act — 2006 which became operational in the state after August 8, 2011.
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AAI asked to tone up public services at Amritsar airport
Amritsar, July 1 FPIA president Darshan Singh Goraya in a communiqué to Amritsar Airport director Sunil Dutt stated that handicapped passengers at the departure lounge did not get wheelchairs easily. There was shortage of baggage and trolleys. The available trolleys needed to be repaired. He said more mobile charging stations were required inside the airport premises. He said it had been observed that visitors at the airport did not find the entrance ticket, which costs Rs 45 per person, easily. FPIA general secretary Kamal Dalmia said almost each passenger travelling in international flights complained of tardy handing over of bags and baggage. He said porters needed to be sensitised to handle baggage as many a time they contained fragile and delicate material. Besides, the behaviour of persons employed at parking lots was rude and discourteous. He also demanded the deployment of an officer along with CISF jawans manning the check posts on the airport premises. He said it would curtail the time-consuming checking of passengers, which sometimes lead to delays. He brought the attention of the AAI authorities towards the absence of drinking water facility, canteen and seating facility outside the airport building. He said these facilities were mostly required whenever flights were delayed.
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‘India’s Got Talent’ auditions held at Khalsa College
Amritsar, July 1 Over 550 aspirants from the city queued up outside the college premises since 7 AM. As the day progressed so did the volume of talent from Amritsar, all hopeful of securing a space on the national television. The popular reality show scouting for talent across length and breadth of the country witnessed some inspiring and talented performances in singing, dancing, juggling, mimicry, stand-up comedy and folk art. A large chunk of performances were about performing arts, musical acts and different dance forms. Some interesting acts seen were jugalbandi of rap and classical by Rohan and Siddharth, both aspiring musicians from the city. Other interesting performances were given by a gidda group comprising 10 schoolgirls, who put up a colourful show. Money Qawwal Group from the city was also able to impress the judges with its qawwali. The auditions at Amritsar had participants coming from Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Ambala. Age was no bar in this talent hunt as kids as young as five were seen waiting alongside the older participants. Interestingly, while the city enthusiastically showed up for the auditions, there were no outdoor acts, except the gatka performance by some city-based groups.
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Amritsar, July 1
It’s typical love story with typical characters. Boy meets girl, they hate each other first, but after few touching moments and peppy songs later, fall in love.
But it seems that the simple formula is raining success and moolah at the box office. ‘Jatt n Juliet’ even before its release became the most-awaited Punjabi film and post release has lived up to its hype.
